Chapter VI.
On the speculation of the most blessed Trinity in its name, which is the Good.
1. After the consideration of the essential attributes, the eye of the intelligence must be raised to the contemplation of the most blessed Trinity, so that the second Cherub may be placed alongside the first. But just as in the vision of the essential attributes, being itself is the radical principle and the name through which the other attributes become known, so in the contemplation of the emanations, the good itself is the most principal foundation.
2. See therefore and attend, that the best is simply that than which nothing better can be thought; and this is such that it cannot rightly be thought not to be, because it is altogether better to be than not to be; it is such that it cannot rightly be thought unless it is thought as triune and one. For "the good is said to be self-diffusive"; therefore the highest good is most highly self-diffusive. But the highest diffusion cannot exist unless it is actual and intrinsic, substantial and hypostatic, natural and voluntary, free and necessary, unfailing and perfect. Unless therefore in the highest good there were eternally an actual and consubstantial production, and a hypostasis equally noble as the one producing, by way of generation and spiration — such that there would be an eternal principle eternally co-principiating — such that there would be a beloved and a co-beloved, a begotten and a spirated, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: it would in no way be the highest good, because it would not most highly diffuse itself. For temporal diffusion in a creature is nothing but a central point or dot in comparison to the immensity of the eternal goodness; whence also some greater diffusion can be thought than that one, namely that in which the one diffusing communicates to another the whole substance and nature. It would not therefore be the highest good if, in reality or in understanding, it could lack that diffusion.
If therefore you can behold with the mind's eye the purity of goodness, which is the pure act of a principle charitably loving with a love both gratuitous and due and mixed from both, which is the fullest diffusion by way of nature and will, which is diffusion by way of the Word, in which all things are spoken, and by way of the Gift, in which all other gifts are given; you can see that through the highest communicability of the good, there must be a Trinity of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. In whom, on account of the highest goodness, there must be the highest communicability, and from the highest communicability the highest consubstantiality, and from the highest consubstantiality the highest configurability, and from these the highest coequality, and thereby the highest coeternity, and from all the aforesaid the highest co-intimacy, by which one is in the other necessarily through the highest circumincession, and one operates with the other through the complete indivision of substance and power and operation of the most blessed Trinity itself.
3. But when you contemplate these things, see that you do not think yourself to comprehend the incomprehensible. For you have still in these six conditions something to consider that vehemently induces the eye of our mind into a stupor of admiration. For there is the highest communicability with propriety of persons, the highest consubstantiality with plurality of hypostases, the highest configurability with discrete personality, the highest coequality with order, the highest coeternity with emanation, the highest cointimacy with sending forth. Who would not rise up in admiration at the sight of such great wonders?
But all these things we most certainly understand to be in the most blessed Trinity, if we raise our eyes to the supermost excellent goodness. If indeed there is there the highest communication and true diffusion, there is there true origin and true distinction: and because the whole is communicated, not a part, therefore what is possessed is itself given, and wholly: therefore the one emanating and the one producing are both distinguished by properties and are essentially one. Because therefore they are distinguished by properties, they have personal properties and plurality of hypostases and emanation of origin and order not of posteriority but of origin, and mission not of local change but of gratuitous inspiration, by reason of the authority of the one producing, which the one sending has with respect to the one sent. - But because they are one substantially, therefore there must be unity in essence and form and dignity and eternity and existence and incircumscriptibility. - When therefore you consider these things by themselves singly, you have that whence you may contemplate truth: when you compare these with one another, you have that whence you may be suspended in the highest admiration: and therefore, that your mind may ascend through admiration to admirable contemplation, these things must be considered together.
4. For the Cherubim also designate this, who looked upon one another. Nor is it without mystery that they looked upon one another with their faces turned toward the mercy seat, so that what the Lord says in John may be verified: This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. For we ought to admire not only the essential and personal conditions of God in themselves, but also by comparison to the superadmirable union of God and man in the unity of the person of Christ.
5. For if you are a Cherub contemplating the essential attributes of God, and you wonder that the divine being is at once the first and the last, eternal and most present, most simple and greatest, that is, uncircumscribed, wholly everywhere and nowhere comprehended, most actual and never moved, most perfect and having nothing superfluous nor diminished, and yet immense and infinite without limit, supremely one, and yet all-inclusive, as having all things in itself, as all power, all truth, all good: look upon the mercy seat and wonder that in it the first beginning is joined with the last, God with man formed on the sixth day, the eternal is joined with temporal man, born of the Virgin in the fullness of time, the most simple with the supremely composite, the most actual with one who supremely suffered and died, the most perfect and immense with the small, the supremely one and all-inclusive with a composite individual distinct from all others, namely the man Jesus Christ.
6. But if you are the other Cherub contemplating the proper attributes of the persons, and you wonder that communicability coexists with propriety, consubstantiality with plurality, configurability with personality, coequality with order, coeternity with production, cointimacy with sending forth, because the Son was sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by both, who nevertheless is always with them and never departs from them: look upon the mercy seat and wonder that in Christ there stands personal union with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures; there stands complete agreement with a plurality of wills; there stands the co-predication of God and man with a plurality of properties; there stands co-adoration with a plurality of nobilities; there stands co-exaltation above all things with a plurality of dignities; there stands co-dominion with a plurality of powers.
7. In this consideration, moreover, lies the perfection of the mind's illumination, when, as on the sixth day, it sees man made in the image of God. For if an image is an expressive likeness, when our mind contemplates in Christ the Son of God, who is the image of the invisible God by nature, our humanity so wonderfully exalted, so ineffably united, seeing at once in one the first and the last, the highest and the lowest, the circumference and the center, the Alpha and the Omega, the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature, the book, that is, written within and without: it has now arrived at a certain perfect reality, so that with God it may reach the perfection of its illuminations in the sixth stage, as on the sixth day; nor does anything further remain except the day of rest, in which through the ecstasy of the mind the keenness of the human mind may rest from every work which it had accomplished.