Chapter Six

The Consideration of the Most Blessed Trinity In Its Name Which Is the GOOD


1. Having considered the essential attributes of God, we must raise the eyes of our intelligence to the contuition of the most Blessed Trinity, so as to place the second Cherub opposite the first. Now just as being itself is the principal root of the vision of the essential attributes of God as well as the name through which the others become known, so the good itself is the principal foundation of the contemplation of the emanations.

2. Behold, therefore, and observe that the highest good is unqualifiedly that in comparison with which a greater cannot be thought. And this good is such that it cannot rightly be thought of as non-existing, since to be is absolutely better than not to be. And this good exists in such a way that it cannot rightly be thought of unless it is thought of as time and one. For good is said to be self-diffusive, and therefore the highest good is most self-diffusive. But such highest diffusion cannot be other than actual and intrinsic, substantial and hypostatic, natural and voluntary, free and necessary, unfailing and perfect. Unless there were in the highest good from all eternity an active and consubstantial production, and a hypostasis of equal nobility, such as is found in producing by way of generation and spiration - and this in such a way that what is of the eternal principle is also eternally of the co-principle - so that there is the loved and the beloved, the generated and the spiraled, that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, that is to say, unless these were present, there would not be found the highest good here, because it would not be supremely self-diffusive. For the diffusion that occurred in time in the creation of the world is no more than a pivot or point in comparison with the immense sweep of the eternal goodness. From this one is led to think of another and a greater diffusion - that in which the diffusing good communicates to another His whole substance and nature. Nor would He be the highest good were He able to be wanting in this, either in reality or even in thought.
When, therefore, you are able to behold with the eyes of your mind the purity of that goodness which is the pure act of the Principle, in charity loving ,with a love both free and due and a mixture of both, a love which is the fullest diffusion by way of nature and will, which is also a diffusion by way of the Word, in which all things are said, and by way of the Gift, in which all other gifts are given, - if you can do this, then you can see that through the utmost communicability of the Good, there must be the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By reason of Their supreme goodness, the three Persons must necessarily have supreme communicability; by reason of that, supreme consubstantiality; and by reason of supreme consubstantiality, They must have supreme conformability. Then by reason of all these, They must have supreme coequality, and hence supreme coeternity. Finally, from all the foregoing taken together, They must have supreme mutual intimacy, by which one Person is necessarily in the other by reason of Their supreme interpenetration, and one acts with the other in absolute indivision of the substance, power, and activity of the Most Blessed Trinity Itself.

3. But when you contemplate these things, take care that you do not believe you can understand the incomprehensible. For you have still something else to consider in these six characteristics, which forcibly strike the eyes of our mind with awesome admiration. For here we have supreme communicability side by side with a character proper to each Person, supreme consubstantiality side by side with a plurality of hypostases, supreme conformability side by side with distinct Personality, supreme coequality side by side with order, supreme coeternity side by side with emanation, and supreme mutual intimacy side by side with the out-sending of Persons. Who would not be lifted up in adrniration at the sight of such great wonders? But we know with absolute certainty that all these things are in the most blessed Trinity, when we but raise our eyes to the all-excelling Goodness. If, therefore, there is supreme communication and true diffusion, then true origin and true distinction are likewise present. And, since the whole is communicated and not a part merely, then whatever is possessed is given, and given completely. As a result, He who proceeds and He who produces are distinguished by their properties and yet are one and the same in essence. Since, then, they are distinguished by their properties, it follows that they have personal properties and plurality of hypostases, and emanation from their origin, and order, not of posteriority but of origin, and out-sending, consisting not in local change but in freely given inspiration by the authority which the Sender, being the Producer, has over the One Sent. Moreover, since they are really one in substance, they must possess oneness of essence, of form, of dignity, of eternity, of existence, and of uncircumscribability. And while you consider these things, one by one, you have the subject matter that will enable you to contemplate Truth; when you compare them with one another, you have the subject matter that lifts you to the utmost heights of admiration. Therefore, that your mind may rise, through admiration, to admiring contemplation, you must consider all these attributes together.

4. For the Cherubim who faced each other symbolize this. Mystery is not lacking in the fact that they faced each other, their faces being turned toward the Mercy-Seat, that thus might be verified what Our Lord says in the Gospel of St. John: Now this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. For we must admire the characteristics of the divine essence and of the divine Persons, not only in themselves, but also in comparison with the most marvelous union of God and man in the unity of the Person of Christ.

5. If you are that one of the Cherubim that contemplates the essential attributes of God and if you are amazed at the fact that the divine Being is both first and last, eternal and most present, most simple and greatest or uncircumscribed, wholly everywhere and nowhere contained, most actual and never moved, most perfect and without any superfluity or deficiency, and yet immense and boundlessly infinite, supremely one and yet supremely omnifarious, containing in Himself all things - all power, all truth, all goodness - if, then, you are this Cherub, face toward the Mercy-Seat and be amazed. For in Him, the first Principle is joined with the last. God is joined with man, who was formed, on the sixth day; the eternal is joined with time-bound man, born of the Virgin in the fullness of time; the most simple is joined with the most composite; the most actual is joined with Him Who suffered supremely and died; the most perfect and immense is joined with the insignificant; He who is both supremely one and supremely omnifarious is joined to an individual that is composite and distinct from others, that is to say, to the man Jesus Christ.

6. And if you are the other of the Cherubim and contemplate that which is proper to the Persons, and if you are amazed that communicability coexists with personal propriety, consubstantiality with plurality, conformability with personality, coequality with order, coeternity with production, and mutual intimacy with out-sending - for the Son is sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by both the Father and the Son, and yet the one sent ever remains with them and never departs from them - if you are this Cherub, face toward the Mercy-Seat and be amazed that in Christ a personal unity coexists with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures; that an entire accord coexists with a plurality of wills; that a mutual predication of God and man coexists with a plurality of proper attributes; that co-adoration coexists with a differentiation of eminence; that co-exaltation over all things coexists with a differentiation of dignities; and finally that co-domination co-exists with a plurality of powers.

7. In this contemplation consists the perfect illumination of the mind, when, as it were, on the sixth day it sees man made to the image of God. For if an image is an expressed likeness, then when our mind contemplates in Christ the Son of God, Who is by nature the image of the invisible God, our humanity so wonderfully exalted, so ineffably united, and when at the same time it sees united 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, that is, the book written within and without, it has already reached something perfect. Now it arrives at the perfection of its illuminations on the sixth step, as with God on the sixth day. And now nothing further remains but the day of rest on which through transports of mind the penetrating power of the human mind rests from all the work that it has done.