On the Sight of the Most Blessed Trinity in His Name

CHAPTER VI – ON THE SIGHT OF THE MOST 
BLESSED TRINITY IN HIS NAME, WHICH IS THE GOOD

1. After the consideration of essentials the eye of the intelligence is lifted up to survey the Most Blessed Trinity, as the other Cherub placed alongside the other. Moreover as being itself is the radical principle and name of the vision of essentials, through which the others become known; so the good itself is the most principle foundation of the contemplation of emanations.

2. Therefore see and attend since the best is simply that than which nothing better can be thought; and thus it is such, because it cannot be rightly thought to not to be, because being is entirely better than non being; thus it is, that it cannot rightly be thought, rather let it be thought as triune and one. For ” the good is said to be diffusive of itself”; therefore the Most High Good is most highly diffusive of Itself. However the most hight diffusion cannot be, unless it be actual and intrinsic, substantial and hypostatic, natural and voluntary, liberal and necessary, unfailing and perfect. Therefore unless there be eternally in the Most High Good an actual and consubstantial production, and a hypostatis equally noble, as is one producing through the manner of generation and spiration – so that it be the eternal (production) of an eternally co-principating principle – so that it be beloved, co-beloved, begotten and spirated, that is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; it would never be the Most High Good, because it would not diffuse itself most highly. For there is no diffusion in time into creatures except (when it is) central and/or punctual in respect to the immensity of eternal goodness; whence also can any diffusion be thought greater than those, namely these, in which diffusing itself it communicates to another its whole substance and nature. Therefore it would not be the Most High good, if in reality, or intellect it could be lacking (anything). Therefore if you can with the eye of your mind survey the purity of goodness, which is the pure act of the Principle loving in a charitable manner with a love, free and owed and commingled from both, which is the fullest diffusion in the manner of nature and will, which is a diffusion in the manner of the Word, in which all things are said to be, and in the manner of the Gift, in whom all other gifts are given; (then) you can see, that through the most high communicability of the good the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is necessary. In whom it is necessary on account of the Most High Goodness being the Most High Communicability, and from the Most High Communicability the Most High Consubstantiality, and from the Most High Consubstantiality the Most High Configurability, and from these the Most High Co-equality, and for this reason the Most High Co-eternity, and from all the aforesaid the Most High Co-intimacy, by which one is in the other necessarily through the Most High Circumincession and one works with the other through an in-every-measure indivision of substance and virtue and activity of the Most Blessed Trinity itself.

3. But when you contemplate these, see, that you do not consider yourself able to comprehend the incomprehensible. For in these six conditions you still have to consider what leads the eye of our mind vehemently into the stupor of admiration. For there is the Most High Communicability together with the property of the Persons, the Most High Consubstantiality together with the plurality of the hypostases, the Most High Configurability together with discrete personality, the Most High Co-equality together with order, the Most High Co-eternity together with emanation, the Most High Co-intimacy together with emission. Who at the sight of so great wonders does not rise up with others in admiration? But all these we most certainly understand to be in the Most Blessed Trinity, if we raise our eyes to the most superexcellent Goodness. For if there is a most high communication and true diffusion, there is a true origin and a true distinction; and because the whole is communicated, not the part; for that reason that which is given, is what is had, and it is the whole; therefore emanating and producing, they are both distinguished in properites, and are essentially one. Therefore because they are distinguished in properties, for that reason the have personal properties and a plurality of hypostates and an emanation of origin and and order not of posteriority, but of origin, and an emission not of local change, but by the gratuity of inspiration, on account of the authority of the one producing, which the one being sent has in respect to being sent. But because they ar substantially one, for that reason it is proper, that there be a unity in essent and in form and dignity and eternity and existence and incircumscriptibility. Therefore while you consider these things singly through themselves, you have that from which is the truth you contemplate; while comparing these one to another, you have that from which you are suspended into the highest admiration; and for that reason, as your mind ascends through admiration into admirable contemplation, these things must be considered at the same time.

4. For the Cherubim, who were looking at one another, also designate this. Nor was this free from mystery, because they looked backwards at each other in the face upon the propitiatory, to verify that which the Lord says in (the Gospel of) John: This is eternal life, to know Thee the only True God, and how Thou has sent Jesus Christ For we ought to admire not only the conditions of God, essential and personal in Himself, but also through comparison to the superwonderful union of God and man in the unity of the person of Christ.

5. For if you are a Cherub in contemplating the essentials of God, and your wonder, because at the same time the Divine Being is first and last, eternal and most present, most simple and greatest or uncircumscribed, wholly everywhere and never comprehended, most actual and never moved, most perfect and having nothing superfluous nor diminised, and nevertheless immense and infinite without terminus, Most Highly One, and nevertheless in every measure, as having all things in Himself, as all virtue, all truth, all good; look back towards the propitiatory and wonder, that in Himself the First Principle has been joined with the last, God with the man formed on the sixth day, the Eternal One has been joined with temporal man, in the fullness of times born from the Virgin, the Most Simple with the most highly composite, the Most Actual with the one who has most highly suffered and died, the Most Perfect and Immense with the limited, the Most Highly One and in every measure with the individual composite and distince from all others, that is with the Man Christ Jesus.

6. Moreover if you are the other Cherub by contemplating the things proper to the Persons, and you wonder, that communicability is together with property, consubstantiality together with plurality, configurability together with personality, co-equality together with order, co-eternality together with production, co-intimacy together with emission, because the Son has been sent from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from them both, who nevertheless is with them and never recedes from them; look back upon the propitiatory and wonder, because in Christ there stands a personal union together with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures; there stands an in-every-measure consensus together with a plurality of wills, there stands a co-predication of God and man together with a plurality of properties, there stands co-adoration together with a plurality of nobilities, there stands a co-exaltation above all things together with a plurality of dignities, there stands a co-domination together with a plurality of powers.

7. Moreover in this consideration there is a perfection of the illumination of the mind, while as in on the sixth day one sees that man has been made after the image of God. For if the image is an expressive similitude, while our mind contemplates it in Christ the Son of God, who is the invisible Image of God by nature, our humanity so wonderfully exalted, so ineffably united, by seeing that at the same time it is the first and last One, most high and most deep, circumference and center, the Alpha and the Omega, the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature, that is the book written inside and out; it has already arrived at a certain perfect thing, as one who arrives together with God at the perfection of his illuminations on the sixth step as if on the sixth day, nor does anything more ample now follow except the day of rest, in which through an excess of the mind the perspicacity of the human mind rests from every work, which one accomplished.

from Journey of the Mind into God by Saint Bonaventure

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