Chapter 20
359 | Text and Translation Chapter 20 That he is before and beyond all things, even eternal ones Therefore, you fill and surround all things; you are before and beyond them. Indeed, you are before all things because before they came to be, you are. But how are you beyond all things? For in what way are you beyond those things that will not have an end?
Or is it because they can in no way be without you, but you are in no way less, even if they turn back into nothing? So are you, then, in a certain way, beyond them.
Oris it also because they, but not you, can be thought to have an end? As such, they do indeed, in a certain way, have an end; but you, in no way at all. And certainly what in no way has an end is beyond that which is in some way ended.
Do you also in this way surpass all things, even eternal ones, because both your and their eternity is wholly present to you, while they do not yet possess that of their own eternity which is yet to come, just as they no longer possess that which is already past? So, then, are you always beyond them, since you are always present to yourself or since that is always present to you which they have not yet reached.
Chapter 21 Whether this is the age of the age or the ages of the ages Is this, then, the age of the age or the ages of the ages? For just as an age of time contains all temporal things, so your eternity also contains even the very ages of time. It is, indeed, a single age on account of its indivisible unity; but ages on account of its interminable immensity. And while you are so great, lord, that all things are full of you and are in you, you are so without all spatial determination that there is in you neither center nor half nor any part.
|PROSLOGION
CAPITULUM XXII
Quod solus sit quod est et qui est Tu solus ergo, Domine, es quod es, et tu es qui es.
Nam quod aliud est in toto et aliud in partibus, et in quo aliquid est mutabile, non omnino est quod est. Et quod incepit a non esse et potest cogitari non esse et, nisi per aliud subsistat, redit in non esse; et quod habet fuisse quod iam non est, et futurum esse quod nondum est: id non est proprie et absolute. Tu vero es quod es; quia quidquid aliquando aut aliquo modo es, hoc totus et semper es.
$i Et tu es qui proprie et simpliciter es; quia nec habes fuisse aut futurum esse, sed tantum praesens esse, nec potes cogitari aliquando non esse. Et vita es et lux et sapientia et beatitudo et aeternitas et multa huiusmodi bona, et tamen non es nisi unum et summum bonum; tu, tibi omnino sufficiens, nullo indigens, quo omnia indigent ut sint, et ut bene sint.