CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
CONTEMPLATING THE MOST BLESSED
TRINITY
IN ITS NAME
WHICH IS GOOD
After considering the essential attributes of God, the eye of our intelligence should be raised to look upon the most blessed Trinity, so that the second Cherub may be placed alongside the first.
Now just as being itself is the root principle of viewing the essential attributes, and the name through which the others become known, so the good itself is the principal foundation for contemplating the emanations.
See, then, and observe that the highest good is without qualification that than which no greater can be thought.
And it is such that it cannot rightly be thought not to be, since to be is in all ways better than not to be;
it is such 1.
Cf. Anselm, Proslogion , c.
2-5, 15.
THE SOUL'SJOURNEY INTO GOD
that it cannot rightly be thought of unless it be thought of as three and one.
For good is said to be
self-diffusive ; therefore the highest good must be most self-diffusive.
But the greatest self-diffusion cannot exist unless it is actual and intrinsic, substantial and hypostatic, natural and voluntary, free and necessary, lacking nothing and perfect.
Therefore, unless there were eternally in the highest good a production which is actual and consubstantial, and a hypostasis as noble as the producer, as in the case in a producing by way of generation and spiration, so that it is from an eternal principle eternally coproducing so that there would be a beloved and a cobeloved, the one generated and the other spirated, and this is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unless these were present, it would by no means be the highest good because it would not diffuse itself in the highest degree.
For the diffusion in time in creation is no more than a center or point in relation to the immensity of the divine goodness.
Hence another diffusion can be conceived greater than this, namely, one in which the one diffusing communicates to the other his entire substance and nature.
Cf. Dionysius, De caelesti hierarchia, IV, 1 De divinis nominibus , IV, 1, 20.
ST. BONAVENTURE
Therefore it would not be the highest good if it could lack this, either in reality or in thought.
If, therefore, you can behold with your mind's eye the purity of goodness, which is the pure act of a principle loving in charity with a love that is both free and due and a mixture of both, which is the fullest diffusion by way of nature and will, which is a diffusion by way of the Word, in which all things are said, and by way of the Gift, in which other gifts are given, then you can see that through the highest communicability of the good, there must be a Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
From supreme goodness, it is necessary that there be in the Persons supreme communicability; from supreme communicability, supreme consubstantiality; from supreme consubstantiality, supreme configurability; and from these supreme coequality and hence supreme coeternity; finally, from all of the above, supreme mutual intimacy, by which one is necessarily in the other by supreme interpenetration and one acts with the other in absolute lack of division of the substance, power and operation of the most blessed Trinity itself.
But when you contemplate these things, do not think
THE SOULSJOURNEY INTO GOD
that you comprehend the incomprehensible.
For you still have something else to consider in these six properties which strongly leads our mind's eye to amazement and admiration.
For here is supreme communicability with individuality of persons, supreme consubstantiality with plurality of hypostases, supreme configurability with distinct personality, supreme coequality with degree supreme coeternity with emanation, supreme mutual intimacy with mission.
Who would not be lifted up in admiration at the sight of such marvels?
But we understand with complete certitude that all these things are in the most blessed Trinity if we lift up our eyes to the superexcellent goodness.
For if there is here supreme communication and true diffusion, there is also here true origin and true distinction; and because the whole is communicated and not merely part, whatever is possessed is given, and given completely.
Therefore, the one emanating and the one producing are distinguished by their properties and are one in essence.
Since, then, they are distinguished by their properties, they have personal properties and plurality of hypostases and emanation of origin and order, not of posteriority but of origin, and a sending forth, not involving a change of place but free inspiration
ST. BONAVENTURE
by reason of the producer's authority which the sender has in relation to the one sent.
Moreover, because they are one in substance, there must be unity in essence, form, dignity, eternity, existence and unlimitedness.
Therefore, when you consider these in themselves one by one, you have matter for contemplating the truth; when you compare them with one another, you have reason to be lifted up to the highest wonder.
Therefore, that your mind may ascend through wonder to wondering contemplation, these should be considered together.
For the Cherubim who faced each other also signify this.
The fact that they faced each other,
with theirfaces turned toward the Mercy Seat , is not without a mystical meaning, so that what Our Lord said in John might be verified:
This is eternal life , that they may know you, the only true God , andJesus Christ , whom you have sent . 4
For we should wonder not only at the essential and personal properties of God in themselves but also in comparison with the superwonderful union of God and man in the unity of the Person of Christ.
For if you are the Cherub contemplating God's essential attributes, and if you are amazed 3.
Exod. 25:20.
4. John 17:3.
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because the divine Being is both first and last, eternal and most present, utterly simple and the greatest or boundless, totally present everywhere and nowhere contained, most actual and never moved, most perfect and having nothing superfluous or lacking, and yet immense and infinite without bounds, supremely one and yet all-inclusive, containing all things in himself, being all power, all truth, all goodness— if you are this Cherub, look at the Mercy Seat and wonder that in him there is joined the First Principle with the last, God with man, who was formed on the sixth day; 5 the eternal is joined with temporal man, born of the Virgin in the fulness of time, the most simple with the most composite, the most actual with the one who suffered supremely and died, the most perfect and immense with the lowly, the supreme and all-inclusive one with a composite individual distinct from others, that is, the man Jesus Christ.
But if you are the other Cherub contemplating the properties of the Persons, and you are amazed that communicability exists with individuality, consubstantiality with plurality, configurability with personality, coequality with order, coeternity with production, mutual intimacy with sending forth, 5.
Cf. Gen.
1:26.
ST. BONAVENTURE
because the Son is sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit by both, who nevertheless is with them and never departs from them— if you are this Cherub, look at the Mercy Seat and wonder that in Christ personal union exists with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures; that complete agreement exists with a plurality of wills; that mutual predication of God and man exists with a plurality of properties; that coadoration exists with a plurality of excellence, that coexaltation above all things exists with a plurality of dignity; that codomination exists with a plurality of powers.
In this consideration is the perfection of the mind's illumination when, as if on the sixth day of creation, it sees man made to the image of God. 6
For if an image is an expressed 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, when at the same time it sees united the first and the last, the highest and the lowest, the circumference and the center, 6.
Ibid.
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the Alpha and the Omega , the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature,
that is, the book written within and without , it now reaches something perfect.
It reaches the perfection of its illuminations on the sixth stage, as if with God on the sixth day of creation; nor does anything more remain except the day of rest on which through mystical ecstasy the mind's discernment comes to rest from all the work which it has done * 7. Apoc.
1:8, 21:6, 22:13.
8. Apoc.
5:1; Ezech.
2:9.
9. Gen. 2:2.