God Himself fills minds with His light only when they have exposed themselves to Him as if already blind and silent, that is, when they deny all intelligible things concerning God and, through divine love, miraculously transcend their own intellectual form and customary activity. Thus, therefore, the mind speaks truly of God only when it does not speak.

Trinity, essence,

superior in deity and goodness, leader of divine Christian wisdom, guide us to that which is super-unknown and pre-shining, the high pinnacle of mystical eloquence. Where the simple, absolute, and immutable mysteries of theology lie hidden, covered by a certain darkness of silence that teaches sacred things, which indeed, where it appears most obscure, there it provides light in superabundant measure. There, truly, splendor that can in no way be touched or seen, more than beautiful in its exuberance, fills all intellects as if they were captivated in their sight.

Good is above essence and intellect. It is not reached by intelligence, but is perceived through the likeness of life and love in unity.

There are four species of knowledge:

sense, imagination, reason, intellect. Imagination does not always require the presence of bodies for its action, which sense necessarily requires. Yet it follows certain corporeal conditions in its acting. It has an action that is mobile and multiple. Reason does not follow the particular conditions of bodies. But it betakes itself already to absolutes. Yet it is mobile and necessarily multiple. The intellect, finally, has laid aside motion. And it does not have divisible multiplicity. For it retains it by the necessity of order, and declares it by use, whether it defines, divides, or composes. Therefore, that the principle of the universe

is above sense, imagination, and reason, no philosopher has ever doubted. If, indeed, it is wholly incorporeal and immobile. The Platonists, together with Dionysius, prove that it is superior to being, intellect, and the intelligible. For since the principle is itself an infinite simplicity, the intellect, however, by acting through a multiple and divisible action directed toward an intelligible object, is necessarily multiple. Insofar as it undergoes a certain proportion with intelligence.

Therefore, since the intelligible itself is equal to being itself, or perhaps even broader and more excellent, it follows that the principle of things, while it exceeds the intelligible, exceeds being even more by far. But that the intelligible exceeds being is evident, because we understand what is and what is not. And being equally with non-being. And something more perfect than being, essence, and existence itself. From this, therefore, we conclude that the principle of the universe, which we name the One because of its inestimable simplicity and eminence, must be considered higher than being; especially because being, in the way it is being, does not necessarily refuse multiplicity and division, but sustains it, either as present or future. The One, however, and the principle of the universe, pushes such things far away. Whatever is created from this first principle—namely, intellects and intellectual souls—derive a certain unity from it as a paternal character. By this head, hinge, or center, they can sometimes reach God as the center of the universe. As Plotinus, together with Dionysius, confirms. Since, therefore, we cannot enjoy God by the use of reason or intellect, the very hope and natural effort of the soul, and its perfection, promise that we shall enjoy Him; we will enjoy Him through unity, at least, which is superior to the intellect. Namely, when we have put aside the actions of other faculties and have collected the whole attention of the entire soul into this unity, as from the circumference to the center. This divine and Arpocratic silence is celebrated by Mercury, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, and Apollonius.

Indeed, love alone can sometimes achieve this. Its proper virtue is both transductive and unifying, through which it draws the soul from lower things to its highest and unites it to the supreme. Love, namely, of the One alone, which is the principle of the universe, which, being directed to the One, recalls the soul from