this heaven you can see with the intellect, but the intellect does not sustain the sun. Which even leads you to the opposite. For the action of reason, as if mobile, and the action of the mind, as if multiplex, finite toward something mobile—the multiplex finite, which is opposed to the principle—turns you back. Therefore, such an action, when it has first attained the intelligibles through itself, is to be set aside. Up to this point, it only carries forward. Further, it hinders; just as the use of imagination carries forward to the principles of intelligence, further, it opposes. ¶ This is confirmed also by that Platonic saying: The visible sun in the world is for us an image of the Good. The sun, indeed, both generates what is seen and receives it for acting, and joins what is to be seen with the eyes. Similarly, the Good itself has itself toward all intellects and intelligibles. Thus Plato. Since, therefore, the intellect attains things to be understood not so much by its own power as by divine virtue, it is present so that it can attain the Good itself by no means through its own faculty; therefore, to enjoy God is not to act toward God, but rather to be acted upon by God. It is not to draw in something by oneself, but to be entirely filled from elsewhere. It is not to be occupied around the Good through the intellect, but to be transferred by love. And to be joined deeply to the One and the Good itself by our own unity, which is superior to the intellect. Where, indeed, the mind has already deposited every action and affection, both toward other things and toward itself. It strips off its own form; it already puts on the divine, as Plotinus also says. It acts then as God, just as heated gold, celebrated in the Apocalypse, acts as fire, and an animated body as a soul. And a sublime soul, formed by the intellect, acts as an intellect. Therefore, an intellect reformed into God finally acts as God.

¶ Ascent to God through the purification of the mind and through the passing of intelligible species. Enjoyment of God through something more excellent than the intellect. ¶ Dyo.

Therefore, the divine

Moses is divinely admonished first to be purified himself. And again, that he should separate himself from the unclean. And after all purification, he hears the various sounds of trumpets. And he sees many lights diffusing pure and multiplex rays. After these, he separates himself from the vulgar crowds. And with the chosen priests, he betakes himself to the summits of divine ascents. And there he does not have commerce with God Himself, nor does he see Him. For He is not visible, but rather the place where He stood. (¶ This, however, as I believe, signifies that the most divine and supreme things, both visible and intelligible, are certain suppositional reasons, signifying those things that transcend the God who is the subject of all; through which the presence of God, exceeding all intelligence, proceeds above the summits of His most holy places.) Then, therefore, even by dismissing the visible and the seen intelligibles, he enters into the mystical darkness of ignorance, where he shakes off all cognitive perceptions. And he stands in Him who flees touch and sight, and he becomes entirely that which He super-eminently exceeds. Then, indeed, he is neither his own master, nor is he another's. But he is united by something more excellent than cognition to Him who is deeply unknown, through a vacation of all cognition. And for that reason, he knows nothing by knowing, transcending intelligence.

If God made man

to His own image, certainly there is in man a statue of God, although it is hidden by additions. Therefore, first separate the body from the soul. Second, the passions of the body from it. Third, the imaginations from reason. Fourth, the rational discourses from the intellect. Fifth, the intellectual multiformity from the unity of the soul itself. Sixth, from this unity, the animal and intellectual condition. In the seventh degree (as I judge), you will proceed. For you will find the unity itself simply—that is, God—lying hidden under such a unity. ¶ And the world which God fabricates as His statue? It is, indeed, covered by many veils. Subtract the matter first. Leave the heavens. Now you have everywhere the heaven to which many have removed the matter. Remove again from this celestial world the dimension. Keep the forms and all the motions of the forms. You will have obtained the universal soul. If you please, take away the motions: with the forms entirely preserved, you immediately possess the intellect; but from this, take away the rays of forms divided among themselves, as if in heaven. Take the light itself as the principle of the rays in itself, neither dispersed through the rays, nor determined by certain species of rays, but most absolute and most simple and also immense. Which