The Drawing Back of the Veil: An Explanation of Symbols in the Hierologium

where they had been, to whom they might manifest themselves. Solitude, I say, for before all intellectual natures were called into existence, there was nothing but God, and He was in the blessed solitude of His own entity. Silence, I say. For only then did silence resound in eternity, when by His word He commanded the spiritual world to exist, and through the immeasurable universe the harmony of the spheres was heard. But if God had ever proceeded from obscurity into light, and had exchanged solitude for multitude, silence for harmony, how great and how vast an alteration would the divine nature have then undergone, to which future things would have added themselves to the present. These things, however, cannot be predicated of divinity. And truly, if God is blessed and happy by operation toward external things, or by the expansion, as it were, of His own divine virtues, and His beatitude consists in the felicity of all His creatures; truly, if God did not expand and produce His virtues from eternity, His felicity and beatitude must have been deficient and imperfect. But where we teach that God is the unique and primordial cause of all things, we speak of abiding things as of successive ones, of eternal things as of temporal ones, of perfect things as of imperfect ones, of divine and spiritual things as of human and corporeal ones; otherwise the human mind could not be capable of these things, and we call Him solitary who was never alone, added in the darkness, who always poured forth His light, silent, who always spoke, and whom a joyful jubilation always exalted through all the spheres in most blessed harmony. For that which the human mind cannot grasp at all is eternity. For just as the eye only sees those things which it can comprehend, likewise the mind.

Imagine for yourself a circle of all the rays that are led from the circumference to the center; the eye is capable of receiving only those which form a triangle, and the mind [perceives] by reason. It receives according to the ratio of its formation. The rays of the back part of the circle cannot fall into the eye: it is formed only to receive those things that are in front. Likewise the mind. It is formed into eternal duration: it can have some concept of eternity, which is, as it were, before: for what it has already experienced, it transfers to those things which are instant, and proposes an unmeasured succession to itself. But since it is not from itself, but owes its origin to another cause, namely God, it cannot conceive of an antecedent eternity. If, therefore, you desire to have a concept of the origin of all things, you who are accustomed to successive, measured, and temporal ideas, and cannot grasp eternal natures and those which draw their origin from another cause at the same time; truly a more adequate image cannot be proposed to you than that of the first, obscure, silent, and solitary

night. For that which preceded all things was night. It was obscure, because those things which were to be manifested were not yet manifested, and those which were to be present were present only in potency, not in act. It was silent, because those who would celebrate the immense power, wisdom, and goodness of God were not yet present. Solitary, because there was nothing except God. Yet as you, who are accustomed to measured and successive representations, imagine that state for yourself—and can only imagine it—which preceded the existence of all things in the most remote bosom of eternity, such a state is also presented to you here. It is night, which is placed here before your eyes, so that you may know through the sharpness of your mind those things which it contains and which have proceeded thence. For if you are sufficiently instructed concerning the night, you will easily perceive all the rest, which are the offspring and progeny of the night. Come therefore, gird yourself, intend your mind, so that you may perceive what is to be revealed to you. What is revealed to you is obscurity; but you cannot see light, unless you have traversed the shadowy region of the night. I shall lead you, however, to this region of origin sensitivity, so that you may be able to know those things which are sensible in mystical operation. For before this world—earth, water, air, fire, and all things that were made from them and constitute the great chain of all creatures—was created, there was night, and a dark abyss. And it was night, only a silent and solitary night, because all things that were made later had not yet emerged; but it was truly night and a clearly dark abyss, from which God had withdrawn His beneficent and felicity-breathing irradiations, as occult and mysterious doctrine teaches. Yet, obscure though it was, it was internally luminous. Not that light and darkness could coexist, but that the divine light lowered itself into the midst of the darkness, so that it might produce this new creation within them. And the night was void and empty. Yet, void though it was, it contained all things at once. Not that those things which were to be made were already present in potency; but that that very light, which had lowered itself into the darkness, contained the seeds of all things, which by the Word of God were to be called and reduced from non-existence into existence and from information into form. Therefore, it was a dark and luminous night at once, void and sterile and at the same time most full and fruitful, which preceded this world and its formation and from which all things proceeded. For where there is light, there is also life. But what would the light have availed, which was illuminating the obscure abyss, unless God had infused His divine virtue into it? And so, as He lowered Himself, the creator spirit went forth at the same time from the innermost penetralia of the deity, and joined itself to the matter of light. Not that it left the father solitary in going forth, but that also to the light introduced into the darkness,