I EXPERIENCE Thy goodness, my God, which not only doth not contemn me, a miserable sinner, but doth sweetly feed me with a certain desire. Thou hast suggested to me an acceptable comparison touching the unity of Thy mental word or concept, and its variation in things seen in succession. The simple concept of a most perfect clock leads me on so that I become the more delectably rapt in the vision of Thy concept and word. For the simple concept of a clock enfoldeth all succession in time. Suppose, then, a clock to be a concept: though we hear the striking of the sixth hour before the seventh, yet the seventh is only heard when the concept biddeth. Neither is the sixth hour earlier in the concept than the seventh or eighth, but in the one simple concept of the clock no hour is earlier or later than another, although the clock never striketh the hour save
when the concept biddeth. ’Tis true to say, F ricaees
when we hear six o’clock strike, that the sixth hour striketh then because the concept of the master so willeth. Since in the thought of God the clock is a concept, ’tis perceived in some ‘degree how that which is succession in the clock existeth without succession in the word or concept, and how in this simplest concept are enfolded all motions and sounds and whatsoever we find in succession. Naught of that which appeareth in succession departeth in any way from the concept, but ’tis the unfolding of the concept, seeing that the concept giveth being to each: naught in consequence hath existed earlier than it appeared, because it was not earlier conceived that it should exist. Let then the concept of the clock represent eternity’s self; then motion in the clock representeth succession. Eternity, therefore, both enfoldeth and unfoldeth ! succession, since the concept of the clock, which is eternity, doth alike enfold and unfold all things.
Blessed be Thou, O Lord my God, who dost feed and nourish me with the milk of comparisons; until Thou shalt give me more solid food, lead me, Lord God, by these paths unto Thee! For if Thou lead me not, I cannot continue in the way, by reason of the frailty of
1 Complicat … explicat ; and so elsewhere.
my corruptible nature, and of the earthen vessel that I bear about with me. Trusting in Thine aid, Lord, I return again to find Thee beyond the wall of the coincidence of enfolding and unfolding, and as I go in and go out by this door of Thy word and Thy concept, I find sweetest nourishment. When I find Thee as the power that unfoldeth, I go out: when I find Thee as the power that alike enfoldeth and unfoldeth, I go in and go out alike. I go in, passing from the creatures to Thee, their Creator, from effects to the Cause; I go out, passing from Thee, the Creator, to the creature, from Cause to effects. I go in and go out simultaneously when I perceive how going out is one with going in, and going in with going out. In this manner one that reckoneth doth alike enfold and unfold, for he unfoldeth the power of unity, and enfoldeth number in unity. For the creature, to go forth from Thee is to enter into the creature, and to unfold is to enfold. When I behold Thee, my God, in Paradise, girt by that wall of the coincidence of opposites, I see that Thou dost neither enfold nor unfold, whether separately or together. For disjunction and conjunction alike are that wall of coincidence, beyond which Thou existest, set free from all that can be spoken or thought.
← Chapter 10. How God is Seen Beyond the Coincidence of Contradictories and How · Contents · Chapter 12. That Where the Invisible is Seen the Uncreated is Created →