Fire is ever aglow, so likewise is that yearning love which is directed toward Thee, O God, who art the form of all that is desirable, and that truth which in every desire is desired. In that I have begun to taste, of Thy honeysweet giving, Thy sweetness beyond understanding—which doth by so much the more please me as it appeareth more limitless—I perceive that the reason wherefore Thou, O God, art unknown to all creatures is that they may have in this divine ignorance a greater rest, as in a treasure beyond reckoning, and inexhaustible. For he who findeth a treasure that he knoweth to be utterly beyond reckon-. ing and unlimited is moved by far greater joy than he who findeth one that may be counted, and that is limited. Hence this divine ignorance of ‘Thy greatness is the most desirable nourishment for my intellect, chiefly when I find such a treasure in my field in such manner that
the treasure is mine own.
O Fount of riches, Thou willest to be held in my possession, and yet to abide incomprehensible and infinite, because Thou art the treasury of delights whereof no man can desire an end! How should desire covet not-being? For whether the will covet being or not-being, desire itself cannot rest, but is borne on into infinity.
Thou dost come down, Lord, that Thou mayest be comprehended, and yet Thou abidest beyond reckoning, and infinite; and unless Thou didst abide infinite, ‘Thou wouldest not be the end of desire. Wherefore, Thou art infinite that Thou mayest be the end of all desire.
Now, intellectual desire is not turned toward that which can be greater or more desirable. But all on this side infinity may be greater. The end of desire, therefore, is infinite. Thus » Thou, O God, art very infinity, for which alone I yearn in every desire, but to the knowledge of which infinity I cannot approach more nearly than that I know it to be infinite. Wherefore, the more I understand that Thou, my God, art not to be understood, by so much the more I attain Thee, because the more I attain the end of my desire. Accordingly I reject as a delusion any idea occurring to me
which seeketh to show Thee as comprehensible. My yearning, bright with Thee, leadeth me unto Thee; it spurneth all that is finite and comprehensible, for in these it cannot rest, being led by Thee to Thee. And Thou art beginning without beginning, and end without end. Wherefore my desire is led by the eternal beginning, from whom it cometh to be desire, unto the end without end, and He is infinite. If then, I, a poor little man, could not be content with Thee, my God, did I know Thee to be comprehensible, ’tis because I am led by Thee to Thee, who art incomprehensible and infinite.
I behold Thee, O Lord my God, in a kind of mental trance, for if sight be not sated with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, then much less is the intellect with understanding. Accordingly, that which sateth the intellect, or that is the end thereof, is not that which it understandeth; neither can that sate it which it no whit understandeth, but that alone which it understandeth by not understanding. For the intelligible which it knoweth doth not sate it, nor the intelligible whereof it is utterly ignorant, but only the intelligible which it knoweth to be so intelligible that it can never be fully understood —’tis this alone
can sate it. Even so a man’s insatiable hunger cannot be appeased by partaking of scanty food, or by food that is out of his reach, but only by food that is within his reach, and which, though it be continuously partaken of, can yet never be utterly consumed, since it is such that by eating ’tis not diminished, being infinite.
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