Three Treatises on the Trinity and the Incarnation

let the more subtle faculties of the soul stammer about Him. Compared to His subtlety, the mind is crude; and compared to His spirituality, the soul is a body. He is an uncreated Spirit, not to be compared in any way with created spirits. He is secret and revealed; occult and manifest; hidden and visible; secret in His essence and revealed in His mercy; concealed in His nature and visible in His love; hidden in His eternity and manifest in His goodness. Unless He reveals Himself, no created thing can reveal Him; unless He declares His own existence, rational beings are not able to declare Him; unless He gives a word about Himself, the accustomed word cannot express Him; unless He tells about Himself, absolutely no one can speak Him. His magnitude is not of such measure that those who might be a little less than Him could declare Him. He exists naturally beyond ends and times and limits; in Him, the limits are contained; in Him, the ends are concluded; in Him, the ages are placed; in Him, the times are contained; in Him, the creatures move; in Him, the natures are stabilized; in Him, what was made is preserved; in Him, all things move toward life and firmness and subsistence, according to the force of the words of the Apostle:

"In Him we live, and move, and are." Acts XVII, 28
For in the drop of His life the ages are suspended; by the breath of His power the creatures subsist; by the motion of His right hand the works were founded, and by the sign of His arm the natures were stabilized. As a womb, He contains all things; as infinite, He is in all things; as living, He vivifies all things. He is outside all things, because He is before all things; He is in all things, because He is after all things. As a fulcrum, He sustains all things; as power, He is capable of all things; and by His providence all things move toward their course and increase and stabilization.

In no way can He be depicted or figured. The spiritual painters, who described His names in their words, learned from Him by what name they should call Him; for they depicted His names, not His nature, and His appellations, not His essence. For He was depicted by various likenesses, because it pleased His will that a rational creature should depict Him according to the figure of His names. His image was delineated by the names of His will, which, by the nod of His power, founded all that was made: but, because He Himself depicted and adorned all things, no creature was able to depict Him. His essence is indeed great; but how great, no one [knows].