Commentary on Plato's Symposium

To conclude in few words many things, I say that that supernal being of God, whatever it may be, is called good; the ray that, departing from there, enters through all things, is called beauty. This enters primarily into the angelic mind: secondarily into the soul of the whole, and into all souls: next into nature, that is, into the seeds of things: ultimately into the matter of bodies. It beautifies the mind with the order of ideas; it fills the soul with the discourse of reason; it fortifies nature with seeds; it adorns matter with forms; and as one single ray of the sun illuminates four bodies—that is, fire, air, water, and earth—so likewise one single ray of God illuminates the mind, the soul, nature, and matter: and whoever sees the light of these four elements sees the ray of that sun, and through the middle of it turns to look at the supernal light of the sun. Thus similarly, whoever contemplates beauty in these four—that is, in the mind, in the soul, in nature, and in the body—and in them loves the splendor of God, through that same splendor of God comes to see and love God himself.

Passions of lovers. Chapter V.

From the above-mentioned things it is caused that neither by seeing nor by touching any body is the impetus of the lover extinguished. Because not this or that body is desired, but a clarity of the supernal light that shines through these bodies. Whence lovers do not know themselves what they desire: because they do not know God himself, whose hidden savor mixes a certain sweet odor with his operations; from which odor