Mathematical Mirror

He concludes: truly all things are in Him, because He is infinite. God is therefore rich and non-needy, since there is nothing outside Him: truly so, because He is infinite. He desires nothing, because He is sufficient to Himself, and he is sufficient who has everything that is needed. Man, however, has need of many things; therefore, insofar as he is sufficient to himself, he possesses within himself that by which he is sufficient. Whoever therefore does not have need is in a way infinite regarding all these things; he is truly so, because he is endowed with riches. Riches, therefore, are participants in a certain infinity. Honor is a divine thing: for so it is according to Aristotle, Ethics, ch. XII, "We call the gods blessed and happy, and we call the most divine of men blessed." And in Ethics, Book 4, ch. 3, it is said to be "the greatest of external goods," and "to be assigned to the good." Therefore, honor belongs primarily to God, for He is supremely good, and if the truth must be told, He alone is good: and if there is any good in these lower things, it is referred to that First Good. Therefore, to Him primarily belongs that which is the greatest of the goods that are outside. But the greatest of these is honor: truly to good men, insofar as they approach nearer to God, there is a duty owed to their virtue representing its merit, as is defined by a certain recent author. Honor is therefore a divine thing, for it is not due except to God and to divine men. Pleasure is a divine thing: for it is painlessness resulting from the absence of harm. Therefore, each thing enjoys pleasure most when it is furthest from harm. For pleasure and pain are opposed to one another; their definitions are therefore contrary. But if pain arises from the harmful excess of a thing, pleasure will be present if the harm is absent. But all harm is absent from God; nothing else is entirely freed from all harm. Therefore, pain can fall upon the rest, but upon God none: truly in God there is only pleasure, and the more removed each thing is from harm, the nearer it is to pleasure, and nearer to the divine thing, because God is most removed from harm. We will perceive this more conveniently if, with the recent authors, we wish to define pleasure as the perception of a convenient thing. Pleasure arises from a convenient thing, and each thing is more convenient the more it approaches the One; it approaches God, since whatever approaches the One more, approaches God more, just as those things which recede from the One more, recede more from God, for God is the primary One. That which is more divine is therefore convenient, because it is one. But pleasure is what is convenient, and pleasure is the perception of what is convenient. Therefore, pleasure is a divine thing. And all knowledge and wisdom is a divine possession, according to Simonides and Aristotle.