Speculum [Incertus]

Speculum, One Book. Chapter One. Invocation to the Holy Trinity. Be present to me, true light, God the Father almighty. Be present to me, true light from light, the Word, Son of God, almighty God. Be present to me, true illumination, Holy Spirit, unity of Father and Son, sanctity, charity, almighty God you have given. Be present to me, O one Trinity and threefold unity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one almighty God. My faith, which you gave to me on account of your goodness for my salvation, invokes you, Lord. My chaste conscience and the sweet love of my faith invokes you, my God, which you led from the darkness of ignorance to the understanding of truth; which, with the bitterness of the age removed and the sweetness of your charity applied, you rendered savory and honeyed to me. The clear voice and sincere cry of my faith invokes you, blessed Trinity, which you illumined, nourishing me from the very cradle; which you always through the inspiration of your grace; which you strengthened and increased through the ministry of the preaching of the Church. How sweetly it tastes on the very palate of the joys of my soul, how strongly, how often it strikes my mind and warns, moving all my senses and the inner parts of my spirit, that it may delight to praise you, because you made us to praise you!

But my mind is restless until, gathering itself from the dispersion in which I am torn asunder piecemeal while, turned away from you alone, I vanish into many things, I vanish; so that, having returned to myself, and risen above myself, and, having passed beyond all things, arrived at you, I may exult to you with the jubilation of my heart and pour forth praises with the service of my mouth, so that in the meditation of the confession of your glory my heart may grow warm, and my spirit may gasp for you, and my mind may burn in your love, forgetful of vanity and misery, while it attends only to you, and while, astonished and stupefied, it clings to the unchangeableness of your glory, and with the eyes of faith beholds you, the sun of justice, as it is written: He who clings to God is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). Therefore, Lord, I will flee, and gladly flee, the clamorous tumults of all vanities. But whither shall I flee, so that I may avoid them, trample them under my feet, and drive them far from the serenity of joyful contemplation? To you, who are the sole refuge and only hope of the wretched, to you, my glory and the lifter of my head (Ps. 3:4), to you I will flee from the pit of misery and from the mire of filth (Ps. 39:3). I will cling to you, as you yourself have granted, honeyed sweetness, so that you may become sweet to me, a sweetness not deceitful, a happy and secure sweetness. Therefore I will seek you, Lord, calling upon you, and I will call upon you, believing in you; so that, seeking you, I may find you, and, finding you, I may bless you, who have blessed us with every blessing. My God, my only hope, hear me; may I, weary, not wish to cease seeking you, but may I always ardently seek your face.

Grant me the strength to seek, You who have made Yourself to be found, and have given me ever greater hope of finding You. Enlighten, O Lord, the eye of my heart with the clear light of inner vision; for it is veiled and blind in the dark gloom of sins and ignorance. Enlighten it with the light of Your grace, so that with the sincere eyes of faith and the pure light of the heart I may behold the mysteries of Your kingdom. But because praise is not beautiful in the mouth of a sinner (Ecclesiasticus 15:9), and faith without worthy works is not praised, I ask the Father through the Son, I ask the Son through the Father, I ask the Holy Spirit through the Father and the Son, that all vices may be removed far from me, and all holy virtues be planted in me: so that the sacrifice of praise of my faith may become acceptable to You, my God, and may ascend to You in an odor of sweetness. I beseech, and I implore Your mercy as a suppliant, O God, the source and origin, the giver and preserver of all virtues, increase in me hope, holy, right and immaculate faith, learned, catholic and most prudent faith, fervent, invincible and orthodox faith; which in me may work everything that pleases You, through love and humility, which cannot be overcome amid words of contention in time of persecution, or in the day of need. O God, who searches hearts and reins (Psalm 7:10), before You are my health and my infirmity: preserve the former, I pray, heal the latter. Before You are my knowledge and my ignorance.

Where You have opened for me, receive me as I enter; where You have closed, open to me as I knock: so that hearing, I may understand You, and understanding, I may love You, and loving, I may praise You, and in my whole heart I may long always to gaze upon the beauty of Your vision. I hear what Your Scripture, which You have sanctified and sent into the world, wishes to intimate to us; I hear, and I believe it. CHAPTER II. That God is God, and is present and eternal (John 4:24), but spirit incomprehensible, incorporeal, immutable, uncircumscribed, everywhere whole, nowhere divided, according to the truthful testimony of Scripture itself; for in this way You, the Creator, are discerned from the creature, among which are those who are also called spirits. If it is so, indeed because it is so, how shall I invoke my God and my Lord? Since there is some place into which I call You when I invoke You. And what place is there in me, into which my God may come, into which He who made heaven and earth may come? Is it so, my God, that there is in me something that can contain You? Or do heaven and earth, which You made, and in which You made me, contain You? Or because without You whatever exists would not exist, does whatever exist become such as to contain You? Why then do I ask that I, who am already lower, and You are yet there: for even if I descend to hell, You are present (Psalm 138:8). Therefore I would not exist, my God, I would not exist at all, unless You were in me. Or rather, would I not exist, unless I were in You, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things (Romans 11:36)? Even so, Lord, even so.

By what means, then, do I invoke You, when I am in You; or from where will You come into me? For where shall I withdraw, where shall I go? Perhaps beyond heaven and earth, so that my God, who said, "I fill heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 23:24), may come into me from there? Do heaven and earth, then, contain You, since You fill them? Or do You fill them, and yet there remains what they do not contain of You? And into what do You pour out whatever of You remains after heaven and earth are filled? Do You not need to be contained by anyone, since You contain all things; because those things which are full of You make You stable; for even if they are broken, You are not poured out. And when You are poured out upon us, You do not lie prostrate, but You raise us up; nor are You scattered, but You gather us. But do all things, which You fill, contain all of You, or do they contain a part of You, and do all things together contain that same part? Or do individual things contain individual parts, and larger things contain larger parts, smaller things contain smaller parts? Is there, then, some part of You greater, some lesser? Or are You everywhere whole, and does no thing contain all of You? What, then, are You, Lord my God, what, then, but Lord my God? For who is God except the Lord, or who is God except our God (Psalm 17:32)? No one, plainly, no one. For there is no other besides You, threefold and one, one and threefold, neither in heaven above, nor on earth below. Who is like You? Who is magnificent in holiness, terrible and praiseworthy in every virtue, as You, our God, are, who do great and wonderful things (Exodus 15:11), and inscrutable things whose number is without limit?

All things magnify You, every spirit praises You, all those hosts of blessed spirits and heavenly citizens adore You, bless You. To You, Mother Church throughout the whole world offers prayers and incessantly sings praises. I, the last of Your servants, praise and bless You, "Who is like unto You, O Lord" (Ps. 88:9)? And rightly all things which You have wrought obey, serve, tremble before You alone, their creator; at Your nod You do whatever You will. CHAPTER III. That God made everything by His mere nod, and is wholly in all things. For You are truly the sole Lord, invisible God, inestimable, uncircumscribed, illocal, immense, incomprehensible, everywhere whole, everywhere present, ineffably penetrating all things, containing all things, knowing all things, foreseeing all things, all-powerful, and governing the universe, wholly in heaven, wholly on earth, wholly everywhere; and there is no other besides You, our God, in whom the apostolic and universal Mother Church believes and whom she adores. You are truly to be worshipped and venerated, feared and loved with always all devotion, O Lord our God. You who, when we were not, powerfully made us: and when we were lost through our own fault, You wonderfully recovered us through Your ineffable piety and goodness. Whence I confess to You, king of heaven and earth, and honor You with sacrifices of praise. And since external gifts are lacking, with all the innermost parts of my heart which are in me, I render to You the vows of praise.

But because nothing can be offered to You that is acceptable except from Your own gift; You, God, in whose light we see light, grant, I beseech You, light in the heart, grant a word on the lips, grant the mind to ascend to the heavenly seat: to behold the fountain of the good, grant that, once light is found, I may fix my gaze upon You, conspicuous. And since one part of us is of heaven, the other of earth, whence the body, which is corrupted, weighs down the soul, and earthly habitation oppresses the mind that thinks of many things (Wisdom 9:15); scatter the clouds and burdens of the earthly mass, and, I beseech You, with Your splendor illuminate the dark face of the inner man: stay the wandering minds rushing through many devious paths. Subdue flesh to spirit, appetite to reason, base things to virtues, body to soul, and subject me inwardly and outwardly in all things to Your will: so that, with all things duly composed in order, through Your grace I may merit both to love You perfectly and to praise You worthily with lips and heart, and with every power I possess crying out to You, and thus speaking:

CHAPTER IV. On the Essence of the Deity. Highest, best, most powerful, most merciful, most just, most hidden, most present, most beautiful, most strong, most sweet, most unconquered, most true Lord our God, You are stable and incomprehensible; immutable, changing all things; invisible, seeing all things; immortal, without place, without end, uncircumscribed, nowhere bounded; ineffable, inestimable, unspeakable, inscrutable; unmoved, touching all things; unsearchable, fearful and terrible, venerable and to be revered, to be honored and to be dreaded; never new, never old, renewing all things, and bringing the proud into old age, and they know not; always acting, always at rest; gathering and not needing; bearing all things without burden; filling all things without inclusion; creating and protecting all things, nourishing and perfecting; seeking, though nothing is lacking to You. You love, and do not burn; You are zealous, and secure; You repent, and do not grieve; You are angry, and tranquil; You change Your works, but never Your counsel; You receive what You find, and have never lost; never in need, and You rejoice in gains; never avaricious, and You exact usury. More is paid to You than You are owed; and who has anything that is not Yours? You repay debts owing nothing, You give away debts losing nothing.

CHAPTER V. How God is far and near and in all things whole. Who alone gives life to all things, who created all things. Who are everywhere and everywhere whole, who can be sensed and cannot be seen, who are absent nowhere, and yet are far from the thoughts of the wicked. Who are not absent even where you are far; because where you are not present by grace, you are present by vengeance. Who touch all things, yet do not touch all things equally. For you touch some things so that they exist, but not so that they live and feel; some things you touch so that they exist, live, and feel, but not so that they discern; some things you touch so that they exist, live, feel, and discern. And although you are never unlike yourself, you nevertheless touch unlike things in unlike ways. Who are present everywhere, and yet can scarcely be found; whom we follow standing still, and cannot apprehend. CHAPTER VI. That God touches all things, yet is not moved. Who hold all things, fill all things, embrace all things, exceed all things, sustain all things; nor do you sustain from one part and exceed from another; nor fill from one part and embrace from another; but by embracing you fill, and by filling you embrace; by sustaining you exceed, and by exceeding you sustain. Who teach the hearts of the faithful without the noise of words, who reach from end to end mightily, and arrange all things gently (Wisdom 8:1). Who are not distended by places, nor varied by times, nor have comings or goings.

You who dwell, inaccessible light, which no man has seen, nor can see (1 Tim. 6:17): remaining quiet in yourself, you circle everywhere whole. CHAPTER VII. That God is not divided into parts. For you cannot be cut or divided, because you are truly one: nor are you made into parts, but whole you hold all, whole you fill all, whole you illuminate all, whole you possess all. This mystery the human mind cannot grasp, nor conceive, nor can an orator's tongue narrate, nor can the volumes of libraries of diffuse speech explain. If books fill the whole world, your ineffable knowledge cannot be narrated. Since you are truly unspeakable, you can in no way be written or confined, you who are the Fountain of divine light, and the Sun of eternal clarity. For you are great without quantity, and therefore immense; good without quality, therefore truly and supremely good; and no one is good except you alone. CHAPTER VIII. That God's will is his deed. Whose will is work, for whom to will is to be able; who made all things which you created from nothing by will alone; who possess all your creation without any need, and govern without labor, and rule without weariness. And there is nothing that disturbs the order of your empire, whether in the highest or the lowest. Who are held in all places without place, and contain all things without compass, and are present everywhere without position and motion.

You are not the author of evil, which you cannot do, you who can do nothing, nor have you ever repented of anything you have done, nor are you troubled by any storm of emotional disturbance, nor is your kingdom a tiny part of the whole earth. You approve or command no shameful acts or crimes. You never lie, because you are eternal truth: by whose goodness alone we are made, and by whose justice we pay the penalty, and by whose mercy we are set free. CHAPTER IX. That nothing is to be worshipped except God. For nothing heavenly, nothing earthly, nothing fiery, and nothing that the senses of the body touch, is to be adored or worshipped in your place, you who truly are what you are, and do not change: to whom especially and particularly that which the Greeks call *to on*, the Latins *Est*, belongs: because you are always the same yourself, and your years do not fail (Ps. 102:28). For it is plainly given to be understood here that you, our God whom we worship, true and omnipotent God, are without doubt invisible, even if you are seen by a pious intellect; incomprehensible, even if you are represented through grace; inestimable, even if you are piously believed and holily thought of by human senses; ineffable, even if you are somehow spoken of abusively in the usual words of human speech: therefore you are true and so great. Moreover, what can be known, comprehended, thought, or said of you is less. But what is incomprehensible and immense, unspeakable and infinite, is known to you alone.

For this is what surpasses every sense, this also is what makes you be esteemed and believed for certain and called the universal God, since you cannot be found to the full, since you cannot be wholly grasped or comprehended: thus the power of your greatness both presents you to us as known and as unknown. And this is the height of the offense of those who scorn to know you, who are unwilling to serve you, their creator. They have what they may venerate while knowing, they have what they may marvel at while ignorant: they have what they may fear, they have what they may love. For if you were wholly accessible to our knowledge, you could scarcely be believed to be the living and true God: so false were those found who were thought to be gods, because they could be known in all respects—who and what and of what sort they were. CHAPTER X. That God made all things by the Word alone. But you, our God, wonderful and powerful, who have expressed the whole mass of this world with every instrument of elements, bodies, spirits, by the word which you commanded, by the reason with which you arranged, by the power with which you were able, from nothing into the ornament of the majesty of your glory, who, commanding time to proceed from that very age, and remaining stable, cause all things to be moved, who have adorned the earth with manifold fruitfulness and the sky with the beautiful light of the stars, whose names, signs, powers, courses, and times you alone know. You are gentle, you are kind, strong, zealous, and most invincible Sabaoth, visiting the sins of fathers upon sons unto the third and fourth generation, and showing mercy to a thousand thousands to those who love you (Exod. 20).

and your name. If your works are so great and inscrutable, beautiful and astounding, let those who wish say how you, their most beautiful creator, could be grasped. For it is certain that the maker of all things is far differently constituted than those things which he willed to be made by him. Nevertheless, from the beauty of circumscribed nature and the marvelous appearance of worldly things, your beauty, which you yourself are, because you are simple, and the excellence of your glory, which cannot be circumscribed, can to some extent be understood, although no sense can attain the infinite and incomprehensible magnitude of your divinity, not even that of those supernal citizens. Yet in a wondrous way your essence is known, while it is believed to be. CHAPTER XI. On the two syllables of God. Whenever I recall or hear the two short syllables and four letters with which "Deus" is written—for this name is owed to you alone, Almighty—and when I contemplate the great deeds of your power and the marvelous creation of the world, that is, I consider the beauty of the cosmopoeia, and at the same time silently reflect within myself on your mercies which have been from eternity (for let those who wish admire your power, but I am more astounded when I notice your mercies), then indeed in these four letters and two short syllables I behold, with the gaze of the mind and the sincere eyes of faith, as far as you deign to grant to me, a tiny man, to know and to be able, something infinite and incomprehensible, immense and ineffable.

For are you, our God, two short syllables, or do we worship two short syllables, or do we desire to reach two short syllables—which almost cease to sound before they have begun, and in which there is no place for the second unless the first has first passed away? Indeed, something great remains, and it is great and supreme, which is incomparable and most excellent of all, that which is called God, although the sound does not remain when "God" is spoken. CHAPTER XII. That in His own nature He is not seen. But because the flesh does not know the spirit, and invisible things are not seen by visible things—for we walk by faith, and not by sight—you, our God, too good and too kind, consulting our weakness, deign to insinuate yourself to us, not by your own property, but by some other likeness. Whence you are also described as having the quality of our members, willing unworthy passions concerning yourself to be brought forth for this purpose: that because, as you are, we cannot know you in our present misery, you may draw us through our own to yours, and we, while you condescend to us, may more easily rise up to you.

CHAPTER XIII. On the Image of God in Man. For in many ways, to signify yourself to men, you draw species from inferior things to yourself, whom it is established that you are truly invisible and incorporeal, incomprehensible and uncircumscribed according to your own nature; and for this reason you have never appeared to anyone according to essence, but we believe that you have appeared in ways you wished, through the assumed species of creatures, for the sake of the effects of causes. Therefore, the followers of the heresy of the Anthropomorphites are deceived, who, when they read that man was made in the image and likeness of God, assert with foolish rashness that you have a human form: whereas in that passage you are said or believed to have created the mind, not the flesh, in your image. CHAPTER XIV. On the Breadth, Length, Height, and Depth of God. Indeed, no human speech speaks anything worthy of you; because nothing is said worthily of you according to quality or quantity, position or habit, or motion. And yet breadth, length, height, and depth are read to be in you in a certain way. But breadth is indeed of charity, by which you gather us from error and hold us in truth; length, however, by which you bear with us evildoers with long-suffering, until you restore us, corrected, to the future fatherland; height, moreover, by which you surpass every understanding of both men and angels by the immensity of knowledge; depth also, by which you arrange the damned below according to equity, and as a just judge you preordain them with right judgment.

Therefore let every person who wishes to taste something of your property, the highest goods, surpass all creation and direct the gaze of the mind beyond all things. CHAPTER XV. On the Knowledge of the Holy Trinity. For then a man, placed far from vanity, is more fully held in truth, when in his heart whatever is God is peacefully and piously believed and holily thought, with all other things removed from his sight. But although there is no one who can effectively comprehend or define you in this vale of tears, yet it is a great and very wonderful thing granted to our age to know concerning you, the highest good, by your grace revealing it to us, of course. Who before us, into whatever ends of the ages they have come (1 Cor. 10:11), could have heard or known such things so clearly about the Trinity and unity, about persons and substance? Concerning you indeed, Father God, that you are from no one; and therefore you are called unbegotten; concerning your Son, however, that he is begotten and from you, not from himself; concerning the Holy Spirit also, that he proceeds and is not from himself, but from you and the Son, whose spirit he is. Thus it is held, that just as you, Father, can be called neither begotten nor proceeding, so the Son can be called neither unbegotten nor proceeding; and likewise the Holy Spirit should be called neither unbegotten nor begotten: so that the property of the persons may clearly show us you, one Father, together with one Son and one Holy Spirit.

Who in earlier centuries believed in you as one God and confessed you as threefold, neither separating the substance nor confusing the persons, and understood so prudently, perceived so openly, and truly knew so well? Indeed, your Son, sent forth from your bosom for our public benefit, revealed the norm of right faith more clearly to this last age. Before you showed the Creator to creatures, you were known only in Judea, O God, and in Israel the great fame and worship of your name was heard (Psalm 75:2). But was it as clearly, or as much, as among us placed under grace? Concerning the undivided Trinity, very few then perceived a little. For the sons of the Lawgiver still do not know what they ought to know about the one Trinity or the threefold unity, struck as they are with a worthy blindness: wretchedly refusing to confess anything other than one God, and chattering against us with evil words when we say that you, the Father, have a Son. But for us who came from the Gentiles, how many and true things it has been given to know about the triune and one God is proved by the hearts that believe, and also by the mouths that confess, and no less by the very scourges and death inflicted for this same confession: for it is written, "I have understood more than the elders" (Psalm 119:100).

CHAPTER 16: That the Trinity is indivisible. Creation belongs to God alone. How the Word is in the Father. Lord our God, living and true, unless you were the Trinity, it would not be said by the voice of Truth: "Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). For we would not be commanded to baptize, Lord God, in the name of one who was not Lord God. And again, unless you, the Trinity, were one God, it would never be said by your voice: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, God is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Therefore, unless you, God the Father, were yourself, and your Son, your Word, Jesus Christ, were himself, and your gift, the Holy Spirit, were itself, we would not read in the Scriptures of truth: "God sent his Son" (Galatians 4:4). Nor would you, the Only-begotten, say of the Holy Spirit: "Whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26); and: "Whom I will send to you from the Father" (John 15:26); and elsewhere: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30); and: "Who sees me, sees also the Father. For I am in the Father, and the Father is in me"; and: "The Father, remaining in me, himself does the works" (John 14:9-10). For what else do these words, except that you, the teacher of truth, in whose breast the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored, lead us to believe in a triune and one God? You also say: "My doctrine is not mine" (John 7:16); and: "The sermon which you have heard is not mine, but of the Father who sent me" (John 14:24). A wondrous thing, a thing to be admired.

Say, then, O Day, O Word of the Father, answer, I pray, O Power and Wisdom of the highest Principle; but you yourself are a principle from a principle, yet not two principles, but certainly one principle. Speak, O Word ever abiding, teach your servant who humbly questions. For what is so much your own as you? But you are your own and not your own, because you are not from yourself, as you often testify in many places; but from the Father, whose mouth is a word, not a word that sounds through syllables and is fleeting, but one that lives and abides always immovably. And therefore it is a word not that ceases when uttered, but that remains when born; not transitory, but eternal; not made, but begotten; and not only begotten, but also only-begotten: to which reason is present for ordering, and power is at hand for accomplishing, as befits a true God and supreme Lord. For you, the only-begotten Word, the Father begot from himself, through whom he created all things from nothing. And for that reason we believe without doubt, because unless you, the Word, were an all-knowing and all-powerful God, in no way would all things have been made through you. How can a creature create anything? To create, certainly, only God is able, who is not created: for nothing except God is uncreated. Far be it from our understanding that we should admit anything to be born from the Father except the Son; and therefore only God could be born from God.

Whence shall I find you for myself, O Word of the Father, as I desire to contemplate you? No words suffice by which I may be able to explain you. When, indeed, shall I be able to speak abundantly or worthily? Who speaks of whom? A man of God, a work of the Workman, a creature of the Creator, a small being of the Immense, a temporal being of the Eternal: whose venerable power, most omnipotent, you wrought by gratuitous goodness; yet no less venerable is your grace, by which you saved us with most omnipotent mercy. You both freely wrought the work of creative omnipotence and omnipotently fulfilled the work of saving grace, having, without doubt, perpetual power both to create the uncreated and to restore the lost. Therefore, that foremost of theologians, contemplating more deeply than others with eagle-like gaze, would not have thundered forth in his writings, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1-2), unless you, God Word, were always with the Father, always with the Father, always from the Father, always in the Father: not as a vessel in a vessel, or a city near a town, but as wisdom within the wise, truth in the truthful, goodness in the good, eternity in the eternal: because nothing else can be in the substance of the Father except God, equal and coeternal with Him from whom you were begotten. Let every heretical perversity, therefore, fall silent and perish along with its authors, which, always hostile in strife, now divides the substance, now confuses the persons.

Let it grow, I pray, in faith, and let Mother Church, who judges it profane and excessively impious to worship three gods and not to distinguish the persons in the Trinity, be rendered more and more fruitful in pious deeds. Finally, instructed by heavenly disciplines, she believes, confesses, and teaches without doubt one substance and three persons, knowing all things that pertain to the rule of faith. Taught from boyhood by her magisterium and doctrine, inspired from heaven, I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth you, O highest Trinity, one power and undivided majesty. CHAPTER XVII. On the knowledge of the incorporeal divine essence. I confess you, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, three in persons, one in substance, true almighty God, creator of visible and invisible things, not a body nor placed in a body, nor mixed from diverse species, nor shaped by the joining of members, but of one simple and incorporeal, invisible and uncircumscribed nature. You indeed, true Father of supreme goodness and principle of the whole divinity, God of uncircumscribed and unbegotten majesty, taking beginning from none, but giving beginning to all, I believe and confess that you generate the Son not by bodily offspring nor from without, not by necessity nor by will, but by nature.

I confess that you are the true Son, born from the Father without beginning in an ineffable manner, the true only-begotten God, through whom all things were made, and the true Word of the Father, not touched, not created, not adoptive, but begotten and of one substance with the Father, and thus in all things equal to God the Father, so that you could be inferior neither in time, nor in rank, nor in power. And I confess that you, who were begotten, are as great as he who begot you. But when I say that the Son is begotten by the Father, I do not ascribe any time to the divine and ineffable generation; nor do I say that the Father ever began, nor that you, his Son, began. Because the Father always was, therefore you were never not the Son. For we cannot otherwise confess an eternal Father unless we also confess a coeternal Son. For the Father is called such from the Son; and because the Father always was, there is no doubt that he always had a Son. CHAPTER XVIII. On the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. I also believe you, the Holy Spirit, to be the true God, not made, nor created, nor begotten, nor unbegotten, but proceeding ineffably from the Father and the Son, and substantially abiding in the Father and at the same time in the Son. Thus you proceed from both, so that you inseparably remain in both; and thus in all things equal, coeternal, consubstantial with God the Father and the Son, so that you can be separated from them or cut off from those from whom you proceed neither in power, nor in will, nor in eternity, nor in substance.

Therefore, I believe in my heart, confess with my mouth, and love with my mind: the eternal Father without birth, the eternal Son with birth, the eternal Holy Spirit with procession without birth; the whole Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit, the whole Son in the Father and the Holy Spirit, the whole Holy Spirit remaining in the Father and the Son; and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one omnipotent God, with one power, one kingdom, one majesty, one eternity, reigning from then and now and always everywhere. Directing my intention to this rule of faith, as far as you have enabled me, my God, I have sought you, I have desired to see with my intellect what I believed. For this reason I entered the storehouse of many delights with which Mother Church is nourished: where I considered many things, and began to examine each one. And when I anxiously and eagerly ran here and there, you, being good, wishing to help the desire which you gave, extended the hand of your mercy, and loosened the knot of my uncertainty: and therefore it delights me greatly to think of you, to speak of you, and to pour forth your praises according to the measure of my smallness with a desiring heart, so that in this present misery, with my body alone, but with my mind and all eagerness, I may cling to you, my Lord.

CHAPTER XIX. On the Comparison of the Three Persons. How Venerable Are the Mysteries of the Trinity and the Eucharist. God, threefold and one, kindle in me the light of knowledge, by which I may merit to understand You as threefold and one God, just as You are threefold and one God. And remove the darkness of ignorance more and more, as You have begun, from me, so that I may see spiritual things spiritually, as far as is possible for human frailty. Give me on this path, on which I walk with You as guide, understanding, and inspire me, and always teach me through Your grace, how it is to be believed in You without reproach, so that I may know You as one God essentially, and incomprehensibly threefold personally: the Father without birth, the Only-begotten from the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeding from both and remaining in both, no moment of priority or posteriority intervening for the three, nor a divided empire; not counsel in creating, nor divided help and work in ruling and perfecting creatures. Whatever is natural there is undivided; whatever is personal is unconfused. An ineffable mystery and, above others, difficult for the intellect! The remaining sacraments, indeed, which are held in Your Church, Lord, are astounding and venerable; but this sacrament of Yours surpasses all.

This indeed is the mystery of your undivided Trinity, and that Sacrament of the heavenly table, which feeds faithful and pious souls with flesh and waters them with blood, that they may neither hunger nor thirst in eternity. Make me, my God, to feel and believe, to receive and retain, this above all else with a pure and simple conscience. Do not allow, I pray, Lord, my faith in these things to waver in any degree; but grant, by your mercy, that I may always believe and understand concerning them and about them as the truth of them itself is. Let your grace enter my heart, which sounds without sound and without noise, and there speak the whole truth of such great mysteries; let that mistress of virtues and judge of all truths inwardly everywhere, and outwardly on all sides, flood my soul with light and sweetness; and by thus irradiating and giving savor to it, establish and confirm it in the very center of truth, so that I may neither wish nor be able to feel otherwise about such great mysteries, except as is fitting and proper. Almighty goodness, whose merciful ears are open even to the desires of your poor, hear the cry of my heart, and favor my wishes. Grant, Lord, that I may with the palate of my mind perceive, taste, and savor these ineffable sacraments: for they are great and exceedingly wonderful, and I am a little one who fails in their contemplation, whenever I raise the eyes of faith to behold them.

But because both are necessary for our salvation in one way, God, the author of all things, the invisible creator, who are in substance the highest and one divinity, and personally the true and perfect Trinity: I beseech you, God the Father, from whom are all things, and your Son, through whom are all things, and likewise the Holy Spirit, in whom are all things; you, my Lord, whom I confess as the one and true God in Trinity, by whom we were created, freed, and enlightened, I, a suppliant, eager for such great mysteries, beg: nourish me, feed me, and extend my smallness to the measure of age up to a perfect man, so that I may be able to take this solid and perfect food. For your eyes have seen my imperfection (Ps. 133:16). CHAPTER 20. That the divine substance is indivisible. Giver of all good things, God the Father, to whom supplication is never made without hope of mercy, together with your Son and the Holy Spirit, give what my soul desires and asks of you. For those whose substance is one, the gift is also one, the operation one, the donation one, and the power one: so that in the very property of the persons, according to a deeper understanding, a certain unity is perceived. The inseparable unity of your nature, indeed, cannot have separable persons: because just as you are a Trinity in unity, and unity in Trinity, so you cannot have a separation of persons.

Those persons are indeed sometimes named individually; but you, Trinity God, have willed to show yourself inseparable in persons, so that there is no name for you in any person that is not referred to another person according to the rule of relation; just as Father is referred to Son, and Son to Father, or Holy Spirit is most truly referred to Father and Son. But those names which signify your substance or power or essence, or whatever is properly called God, belong equally to all persons, such as God, great, good, eternal, omnipotent, and all things that are naturally said of you as God. Therefore there is no name of nature that can so belong to you, God the Father, that it cannot belong either to your Son or to the Holy Spirit. We say that you, God the Father, are naturally God; but the Son is naturally God, and the Holy Spirit is naturally God; yet not three gods, but one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. For this reason you, holy Trinity God, are inseparable in persons to be understood in sense, although you have separable names in speech; because you in no way receive a plural number in names of nature. For in this it is shown that the persons cannot be divided in the holy Trinity, which is one true God; because the name of any person always looks to another person.

If I say Father, I show the Son; if I name the Son, I proclaim the Father; if I call upon the Holy Spirit, it is necessary to understand that He is the spirit of someone: that is, of the Father and the Son. But You, the unity of divinity, manifold in the plurality of persons, are numerably innumerable, and therefore measurably immeasurable, and weighably unweighable: for we do not profess the origin of the highest goodness, which You Yourself are, from which all things, through which all things, in which all things; but we say that all things are good by participation in it. CHAPTER XXI. That in the divinity there is no matter. For Your divine substance has always lacked and lacks matter, although it does not lack form: which, while You imprint it like a seal upon individual things, You without doubt cause them to differ from You by the mutability of Your own increase or decrease. Whatever is in the nature of creatures is Your creature, O triune unity and one trinity God, whose omnipotence governs, rules, and fills all that it has created. Nor do we say that You fill all things so that they contain You, but rather so that they themselves are contained by You.

CHAPTER XXII. That there is no part in God nor division. You do not fill all things in a piecemeal manner, nor is it to be thought in any way that each thing receives You according to the size of its portion, that is, the greatest more, or the least less; but rather that in all things You Yourself are wholly present, or all things are in You. Whose omnipotence encloses all things, nor can anyone find a way of escape from Your power. For he who does not have You appeased will by no means escape You angry. Indeed, this is the immensity of Your divine greatness, that we understand You to be within all things, but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded. CHAPTER XXIII. That God contains all things. And therefore You are interior, so that You may contain all things; therefore You are exterior, so that by the immensity of Your uncircumscribed greatness You may rule all things by enclosing them. Through that, therefore, by which You are exterior, You show Yourself to be the creator; but through that by which You are interior, You demonstrate that You govern and rule all things. And lest created things should be without You, You are within all things: but lest they should be outside You, You are exterior, so that all things are enclosed by You, not by local magnitude, but by potential presence, because You are present everywhere, and all things are present to You, although some understand this, while others do not understand it.

CHAPTER XXIV. That the Godhead is not corporeal. These and many other things has my mother the Church, the holy, universal, and orthodox mother, taught me, whose member you have willed me to become through your grace; and from her heavenly doctrine you have deigned to render me so certain and secure in all things, through your piety, O Lord, by the constant illumination of your inspiration, as if I were beholding many things that lie hidden in mysteries, not through a mirror, but face to face. She has taught, therefore, that you alone are the living and true God, not corporeal or passible or palpable, that no part of you can be perceived by bodily eyes, that nothing of your substance and nature is in any way violable, or composite, or fabricated, or greater or inferior; but in every mode and from every part you are perfect without deformity, great without quantity, good without quality, eternal without time, life without death, strong without infirmity, truth without falsehood, everywhere whole without place, everywhere present without position, filling all things without extension, meeting everywhere without contraction, transcending all things without motion, remaining within all things without state, creating all things without need, ruling all things without labor, giving beginning to all things without beginning in yourself, making all mutable things without change in yourself, and always and everywhere reigning, remaining without end.

Lord God One, Trinity God, who incomparably surpass all things: you are so ineffable, infinite, and incomprehensible that everything that can be said of you is exceedingly small. For we say many things, but we cannot fully say what you are. And because you yourself are the consummation of all discourses, when therefore we have reached you, without doubt these many things that we say will cease, and you will remain one, all in all, and without end we will say all as one, praising you alone, and in you made also ourselves one: seeing you continually without end, incorporeal, and by nature immutable Trinity, and knowing all things in you, and having in you perpetual joy that will endure, healed of every infirmity, so as to be transformed into that glory of immortality. CHAPTER XXV. On the vision of God. Trinity one.

When this vision which is promised to be given face to face arrives, when it will be openly announced concerning all mysteries, and the species and hope of the lily succeed; then more clearly and more certainly knowing, we shall behold that nothing created, or serving in you, one Trinity, nothing unequal, nothing equal in grace, nothing earlier or later, nothing greater or less, nothing foreign or official to another, nothing inert by persuasion or surreption, nothing diverse in character or will, nothing singular in office or communicable to another, not confused, wholly perfect; because all in one and one in all, yet not solitary: since you, holy Father, one beginning of all things, are the highest good and the highest wisdom and the highest kindness; and your Truth, through whom we understand you, in no part dissimilar to you, which is the form of all things, and which alone fulfills that which all things seek; and at the same time the Gift of both, by which whatever are blessed are blessed, in you and with you we worship and adore, namely one immutable Trinity.

CHAPTER XXVI. Example concerning fire and the soul. For when what is one is repeated a third time, it is not a number that is accumulated, but that it is one is asserted. The begetter, the begotten, and the proceeding: indeed three persons, but one substance. Just as fire, brightness, heat: three names, but one thing; so memory, intellect, will: but one soul, which are demonstrated inseparably and operate inseparably. If this is found in creatures, what is to be understood concerning you, the Creator? For the nature of your divinity is in every way immovable and immutable; but the persons are movable according to relation, not according to property; and therefore in the relation of persons there is trinity, in the nature of substance there is unity. Unity indeed on account of the inseparable essence of divinity; but trinity on account of the diversity of names. For we confess not only names, but also the properties of the names, that is, the persons, or, as the Greeks express it, *hypostases*, that is, substances.

CHAPTER XXVII. On the Immutability of God. The incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity. Yet we say these things about you, our God, as far as human understanding can grasp. But who, placed in this life, even with a crystal-clear breast, could penetrate the inner mysteries of the Trinity itself: how you are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and one nature; how the Father is called unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Holy Spirit neither begotten nor unbegotten but proceeding; how the Son was born from you, the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from you and the Son; how the Son, by being born, does not proceed, and the Holy Spirit, by proceeding, is not born; how the Son is not from himself but from you, yet is not posterior to you from whom he is; how the Holy Spirit proceeds from you and the Son, yet is not preceded by you from whom he proceeds; how you are three and one, and one and three; how you are three relatively to each other, but essentially one; how you are a triune and one God, not locally but everywhere; and you are not partially in one place, but everywhere whole, everywhere present without position, place, or motion? Who, I ask, considers these things? Who comprehends them, however endowed with integrity or knowledge? Yet this is stored up in the promise of hope, because we shall see you, Lord; and each one will see more clearly the more purely he has lived here. For the pure of heart, as Scripture testifies, will see God (Matthew 5:8).

For openly will it be seen, once all the fog of the mind has been wiped away, how the Son, who arises, is not subsequent to You, O Father, from whom He arises; and how the Spirit of both, who is produced by procession, is not preceded by You who bring Him forth; and how You are both one indivisibly three and three indivisibly one. For the clarity, once revealed, will seize and lift up the pure loving gaze of the mind, laid open to the unveiled sight of Your majesty. But that clarity is nature, and that nature is clarity. This vision, indeed, is now begun in faith, but will then be perfected in its true form, when we will drink the Wisdom coeternal with You—which we now take in through the mouths of teachers—from the very fountain itself. Then all sacraments and every secret will appear to us, not through the words of teachers (for we will need no mysteries, when we see You face to face), but, unless I am mistaken, from the same source whence the angels see You. What will then be able to lie hidden from us, when You, our God—the life of the living, the cause of causes, the form of forms, the most beautiful form, the unformed form—will insinuate Yourself to us in clear vision?

CHAPTER XXVIII. That divinity lacks matter. For it does not seem unworthy to you when we call you form. For you are essence, and can be called species and form (not in vain is both *speciosissimum* and *formosissimum* placed in your praise); but form which lacks matter and motion, time and place, and therefore is one, and is what it is; the rest, however, are not what they are. This alone can most truly say, "I am who I am" (Exod. 3:14). This is so great and of such a kind that the human mind dares to claim nothing for itself in this life from the vision of its beauty, which you reserve solely for your elect as a reward in the subsequent recompense. CHAPTER XXIX. On thirst without necessity. The blessed see God unequally. Therefore, when we have reached you, the fountain of life and eternal light and most sweet species, from your vision there will be delightfully impressed upon us both thirst and satiety. But necessity will be far from thirst, and loathing far from satiety; for the thirsty will be sated and the sated will thirst. Finally, you will be for us eternal life, joy, and crown. Your blessed vision will be the reward of our labor, so that after the darkness of this mortality we may rejoice in the kindled light of your glory. We shall therefore see your immutability of essence, so that through this we too may become immutable, but not as you see. For in us, whatever we will be, we will be able to know; but in you, who cannot be comprehended, what you are, whatever that is, when are we able to know?

And if we will be able, we are not yet able: and yet when we will be able, shall we then know You as You know Yourself, O God? Even the rational and elect creature will not enjoy an equal vision of You; for each one according to the reward of his labor, but each will be fully satisfied with what is given him to behold. How great a multitude of Your sweetness, O Lord (Ps. 30:20)! Blessed are those who dwell in Your house, O Lord (Ps. 83:5). Happy are those who have crossed the sea of this mortality and have arrived at the harbor of perpetual security. Unhappy are we who are still tossed on the salt waters of this life by the surrounding storms, and amid many perils and various uncertain chances we drag our laboring ship. CHAPTER XXX. On the eternal thread. O Lord, grant us, with You as helmsman and guide, to hold our course between Scylla and Charybdis so that with whole ship and safe cargo we may be able to arrive at You, the safest harbor. Happy the soul which, already mingled with the blessed spirits, attends Your majesty, which beholds You uncircumscribed, which rejoices in the gift of perpetual incorruption. O vital life, sweet and lovable, and always memorable, where there is no enemy attacking, where there is no enticement, but the highest and certain security, and secure tranquility, and tranquil joyfulness, and joyful happiness, and happy eternity, and eternal blessedness, and blessed vision and praise of You without end, O God! May this united state follow, and may this mortal thing be clothed with immortality!

Would that this life might end, and how quickly it might be finished—this uncertain life, this blind life, this wretched life, which humors swell, pains drive out, heats dry up, airs sicken, foods bloat, fastings waste, jests dissolve, sorrows consume, anxiety constricts, security dulls, riches exalt, poverty casts down, youth lifts up, old age bends, infirmity breaks, grief depresses; and after all these things, death destroys, putting an end to all joys, so that when they have ceased to be, they are thought never to have existed. Come now, Lord, let it fly, I beseech You, that kingdom which lacks death, is free of an end, to which no times succeed through eternity, where there is a continuous day without night that knows no time, where there are the hymn-singing choirs of Angels and the fellowship of the heavenly citizens, where there is the sweet solemnity of those returning from the sad labor of this pilgrimage, where there are the foreseeing choirs of Prophets, where there is the judicial number of Apostles, where there is the victorious army of countless martyrs, and at the same time the constancy of confessors consoled by the reception of their reward, where there are faithful men, whom the pleasure of this world could not soften from the strength of their manliness, and likewise holy women, who together with the world conquered their sex; where there are boys who, while in the flesh, surpassed their years by their conduct, and old men whom age rendered weak, but the virtue of their work did not abandon.

To the holy throng of all these, and to the enduring joy without end of your beauty to be beheld, direct me, Lord God, to attend with my whole heart, to run manfully, to arrive happily. Meanwhile, while I am in this defective body, exercise my mind in these constant meditations of the good, O instiller of good. Therefore, cleanse the eye of my heart, sharpen the intellect of my mind, kindle my spirit with heavenly fire; so that I may think only of you, love only you, have only you in my heart and on my lips, you who are to be our reward without end. And that I may bear the weight of my mortality more lightly, give light in my heart, give a word on my lips, open the holy secrets of the Scriptures, and pour the deep mysteries of your kingdom into my inmost being. Give tears from your love, give the wings of faith and virtues, clothed with which I may fly upward to you, and, loathing the earth, seek the sky.

This faith I confess through you, from you, in you, O blessed and blessed and glorious Trinity, O true and highest and everlasting unity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, God Lord, Paraclete; charity, grace, communion; true light, light from light, true illumination; living life, life from the living, life-giver of the living; fountain, river, irrigation; one from himself, one from one, one from both; from one all things, through one all things, in one all things; that is, from himself the Father, from the other, that is, from the Father the Son, from both the Holy Spirit, that is, from the Father and the Son: from himself, from the other, from both; but everything always in the three, and everything equally in each; true Begetter, begotten Truth, love of both the Holy Spirit. One power, equal majesty, equal glory, one and the same essence. Wise Begetter, wisdom Begotten, and charity the Holy Spirit. CHAPTER XXXI. On divine light. God three and one, God all-enduring, with whom there is no change nor shadow of vicissitude (James 1:17), and therefore with you the course of time is in no way varied by the alternation of day and night. God true light, who without approach illuminate those whom you choose, and without withdrawal desert those whom you reject; and therefore in you there is no defect, no changeability comes. God who, remaining immutable in yourself, have so established transitory things in themselves that they can in no way pass away with you; and therefore in your sight time does not flow away which among us runs its course to an end.

God, in whose eternity those things that are not fixed externally remain fixed, as the rolling ages of the centuries flow forth; and therefore your eternity is a single day, which is neither closed by an end nor opened by a beginning. CHAPTER XXXII. That God is immutable. God, who without change in yourself simultaneously behold all things, without distention comprehend both the good which you aid and the evil which you judge, and both what you reward by aiding and what you condemn by judging, you are not diverse in the diverse order which you arrange. God, who surround your works from without, and fill them from within, cover them from above, and bear them from below; and although you are superior through power, inferior through support, exterior through magnitude, interior through subtlety; yet you are superior and inferior without place, ample without breadth, subtle without attenuation, and therefore you are nowhere by bulk of body, but through the uncircumscribed substance and immensity of your immutable nature you are nowhere absent. But why, since the Creator is far distant, are you not contained in place? For you are altogether not in place. You yourself are believed to be a place without place, an uncircumscribed spirit, whence it is difficult to find where you are, but much more difficult, where you are not. Who can subsist or exist without you? And yet not all can be with you. For all things are from you, and subsist through you.

CHAPTER XXIII. On the Infinity of God. Thanks Are Given to God. The Scope of This Little Book. God is the true and infinite blessedness, from whom and through whom and in whom all things that are blessed are blessed. God is the true and highest life, from whom and through whom and in whom all things that truly and most highly live have life. God is the good and the beautiful, from whom and through whom and in whom all things that are good and truly beautiful are good and beautiful. God is that above whom nothing, outside whom nothing, without whom nothing, beyond whom nothing, beneath whom nothing. God is that under whom is the whole, with whom is the whole, in whom is the whole. God is that from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. God is he whom our faith excites, hope raises up, charity joins. God is he who commands us to ask, and makes us to find, and opens to those who knock (Matthew 7:7). God is he from whom to turn away is to fall, towards whom to turn is to rise again, in whom to remain is to stand firm. God is he whom no one loses except deceived, whom no one seeks except admonished, whom no one finds except pure or purified. God is he by whose help of piety both the subject serves well and the prelate rules well; and therefore without you no one walks in the right path of rule or order. God, invisible and immense, ineffable and eternal, incomprehensible and incorporeal, immortal and perpetual, immutable and uncircumscribed, wonderful and blessed, unspeakable, for whom to be is to live, to be wise and to understand, to know and to be able, to become beautiful and to shine forth, is one and the same; because you are simple, and cannot be divided.

You are my living and true God, a merciful God, my great king. I worship you alone, one God, one principle of natures, by whom the universe is both begun and perfected and contained: one God from whom we are, through whom we are, in whom we are, from whom we have departed, to whom we have become unlike; the principle to which we return, and the form we follow, and the grace by which we are reconciled; the one by whom we were created, and the peace by which we cleave to unity; one God, our creator, by whom we live, whom we love, and by enjoying whom we live blessedly; I praise, bless, and adore you, I give thanks to your clemency and goodness for all your gifts and grants, and for all the benefits of your mercy, which you bestow upon my soul and body, and have always bestowed from my boyhood and from my cradle, for the sake of you and your holy name. Hence I have learned by experience that you, our God, are a God of infinite mercy, and of immense majesty and gratuitous piety: who wonderfully guide and guard your servants amid adversities and prosperities, and wisely regulate their life in each part, so that adversities succeed prosperities, and prosperities adversities. Therefore, let all your works confess to you, O Lord, and let your saints bless you (Ps. 144:10); and so that by confessing they may recover, let even sinners themselves not cease from your praises.

Among them I am one, though more prone to sins, yet with a heart that desires to sing your praises, I do so as best I can—if not with the praise or dignity I ought, then with the ability I have. Look, I beg, with a serene countenance upon this humble offering of my insignificance, and with a propitious condescension accept this small sacrifice of the confession of my faith, so that what came from you may return to you; not so much regarding what I devoutly offer, as what I most devoutly wished and wish to say. For whatever is unseemly or offends you, my soul abhors. Would that I could do such things as those hymn-singing angelic choirs! Oh, how diligently I would pour myself out entirely in your praises, and eloquently declaim in the midst of the Church the tireless song of your glory! But because I cannot do as they do, shall I be utterly silent? Woe, O Lord, to those who are silent about you, you who loosen the mouths of the mute and make the tongues of infants eloquent (Wisdom 10:21). Truly, since even little ones are allowed to lisp your praises, accept, I pray, this sacrifice from the hand of my tongue, from the love of my heart.

Forgive, I beg, Lord, your most unworthy and unhappy servant, who speaks of you at such length. Forgive me, out of pious eagerness, because it was not from the rashness of presumption, but from the eagerness of my desire for you that I have devoted myself to this little flower-gathering: so that I might always have with me a brief and handy word about you, from whose reading, whenever I grow lukewarm, I may be rekindled into love of you. For we are placed in the midst of snares, and we need a constant reminder, by which, roused from sleep, we may run back to you, our true and highest good, when we slip away. There are, indeed, many contemplations by which the devout soul is exercised and makes progress for you; but none of them delights me, or engages my mind, as much as that which concerns your property. Therefore I thought it necessary to pluck for myself alone this little discourse, in which, concerning the omnipotence of your majesty, just as I believe in my heart for righteousness, so I confess with my mouth for salvation (Rom.

You, God the Father unbegotten, you the only-begotten Son, you the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, holy and undivided Trinity, one God, infinite in magnitude, omnipotent in power, supreme in goodness, inestimable in wisdom, terrible in counsels, just in judgments, most secret in thoughts, truthful in words, holy in works, abundant in mercies; most patient toward offenders, most merciful toward the penitent, always the same, eternal and everlasting, immortal and unchangeable; whom no spaces expand, nor any narrowness of places confines, nor any receptacles constrain, nor will alters, nor necessity corrupts, nor sorrows disturb, nor joys soothe; from whom neither forgetfulness takes away, nor memory restores, nor past things pass away, nor future things succeed; to whom neither origin gives a beginning, nor times increase, nor chance gives an end; but before the ages, and in the ages, and through the ages you live eternally, and to you is perpetual praise and eternal glory, supreme power and singular honor, perpetual kingdom and empire without end, through infinite, unwearied, and immortal ages of ages. Amen.