Albertus Magnus

The Opera Omnia of the Universal Doctor, rendered into English

Works › The Mariale: Questions on “Missus est”

Volume 37 · p. 121

Question 64, remainder

Latin (Borgnet)English
p. 121

et cognoscere increatum per increatum, vel e converso: sed tria istorum dividentium reperiuntur, et nihil est vacuum: ergo reperietur et quartum. Puri viatores vident Deum increatum per creatum, id est, per fidem: unde Isa. VI, 1: Ea quae sub ipso erant replebant templum, etc. Glossa Gregorii: "Cum mens in contemplatione proficit, non id quod ipse est, sed quod sub ipso est, conspicit: Deum enim nemo vidit umquam 1. Haec est cognitio viatoris." Comprehensores autem vident Deum increatum per seipsum: vident etiam creatum per increatum, creaturas scilicet in Deo et per Deum, juxta illud: Tunc cognoscam, sicut et cognitus sum 2, id est, Deum, et omnia cognoscam in se sicut ipse me cognoscit in se. Ergo cum unum mediorum reperiatur inter haec extrema, reperietur et reliquum, videlicet videre increatum per lumen creatum. Sed cognitio media pertinet ad statum medium: status autem medius pertinet ad beatissimam Virginem: ergo cognitio beatissimae Virginis erit talis, quod cognoscet lumen increatum, non quidem per speciem et imaginem, sed per lumen creatum. Et sic cognoscit increatum per creatum, et illud lumen non erit medium sicut speculum et vestigium vel imago, vel sicut signum est medium inter apprehensivum et signatum, sed sicut lumen solis est medium conjungens visibile ad visum 3.

and knowing the uncreated through the uncreated, or conversely; but three of these divisions are found, and nothing is empty; therefore the fourth also will be found. Pure wayfarers see the uncreated God through the created, that is, through faith; hence Isaiah 6:1: The things that were under him filled the temple, and so forth. The Gloss of Gregory says: "When the mind advances in contemplation, it beholds not that which he is, but that which is under him; for no one has ever seen God 1. This is the knowledge of a wayfarer." But comprehensors see the uncreated God through himself; they also see the created through the uncreated, namely creatures in God and through God, according to that saying: Then I shall know, as also I am known 2, that is, I shall know God and all things in himself, as he himself knows me in himself. Therefore, since one of the middles is found between these extremes, the remaining one will also be found, namely to see the uncreated through a created light. But middle knowledge pertains to a middle state; and the middle state pertains to the most blessed Virgin; therefore the knowledge of the most blessed Virgin will be such that she will know the uncreated light, not indeed through species and image, but through created light. And thus she knows the uncreated through the created, and that light will not be a medium as a mirror and vestige or image, or as a sign is a medium between the apprehending power and the thing signified, but as the light of the sun is a medium joining the visible thing to sight 3.

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Notes

  1. John 1:18. (Joan. I, 18.) ↩
  2. 1 Corinthians 13:12. (I ad Corinth. XIII, 12.) ↩
  3. For the solution of the objections, see below after Question 69. (Pro solutione objectorum, vide infra post Quaest. LXIX.) ↩