of the Divine Persons, and abstracted from all occupation with
things below contemplates with fixed gaze those stupendous
mysteries. For what can be more marvellous than that simple Unity,
into which the Trinity of the Persons merges itself, and in which
all multiplicity ceases? For the outflowing of the Persons is always
tending back into the Unity of the same essence, and all creatures,
according to their ideal existence in God, are from eternity in this
Unity, and have their life, knowledge, and essence in the eternal
God; as it is said in the Gospel: "That which was made, was Life in
Him."[42] This bare Unity is a dark silence and tranquil inactivity,
which none can understand unless he is illuminated by the Unity
itself, unmixed with any evil. Out of this shines forth hidden
truth, free from all falsehood; and this truth is born from the
unveiling of the veiled Divine purity; for after the revelation of
these things, the spirit is at last unclothed of the dusky light
which up till now has followed it, and in which it has hitherto seen
things in an earthly way. Indeed, the spirit finds itself now
changed and something very different from what it supposed itself to
be according to its earlier light: even as St Paul says, "I, yet not
I." Thus it is unclothed and simplified in the simplicity of the
Divine essence, which shines upon all things in simple stillness. In
this modeless mode of contemplation, the permanent distinction of
the Persons, viewed as separate, is lost. For, as some teach, it is
not the Person of the Father, taken by Himself, which produces
bliss, nor the Person of the Son, taken by Himself, nor the Person
of the Holy Ghost, taken by Himself; but the three Persons, dwelling
together in the unity of the essence, confer bliss. And this is the
natural essence of the Persons, which by grace gives the substance
or essence to all their creatures, and it contains in itself the
ideas of all things in their simple essence. Now since this ideal