On Wisdom

1. O God, Who art wisdom and knowledge!

I should like to love and cherish You

by means of what my will is capable of desiring.

 

2. God is wholly His pure understanding,

which is why He understands all that exists

according to the exact manner of its existence.

 

3. God understands in virtue of His greatness and goodness,

which is why He understands bonificability,

which consists in good and great intelligibility.

 

4. God understands that He is understood by Himself,

and He understands that the <thing> understood is granted personhood,

so that within Him His understanding may be boundless.

 

5. In understanding, there cannot exist intention

unless a difference obtains between the understander and the <thing> understood,

so that the purpose (lit. “end”) of understanding may perfectly be achieved.

 

6. Were nothing to be derived from understanding,

goodness would not consist in the understander and the <thing> understood,

but would reside, rather, in ignorance.

 

7. Understanding must come into being by way of difference,

so that concordance may reside therein,

whereby it [viz. understanding] may be remote from contrariety.

 

8. That man who has been deified

is possessed of far greater intelligibility

than all else that has been created.

 

9. In order that God might greatly be understood by man,

He, therefore, assumed human nature;

let us understand Him, then, more than anything else.

 

10. God’s intelligibility is as great

as is His intellectivity,

for together they possess equal greatness and goodness.