anchors 591–600

64. The intelligible is one thing and the intellective is another, the first in some sense, as we have already indicated, nourishing the second. For what is apprehended - the intelligible - is superior and conceptually prior to that which apprehends, which is intellective. Beings that apprehend such superior intelligibles with the intellect are intellective. What is apprehended is intelligible, and it is this that nourishes the intellective – or, in other words, nourishes that which apprehends. [00592] 65. An effect enshrines, as far as possible, the image of its cause. All created things are effects, while what has brought them into [00593] Fifth Century being is their cause. But there is no exact resemblance between cause and effect. [00594] 66. Although effects enshrine, so far as possible, the images of their causes, there is no exact resemblance between the two, since causes surpass and transcend effects with regard to their mode of origin. For what pertains; to effects pre-exists superlatively and essentially in their causes. [00595] 67. Effects comprise all created things in heaven and on earth, while the causes that have brought them into being are the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. It is therefore clear that there can be no exact resemblance between the two. [00596] 68. Our intellect possesses the power of apprehension through which it perceives intelligible realities; it also possesses the capacity for a union that transcends its nature and that unites it with what is beyond its natural scope. It is through this union that divine realities are apprehended, not by means of our own natural capacities, but by virtue of the fact that we entirely transcend ourselves and belong entirely to God. It is better to belong to God than to ourselves; for it is on those who belong to God that divine gifts are bestowed. [00597] 69. When the intellect wants to apprehend something, it descends from its own level to the level of intellection. For intellections are inferior to the subject that apprehends, since they are the means through which apprehension and understanding take place; and they disperse and divide the intellect’s unity. The intellect is simple and integral, while intellections are multiple and dispersive: they are, so to speak, the forms of the intellect. For this reason intellective subjects - beings endowed with intellect - are inferior to intelligible realities that are the objects of apprehension. It is by virtue of its unity that the intellect reaches out to what is beyond its natural scope and attains the contemplation of God. This it does by transcending all that belongs to the sensible and intelligible worlds, and even its own activity; for only thus may it receive the ray of divine knowledge. [00598] 70. An intellective being that acts intellectively in accordance with its own principle naturally apprehends with its intellect. Moreover it will love what it apprehends and so in a passive manner, under the influence of the erotic impulse, it will be drawn out of [00599] Fifth Century itself towards that which it loves; and this impulse will grow continually more urgent and intense. In this way it will not rest until it is entirely immersed in the total reality of what it loves, wholly and willingly encompassed by the wholeness of that reality, welcoming its saving embrace, and completely conformed to that which embraces it. So much will this be the case that it will now wish to be recognized not from itself but; from what embraces it, like air made luminous by light or iron penetrated through and through by fire, or something else of this kind.: [00600] 71. The relationship between the intellective faculty and intelligible realities, and between the sensory faculties and sensible realities, is in each case extremely close. Since man is constituted of soul and sentient body, he is limited and defined and he himself imposes limits and makes definitions by virtue of the natural and distinctive reciprocity that exists between himself and these two aspects of creation. As a compound of soul and body he is limited essentially by intelligible and sensible realities, while at the same time he himself defines these realities through his capacity to apprehend intellectually and to perceive with his senses. God, on the other hand, exists simply and without limitation beyond all created realities, whether comprehending or comprehended, for He has absolutely no relationship with anything at all.