But we are not to understand from S. Gregory's words that the Blessed Benedict saw the Essence of God in that vision; S. Gregory wishes to show that since "to him who looks upon his Creator all created things are but as nothing," it follows that certain things can easily be seen by the illumination afforded by the Divine Light. Hence he adds: "For, however little of the Creator's Light he sees, all created things become of small account."
Veni Sancte Spiritus
Et emitte coelitus
Lucis Tuæ radium!
O Lux Beatissima
Reple cordis intima
Tuorum fidelium!
S. Augustine: And thus, the remaining burden of this mortal life being laid aside at death, man's happiness will, in God's own time, be perfected from every point of view—that happiness which is begun in this life, and to the attainment and securing of which at some future time our every effort must now tend (Of the Sermon on the Mount, II., ix. 35).
"The old error is passed away; Thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in Thee. You have hoped in the Lord for evermore, in the Lord God mighty for ever. And in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for Thee: Thy Name, and Thy remembrance are the desire of the soul. My soul hath desired Thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me in the morning early I will watch to Thee."[377]
VI
Is the Act of Contemplation Rightly Distinguished According to the Three Kinds of Motion—Circular, Direct, and Oblique?
S. Denis the Areopagite[378] does so distinguish the acts of contemplation.
The operation of the intellect in which contemplation essentially consists is termed "motion" in the sense that motion is the act of a perfect thing, according to the Philosopher.[379] And since we arrive at a knowledge of intelligible things through the medium of the things of sense, and the operations of the senses do not take place without motion, it follows that the operations also of the intellect are correctly described as a species of motion, and are differentiated according to the analogy of divers motions. But the more perfect and the chiefest of bodily motions are local motions, as is proved by the Philosopher.[380] Consequently the chief intellectual motions are described according to the analogy of these latter.
Now, there are three species of local motion: one is circular, according as a thing is moved uniformly about the same centre; another is direct, according as a thing proceeds from one point to another; and a third is oblique, compounded as it were from the two foregoing.