lways found, and there is no
satiety, inasmuch as there is always appetite, and therefore enjoyment;
in this it is not like the food of the body, the which with satiety
loses enjoyment, has no pleasure before the enjoyment, nor after
enjoyment, but only in the enjoyment itself, and where it passes certain
limits it comes to feel annoyance and disgust. Behold, then, in a
certain analogy, how the highest good ought to be also infinite, in
order that it should not some time turn to evil; as food, which is good
for the body, if it is not limited, may come to be poison. Thus it is
that the water of the ocean does not extinguish that flame, and the
rigour of the Arctic circle does not mitigate that ardour. Therefore it
is bad through (the) one hand, which holds him and rejects him; it holds
him, because it has him for its own; it rejects him because, flying
from him, the higher it makes itself the more he ascends upwards to it;
the more he follows it, the further off it appears, by reason of its
high excellence, according as it is said: Accedit homo ad cor altum, et
exaltabitur Deus. Such blessedness of affection begins in this life, and
in this state it has its mode of being. Hence the heart can say that it
is within with the body, and without with the sun, in so far as the soul
with its twin faculty, puts into operation two functions: the one to
vivify and realize the animal body, the other to contemplate superior
things; so that it is in receptive potentiality from above, as it is in
re-active potentiality below, towards the body. The body is, as it were,
dead, and as it were apart from the soul, the which is its life and its
perfection; and the soul is as it were dead, and a thing apart from the
superior illuminating intelligence, from which the intellect is derived
as to its nature and acts. Therefore, the heart is said to be the
beginning of life, and not to be alive, it is said to belong to the
animating soul, and that this does not belong to it; because it is
inflamed by Divine love, and finally converted into fire, which can set
on fire that which comes near it, seeing that it has contracted into
itself the divinity; it is made god, and consequently in its kind it can
inspire others with love; as the splendour of the sun may be seen and
admired in the moon. And as for that which belongs to the consideration
of the eyes, know, that in the present discourse they have two
functions; one to impress the heart, the other to