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This Trinitarian mystery finds a parallel in Proclus Diadochus (5th Century), recognized as the last of the great Platonic teachers. Proclus speaks of the Abiding, Proceeding, and Returning principles.
Now, from the perspective of Eternity, this Process we look into blinds the intellect, or in the words of St. Gregory “it does not allow our minds to approach” and, indeed, “the soul, slipping at every point from what cannot be grasped, becomes dizzy and perplexed.” There, in the Divine Darkness, the “thick darkness” atop the “mountain,” one can no longer fathom any conceptualization of this Trinitarian Process. Here, there enters no philosophy, no doctrine, and no teaching. Here, there enters no God or not-God; no theism, nontheism, atheism, pantheism, panantheism, … Here, we are stripped of every reference point sustaining the self; Here, only Pure Faith allows one to go naked and alone to the Alone.
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So, yes, we do withdraw from this dizzying Darkness. We withdraw from this Immensity, and are even more in love with the Mystery that is in some way totally Other and, yet, totally One with us.
…Now I behold as in a mirror, in an icon, in a riddle, life eternal, for that is nothing other than that blessed regard wherewith You never cease most lovingly to behold me, yes, even the secret places of my soul. With You, to behold is to give life; so unceasingly to impart sweetest love of You; so to inflame me to love of You by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure. So to cause me to share Your immortality.... For it is the absolute maximum of every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be.
(Nicolas of Cusa, 15th Century mystical theologian)
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