16. As we assert, and as it seems evident that (the Divinity) is
everywhere and nowhere, it is necessary thoroughly to grasp and
understand this conception, as it applies to the subject of our
studies. Since (the Divinity) is nowhere, He is nowhere fortuitously;
since He is everywhere, He is everywhere what He is. He himself is
therefore what is named omnipresence, and universality. He is not
contained within omnipresence, but is omnipresence itself, and He
imparts essence to all the other beings because they are all contained
within Him who is everywhere. Possessing the supreme rank, or rather
Himself being supreme, He holds all things in obedience to Himself. For
them He is not contingent; it is they that are contingent to Him, or
rather, that connect with Him; for it is not He who contemplates them,
but they who look at Him. On His part, He, as it were, moves towards
the most intimate depths within Himself, loving Himself, loving the
pure radiance of which He is formed, Himself being what He loves, that
is, giving Himself a hypostatic form of existence, because He is an
immanent actualization, and what is most lovable in Him constitutes the
higher Intelligence. This Intelligence being an operation, He himself
is an operation; but as He is not the operation of any other principle,
He is the operation of Himself; He therefore is not what chance makes
of Him, but what He actualizes. He is the author of Himself, inasmuch
as He exists particularly because He is His own foundation, because He
contemplates Himself, because, so to speak, He passes His existence
in contemplating Himself. He therefore is, not what He fortuitously
found Himself to be, but what He himself wishes to be, and as His will
contains nothing fortuitous, He is even in this respect independent
of contingency. For, since His will is the will of the Best that is
in the universe, it could not be fortuitous. If one were to imagine
an opposite movement, one will easily recognize that His inclination
towards Himself, which is His actualization, and His immanence in
Himself make of Him what He is. Indeed, should (the divinity) incline
towards what is outside of Himself, He would cease being what He
is. His actualization, in respect to Himself, is to be what He is;
for He and that actualization coincide. He therefore gives Himself
a hypostatic form of existence, because the actualization that He
produces is inseparable from Himself. If then the actualization of (the
divinity) did not merely commence, but if, on the contrary, it dated
from all eternity; if it consist in an exciting action,[192] identical
to Him who is excited; and if, besides this exciting action, He be
ever-being super-intellection, then (the divinity) is what He makes
himself by His exciting action. The latter is superior to "Being," to
Intelligence, and to the Life of Wisdom; it is Himself. He therefore
is an actualization superior to Life, Intelligence and Wisdom; these
proceed from Him, and from Him alone. He therefore derives essence from
Himself, and by Himself; consequently, He is, not what He fortuitously
found Himself to be, but what He willed to be.