“He shows Himself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence;
Not as He is in His nature,
But in images and similitudes,
And in the degree in which the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him.
And the wise reason, enlightened of God, sees clearly
And without error in images of the understanding
All that she has heard of God,
Of faith, of truth, according to her longing.
But that image which is God Himself,
Although it is held before her, she cannot comprehend;
For the eyes of her understanding
Must fail before that Incomparable Light.”

— John Ruysbroeck

The Twelve Beguines

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John Ruysbroeck 90

Flemish mystic 1293–1381

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“To comprehend and to understand God above all similitudes, as He is in Himself, is to be God with God, without intermediary, and without any otherness that can become a hindrance or an intermediary. Whosoever wishes to understand this must have died to himself, and must live in God, and must turn his gaze to the eternal light in the ground of his spirit, where the Hidden Truth reveals Itself without means.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

“Here the reason
no less than all separate acts
Must give way,
For our powers become simple in Love;
They are silent
And In the most secret part of the understanding, the simple eye is ever open. It contemplates and gazes at the Light with a pure sight that is lit by the Light itself: eye to eye, mirror to mirror, image to image. The sight of the simple eye is a living mirror bowed down in the Presence of the Father.
And this revelation of the Father
Lifts the soul above the reason
Into the Imageless Nudity.
There the soul is simple, pure, spotless,
Empty of all things;
And it is in this state of perfect emptiness
That the Father manifests His Divine radiance.
To this radiance neither reason nor sense,
Observation nor distinction,
Can attain.
All this must stay below;
For the measureless radiance
Blinds the eyes of the reason,
They cannot bear the Incomprehensible Light.
But above the reason,
In the most secret part of the understanding,
The simple eye is ever open.
It contemplates and gazes at the Light
With a pure sight that is lit by the Light itself:
Eye to eye,
Mirror to mirror,
Image to image.
This threefold act makes us like God,
And unites us to Him;
For the sight of the simple eye is a living mirror,
Which God has made for His image,
And whereon He has impressed it.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

A Mirror of Eternal Blessedness

“She [Chantal] did not understand him [Fiodor]. She never could and never would understand him, being as invulnerable in her truthfulness as he in his falseness. And yet, she hated him unconsciously with a jealous hatred — for what other name, alas, could be given to that revolt of her pure conscience, so well armed and, at the same time, so defenceless? She hated him instinctively as though he already possessed the incomparable secret with which to menace her, to menace God Himself.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Source: La joie (Joy) 1929, pp.48–49

“Divine anthropomorphism responds to human theomorphism: if God can manifest Himself in human modalities, it is because man is "made in the image of God", and this is the very reason for man’s existence and for the cosmic miracle that he is.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2008, Christianity / Islam, World Wisdom, 105-106, 978-1-933316-49-9]
God, Outline

“Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world (for what is there in God which is not God?), and he with his own image reached down to humanity.”

Johannes Kepler book Harmonices Mundi

Book IV, Ch. 1, as quoted in "Kepler's Astrology"in Kepler, Four Hundred Years (1975) edited by Arthur and Peter Beer.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“The very sound of his own steps disturbed him; and he flung himself on a couch, to enjoy without interruption the exquisite melody. The intense perfume of the flowers intoxicated him like wine. He felt as if lulled in a delicious trance, in which one image became more and more distinct — the pale but lovely face of his hostess. His heart was filling with love for those radiant eyes. A softer fragrance breathed around him — it was her breath. He looked, and she was again bending over him; he saw himself mirrored in the moonlight of her eyes.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

“But God fears women even more that He fears the devil- and is right to. She, with her power to bring life into the world, was truly made in the image of the Creator, not man.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

“He sees himself in his lover as if in a mirror, not knowing whom he sees, And when they are together, he too is released from pain, and when apart, he longs as he himself is longed for; for reflected in his heart is love's image, which is love's answer. But he calls it, and believes it, not love but friendship…”

Mary Renault book The Charioteer

Phaedrus as translated in the novel, p. 104
The Charioteer (1953)

“And its seeing is Unconditioned,
Being without manner,
And it is neither thus nor thus,
Neither here nor there;
For that which is Unconditioned hath enveloped all,
And the vision is made high and wide.
It knows not itself where That is which it sees;
and it cannot come thereto, for its seeing is in no wise,
and passes on, beyond, for ever, and without return.
That which it apprehends it cannot realise in full,
Nor wholly attain, for its apprehension is wayless,
and without manner,
And therefore it is apprehended of God in a higher way than it can apprehend Him.
Behold! such a following of the Way that is Wayless,
Is intermediary between contemplation
In images and similitudes of the intellect,
And unveiled contemplation
Beyond all images in the Light of God.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

“every individual is made in the image of God, insofar as he or she is a rational and free creature capable of knowing God and loving him.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, 15 August 1988
Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html

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John Ruysbroeck 90

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