Three Visions

Quod autem non imaginaliter, sed proprie videtur, et non per corpus videtur, hoc ea visione videtur, quae omnes caeteras superat. Harum species atque differentias, quantum me Dominus adiuverit, explicare curabo. Ecce in hoc uno praecepto cum legitur: Diliges proximum tuum tamquam teipsum, tria genera visionum occurrunt: unum per oculos, quibus ipsae litterae videntur; alterum per spiritum hominis quo proximus et absens cogitatur; tertium per contuitum mentis, quo ipsa dilectio intellecta conspicitur. In his tribus generibus, illud primum manifestum est omnibus: in hoc enim videtur coelum et terra, et omnia quae in eis conspicua sunt oculis nostris. Nec illud alterum, quo absentia corporalia cogitantur, insinuare difficile est: ipsum quippe coelum et terram, et ea quae in eis videre possumus, etiam in tenebris constituti cogitamus; ubi nihil videntes oculis corporis, animo tamen corporales imagines intuemur, seu veras, sicut ipsa corpora vidimus, et memoria retinemus; seu fictas, sicut cogitatio formare potuerit. Aliter enim cogitamus Carthaginem quam novimus, aliter Alexandriam quam non novimus. Tertium vero illud quo dilectio intellecta conspicitur, eas res continet, quae non habent imagines sui similes, quae non sunt quod ipsae. Nam homo vel arbor vel sol, et quaecumque alia corpora, sive coelestia sive terrestria, et praesentia videntur in suis formis, et absentia cogitantur in imaginibus animo impressis; et faciunt duo genera visorum, unum per corporis sensus, alterum per spiritum, quo illae imagines continentur. Dilectio autem numquid aliter videtur praesens in specie qua est, et aliter absens in aliqua imagine sui simili? Non utique; sed quantum mente cerni potest, ab alio magis, ab alio minus ipsa cernitur: si autem aliquid corporalis imaginis cogitatur, non ipsa cernitur. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi, De Genesi Ad Litteram, Liber XII Source: Migne PL 34.458-459

That which is not a matter of images, but is more properly seen, not being seen through the body, this is the vision which surpasses all other vision. And these different types, as much as the Lord shall help me, I will endeavour to explain. Observe it in this one command which reads: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' 1 The three sorts of vision are found here, one through the eyes, by which the letters themselves appear, another through the spirit of a man by which his neighbour, even if he is absent, is thought of, and the third through the attention of the mind by which love is grasped by the intellect. In these three kinds, the first is obvious to all, for by it appears the sky and the earth, and everything which in them is seen by our eyes. Nor is the second, by which absent bodies are thought, difficult to grasp, for certainly heaven and earth and the things which are in them which we able to see, we may think of even when placed in darkness, where nothing appears to the eyes of the body, but in the soul we may look upon corporeal images, whether they are true, when we have seen the bodies themselves and retained them in the memory, or fictive, as thought is able to fashion them. For we may think of the Carthage which we know, and on the other hand the Alexandria which we do not know. The third type is that by which love is considered by the intellect, which contains those things which do not have images like themselves, which are not as they are. For a man or a tree or the sun and whatever other thing is corporeal, whether of the heavens or the earth, being present appears in its forms, or being absent is thought of by means of the images impressed on the soul, and these are the two types of vision, one through the sense of the body, and the other through the spirit, by which their images are grasped. But love, does it appear present in its form and when absent have some image like it? Not so; but as much as it possible to discern it with the mind, by one man more, by another less, so it is discerned; but if something is thought through it’s corporeal image it is not discerned. Saint Augustine of Hippo, On Genesis To The Letter, Book 12 1 Mt 22.39, Lev 19.18