Description
The background for the choice of this text lies in my admiration for the following authors: Bonaventura (Johannes Fidanza), Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno and Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken).
The text of No. 2. 'Sic a Deo' from De Magia by the 16th century freethinker, philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno reads as follows: ''Sic a Deo est descensus per mundum ad animal, animalis vero est ascensus per mundum ad Deum.' (Thus one can descend from God through the World to the living being, but also one can ascend from the living being through the World to God).
Bruno undoubtedly knew the texts of Itinerarium mentis in Deum (Pilgrimage book of the soul to God) by the 13th century theologian and philosopher Bonaventura, the first chapter of which reads: 'The stage of ascension to God..'
And he probably also knew the work of the 15th century humanist, doctor and philosopher Marsilio Ficino, who united the philosophical tradition of Plato and Hermes Trismegistus with the Christian tradition of the Middle Ages. - In a letter to a friend he wrote about a dialogue in which God speaks to the soul: "...What then is the light of the sun? A shadow of God. But what is God? God is the Sun of the sun...."
And as an admirer of the 20th century writer and painter Bô Yin Râ, I mention two texts from Letters to one and many, No.18: On what God is, p.98/99: ''we are speaking of 'God' ...not as a postulate of belief, but as the innermost self-awareness of all spiritual reality..."; "this most sublime self-illumination and innermost essence of the eternal substantial spirit flowing from the immeasurable totality of the one and only Being, - and which is at the same time eternally effective will and inexhaustible power, revealing itself alone in measure and mildness, moved only through its own inherent law." http://www.bo-yin-ra-the-teaching.com/31-letters-to-one-and-many-on-mystics-and-bohme.html
I also refer to the text van Bô Yin Râ in my choral work 'Gott' here on MusicaNeo ( https://hansbakker.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-264669_gott_for_ssaattbb_double_choir.html ) :
"In all forms/ Former and what is formed,/ In all life/ Procreation and preservation,/ In oneness containing/ The fullness of all numbers/ Is God content to himself/And the content's plenty. The Eternally One/ Sets himself/ In 'Space' the "Time'/ And yet remains eternally/himself Eternity." ( ( https://www.bo-yin-ra-the-teaching.com/30-life-in-the-light-question-and-answer.html p.23 God)
Note. All the Tres Sententiae are performed and recorded by Kühn Choir Prague in 2012 on the CD Seeking & Finding (Navona Records, NV5877). Available on Amazon and all streaming platforms.
On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOfpO5e9610
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/3N3lCF8v81wUyid42Nz8vD