76. He who has no knowledge of, and cannot think of God from any perception apart from time is completely unable to perceive Eternity in any other way than as an eternity of time. And then he inevitably becomes bewildered in the thought of God from eternity, for he thinks from a beginning, and a beginning belongs exclusively to time. His folly then becomes that God has existed from Himself, from which he falls headlong into [the idea of] the origin of Nature from herself, from which idea he can be extricated only by a spiritual or angelic idea of eternity which is apart from time. And when apart from time, the Eternal and the Divine are the same, the Divine is Divine in Itself and not from Itself. The angels say that they can indeed think of God from eternity, but by no means of Nature from eternity, still less of Nature from herself, and certainly not of Nature as Nature in herself. For that which is in itself is very Esse from which all things are. Esse in Itself is Very Life, which is the Divine Love of Divine Wisdom, and the Divine Wisdom of Divine Love. This for the angels is the Eternal, thus abstracted from time as is the Uncreate from the created, or the Infinite from the finite, between which indeed there is no ratio.