Everyone gathered here was a better theologian than they were a describer of God, and they knew it. What follows is not a collection of definitions but of moments where great minds came to the edge of language. The Latin is given where it is the original.
St Augustine of Hippo
The Confessions — one of the most influential books in the Christian tradition — does not open with autobiography. It opens with words borrowed from the Psalms, words that this site’s name echoes.
Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua, et sapientiæ tuæ non est numerus.
Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is thy power, and of thy wisdom there is no number.
Confessions, Book I · 1Augustine begins by borrowing Psalm 144 (145) and Psalm 146 (147). Before a word about himself, he says that God is great.
Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.
Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee.
Confessions, Book I · 1
Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi!
Late have I loved thee, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved thee!
Confessions, Book X · 27
St Anselm of Canterbury
Aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.
Something than which nothing greater can be thought.
Proslogion · 2Anselm’s definition is also a discipline: whatever picture of God you are holding, the reality is greater than it.
St Thomas Aquinas
Deus est ipsum esse per se subsistens.
God is self-subsistent being itself.
Summa Theologiæ, I, q. 4, a. 2Not a being among beings, however exalted — but being itself, in which everything else participates.
All that I have written seems like straw to me, compared to what I have seen.
Attributed to St Thomas AquinasReported of him after an experience at Mass near the end of his life, when he laid down the unfinished Summa. The account comes from testimony gathered for his canonisation.
St Teresa of Avila
Nada te turbe, nada te espante… Solo Dios basta.
Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you… God alone suffices.
By tradition, found on her bookmarkThe Spanish is the original. It is the shortest possible statement of what the greatness of God means for a soul: it is enough.
St Francis of Assisi
Deus meus et omnia.
My God and my all.
Traditionally attributed to St Francis
St Ignatius of Loyola
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
To the greater glory of God.
The motto of the Society of JesusNote the comparative: not simply glory, but greater — a greatness one moves toward without ever arriving.
Nicholas of Cusa
Docta ignorantia.
Learned ignorance.
De Docta Ignorantia, 1440His name for the highest knowledge available about God: to know, precisely and rigorously, that he exceeds what we can know.
The Church at prayer
Perhaps the most repeated words about the greatness of God are not from any one saint. They are the words the whole Church says together, every day, at the heart of the Mass — borrowed from the seraphim in Isaiah’s vision.
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
The Sanctus · from Isaias (Isaiah) 6
Every quotation here ends in the same place. The saints reason as far as reason goes, and then they sing. If you would like to hear where they arrived, the chants of the Church are that singing, and the meditation walks the same road from the whirlwind to the whisper.
Last reviewed for accuracy on , against the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Church's own documents.