  Due to its superiority and to the fact that it is no being, the intellect is resplendent with the universe of beings. “All beings shine forth (resplendent) in its essence,” he says. One must be careful here, however, not to misunderstand what Dietrich means by beings “shining forth”. He is not advocating a doctrine of divine illumination of the intellect. To be sure this phrase might be rendered “All beings are intellectually illuminated in its essence,” and then interpreted to mean that Dietrich holds some doctrine of divine illumination for the intellect. When Albertus Magnus refers to resplendence it is usually safe to construe what he says in terms of some form of divine illumination. But this will not do for Dietrich of Freiberg. He simply does not hold a doctrine of illumination—at least not in the sense that Albert or other earlier medieval philosophers did. Martin Grabmann made the observation many years ago that the doctrine of divine illumination was used less and less as the 13th Century drew to a close. Dietrich shows evidence of disavowing the doctrine in his philosophical study of the intellect and its normal operations. In the passage mentioned above we have to clearly understand that Dietrich is trying to say that the intellect reflects all things—they shine forth in it, not because the intellect is undergoing an act of divine illumination, but because in the order of ens conceptionale the things are in the intellect first as conceptions and are exemplified there as part of the nature of intellect. The conclusion that Dietrich wishes to draw is that the intellect, being always in act through its essence, contains in itself the whole universe of beings, which shine forth from it into the cosmos.