Theological Orations 27-30 2-1

[Purified] as far as is possible, that light may be apprehended by light;

and [addressed] to the more diligent, lest the word fall fruitless upon fruitless ground;

and when we have calm within, away from the outer whirl, so that we are not, like those in a frenzy, cut short in our breath;

and as far as we have made room, or are given room.

Since these things are so, and we have broken up for ourselves divine fallows, so as not to sow among thorns, and have leveled the face of the earth, being stamped by the Scripture and stamping it [in turn];

come now, let us approach the discourses of theology, setting before our word the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of whom we speak—so that the One may approve, the Other cooperate, and the Third inspire;

or rather, that there may come to be one illumination from the one Godhead, unitedly divided and dividedly conjoined—which is indeed a paradox.

As I eagerly ascend the mountain—or, to speak more truly, as I am at once eager and anxious, the one because of hope, the other because of weakness—that I may come within the cloud and be in fellowship with God (for this God commands): if there be any Aaron, let him ascend with me and stand near, even if he must remain outside the cloud—accepting this lot.

But if there be any Nadab, or Abihu, or one of the elders, let him ascend too, but stand afar off, according to the worth of his purification.

But if there be any one of the many and unworthy of such a height and contemplation: if he is altogether unclean, let him not even approach, for it is not safe;

but if he has at least been temporarily purified, let him remain below, and listen only to the voice and the trumpet—the bare words of piety;

and let him behold the mountain smoking and lightning-struck, a threat and a wonder at once to those unable to ascend.

But if anyone is an evil and savage beast, wholly incapable of [receiving] the contemplation and theology of [these] discourses, let him not lurk maliciously and treacherously in the thickets, that he may seize upon some doctrine or word, leaping out suddenly and tearing apart the sound words with his slanders; but let him stand still far off, and withdraw from the mountain, or else he will be stoned and crushed, and will perish wretchedly, wretched as he is;

for to such bestial men the true and solid words are stones.

Whether it be a leopard, let it die together with its spots;

or a lion, snatching and roaring and seeking some food for itself among our souls or our words;

or a swine, trampling the fair and lustrous pearls of the truth;

or an Arabian and alien wolf, or one even sharper than these in its sophistries;

or a fox—some crafty and faithless soul, now this, now that, conforming itself to the times and the needs, which dead and stinking carcasses feed, or small vineyards, the great ones having escaped it;

or anything else of the raw-flesh-eating kind, rejected by the law, and unclean for food and enjoyment.

For the word, having withdrawn from these, wishes to be inscribed thus on solid stone tablets, and these on both sides, on account of both the manifest and the hidden [meaning] of the law;

the one for the many who remain below, the other for the few who reach above.

What is this I have experienced, O friends and initiates and fellow-lovers of the truth? I was running as one who would lay hold of God, and so I ascended the mountain, and pierced the cloud, getting within, away from matter and material things, and gathering myself into myself as far as possible.

But when I looked, I scarcely saw the back parts of God;

and that while sheltered by the Rock, the Word made flesh for us;

and peering out a little, I beheld not the first and unmixed Nature, known to itself—I mean to the Trinity—and that which abides within the first veil and is concealed by the cherubim, but only that which is last and reaches down to us.

For these are the back parts of God: whatever, after Him, are tokens of Him, like the shadows and images of the sun in the waters, displaying the sun to weak eyes, since it is not possible to look at it directly, as it overcomes the sense by the sheer purity of its light.

Thus, then, will you theologize, even were you a Moses and "a god to Pharaoh," even if you reach, like Paul, the third heaven and hear "unspeakable words";

even if you come to be above that one, deemed worthy of some angelic or archangelic standing and rank.

For even if anything be wholly heavenly, or even super-heavenly, and far higher in nature than we, and nearer to God, yet it is farther from God and from perfect comprehension [of Him] than it is exalted above our composite, lowly, and earthward-sinking mixture.

To express [Him] is impossible, as one of the theologians among the Greeks philosophized—not without skill, it seems to me, so that he might both appear to have comprehended, by saying it is difficult, and might escape refutation, by the inexpressibility [of it].

But to express [Him] is impossible, as my reasoning [holds], and to conceive [Him] is yet more impossible.

For what is conceived, speech might perhaps disclose, if not adequately, yet at least dimly, to one whose ears are not wholly corrupted and whose mind is not sluggish.

But to embrace so great a matter with the mind is altogether impossible and beyond contrivance—not only for the slack and the downward-looking, but even for those who are very lofty and God-loving, and likewise for every begotten nature, and for those upon whom this gloom presses and this thick flesh hinders the understanding of the truth.

And I do not know whether it is not so even for the higher and intellectual natures, which, because they are near to God and illumined by the whole light, may perhaps see clearly—if not entirely, yet more perfectly and distinctly than we, and some of them more or less than others, according to the analogy of their rank.

Let this, then, be set down here.

But as for us: not only does the peace of God surpass all mind and comprehension, nor only those things laid up in promises for the righteous, which are neither visible to eyes, nor audible to ears, nor conceivable by the mind, at least to any small degree—nor even the exact understanding of creation;

for of this too be persuaded that you have only the shadows, when you hear:

"I will look upon the heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars," and the fixed reason in them;

as not now seeing, but as one who shall see at some time;

but far before these is the Nature that is above them, and from which they come—a Nature ungraspable and incomprehensible;

I mean, not that it exists, but what it is.

For our preaching is not empty, nor is our faith vain, nor is this what we teach;

do not again take our candor as a starting-point for atheism and slander, and exalt yourself as though we were confessing ignorance.

For it differs very greatly to be persuaded that something exists and to know what this something is.

For that God exists, and is the productive and sustaining cause of all things, both sight teaches and the natural law;

the one [sight], striking upon the things seen, which are well fixed and yet move along, and are moved and borne, so to speak, unmovingly;

and the other [natural law], reasoning from the things seen and ordered to their Author.

[For one] hearing [a lyre] will think of nothing other than the maker of the lyre and the lyre-player, and will run back to him in his mind, even if he happens not to know him by sight.

So to us too the Maker is manifest, and that which moves and preserves the things made, even if it is not embraced by the mind;

and very senseless is he who does not willingly advance even thus far and follow the natural proofs.

But neither is God that which we have imagined, or sketched out, or which speech has outlined.

But if anyone ever came into the apprehension of this even to some degree, what is the proof? Who has thus reached the utmost of wisdom? Who was ever deemed worthy of so great a gift? Who so opened the mouth of his mind and drew in breath, that by the Spirit who searches and knows all things, even the depths of God, he might comprehend God, and no longer need [to go] further—already possessing the ultimate object of desire, toward which all the life and mind of the lofty soul presses? For whatever will you suppose the Divine to be, if you trust wholly to the rational approaches? Or to what will the reasoning lead you, when put to the test, O most philosophical and theological one, you who boast beyond measure? Is it a body? And how then is it the infinite, and undefined, and shapeless, and impalpable, and invisible? Or are these too bodies? O the license [of such talk]!

For such is not the nature of bodies.

Or is it a body, but not these [attributes]? O the grossness [of the notion]!

—so that the Divine should have nothing more than we.

For how could it be venerable, if circumscribed? Or how will it escape being composed of elements and again resolved into them, or dissolved altogether? For composition is the beginning of conflict;

and dissolution is wholly alien to God and to the first Nature.

Therefore [there is] no separation, lest there be dissolution;

nor conflict, lest there be separation;

nor composition, lest there be conflict;

for this reason [there is] no body either, lest there be composition.

Thus the reasoning, ascending from the last to the first, comes to a stand.

And how will it be preserved that God pervades all things and fills all things, according to the saying:

"Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord," and:

"The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world"—if the one [God] circumscribes, while the other [body] is circumscribed? For either He will pass through empty space, and the universe will vanish for us—so that God may be insulted, both by becoming a body and by not having the things He has made;

or He will be a body within bodies, which is impossible;

or He will be interwoven and set side by side, like fluids that mix, the one cutting and being cut by the other—which is even more absurd and more old-wifish than the atoms of the Epicureans;

and so the argument about the body will collapse for us, and He will have no body, nor any consistency.

But if we shall say [He is] immaterial: if [He is] the fifth element, as some have thought, borne in a circular motion—let it be some immaterial and fifth body, or, if they wish, even incorporeal, according to their own self-licensed flight and fabrication of argument;

for I will not at present dispute about this.

But in which class of moving and borne things will He be—not to speak of the insult, if the Maker is to be moved like the things made, and borne like the things borne, if indeed they will grant even this? And what again is it that moves this? And what is it that moves the whole? And that again, what? And what once more moves that? And so on to infinity.

And how is He not altogether in place, if indeed He is borne? But if they shall say [He is] something other than the fifth [element]: if angelic, whence [comes the claim] that angels are bodies, and what sort are these? And how much would God, whose minister the angel is, be above the angel? But if [He is] above these, again an irrational swarm of bodies has been introduced, and an abyss of nonsense, able to stand nowhere.

Thus, then, God is not a body for us.

For none of the divinely inspired men has either said or accepted this, nor is the doctrine of our court.

It remains, then, to suppose [Him] incorporeal.

But if [He is] incorporeal, this too is not yet expressive and comprehensive of the essence—just as neither is "unbegotten," nor "without beginning," nor "unchangeable," nor "incorruptible," nor whatever else is said to be "of God" or "about God."

[These matters call for] further philosophizing and examination, at least by one who truly has the mind of God and a more perfect contemplation.

For just as it is not enough to say "body," or "begotten," in order to present and disclose the subject of these [predicates], but one must also state the substratum underlying them, if the thing conceived is to be perfectly and adequately presented—

for it is either a man, or an ox, or a horse, that is this embodied and begotten and perishing thing;

so neither there will he who busies himself about the nature of Being stop at saying what it is not, but must, besides saying what it is not, also say what it is—inasmuch as it is easier to embrace some one thing than to deny all things one by one—so that, from the removal of what it is not and the positing of what it is, the thing conceived may be comprehended.

But he who says what it is not, while keeping silent about what it is, does much the same as one who, when asked what twice five is, should say it is not two, nor three, nor four, nor five, nor twenty, nor thirty, nor any number, to put it briefly, within or of the decade;

but does not say that it is ten, nor settle the mind of the questioner upon the thing sought.

For it is far easier and more concise to disclose what a thing is not from [knowing] what it is, than to show what it is by abolishing what it is not.

But since the Divine is for us incorporeal, let us examine a little further.

Is it nowhere, or is it somewhere? For if nowhere, one of the over-inquisitive might ask how it could even exist.

For if what does not exist is nowhere, then perhaps what is nowhere does not exist either.

But if it is somewhere, then, since it exists, it must be either in the universe or above the universe.

But if in the universe, then either in some part, or everywhere.

And if in some part, He will be circumscribed by something smaller than Himself, namely that part; but if everywhere, by something greater and much else—I mean the contained by the container—if the universe is to be contained by the universe, and no place is to be free of circumscription.

These [difficulties arise], if [He is] in the universe.

And where was He before the universe came to be? For this too is no small puzzle.

But if [He is] above the universe, was there then nothing distinguishing Him from the universe? And where is that which is above this? And how was the transcending and the transcended conceived, when there is no boundary cutting and dividing these? Or must there altogether be a middle term, by which the universe and what is above the universe are bounded? And what else is this but place—the very thing we were fleeing? And I do not yet say that the Divine is altogether circumscribed, even if it be comprehensible by the mind;

for comprehension too is one kind of circumscription.

For what purpose, then, have I gone through these things,

and perhaps more elaborately than suits the ears of the many, and according to the now prevailing fashion of discourse, which, having dishonored the noble and simple, has introduced the crooked and riddle-like—

[is it] as the tree is known from its fruits—I mean, the darkness that works such doctrines from the gloom of what is said? For it is not that I too may seem to speak paradoxes, and appear superfluous in wisdom, weaving knots and untying things already mastered;

but that I might make clear that one thing which my discourse set out from the beginning to say.

And what was this? That the Divine is not graspable by the human mind, nor can we picture the whole of what it is;

and this neither through envy—for envy is far from the divine Nature, which is impassible and alone good and sovereign, and especially [envy] toward the most honored of His own creatures;

for what is [more akin] to the Word than rational beings? Since even their very coming into being is [a work] of the supreme goodness;

nor [is it] for the sake of His own honor and the glory of His fullness, that He might have what is precious and venerable through being unattainable.

For this would be altogether sophistical and alien—not [only] to God, but not even [worthy] of a moderately decent man, conscious of some integrity in himself—to procure for himself the primacy by preventing others [from attaining it].

But whether [it is also] for other causes, those nearer to God may know, the beholders and contemplators of His unsearchable judgments—if indeed there are any so great in virtue, and walking "in the footsteps of the abyss," as the saying goes.

[Perhaps it is] so that, with the ease of acquisition, the casting away of what is acquired might also become easy;

for what is acquired with toil is wont to be held the more firmly, while what is acquired easily is also most quickly spat out, as being capable of being acquired again;

and thus the non-readiness of the benefaction is itself constituted a benefaction, at least to those who have sense.

But perhaps [it is] so that we may not suffer the same as the fallen Lucifer—who, having received the whole light, grew stiff-necked against the Lord Almighty, and fell from his exaltation a fall most pitiable of all.

But perhaps, that there may be there some greater prize of toil and of a brilliant life for those who here have been purified and have long-sufferingly [striven] toward what is longed for.

On this account this bodily gloom stands between us and God, as the cloud of old between the Egyptians and the Hebrews;

and this is perhaps what "He made darkness His hiding-place"—our grossness, on account of which few, and only a little, peer through.

Let those, then, to whom it is a care philosophize about this, and ascend to the utmost in their inquiry;

but for us, at least, this is clear—to us prisoners of earth, as the divine Jeremiah says, and clothed in this thick flesh—that just as it is impossible to overleap one's own shadow, however much one hastens (for it always outstrips us by as much as it is overtaken), or for sight to approach visible things apart from the light and air in between, or for the swimming nature [of fish] to glide outside the waters, so it is impracticable for those in bodies to come to be wholly among intelligible things apart from bodily [media].

For something of ours will always intrude, even though the mind, having separated itself as much as possible from things seen and become by itself, attempts to attach itself to its kindred and invisible things.

Are not spirit and fire and light, love and wisdom and righteousness, mind and reason, and such things, the titles of the first Nature? What then? Will you conceive of spirit apart from motion and diffusion? Or of fire apart from matter and upward motion and its own color and shape? Or of light not blended with air and released from that which, as it were, begets and illumines it? And what mind [will you conceive]? Not that which is in another, and whose movements are the thoughts, whether at rest or put forth? And what reason apart from that which is at quiet within us, or is poured forth—I shrink to say, dissolved?

And if [you conceive of] wisdom too, what [will you conceive] apart from the disposition and that [wisdom which is] in contemplations, whether divine or human? And righteousness and love—are they not praiseworthy dispositions, the one the opponent of injustice, the other of hatred, intensified and relaxed, coming and going, and in general making us and altering us, as colors do bodies? Or must we, standing apart from these, behold the Divine in itself by itself from these, as far as is possible, gathering some partial impression from the likenesses? What then is the device for [reaching God] from these things and yet [conceiving Him as] not these things? Or how [can He be] all these, and each perfectly—the One that is by nature uncompounded and incomparable? So does our mind labor to step outside bodily things and to consort, naked, with incorporeal things, so long as it surveys, together with its own weakness, things beyond its power.

For every rational nature longs for God and for the first Cause;

but it is unable to apprehend [Him], for the reasons I have stated.

And laboring with the longing, and as it were convulsing, and not bearing the loss, it makes a second voyage—either to look to things seen and make some one of these a god (judging ill—for what among visible things is higher and more godlike than the one who sees, that the one should be the worshipper, the other the worshipped?), or through the beauty and good order of the things seen to come to know God, and to use sight as a guide to things beyond sight, yet not to lose God through the magnificence of the things seen.

Hence some [have worshipped] the sun, some the moon, some the multitude of stars, some heaven itself together with these, to which they have given the leading of the universe according to the quality or quantity of [their] motion;

others [worshipped] the elements—earth, water, air, fire—because of their usefulness, without which human life cannot even subsist;

they venerated [these], setting up as gods those whose fairest [features] they beheld.

And there are those who [worship] even images and figures—first those of their own [dead], at least the more emotional and bodily-minded among them, honoring the departed with memorials;

then [those] of strangers also—those after them and far removed from them, in ignorance of the first Nature, and following the honor handed down as lawful and necessary, since custom, confirmed by time, was reckoned as law.

And I think too that some, courting power, or praising strength, or admiring beauty, in time made the one [thus] honored into a god, adding also some myth to abet the deception.

And the more passionate among them even reckoned the passions as gods, or honored them with [the rank of] gods—anger, and bloodthirstiness, and licentiousness, and drunkenness, and I know not what else of things like these—finding therein no fair nor just defense for their own sins.

And some [gods] they left below, and some they hid beneath the earth—this alone [done] sensibly—and some they led up into heaven.

O the ridiculous allotment!

Then, having attached to each of these figures some name of gods or demons, according to the license and self-will of [their] error, and having set up statues, whose costliness too was a bait, they reckoned it [piety] to honor these with blood and the savor of sacrifices—and there are even those [who honored them] with deeds exceedingly shameful, with madnesses and human slaughter.

For such honors befitted such gods.

Nay, they even disgraced themselves with vermin, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and with the most shameful and most ridiculous of these, and bringing to these [creatures] the glory of God, they bestowed it [on them];

so that it is not easy to judge whether one ought rather to despise the worshippers or the worshipped.

But perhaps far more [should one despise] the worshippers, because, being of a rational nature and having received the grace of God, they set up the worse as if it were the better.

And this is the sophistry of the evil one, who abused the good for evil—as are most of his villainies.

For having taken their longing, wandering in its search after God—in order to wrest the power to himself and steal away the yearning, leading them by the hand like a blind man desiring some road—he flung them headlong, some here, some there, and scattered them into one pit of death and destruction.

But the Word, having received us who long for God and cannot endure to be without a leader and helmsman, then, striking upon the things seen and meeting with the primal things, did not stop even at these (for it was not [right] to give the leadership of reason to things equal in rank [with us] in respect of sense), and through these leads us up to that which is above these, and through which they have their being.

For what is it that ordered the heavenly things and the earthly, and all that is through the air and all that is in the water—or rather, [the things] before these: heaven, and earth, and air, and the nature of water? Who mingled these and apportioned them? What is the communion of these with one another, and their concord, and their conspiration? For I praise him who said it, even if he be a stranger.

What is it that set these in motion and drives this ceaseless and unhindered course? Is it not the Craftsman of these, who has implanted in all things a reason according to which the universe is borne and conducted? And who is the Craftsman of these? Is it not He who made them and brought them into being? For surely we must not assign so great a power to chance.

For grant that the coming-into-being were of chance;

whose is the ordering? And this too, if you please, let us grant.

Whose is the keeping and guarding [of them] according to the principles by which they first subsisted? Some other's, or chance's? Some other's, clearly, than chance.

And what is this other but God? So the reason that is from God, and implanted in all, and the first law within us, and conjoined to all, has led us up to God from the things seen.

Come then, let us begin again and speak.

As to what God is in nature and essence: no one among men has ever yet found out, nor shall find out.

But whether it shall ever be found out, let this be sought and philosophized about by those who wish.

[It will be found out] when this godlike and divine thing—I mean our mind and reason—shall be mingled with its kindred, and the image shall ascend to the Archetype, of which it now has the yearning.

And this seems to me to be that highly philosophized truth: that we shall one day know even as we are known.

But for the present, all that reaches us is a short emanation, and as it were a small effulgence of a great light.

So that even if anyone has known God, or is attested to have known [Him], he has known only so much as to appear, compared with another not equally illumined, more full of light.

And this superiority was reckoned perfect, not in truth, but measured by the capacity of one's neighbor.

Hope was what was achieved; and this not of knowledge, but of invocation.

Enoch was translated, but it is not yet clear whether he had comprehended, or shall comprehend, the nature of God.

And fair was the well-pleasing [life] of Noah, who was entrusted with saving a whole world—or the seeds of a world—from the waters, in a little wooden vessel fleeing the deluge.

And Abraham was justified by faith, the great patriarch, and offers a strange sacrifice, the antitype of the great [Sacrifice];

yet he saw God not as God, but entertained Him as a man, and was praised, having revered Him as far as he apprehended.

And Jacob imagined a certain lofty ladder, and an ascent of angels, and anoints a pillar mystically—perhaps that he might foreshadow the Stone anointed for us—and gives to a certain place the name "Form of God" in honor of Him who appeared, and wrestles with God as with a man—whatever that wrestling of God with man may be, or perhaps the comparison of human virtue against God—and bears upon his body tokens of the wrestling, which display the defeat of the created nature, and receives as the prize of piety the change of his name, being renamed Israel instead of Jacob—that great and honorable name;

but neither he nor anyone above him among the twelve tribes, of whom he was the father, has to this day boasted that he contained the nature or the whole vision of God.

And to Elijah [it was] neither a violent wind, nor fire, nor earthquake, as you hear from the history, but a certain gentle breeze that sketched out the presence of God—and that not [His] nature;

to which Elijah? The one whom even a chariot of fire leads up to heaven, signifying the more-than-human [quality] of the righteous man.

And how have you not marveled at Manoah the judge of old, and Peter the disciple of later times?—the one not even bearing the sight of the God who appeared, and therefore saying, "We are undone, O wife, we have seen God";

as if neither the divine vision, much less the [divine] nature, were containable by men;

and the other not admitting the manifest Christ into the boat, and on this account praying [Him] to depart.

And yet Peter was warmer than the others in the recognition of Christ, and on this account was blessed, and was entrusted with the greatest things.

And what would you say about Isaiah, and Ezekiel the beholder of the greatest things, and the rest of the prophets? Of whom the one saw the Lord of Sabaoth seated upon a throne of glory, and Him encircled and praised and concealed by the six-winged seraphim, and himself purified by the coal and made ready for prophecy;

and the other depicts the cherubim, the chariot of God, and the throne above them, and the firmament above it, and Him who appeared in the firmament, and certain voices, and impulses, and acts—and whether this was some daytime vision, beheld by the saints alone, or a truthful sight by night, or an impression of the ruling faculty consorting with things future as if present, or some other ineffable kind of prophecy, I cannot say;

but the God of the prophets knows, and those in whom such things were wrought.

But neither these of whom we speak, nor any other of their like, has stood "in the substance and essence of the Lord," according to what is written, nor has either seen or declared the nature of God.

And as for Paul, if the things which the third heaven afforded had been utterable, and that progress or ascent or assumption up to it, perhaps we should have known something more about God—if indeed this was the mystery of the rapture.

But since they were unspeakable, let them be honored by us also with silence.

But let us hear so much of Paul himself, saying that "we know in part, and we prophesy in part."

These and such things are confessed by him who is no layman in knowledge, who threatens to give proof of the Christ speaking in him, the great champion and teacher of the truth.

Wherefore he too sets all the lower knowledge as nothing beyond mirrors and riddles, as standing in small images of the truth.

But if I do not seem to some excessively superfluous and over-curious in examining such matters: perhaps there were no other things than these, "which cannot now be borne," which the Word Himself hinted at as to be borne and made clear at some time;

and which John the forerunner of the Word, the great voice of the truth, declared that not even the world below itself could contain.

All truth, then, and all reasoning is hard to trace out and hard to contemplate;

and as it were with a small instrument we fashion great things, hunting the knowledge of beings with human wisdom, and assailing intelligible things with—or not apart from—the senses, by which we are whirled about and led astray, and we cannot, encountering bare realities with the bare mind, draw any nearer to the truth, or have the mind stamped by [its] apprehensions.

But the discourse about God, the more perfect it is, the more difficult to attain, and [it has] more objections and more laborious solutions.

For everything that opposes, even if it be very slight, checks and hinders the course of the discourse, and cuts off its forward motion;

just like those who, by the reins, suddenly pull back horses in full career, and overturn them by the unexpectedness of the jolt.

Thus Solomon, who was wise beyond all who were before him and in his own time, to whom breadth of heart was a gift of God, and an outpouring of contemplation more abundant than the sand—the more he enters into the depths, the more he is dizzied, and makes it the end of wisdom to have found how much it had escaped him.

And Paul attempts to reach—I do not yet say the nature of God, for this he knew to be utterly impossible, but only the judgments of God;

but since he finds no way out, nor any stopping-place for the ascent, nor does the inquisitiveness of his mind come to any manifest end, with something of the deficiency always showing itself;

O the wonder! (that I too may suffer the same)—

[Consider] the mutual relation between begetters and begotten, that [the race] may be held together by affection; how the species stand fixed and are distinguished by their characters, the properties of so many being unattainable [to comprehension]; how the same living being is mortal and immortal—the one by removal, the other by generation; for the one passed out, the other came in instead, as in the current of a river that does not stand still or remain.

And you might still philosophize much about limbs and parts, and their fitting relation to one another, composed and divided for use and beauty at once, projecting and projected upon, united and divided, containing and contained, by the law and reason of nature.

Much [might one say] about voices and hearings:

how the one are borne through the vocal organs, and the others receive them, mingling with one another through the percussion and impression of the air in between.

Much about sight, which holds ineffable communion with visible things, and is moved together [with them] by the mere willing, and undergoes the same as the mind;

for with equal speed the one [mind] mingles with intelligible things, and the other [sight] with visible things.

Much about the other senses, which are certain receptions of external things, not contemplated by reason.

Much about the rest taken in sleep, and the refashioning through dreams, and memory and recollection, and reasoning and anger and desire—and, in brief, all the things by which this little world, man, is governed.

Would you have me also enumerate the differences of the other animals—both toward us and toward one another—their natures and births and rearings, their habitats and characters and, as it were, polities? How some are gregarious, others solitary; some grass-eating, others flesh-devouring; some fierce-tempered, others gentle; some fond of man and companionable, others untamed and free; some, as it were, nearer to reason and instruction, others utterly irrational and most unteachable; some of more senses, others of fewer; some immovable, others migratory; some swiftest, others most sluggish; some surpassing in size and beauty, or in one of these, others smallest or most ill-formed, or both; some valiant, others weak; some apt at defense, others wary and treacherous; some watchful, others unguarded; some industrious and provident, others wholly idle and improvident; and, still before these, how some are creeping, others upright; some homeloving, others amphibious; some lovers of beauty, others unadorned; coupling and uncoupling; chaste and unchaste; prolific and not prolific; long-lived and short-lived? Our discourse would weary, were it to go through them in detail.

Consider for me too the swimming nature gliding through the waters, and as it were flying through the liquid element, breathing its own [element], the air, yet endangered by ours—just as we are in the waters;

[consider] their habits and passions, their matings and breedings, their sizes and beauties, their love of haunts and their wanderings, their gatherings and partings, and their properties almost akin to those of land creatures, but in some cases their communities and properties are opposite, both in kinds and in names.

Consider for me too the flocks of birds, and their varieties in shapes and colors, both of the others and of the songsters;

and what is the reason of their melody, and from whom? Who gave the cicada the lyre upon its breast, and the songs and chirpings upon the branches, when, stirred by the sun, they make their noontide music and fill the groves with sound and escort the wayfarer with their voices? Who weaves the swan's song for it, when it spreads its wing to the breezes and makes the rushing [air] into a tune? For I forbear to speak of the artificial voices, and all that the arts contrive against the truth.

[The peacock] makes a theater of its beauty for its admirers, with a stately gait? Indeed the divine Scripture marvels even at the wisdom of women in weaving, saying, "Who gave to women the wisdom of weaving and the knowledge of embroidery?"—this [belongs] to a rational creature, surpassing in wisdom, and journeying even unto heavenly things.

But marvel for me also at the natural intelligence of irrational creatures, and give the reasons [for it]:

how birds have for nests rocks and trees and roofs, fashioned at once for safety and beauty, and suited to their young; whence comes to bees and spiders their industriousness and love of craft, so that the one weave and join together their honeycombs by means of hexagonal and alternating cells, and contrive their stability through the dividing wall in the middle and the alternation of the angles interwoven with the straight lines—and these in cells so dark and in invisible structures;

If reasoning about these things is within your reach, and you have understood the intelligence concerning them, consider also the differences of plants, even down to the artistry in the leaves, [contrived] for what is at once most pleasant to the eyes and most useful for the fruits.

Consider for me too the variety and abundance of fruits, and especially the fairest of those most necessary.

And consider for me the powers of roots, and juices, and flowers, and odors—not only most pleasant, but also conducive to health—and the graces and qualities of colors.

And further, the costliness and translucency of stones;

since nature has set all things before you, as at a common banquet, both what is necessary and what is for enjoyment;

so that, if nothing else, from the benefits [you receive] you may come to know God, and through your needs become wiser concerning yourself.

From here, let there come before me the breadths and lengths of earth, the common mother of all, and the bays of the sea bound to one another and to the land, and the beauties of groves, and rivers, and springs both copious and ever-flowing—not only of cold and potable waters, and those above the earth, but also all those that flow beneath the earth, running through certain hollows, then thrust out by a violent wind and meeting resistance, then set ablaze by the vehemence of the struggle and the opposition, breaking forth little by little wherever they find a way, and thence affording us the use of hot baths in many places of the earth, and, by the contrary power, a healing free of charge and spontaneous.

What is this great and artless weaving?

[Are these things] not as praiseworthy in their relation to one another as when contemplated each by itself? How does the earth stand firm and unswerving? Upon what is it borne, and what is it that props it up? And that again, upon what? For reason has nothing on which it may be stayed, except the divine will.

[The plains] are cut off from the mountains, and each, split off and ending toward some other limit, is a most evident token of God's mighty working. As for the sea—if I had not its magnitude to marvel at, I would have marveled at its tameness, and how it stands loosed [yet] within its own bounds;

and if not its tameness, then certainly its magnitude.

But since [it has] both, I shall praise the power in both.

What gathered it? What bound it? How is it raised up and stands, as if in awe of its neighbor the land? How does it also receive all the rivers, and yet remain the same, through superabundance of fullness—or I know not what one ought to say? How is sand a boundary to it, so vast an element? Have the natural philosophers anything to say—they who are wise in vain things, and who truly measure the sea with a cup, [measuring] such great things by their own fancies? Or shall I briefly philosophize this from the Scripture, more convincingly and more truly than [from] their long discourses? "A decree set a girdle upon the face of the water."

This is the bond of the liquid nature.

And how does it lead the land-dweller as a sailor by a little wood and the wind?—do you not marvel, seeing this? Is your mind not amazed?—that land and sea may be bound together by [mutual] needs and intercourse, and that things so far separated in nature may come into one for man's sake? And what are the first springs of the springs? Search out, O man, if any of these can be traced out or found by you.

And who is it that cleft [channels] for the rivers through plains and mountains, and gave them an unhindered course? And how is the wonder [wrought] out of opposites—the sea neither overflowing, nor the rivers standing still? And what is the nourishment of the waters, and what is the difference therein—some [plants] being watered from above, others given drink at the roots—that I too may take some delight in the discourse, expounding the delight of God? Come then, leaving the earth and earthly things, lift yourself toward the air on the wings of the mind, that the discourse may proceed with you along the way;

and from there I will lead you up to the heavenly things, and to heaven itself, and to the things above heaven.

And to the things that follow the discourse shrinks from advancing, yet it shall advance nonetheless, as far as is permitted.

Who is it that poured out the air, this great and abundant wealth—not measured out by worth, nor by fortunes, nor mastered by boundaries, nor parceled out by ages, but, after the manner of the distribution of the manna, embraced in sufficiency and honored with equal sharing;

—the vehicle of the winged nature, the seat of the winds, the seasonableness of the seasons, the animating of living things, or rather the conjoining of the soul to the body, in which are bodies, and with which is reason, in which is light and the thing illumined, and the sight that flows through it? But consider for me also the things that follow;

for I am not permitted to give to the air the whole [dominion];

—the dominion of those things that are reckoned to belong to the air.

To me [belong the contemplation] of heaven also and of the heavenly things.

But let faith lead us forward rather than reason, if indeed you have learned [your own] weakness in things nearer, and have come to know as reason the knowing of things beyond reason—lest you be altogether earthly or earthbound, ignorant even of this very thing: your ignorance.

Who wheeled the heaven around and set the stars in order? Or rather, what were heaven and the stars before all this? Could you tell me—you who soar aloft, yet are ignorant of what lies at your feet, who cannot even take your own measure, yet busy yourself with what is beyond your nature and stand gaping at the immeasurable? Grant that you can grasp orbits and revolutions, approaches and recedings, risings and settings, certain degrees and minute fractions, and all the things by which you pride yourself on this wonderful science of yours;

even so, this is not yet a comprehension of realities, but only the observation of some movement, which, confirmed by greater practice and gathering into one the observations of many, and then devising an explanation, has been named a science;

just as the phenomena concerning the moon have become familiar to the many, sight having furnished the beginning of their knowledge.

But you, if you are so very learned in these things and justly seek to be admired, tell me: what is the cause of this order and of this motion? Whence does the sun, like the leader of some chorus, hold up its beacon-light for the whole inhabited world and for all eyes, outshining the other stars in brightness more than any of them outshine the rest? And here is the proof: they shine back with reflected light, but he shines over all, and does not even let it be perceived that they rise together with him—'beautiful as a bridegroom, swift as a giant' and great;

for I will not consent to extol him from any other source than my own Scriptures;

so great is he in power that from one extremity he grasps the other by his heat, and nothing escapes his perception, but he fills every sight with light and every bodily nature with warmth;

warming, yet not scorching, by the gentleness of its balanced temperature and the orderliness of its movement, since it is present to all and embraces all alike.

And consider how great this further point is, if you have grasped it:

'What the sun is among things perceptible, that God is among things intelligible,' as one of the outsiders said;

for the sun illumines sight, just as God illumines the mind;

and the sun is itself the most beautiful of things seen, just as God is the most beautiful of things conceived.

But what was it that set the sun in motion from the beginning? What is it that ever moves it and wheels it about—itself fixed by reason and unmoved, truly tireless, life-bringing and nature-quickening, and all that the poets have rightly sung of it—never ceasing either from its own course or from its benefactions? How is it the maker of day above the earth and of night beneath the earth? Or rather, I do not know what one ought to say when one gazes upon the sun.

What is this adding and subtracting of theirs, and this equality of inequality—if I may say something paradoxical? How is the sun the maker and apportioner of the seasons, which in good order come on and pass away, and as in a dance interweave with one another and stand apart, the one by the law of friendship, the other by that of orderliness, and which are blended little by little, and by their nearness steal away the sameness of days and nights, so that they may not grieve us by their abruptness? But let the sun pass on for us;

[and let us turn to the angelic nature,] which is called or which comes to be fire and spirit;

for it is said that 'He makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire';

unless indeed 'to make' here means to preserve them by the same word by which they came into being.

But it is called spirit and fire:

the one as being an intelligible nature, the other as being purifying;

since I know that the same appellations belong also to the first Essence.

Yet for us at least let it be incorporeal, or as nearly so as possible.

Do you see how we grow dizzy over this subject, and have no place to advance to, except so far as to know that there are certain angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, splendors, ascents, intellectual powers or minds, natures pure and unalloyed, immovable toward evil or hardly movable, ever dancing in chorus about the first Cause?

Or how could anyone fittingly hymn them, illumined from thence with the purest illumination, or each illumined differently according to the proportion of its nature and rank?

so shaped and stamped by the Good that they become other lights and are able to enlighten others, by the inflowings and impartings of the first Light;

ministers of the divine will, mighty in strength both natural and acquired, traversing all things, present readily to all everywhere, both by their eagerness for service and by the lightness of their nature;

different ones having received different parts of the inhabited world as their portion, or being set in charge of some other region of the universe, as He knows who ordered and distinguished these things;

leading all things into one, toward the single inclination of Him who created all things;

singers of the divine majesty, beholders of eternal glory and eternally so—not that God may be glorified, for there is nothing that can be added to the Full, to Him who is also the supplier of good things to others, but that there may be no lack of benefaction even toward the natures that are first after God. If these things have been hymned according to their worth, thanks be to the Trinity and to the one Godhead in the three;

but if it has fallen short of my desire, even so my discourse has its victory.

For this is what it strove to establish: that even the nature of the secondary beings is superior to mind—not to mention that of the first and only nature, for I shrink from saying that it is above all things.