Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 1 part 20/22

For just as a spring in a small place is more abundant, and supplies a flow through many streams over wider spaces than any one of those streams which is led from the same spring through many places: so the narrative of Your dispenser, destined to profit many who would discourse, gushes forth, in a small measure of words, the streams of liquid truth, whence each man may draw for himself what truth he can concerning these matters—this man this, that man that—through the longer windings of his discourses.

For some, when they read or hear these words, think of God as if a man, or as some power endowed with immense mass, who by a certain new and sudden resolve, outside of itself, as it were in distant places, made heaven and earth, two great bodies above and below, by which all things were contained; and when they hear, 'God said, Let this be, and this was made,' they think of words begun and ended, sounding in times and passing away, after whose passing there immediately came to be that which was commanded to come to be; and whatever else of this kind they perhaps suppose out of familiarity with the flesh.

In whom, still as little creatures, while by this most lowly kind of words their weakness is borne as in a mother's bosom, faith is wholesomely built up, by which they may hold it certain and firm that God made all the natures which their senses survey in their wondrous variety. But if any one of them, as it were spurning the meanness of the words, should stretch himself out beyond the nurturing cradle with proud feebleness—alas! the wretch will fall; and, O Lord God, have mercy, lest those who pass along the way trample the unfledged chick, and send Your angel to put it back in the nest, that it may live until it can fly.

But others, to whom these words are no longer a nest but shady thickets, see in them the hidden fruits, and fly about rejoicing, and chatter as they search, and pluck them.

For they see, when they read or hear these words, that all past and future times are surpassed by Your eternal and stable permanence, O God; and yet that there is nothing of temporal creation which You have not made—Your will, since it is that which You are, being in no way changed, nor arising as a will which had not before existed: You made all things, not out of Yourself, a likeness of Yourself, the form of all things, but out of nothing, an unlikeness without form, which was to be formed through Your likeness, returning to You, the One, according to its ordained measure, as much as was granted to each thing in its own kind; and all things were made exceedingly good, whether they remain about You, or, by gradually more remote distance through times and places, make or undergo beautiful variations.

They see these things and rejoice in the light of Your truth, in what little measure they are able here. And one of them attends to that which was said, 'In the beginning God made,' and regards the Beginning as Wisdom, because it also speaks to us. Another likewise attends to the same words, and understands 'beginning' as the inception of created things, and so takes it: 'In the beginning He made,' as if it were said 'First He made.' And among those who understand by 'in the beginning' that He made heaven and earth in Wisdom, one of them believes that heaven and earth itself was so named, that is, the creatable matter of heaven and earth; another, that already formed and distinguished natures were so named; another, the one formed and spiritual nature under the name of heaven, the other formless matter of corporeal nature under the name of earth.

But those who understand by the names of heaven and earth a matter still formless, out of which heaven and earth would be formed, do not themselves understand it in one manner; but one understands it as that out of which the intelligible and sensible creation would be completed; another, only as that out of which this sensible corporeal mass would come, containing in its great bosom the conspicuous and ready natures. Nor do those understand it in one manner who believe that creatures already arranged and ordered are in this place called heaven and earth; but one means the invisible and the visible, another only the visible, in which we behold the luminous heaven and the dark earth and the things that are in them. But he who takes 'In the beginning He made' in no other way than if it were said:

'First He made'—he has no way to understand truthfully 'heaven and earth' except that he understand the matter of heaven and earth, namely of the universal, that is, of the intelligible and corporeal creation. For if he should mean the universe already formed, it could rightly be asked of him: if God made this first, what did He make next? And after the universe he will find nothing, and through this will hear unwillingly, 'How was that first, if afterward there was nothing?' But when he says, first the formless, then the formed, he is not absurd, provided he is fit to discern what precedes by eternity, what by time, what by choice, what by origin: by eternity, as God precedes all things; by time, as the flower precedes the fruit; by choice, as the fruit precedes the flower; by origin, as the sound precedes the song.

Among these four, the first and the last which I have mentioned are most difficult to understand, the two middle ones most easily. For it is a rare and exceedingly arduous vision to behold, O Lord, Your eternity unchangeably making changeable things, and through this preceding them. Who, again, can so keenly discern with his mind, that he is able without great labor to distinguish how the sound is prior to the song, in this respect, that the song is formed sound, and something not formed can indeed exist, but that which does not exist cannot be formed? Thus the matter is prior to that which is made of it—not prior because it itself effects it (for rather it is made), nor prior by interval of time.

For we do not in an earlier time utter formless sounds without song, and in a later time fit or fashion them into the form of a song, as we do wood, of which a chest, or silver, of which a vessel is fabricated; for such materials indeed precede in time the forms of things which are made from them. But in song it is not so. For when it is sung, its sound is heard; it does not first sound formlessly and then is formed into a song. For whatever it has sounded in any way at first, passes away, nor will you find anything of it which, taken up again, you might compose by art; and therefore the song turns into its own sound, which sound is its matter. For this same is formed, that it may be a song. And therefore, as I was saying, the matter of sounding is prior to the form of singing:

not prior by power of making; for the sound is not the artificer of the singing, but is subject to the singing soul out of the body, of which it makes a song; nor prior in time: for it is uttered together with the song; nor prior by choice: for the sound is not preferable to the song, since the song is not only sound but also beautiful sound. But it is prior by origin, because the song is not formed in order that there may be sound, but the sound is formed in order that there may be a song.

By this example let him who can understand that the matter of things was first made and called heaven and earth, because heaven and earth were made from it—not first made in time, because the forms of things bring forth times, while that matter was formless, and is now perceived together within times; nor yet can anything be narrated about it except as though it were prior in time, although it is reckoned the lowest, because formed things are surely better than formless ones, and it is preceded by the eternity of the Creator, so that out of nothing there might be that out of which something would be made. In this diversity of true opinions, let Truth itself bring forth concord, and let our God have mercy on us, that we may use the law lawfully, by the end of the precept, with pure charity.

And through this, if anyone asks of me which of these Moses, that servant of Yours, meant, these are not the words of my confessions. If I do not confess to You, I do not know; and yet I know that those opinions are true, except for the carnal ones, of which I have spoken as much as I judged fitting. Yet these words of Your book do not terrify the little ones of good hope—being lofty in their humility and abundant in their fewness;

but let all of us, whom I confess to discern and speak true things in those words, love one another, and equally love You, our God, the fountain of truth, if we thirst not after vanity but after the fountain itself; and let us so honor that servant of Yours, the dispenser of this Scripture, full of Your Spirit, that we may believe that, by Your revelation, when he wrote these things, he attended to that which most of all excels in them, both in the light of truth and in the fruit of usefulness. So when one says, 'He meant what I do,' and another, 'Nay, rather what I do,' I think it more reverent to say:

why not rather both, if both are true; and if there is some third thing, and if some fourth, and if anyone sees in these words any other true thing at all—why should he not be believed to have seen all of them, through whom the one God tempered the sacred writings to the meanings of many who would see things true and diverse? For my own part, what I fearlessly pronounce from my heart: if I were to write anything at the summit of authority, I would rather so write that whatever truth each man could grasp concerning these matters, my words might echo it, than that I should set down one true meaning more openly for this end, that I might exclude the rest, whose falsity could not offend me. I do not wish therefore, my God, to be so headlong as not to believe that this man deserved such things from You.

That man, when he wrote these words, surely perceived and pondered in them whatever of truth we have here been able to discover, and whatever we have not been able, or have not yet been able, to find, and which nonetheless can be found in them. Finally, O Lord, who art God and not flesh and blood, even if a man saw less, could anything be hidden from thy good Spirit, who shall lead me into the land of righteousness — whatever thou thyself wast about to reveal in those words to later readers, even if he through whom they were spoken perhaps thought of but one true meaning among the many?

And if it be so, then let that meaning which he thought be more exalted than the rest; yet to us, O Lord, do thou either show that very meaning, or whatever other true one thou pleasest, so that whether thou disclose to us the same thing thou didst to that servant of thine, or something else by occasion of the same words, it is thou who feedest us, and no error deceives us. Behold, O Lord my God, how much we have written from few words — how much, I pray thee! What strength of ours, what spans of time, will suffice for all thy books in this manner?

Suffer me therefore to confess to thee more briefly in these words, and to choose some one thing which thou hast inspired as true, certain and good, even though many meanings present themselves where many can present themselves — choosing it with that faith of my confession, that if I say what thy minister meant, I say it rightly and best (for this it behoves me to attempt); but if I do not attain to that, that I may yet say what thy Truth willed to say to me through his words — that Truth which said also to him what it willed. I call upon thee, my God, my mercy, who didst make me, and didst not forget me though I forgot thee. I call thee into my soul, which thou preparest to receive thee through the longing thou hast inspired:

now that I call upon thee, forsake me not, thou who, before ever I called, didst go before me and didst press upon me with manifold voices ever louder, that I might hear thee from afar, and turn, and call upon thee who wast calling me. For thou, O Lord, hast blotted out all my evil deserts, that thou shouldst not requite my hands, with which I fell away from thee; and thou hast gone before all my good deserts, that thou mightest reward thy hands, with which thou madest me — for even before I was, thou wast, and I was not, to whom thou couldst grant existence; and yet, behold, I am, out of thy goodness going before all this — both that thou madest me, and that out of which thou madest me.

For thou hadst no need of me, nor am I such a good that thou shouldst be helped by me, O my Lord and my God; not that I should so serve thee as though thou wouldst grow weary in working, or as though thy power were the less for lacking my homage; nor that I should so worship thee as I till the land, so that thou shouldst be untilled if I worship thee not; but that I should serve thee and worship thee, that it may be well with me from thee, from whom it is that I am one with whom it can be well. For out of the fullness of thy goodness thy creature subsists, that a good which profited thee nothing, nor was equal to thee since it came from thee, might nevertheless not be lacking, because from thee it could be made. For what did heaven and earth deserve of thee, which thou madest in the beginning?

Let them say what spiritual and bodily nature deserved of thee, which thou madest in thy wisdom, so that on it should depend even all things inchoate and formless, whatever in their kind — whether spiritual or bodily — was sliding into disorder and into a far unlikeness to thee: the spiritual formless being more excellent than if it were a formed body, and the bodily formless more excellent than if it were nothing at all; and thus they hung formless upon thy Word, unless by that same Word they were recalled to thy unity, and given form, and from thee, the one supreme Good, became all of them goods exceeding good. What did they deserve of thee, that they should be even formless, since they would not be even this, save from thee?

What did bodily matter deserve of thee, that it should be at least invisible and unformed, since it would not be even this unless thou hadst made it? And therefore it could not, since it did not exist, deserve of thee that it should exist. Or what did the inchoate state of the spiritual creature deserve of thee, that it should at least float darkling, like to the abyss, unlike to thee, unless by that same Word it were turned to that same One from whom it was made, and being enlightened by him should become light — though not equally, yet conformed to the form equal to thee? For as for a body to be is not the same as to be beautiful — else it could not be deformed — so also for a created spirit to live is not the same as to live wisely; else it would be wise unchangeably.

But it is good for it to cleave to thee always, lest by turning away it lose the light it gained by turning, and slip back into a life like to the dark abyss. For we too, who in respect of soul are a spiritual creature, having turned away from thee our light, were once darkness in that life, and we labour amid the remnants of our obscurity, until we be made thy righteousness in thine only One, like the mountains of God: for thy judgments were to us like a great abyss. And as for what thou saidst among the first works of creation, 'Let there be light, and there was light,' I understand this not unfitly of the spiritual creature, because there was already a life of some sort, which thou wast to enlighten.

But as it had not deserved of thee that there should be such a life, capable of being enlightened, so neither, when it already existed, did it deserve of thee that it should be enlightened. For its formlessness would not please thee, did it not become light — not by existing, but by gazing upon the enlightening light and cleaving to it — so that both that it lives in any way and that it lives blessedly, it should owe to nothing but thy grace, being turned by a change for the better to that which can be changed neither for the better nor for the worse; which thou alone art, because thou alone simply art, to whom it is not one thing to live and another to live blessedly, for thou art thine own blessedness.

What then could be lacking to thee for the good which thou thyself art, even if these things either were not at all, or remained formless? — things thou madest not out of any need, but out of the fullness of thy goodness, restraining them and turning them toward form, not as though thy joy were completed out of them. For to thee in thy perfection their imperfection is displeasing, that they may be perfected by thee and please thee — not as if thou wert imperfect, as though thou too wert to be perfected by their perfection. For thy good Spirit was borne above the waters, not borne up by them, as though resting in them. For those in whom thy Spirit is said to rest, he makes to rest in himself.

But thy incorruptible and unchangeable will was borne above, in itself sufficient unto itself, above the life which thou hadst made — that life to which to live is not the same as to live blessedly, since it lives even while floating in its own obscurity, and to which it remains to be turned toward him from whom it was made, and to live more and more beside the fountain of life, and in his light to see light, and to be perfected and made bright and made blessed. Behold, the Trinity appears to me in a riddle, which thou art, my God; for thou, the Father, in the Beginning of our wisdom — which is thy Wisdom, born of thee, equal to thee and co-eternal, that is, in thy Son — madest heaven and earth.

And we have said much of the heaven of heaven, and of the earth invisible and unformed, and of the dark abyss, in reference to the wandering aberrations of spiritual formlessness, which would have remained such, unless it were turned to him from whom came its life of whatever kind, and by enlightenment became a beautiful life, and became the heaven of that heaven which afterward was made between the waters. And I already held the Father under the name of God, who made these things, and the Son under the name of the Beginning, in whom he made these things; and believing my God to be a Trinity, even as I believed, I sought it in his holy oracles, and behold, thy Spirit was borne above the waters. Behold the Trinity, my God: Father and Son and Holy Spirit, Creator of all creation.

But what was the reason? — O truthful Light, to thee I lift up my heart; let it not teach me vain things; scatter its darkness and tell me, I beseech thee by Charity our mother, I beseech thee, tell me, what was the reason that, after the naming of the heaven, and of the earth invisible and unformed, and of the darkness upon the abyss, only then did thy Scripture name thy Spirit? Was it because it was fitting that he should be so introduced as to be said to be 'borne above'? But this could not be said unless first there were mentioned that above which thy Spirit could be understood to be borne. For he was borne above neither the Father nor the Son, nor would he rightly be said to be borne above, if he were borne above no thing at all.

First, therefore, it had to be said over what he was borne, and then he who could not fittingly be mentioned otherwise than as being said to be 'borne above.' Why then could he not fittingly be introduced otherwise than as being said to be borne above? From this let him follow who can, in understanding, thy apostle saying that thy charity is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us, and teaching of spiritual things and showing the surpassing way of charity, and bowing his knees for us to thee, that we may know the surpassing knowledge of the charity of Christ. And therefore from the beginning the surpassing One was borne above the waters.

To whom shall I tell, and how shall I tell, of the weight of lust dragging into the steep abyss, and of the uplifting of charity through thy Spirit, who was borne above the waters? To whom shall I tell it? How shall I tell it? For there are no places into which we sink and out of which we emerge. What is more like, and what more unlike? They are affections, they are loves: the uncleanness of our spirit flowing downward through love of cares, and the holiness of thy Spirit lifting us upward through love of security, that we may lift up our heart unto thee, where thy Spirit was borne above the waters, and may come to that surpassing rest, when our soul shall have passed over the waters that are without substance.

The angel fell away, the soul of man fell away, and they showed forth the abyss of the whole spiritual creation in the dark deep, unless thou hadst said from the beginning, 'Let there be light,' and there had been light, and every obedient intelligence of thy heavenly city cleaved to thee and rested in thy Spirit, who is borne unchangeably above all that is changeable. Otherwise even the heaven of heaven itself would have been a dark abyss in itself; but now it is light in the Lord. For even in that wretched restlessness of the spirits that fell away, displaying their darkness stripped of the garment of thy light, thou showest plainly enough how great a rational creature thou hast made, for whom nothing less than thee in any way suffices for blessed rest — and thus not even itself suffices for itself.

For thou, our God, wilt enlighten our darkness; from thee arise our garments, and our darkness shall be as the noonday. Give me thyself, my God, restore thyself to me: behold, I love, and if it be too little, let me love more strongly. I cannot measure, so as to know, how much of love is wanting to me to suffice, that my life may run into thine embraces and not turn away, until it be hidden in the hiding-place of thy countenance. This only I know, that it is ill with me apart from thee, not only outside me, but even within myself; and all abundance which is not my God is to me but want. Was it that neither the Father nor the Son was borne above the waters? If 'above' were as in a place, like a body, then neither was the Holy Spirit;

but if it means the eminence of the unchangeable Godhead above all that is changeable, then the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were borne above the waters. Why then was this said only of thy Spirit? Why was a place, as it were, named only of him — a place where he might be, who is no place — of whom alone it was said that he is thy Gift? In thy Gift we rest: there we enjoy thee. Our rest is our place. Love lifts us thither, and thy good Spirit exalts our lowliness out of the gates of death. In thy good will is our peace. A body by its weight strives toward its own place. Weight tends not only downward, but toward its own place. Fire tends upward, a stone downward. They are driven by their weights, they seek their own places.

Oil poured beneath water rises above the water; water poured above oil sinks beneath the oil: they are driven by their weights, they seek their own places. Things less ordered are restless: they are set in order, and they rest. My weight is my love; by it am I borne, wherever I am borne. By thy Gift we are kindled and borne upward; we glow, and we go. We ascend the ascents in our heart, and sing the song of degrees. By thy fire, by thy good fire we glow, and we go, since upward we go to the peace of Jerusalem, for I was glad in those who said to me, 'We shall go into the house of the Lord.' There thy good will shall place us, that we may will nothing else than to abide there for ever.

Blessed creature, which knew nothing else — though itself was something else — save by thy Gift, which is borne above all that is changeable; which, as soon as it was made, was lifted up, with no interval of time, in that calling whereby thou saidst, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. For in us there is a distinction in time, that we were darkness and shall be made light; but of that creature it was said what it would be, were it not enlightened, and it was so said as if it had first been fluid and dark, that the cause might appear whereby it was made to be otherwise — that is, that being turned to the unfailing light it should be light. Let him understand who can; let him ask of thee. Why should he trouble me, as if I enlightened any man coming into this world? Who shall understand the almighty Trinity?

And yet who speaks not of it — if indeed it is of it that he speaks? Rare is the soul which, whatsoever it says of that Trinity, knows what it says. And men contend and strive, and no one without peace sees that vision. I would that men pondered these three things within their own selves. These three are far other than that Trinity; but I say where they may exercise and test and feel themselves, how far other they are. And I say these three: to be, to know, to will. For I am, and I know, and I will: I am knowing and willing, and I know that I am and that I will, and I will to be and to know. In these three, then, let him see who can how inseparable a life there is, and one life, and one mind, and one essence; how, finally, the distinction is inseparable, and yet a distinction. Surely it is before his very face; let him attend within himself, and see, and tell me.

But when he has found something in these and has spoken of it, let him not at once think that he has found that which is above these — that which is unchangeably, and knows unchangeably, and wills unchangeably; and whether, on account of these three, there is a Trinity there also, or whether these three are in each one, so that each has its threefold, or whether both in wondrous ways, at once simply and manifoldly, with an infinite end within itself unto itself, whereby it is, and is known to itself, and suffices for itself, unchangeably the Selfsame, in the rich greatness of unity — who shall easily conceive it? Who shall in any way speak it? Who shall in any way rashly pronounce upon it? Go forward in confession, O my faith; say to thy Lord:

'Holy, holy, holy, O Lord my God, in thy name are we baptized, O Father and Son and Holy Spirit; in thy name do we baptize, O Father and Son and Holy Spirit'; for among us also, in his Christ, God made heaven and earth — the spiritual and the carnal of his Church. And our earth, before it received the form of teaching, was invisible and unformed, and we were covered with the darkness of ignorance; for thou hast chastened man for his iniquity, and thy judgments are a great abyss. But because thy Spirit was borne above the water, thy mercy forsook not our misery, and thou saidst, 'Let there be light: repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Repent ye: let there be light. And because our soul was troubled

within us was troubled toward ourselves, we remembered thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan and from the mountain equal to thee, yet made small for our sakes; and our darkness displeased us, and we were turned to thee, and there was light. And behold, we were once darkness, but now light in the Lord. And yet still through faith, not yet through sight; for by hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. Still does the abyss call to the abyss, but now in the voice of thy waterfalls. Still does even he who says:

'I could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal' — even he himself reckons not yet that he has apprehended; and forgetting the things that are behind, he reaches forth unto the things that are before, and groans, being burdened; and his soul thirsts after the living God, as the harts after the fountains of waters, and he says, 'When shall I come?' — desiring to be clothed upon with his dwelling which is from heaven; and he calls to the lower abyss, saying, 'Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed in the newness of your mind,' and, 'Be not children in your understanding, but in malice be ye babes, that in understanding ye may be perfect,' and, 'O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?' — but now no longer in his own voice;

for it is in thy voice, who didst send thy Spirit from on high through him who ascended up on high and opened the waterfalls of his gifts, that the rushing of the river might make glad thy city. For him sighs the friend of the bridegroom, having now the firstfruits of the Spirit with him, yet still groaning within himself, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of his body. For him he sighs — for he is a member of the bride — and for him is he zealous — for he is the friend of the bridegroom — for him is he zealous, not for himself, because in the voice of thy waterfalls, not in his own voice, he calls upon that other abyss, for which, being zealous, he fears lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, so also their minds should be corrupted from the chastity which is in our Bridegroom, thine only One.