Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 1 part 22/22

Increase and multiply—although these too, like the fish and birds and men, are augmented by begetting and preserve their kind. What then shall I say, my light, my truth? That this is void, that it was so said to no purpose? By no means, Father of piety; far be it that a servant of your word should say this. And if I do not understand what you signify by this saying, let those better than I use it better—that is, those more intelligent—each according to what you have given him to understand. But may my confession also be pleasing before your eyes, by which I confess to you that I believe, O Lord, that you did not speak thus in vain; nor will I be silent about what the occasion of this lesson suggests to me. For it is true, nor do I see what hinders me from so understanding the figurative sayings of your books.

For I know that what is understood by the mind in one way is signified in many ways through the body, and that what is signified in one way through the body is understood in many ways by the mind. Behold, the simple love of God and neighbor—by how many manifold mysteries and innumerable tongues, and in each tongue by innumerable modes of speech, is it bodily uttered! So do the offspring of the waters increase and multiply. Attend again, whoever you are that read these things: behold what Scripture offers in one way and the voice sounds forth: In the beginning God made heaven and earth—is it not understood in many ways, not by the deceit of errors, but by kinds of true understandings? So do the offspring of men increase and multiply.

And so, if we think of the very natures of things not allegorically but properly, the word 'Increase and multiply' applies to all things that are begotten from seeds;

but if we treat these as figuratively set down—which I rather judge Scripture to have intended, since it surely did not without purpose attribute this blessing to the offspring of the water-creatures and of men alone—we do indeed find multitudes also in spiritual and corporeal creatures, as in heaven and earth; and in righteous and unrighteous souls, as in light and darkness; and in holy authors, through whom the law was ministered, as in the firmament which was made solid between water and water; and in the society of bitter peoples, as in the sea; and in the zeal of pious souls, as in the dry land; and in works of mercy according to the present life, as in seed-bearing herbs and fruit-bearing trees; and in spiritual gifts manifested for profit, as in the lights of heaven; and in affections formed unto temperance, as in a living soul:

in all these we obtain multitudes and abundances and increases; but that something so increases and multiplies that one thing is uttered in many ways and one utterance is understood in many ways—this we do not find except in signs bodily set forth and in things intelligibly devised. By signs bodily set forth we understood the generations of the waters, because of the necessary causes of carnal depth; but by things intelligibly devised, the generations of men, because of the fecundity of reason. And therefore we have believed that to each of these kinds it was said by you, O Lord: Increase and multiply.

For in this blessing I accept the faculty and power granted to us by you, both to utter in many ways what we have held understood in one way, and to understand in many ways what we have read obscurely uttered in one way. So are the waters of the sea filled, which are not moved except by various significations; so also is the earth filled with human offspring, whose dryness appears in zeal, and reason rules over it. I wish also to say, O Lord my God, what your following Scripture admonishes me; and I will say it, nor will I fear. For I will speak the truth, by your inspiring, what you have willed that I should say out of those words. For I do not believe that I speak truth by any other inspiring than yours, since you are the Truth, but every man a liar.

And therefore he who speaks a lie speaks of his own. Therefore, that I may speak the truth, I speak of yours. Behold, you have given us for food every sown grass bearing seed, which is upon all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of sown seed; nor to us alone, but also to all the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth and the serpents; but to the fishes and the great whales you did not give these. For we said that by these fruits of the earth are signified, and figured in allegory, the works of mercy which are exhibited to the necessities of this life out of the fruitful earth. Such an earth was the pious Onesiphorus, to whose house you showed mercy, because he frequently refreshed your Paul and was not ashamed of his chain.

This did the brethren also, and they bore fruit with such produce, who supplied out of Macedonia what was lacking to him. But how he grieves over certain trees which did not yield him the fruit due to him, where he says: At my first defense no man stood with me, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their charge! For these things are owed to those who minister rational doctrine through the understandings of divine mysteries, and so they are owed to them as to men. But they are owed to them also as to living souls, offering themselves to be imitated in all continence. Likewise they are owed to them as to winged things, on account of their blessings which are multiplied upon the earth, since their sound went out into all the earth.

But those are fed with these foods who rejoice in them; yet they do not rejoice in them whose god is their belly. For not even in those who furnish these things is that which they give the fruit, but the mind with which they give. Therefore that man who served God, not his own belly, I clearly see whence he rejoices, I see and heartily congratulate him. For he had received from the Philippians the things which they had sent through Epaphroditus; but still I see whence he rejoices. And whence he rejoices, thence he is fed, because, speaking in truth, he says: I rejoiced greatly in the Lord, that now at length you have flourished again to be mindful of me, wherein also you were mindful; but you had become weary.

These therefore had withered through long weariness and had as it were dried up from that fruit of good work, and he rejoices over them because they have flourished again, not over himself because they relieved his need. Therefore he goes on to say: Not that I say it because of want; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content therewith. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in all things and in everything I am instructed, both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer want: I can do all things in him who strengthens me. Whence then do you rejoice, O great Paul? Whence do you rejoice, whence are you fed, O man renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created you, and living soul of such great continence, and winged tongue speaking mysteries? For to such living creatures is this food due.

What is it that feeds you? Gladness. Let me hear what follows: Nevertheless, he says, you did well in sharing in my tribulation. Hence he rejoices, hence he is fed, because they did well, not because his distress was relieved—he who says to you: In tribulation you have enlarged me; because he knows both to abound and to suffer want in you, who strengthen him. For you know also, he says, you Philippians, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as to giving and receiving, but you alone, for even to Thessalonica you sent once and again for my needs. To these good works he now rejoices that they have returned, and rejoices that they have flourished again, as with the reviving fertility of a field.

Is it because of his own uses, since he said, You sent for my needs—is it on that account that he rejoices? Not on that account. And whence do we know this? Because he himself goes on to say: Not that I seek the gift, but I require the fruit. I have learned from you, my God, to distinguish between the gift and the fruit. The gift is the thing itself which he gives who imparts these necessaries, such as money, food, drink, clothing, shelter, help; but the fruit is the good and right will of the giver. For the good Master did not say merely: He who receives a prophet, but added: in the name of a prophet; nor did he say merely: He who receives a righteous man, but added: in the name of a righteous man; for thus the one shall receive the reward of a prophet, the other the reward of a righteous man. Nor did he say only:

Whoever gives one of these least ones a cup of cold water to drink, but he added: only in the name of a disciple, and so he subjoined: Amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. The gift is to receive a prophet, to receive a righteous man, to hold out a cup of cold water to a disciple; but the fruit is to do this in the name of a prophet, in the name of a righteous man, in the name of a disciple. With fruit was Elijah fed by the widow who knew that she was feeding a man of God and was feeding him on that account; but by the raven he was fed by what was given. Nor was the inner Elijah fed, but the one who could even be corrupted by the lack of such food.

And therefore I will say what is true before you, O Lord: when ignorant and unbelieving men—for whose initiating and winning the sacraments of initiation and the great deeds of miracles are necessary, which we believe to be signified by the name of fishes and whales—take in your children to be bodily refreshed or helped in some use of the present life, while they are ignorant why this is to be done and to what it pertains, then neither do those feed these, nor are these fed by those, because neither do the former work these things with a holy and right will, nor do the latter rejoice in their gifts, where they do not yet see the fruit. For from that source the mind is fed, whence it is gladdened.

And therefore fishes and whales do not feed upon foods which only that earth brings forth, once it has been set apart and divided from the bitterness of the sea-waves. And You, O God, saw all things that You had made, and behold, they were very good; for we too see them, and behold, all are very good. In each several kind of Your works, when You had said that they should be made and they were made, You saw of this one and of that one that it was good. Seven times I have counted it written that You saw that what You had made was good; and this is the eighth, that You saw all things that You had made, and behold, not only good but even very good, as though all together. For singly they were only good, but all together both good and very good.

This very thing all beautiful bodies declare, for far more beautiful by much is a body which consists of all its beautiful members than the several members themselves, by whose most orderly assembly the whole is completed, although those members too are beautiful even singly. And I gave heed, that I might find out whether You saw seven times or eight times that Your works are good, when they were pleasing to You; and in Your seeing I found no times, by which I might understand that You so often saw what You had made; and I said: O Lord, is not this Your Scripture true, since You who are truthful and the Truth have set it forth?

Why then do You tell me that in Your seeing there are no times, while Your Scripture tells me that on each of the several days You saw what You had made, that it was good; and when I counted them, I found how many times? To this You say to me—for You are my God and speak with a strong voice in the inner ear to Your servant, breaking through my deafness and crying out: "O man, surely what My Scripture says, I say. And yet it speaks in time, but to My word time does not come near, because it abides in an eternity equal with Me. Thus the things which you see by My Spirit, I see, just as the things which you say by My Spirit, I say.

And so, though you see these things in time, I do not see them in time, just as, though you speak these things in time, I do not speak them in time." And I heard, O Lord my God, and I licked a drop of sweetness from Your truth, and I understood that there are certain men to whom Your works are displeasing, and they say that You made many of them under compulsion of necessity—such as the fabrics of the heavens and the arrangements of the stars—and that this was not from Your own substance, but that these had already been created elsewhere and from another source, which You drew together and joined and wove, when out of conquered enemies You were raising up the ramparts of the world, that being bound by that construction they might not be able to rebel against You again;

but other things they say You neither made nor in any way put together—such as all flesh and the most minute living creatures and whatever holds the earth by roots—but that a hostile mind and a nature other than Yours, not founded by You and contrary to You, begets and forms these in the lower regions of the world. Madmen say these things, because they do not see Your works by Your Spirit, nor recognize You in them. But those who see them by Your Spirit—You see in them. Therefore when they see that they are good, You see that they are good; and whatever things please for Your sake, You are pleasing in them; and the things that please us by Your Spirit, are pleasing to You in us. For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of a man which is in him?

So also the things of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. "But we," he says, "have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things that have been given us by God." And I am admonished to say: surely no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. How then do we also know the things that have been given us by God? It is answered me, that the things which we know by His Spirit, even thus no one knows except the Spirit of God. For as it was rightly said: "For it is not you that speak," to those who were speaking in the Spirit of God, so it is rightly said: "It is not you that know," to those who know in the Spirit of God. No less rightly therefore is it said: "It is not you that see," to those who see in the Spirit of God:

thus whatever they see in the Spirit of God to be good, it is not they but God who sees that it is good. It is one thing, then, that anyone should think to be evil what is good—such as those mentioned above; another, that a man should see what is good to be good, as Your creation pleases many because it is good, to whom nevertheless You are not pleasing in it, so that they wish to enjoy the creation itself rather than You; and yet another thing, that when a man sees something to be good, God should see in him that it is good, namely that He should be loved in that which He has made—He who would not be loved except through the Spirit which He has given, since the love of God has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, through whom we see that whatever in any way exists is good:

for it is from Him who not in some way is, but who Is, Is. Thanks be to You, O Lord! We see heaven and earth, whether the bodily part, both upper and lower, or the spiritual and bodily creation; and in the adornment of these parts, of which either the whole mass of the world or absolutely the whole creation consists, we see light made and divided from the darkness. We see the firmament of heaven, whether between the spiritual waters above and the bodily waters below the primary body of the world, or this expanse of air—since this too is called heaven—through which wander the birds of the air between the waters, which in vapor are borne above them and drop dew even on calm nights, and those waters which flow heavily upon the earth.

We see the appearance of the gathered waters throughout the plains of the sea, and the dry land both laid bare and formed, that it might be visible and well-ordered and the mother of herbs and trees. We see the luminaries shining from above—the sun sufficing for the day, the moon and stars consoling the night—and by all these the times marked and signified. We see the moist nature everywhere made fruitful with fishes and beasts and birds, since the density of the air, which bears up the flight of birds, grows thick by the exhalation of the waters.

We see the face of the earth adorned with earthly animals, and man, made to Your image and likeness, set over all the irrational living creatures by that very image and likeness of Yours—that is, by the power of reason and intelligence; and just as in his soul there is one thing which rules by deliberating, and another which is made subject that it may obey, so woman was made also bodily for the man, who would indeed have in her mind a nature equal in rational intelligence, yet would by the sex of her body be so subjected to the male sex as the appetite for action is subjected for conceiving from the reason of the mind the skill of acting rightly. We see these things, and singly they are good and all together very good.

Your works praise You, that we may love You, and we love You, that Your works may praise You. They have a beginning and end in time, a rising and a setting, an increase and a decrease, beauty and privation. They have therefore a sequel of morning and evening, partly hidden, partly evident. For they were made by You out of nothing, not out of You, not out of anything not Yours or which previously existed, but out of concreated—that is, matter created together by You—since You formed its formlessness without any interval of time. For though the matter of heaven and earth is one thing, and the form of heaven and earth another, You made the matter indeed out of utterly nothing, but the form of the world out of formless matter; yet You made both at the same time, so that the form followed the matter with no intervening delay.

We have also considered why You willed these things either to be made in such an order or to be written of in such an order; and we saw that they are good singly and all together very good, in Your Word, in Your only-begotten, heaven and earth, the Head and the Body of the Church, in predestination before all times, without morning and evening.

But when You began to carry out in time the things foreordained, that You might make manifest the hidden things and set in order our disordered things—since our sins were over us and we had departed from You into the dark depth, and Your good Spirit was borne above to come to our help in the opportune time—and You justified the ungodly and distinguished them from the wicked, and You established the authority of Your Book between the higher, who would be docile to You, and the lower, who would be subjected to them; and You gathered together the company of the unbelieving into one conspiracy, that the zeal of the faithful might appear, that they might bring forth for You works of mercy, distributing even to the poor their earthly substance to gain heavenly things.

And thence You kindled certain luminaries in the firmament—Your saints, holding the word of life and shining with sublime authority, set above by spiritual gifts; and thence, for the imbuing of the unbelieving nations, You produced out of bodily matter the sacraments and visible miracles and the sounds of words according to the firmament of Your Book, by which the faithful also might be blessed.

And then You formed the living soul of the faithful by ordered affections through the vigor of self-control; and thence the mind subjected to You alone and needing no human authority to imitate, You renewed to Your own image and likeness, and to the surpassing understanding You subjected the rational action as the woman to the man; and You willed that by all Your ministries necessary in this life for the perfecting of the faithful, fruitful works for the future should be supplied to those same faithful by them for temporal uses. All these things we see, and they are very good, since You see them in us, who have given us the Spirit by which we might see them and love You in them.

O Lord God, grant us peace—for You have bestowed all things upon us—the peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath, the peace without evening. For all this most beautiful order of things very good, when their measures have been completed, is to pass away: for in them too a morning was made and an evening. But the seventh day is without evening and has no setting, because You have sanctified it to abide for ever, that this might forespeak to us by the voice of Your Book: as You, after Your works very good—though You wrought them at rest—rested on the seventh day, so we too, after our works very good (which are such because You have granted them to us), may rest in You in the Sabbath of eternal life.

For even then You will so rest in us as now You work in us; and so that rest of Yours will be through us, as these works of Yours are through us. But You, O Lord, always work and always rest; You neither see according to time, nor are moved according to time, nor rest according to time; and yet You make both the temporal seeings and the times themselves and rest out of time. We therefore see these things which You have made, because they are; but You, because You see them, they are. And we outwardly see that they are, and inwardly that they are good; but You there saw the things made, where You saw the things to be made. And at one time we were moved to do well, after our heart had conceived of Your Spirit;

but at an earlier time we were moved to do evil, forsaking You; whereas You, O God, the one Good, have never ceased to do good. And there are certain good works of ours, from Your gift indeed, but not everlasting: after them we hope to rest in Your great sanctification. But You, the Good needing no other good, are always at rest, since Your rest is Yourself. And who among men shall grant a man to understand this? What angel an angel? What angel a man? Let it be asked of You, let it be sought in You, let it be knocked at Your door: thus, thus it is received, thus it is found, thus it is opened.