Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 17/28

We therefore say that the supreme, true, one and only God — Father and Son and Holy Spirit, that is, God and his Word and the Spirit of both, the Trinity itself, neither confused nor separated — God, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen nor can see, is neither contained by any finite or infinite space of places nor varied by any finite or infinite extent of times. For there is not in his substance, whereby he is God, anything that is less in the part than in the whole, as must necessarily be the case with things that exist in places; nor was there in his substance anything that now is not, nor will there be anything that is not yet, as happens in natures that can undergo the mutability of time.

Here, then, living in unchangeable eternity, he created all things at once, from which times might run their course and places be filled, and ages be unrolled by the movements of things both temporal and local. Among these things he founded some spiritual, some corporeal, forming the matter which neither another nor anyone else, but he himself alone, established as formless and yet formable, so that it should precede its own formation not in time but in origin. But he set the spiritual creature above the corporeal, because the spiritual can be changed only through times, whereas the corporeal through both times and places. For by way of example, the mind is moved through time — whether by remembering what it had forgotten, or by learning what it did not know, or by willing what it had not willed;

but the body is moved through places — whether from earth to heaven or from heaven to earth, or from east to west, or in some other like manner. Now everything that is moved through place cannot but be moved also through time at the same time; yet not everything that is moved through time must necessarily also be moved through place. As therefore the substance which is moved through both time and place is preceded by the substance which is moved only through time, so that very substance is preceded by the one which is moved neither through place nor through time. And by this, just as the body — moved only through time — is moved through both time and place by the created spirit, so the created spirit is moved through time by the Creator-Spirit, who is moved neither through time nor through place.

But the created spirit moves itself through time, and moves the body through both time and place; whereas the creating Spirit moves himself without time and place, moves the created spirit through time without place, and moves the body through both time and place. Wherefore whoever tries to understand how the eternal God — truly eternal and truly immortal and unchangeable, himself moved neither through place nor through time — moves his creature temporally and locally, I do not think he can attain this unless he first understands how the soul (that is, the created spirit, moved not through place but only through time) moves the body through both time and place. For if he cannot yet grasp what takes place within himself, how much less that which is above him!

For the soul, affected by the habit of the carnal senses, thinks that it too is moved through place along with the body, while it moves the body through place. But if it could carefully examine, as it were, the hinges of the members of its body — how they are jointedly arranged, and from which the beginnings of motions take their leverage — it would find that those things which are moved through spatial intervals are not moved except by those which are fixed in place. For a single finger is not moved unless the hand is fixed, from whose joint, as from an unmoved hinge, it may be moved. So the whole palm is moved from the joint of the elbow, the forearm from the joint of the shoulder, the shoulder from the shoulder-blade; while the hinges on which the motion depends stand still, that which is moved goes through a span of place;

so the joint of the sole is in the ankle, by whose standing still it is moved; so that of the leg is in the knee, and that of the whole foot in the hip. And there is no motion of a member at all, which the will moves, except from some hinge of a joint which the nod of that same will first fixes, so that by that which is not moved through spatial extent, that which is moved may be able to be actuated. Finally, not even in walking is the foot lifted unless another, being fixed, bears the whole body, until the one that is in motion leans, by the unmoved joint of its own hinge, from the place whence it is borne to the place whither it is borne.

Furthermore, if in the body the will moves no member through place except from that joint of the member which it does not move — since both that part of the body which is moved, and that by which it is made fixed in order that it may be moved, have their own bodily quantities by which they occupy the spans of their places — how much more does the very nod of the soul, which the members serve so that whatever pleases it may be fixed as that from which whatever is to be moved may take its leverage, since the soul is not a corporeal nature nor fills the body by local extent, as water fills a wineskin or a sponge, but by wondrous ways, by its very incorporeal nod, is intermingled with the body to give it life, whereby it also commands the body by a certain intention, not by mass —

how much more, I say, is the very nod of its will not moved through place in order that it may move the body through place, since it moves the whole through the parts, and moves none through place except by means of those parts which it does not move through place! But if this is difficult to understand, let both be believed: both that the spiritual creature, not moved through place, moves the body through place, and that God, not moved through time, moves the spiritual creature through time. But if anyone is unwilling to believe this concerning the soul — which indeed he would undoubtedly not only believe but even understand, if he could think of it, as it is, as incorporeal. For to whom would it not readily occur that what is not extended through spatial intervals is not moved through place?

But whatever is extended through spatial intervals is a body; and by this it follows that the soul should not be thought to be moved through place, if it is believed not to be a body — but, as I had begun to say, if anyone is unwilling to believe this concerning the soul, he must not be pressed too hard. Yet unless he believes that the substance of God is moved neither through time nor through place, he does not yet believe him to be perfectly unchangeable.

But because that nature of the Trinity is altogether unchangeable, and on this account so eternal that nothing can be coeternal with it, it, in itself and by itself, without any time or place, nevertheless moves through time and place the creature subject to it, creating natures by its goodness, ordering wills by its power, so that among natures there is none that is not from him, while among wills there is none good that does not profit him, and none evil that he cannot use well.

But since he did not give the freedom of will to all natures, and those to which he gave it are more powerful and superior, those natures which do not have will must necessarily be made subject to those which do have it — and this by the ordinance of the Creator, who never so punishes an evil will as to destroy the dignity of the nature. Since therefore every body and every irrational soul does not have freedom of will, these are made subject to those natures which are endowed with freedom of will — yet not all subject to all, but as the justice of the Creator has apportioned.

Therefore the providence of God, ruling and administering the whole creation — both natures and wills — natures that they may exist, and wills that neither the good be unfruitful nor the evil unpunished, first subjects all things to itself; then it subjects the corporeal creature to the spiritual, the irrational to the rational, the earthly to the heavenly, the female to the male, the weaker to the stronger, the more needy to the more abundant; while among wills it subjects the good to itself, but the rest to those very ones that serve itself, so that the evil will suffers that which the good will has done by God's command — whether through itself or through an evil will — at least in those things which are naturally subject even to evil wills, that is, in bodies.

For in themselves evil wills have their own inner punishment, namely their very iniquity itself. And by this, to the sublime angels — subject to God, enjoying him, and blessedly serving God — is made subject every corporeal nature, all irrational life, every will whether weak or perverse, so that concerning the subject things, or together with them, they may do what the order of nature demands in all things, at the command of him to whom all things are subjected. Accordingly they behold in him the unchangeable truth, and according to it they direct their wills. They become therefore partakers of his eternity, his truth, his will, always without time and place;

but they are moved by his command even temporally, while he is moved not temporally — and not in such a way that they recoil or slip away from the contemplation of him, but at the same time they both contemplate him without place and time, and fulfill his commands in lower things, moving themselves through time, but the body through both time and place, as far as it befits their action. And therefore God, by the twofold work of his providence, presides over the whole of his creation: over natures, that they may come to be; but over wills, that they may do nothing without his command or permission. The nature, then, of the corporeal universe is not helped from without corporeally. For there is no body outside it; otherwise it would not be the universe.

But from within it is helped incorporeally, God bringing it about that it is a nature at all, since from him and through him and in him are all things. But the parts of that same universe are both helped incorporeally from within — or rather are brought into being, so that they may be natures — and are helped corporeally from without, that they may fare better: as by nourishment, agriculture, medicine, and whatever things are done even for adornment, so that they may be not only sound and more fruitful, but also more comely. But the created spiritual nature, if it is perfect and blessed, as is that of the holy angels, as far as pertains to itself, whereby it exists and is wise, is helped only from within incorporeally.

For within it God speaks to it in a wondrous and ineffable manner, neither through writing affixed to bodily instruments, nor through voices sounding in bodily ears, nor through likenesses of bodies such as are formed imaginatively in the spirit — as in dreams or in some ecstasy of the spirit (which in Greek is called ekstasis, and we now use that word for the Latin) — because this kind of visions also, although it occurs more inwardly than those things which are announced to the mind through the senses of the body, nevertheless, since it is similar to them, so that when it occurs it either cannot be distinguished from them at all, or certainly only with difficulty and very rarely; and because it is more external than that which the rational and intellectual mind beholds in the very unchangeable truth, and by whose light it judges concerning all these things — I reckon that it must be counted among those things which occur from without.

Therefore the spiritual and intellectual creature, perfect and blessed, such as is that of the angels — as I have said, as far as pertains to itself, whereby it exists and is wise and blessed — is helped only from within by the eternity, truth, and love of the Creator. But if it is to be said to be helped from without, it is perhaps helped by this alone: that they behold one another and rejoice in their fellowship in God, and that, having also perceived those very creatures on all sides, it gives thanks and praises the Creator. But as regards the action of the angelic creature, through which the providence of God provides for all kinds of things and most of all for the human race, it does help from without — both through those visions which are similar to corporeal things, and through the very bodies

which lie subject to angelic power. Since these things are so, since God, almighty and all-holding, always the same by his unchangeable eternity, truth, and will, moved neither through time nor through place, moves the spiritual creature through time, and moves also the corporeal creature through both time and place — so that by that motion he may also administer from without the natures which he established from within, and this through the wills subject to him, which he moves through time and through bodies subject both to himself and to those wills, which he moves through time and place, at that time and place whose principle in God himself is life without time and place:

since therefore God does something of this kind, we must not suppose his substance, whereby he is God, to be changeable in times and places, or movable through times and places; but we must recognize these things in the work of divine providence — not in that work by which he creates natures, but in that by which he administers from without also the things created from within — since he himself, by no interval or space of places, is by his unchangeable and excellent power both more interior than every thing, because in him are all things, and more exterior than every thing, because he himself is above all things. Likewise, by no interval or space of times, by his unchangeable eternity, he is both more ancient than all things, because he himself is before all things, and more recent than all things, because the same he is after all things.

Wherefore, when we hear Scripture saying: 'And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it. But on the day you eat of it, you shall die the death' — if we ask in what manner God spoke these things, the manner itself indeed cannot properly be comprehended by us. Nevertheless we ought most certainly to hold that God speaks either through his own substance or through a creature subject to him;

but that through his own substance he speaks only to create all natures, while to the spiritual and intellectual natures he speaks not only to create them but also to illumine them, when they are already able to receive his utterance such as it is in his Word, 'which in the beginning was with God, and the Word was God, through whom all things were made.' But to those who cannot receive it, when God speaks, he speaks only through a creature — either merely a spiritual one, whether in dreams or in ecstasy, in the likeness of corporeal things, or even through the corporeal itself, when to the bodily senses either some form appears or voices sound.

If therefore Adam was such that he could receive that utterance of God which he affords to the angelic minds through his own substance, there is no doubt that he moved his mind through time in a wondrous and ineffable manner, himself not being moved through time, and impressed upon it the useful and salutary command of truth, and by that very ineffable truth showed what punishment would be due to a transgressor — just as all good precepts are heard or seen in that very unchangeable wisdom, which transfers itself into holy souls from some point in time, while there is no motion of it in time.

But if Adam was righteous in such a measure that he still had need of the authority of another, holier and wiser creature, through which he might come to know the will and command of God — as the prophets are for us, as the angels are for them — why should we doubt that God spoke to him through some creature of this kind, by such signs of voices as he could understand? For that which was afterward written, that when they had sinned they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise — because it was done not through the very substance of God but through a creature subject to him — no one who savors the catholic faith doubts in any way.

For I wished to discourse somewhat more broadly upon this matter for this reason: because certain heretics suppose that the substance of the Son of God is by itself visible, without any body being assumed, and therefore they opine that, before he received a body from the Virgin, he himself was seen by the patriarchs — as though it were said of God the Father alone: 'whom no man has seen nor can see,' because the Son was seen, before he received the form of a servant, even through his very own substance: which impiety must be driven far from catholic minds. But of this we shall discourse more fully elsewhere, if it shall please the Lord; now, this volume being ended, what follows — how the woman was created from the side of her husband — is to be hoped for in what comes next. BOOK NINE. And the Lord God said:

'It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper according to himself.' And God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven, and brought them to Adam, that he might see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living soul, that is its name. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to all the birds of heaven, and to all the beasts of the field. But for Adam himself there was not found a helper like to him; and God sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he fell asleep. And he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib, which he had taken from Adam, into a woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: 'This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband. And for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall be in one flesh.' If those things which were considered and written in the earlier books are of any help to the reader, we ought not to linger longer over this, that 'God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven'; for why it was said 'further' — that is, on account of the first founding of the creatures completed in six days, in which all things were made at once, perfected and inchoate in their causes, so that thereafter the causes might be brought forth to their effects — we have already, as far as we could, intimated in the preceding.

And if anyone thinks this must be unraveled otherwise, let him only carefully attend to all those things which we attended to in order to hold this view; and if from that he can extract a more probable opinion, we ought not only not to resist, but even to rejoice. But if anyone is troubled because it did not say: 'God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field, and from the waters all the birds of heaven,' but as though he had formed both kinds from the earth — for it says, 'and God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven' — let him see that it is to be understood in two ways:

either that it now kept silent whence he formed the birds of heaven, since even in silence it could occur that not both are taken to have been formed by God from the earth, but only the beasts of the field, so that concerning the birds of heaven, even with Scripture silent, we may understand whence he formed them — as we who know that in the first founding of the causal reasons they were produced from the waters; or that the earth is thus named universally together with the waters, just as it is named in that psalm where, the praises of the heavenly things being ended, the discourse was turned to the earth, and it was said: 'Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all deeps,' and the rest, and it was not afterward said 'Praise the Lord from the waters.' For where are all the deeps, which nevertheless praise the Lord from the earth?

Where too are the creeping things and the winged birds, which no less praise the Lord from the earth? According to this universal naming of the earth — according to which it is also said of the whole world: 'God, who made heaven and earth' — whatever things have been created, whether from the earth or from the waters, are truly understood to have been created from the earth. Now let us see how it is to be taken, that God said: 'It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper according to himself' — whether God said this temporally, by voices and syllables uttered, or whether that reason is being recalled which was in the Word of God principally, so that the woman should thus come to be: which reason Scripture also took up even then, when it said 'And God said:

Let this or that be made,' when all things were first being founded, also took up. Or perhaps God said this in the very mind of the man himself, as he speaks to certain of his servants within those very servants? Of which kind of his servants was also that one who said in the psalm: 'I will hear what the Lord God will speak within me.' Or was some revelation made to the man himself, within the man himself, concerning this matter, through an angel, in the likenesses of bodily voices — although Scripture kept silent whether in dreams or in ecstasy? For thus these things are wont to happen. Or in some other way, as it is revealed to the prophets? Whence is that saying: 'And the angel who spoke within me said to me.' Or did the voice itself sound through a corporeal creature, as from the cloud: 'This is my Son'?

What therefore of all these was actually done, we may not be able to comprehend with clarity; yet nevertheless let us hold most certainly both that God said this, and that, if he said it by a corporeal voice or by a likeness of a body temporally expressed, he said it not through his own substance, but through some creature subject to his command, as we treated in the preceding book. For God was seen even afterward by holy men — at one time with a head white as wool, at another with the lower part of the body like brass, at one time in one way and at another in another;

yet he afforded those visions to men not through the substance whereby he himself is, but through the things subject to himself which he created; and it is most certain to those who either faithfully believe or even excellently understand that the substance of the Trinity is unchangeably eternal and is moved neither through time nor through place, but moves through both time and place — that he showed and said what he willed through likenesses of forms and of bodily voices. Let us not therefore any longer ask in what manner God said this, but rather let us understand what he said. For that a helper according to himself had to be made for man, the eternal Truth itself holds — that Truth through which all things were created; and in it this is heard by him who is able to know in it what has been created and why.

But if it is asked for what purpose this helper had to be made, nothing else probably occurs than for the sake of begetting children, just as the earth is a helper to the seed, so that a shoot may be born from both; for this too had been said in the first founding of things: 'Male and female he made them, and God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.' This principle of the founding and joining of male and female, and this blessing, did not fail even after the sin and punishment of man. For it is this very principle according to which the earth is now full of men who have dominion over it.

For although they are recorded as having come together and begotten only after being cast out of paradise, nevertheless I do not see what could have prevented there being for them, even in paradise, honorable marriage and an undefiled bed — God granting this to those living faithfully and justly and serving him obediently and holily — so that, without any disquieting ardor of lust, without any labor and pain of bearing, offspring might be begotten from their seed;

not so that children should succeed their dying parents, but so that — while those who had begotten them remained in some state of form, and drew bodily vigor from the tree of life which was planted there, and those who were begotten were brought to the same state — until, a fixed number having been fulfilled, if all lived justly and obediently, then that transformation would take place, so that, without that death, the animal bodies, being changed into another quality (because they would serve the spirit that ruled them at every nod, and would live by the life-giving spirit alone without any bodily supports of nourishment), would be called spiritual. This could have come to pass, had not the transgression of the command merited the punishment of death.

For those who do not believe that this could have come to pass attend to nothing else than the custom of nature now running its course after sin and the human punishment; but we ought not to be of the number of those who do not believe except what they have been accustomed to see. For who would doubt that what we have said could have been afforded to a man living obediently and piously — who does not doubt that a certain state within its own kind was imparted to the garments of the Israelites, so that for forty years they suffered no damage of age? Why then did they not come together, except after they had gone out of paradise? It can be answered quickly: because, the woman having just been created, before they came together, that transgression took place, for whose desert, being destined to death, they also went out from the place of that felicity.

For Scripture did not express the time, how much elapsed between their being made and Cain being born from them. It can also be said that God had not yet commanded that they should come together. For why should not the divine authority be awaited for this matter, where no concupiscence urged as a goad of disobedient flesh? And God had not commanded this, because according to his foreknowledge he was disposing all things, in which he also without doubt foreknew their fall, whence the mortal human race was thereafter to be propagated. Or if the woman was not made for the man as a helper for begetting children, for what helping, then, was she made? If for one who might work the ground together with him — there was not yet labor, that he should need help; and if there were need, a male would be a better helper.

This can also be said concerning solace, if perhaps he was wearied of solitude. For how much more fittingly would two friends, rather than a man and a woman, dwell together for living together and conversing! But if it was fitting that one by commanding, the other by obeying, should live together on equal terms, lest contrary wills should disturb the peace of those dwelling together, not even for maintaining this would order have been lacking, whereby one is prior, the other posterior — especially if the posterior were created from the prior, as the woman was created. Or would anyone say that from a man's rib God could have made only a female, and not also a male, if he had willed this? Wherefore I do not find for what helping the woman was made for the man, if the cause of childbearing be withdrawn.

For if it was needful that parents should depart out of this life to give place to their children, so that the whole human race might be filled up in a fixed number through successive departures and successions, men could nevertheless, once children had been begotten and the righteousness of human duty fulfilled, have been transferred from here to better things, not through death but through some kind of change — either that supreme change by which, once their bodies had been received back, they would become holy like the angels in heaven; or, if that change ought not to be granted except to all together at the end of the age, some lesser change than that one, which would nonetheless bestow a better state than either this present body possesses, or even than those bodies possessed which were first made, the man from the slime of the earth and the woman from the man's flesh.