V. 26. — Behold, God is great, surpassing our knowledge. We then begin to understand something of God only when we perceive that we cannot worthily know him. — Above he had said: Behold, God is exalted; now again he says: Behold, God is great. What is it that, speaking of God, he says 'behold,' and repeats 'behold,' except that we say 'behold' of a thing which we show in the present? And because God is everywhere present, when 'behold' is said of him, he is recalled as present even to those who do not see him. But well does he relate that he surpasses our knowledge, whom he had said is seen by all, because although he is discerned from the created order, yet his greatness is penetrated by no keenness of our senses.
For whatever we know of the brightness of his greatness is beneath himself; and by so much are we driven far from the knowledge of him, as by so much we suppose ourselves to have comprehended his power. For however high our mind is caught up, yet it is transcended by the immensity of his greatness. Of whom we then know something, as it were in part, when we perceive that we cannot worthily know him. There follows: