約伯倫理 第 1148 章

Ibid. — The number of his years is beyond estimation. God is immense without extent, eternal without beginning or end. — He wished in some way to speak of eternity, and called the very length of eternity 'years.' For when we wish to expand the brevity of time, we extend moments into hours, hours into days, days into months, and months into years. Because, then, he wished to say something exceedingly great, but found nothing broader that he might say, he multiplied years in God beyond estimation of number, saying: The number of his years is beyond estimation; so that while he multiplies those things which among us are long, human weakness may recognize that it cannot measure the length of eternity.

Stretch your gaze, then, into eternity, that you may see whether God is from a beginning, or up to a certain point; and there is nowhere an upper end, because God does not begin to be; nowhere a lower end, because he does not cease to be. Within him all things are confined, but he himself is extended around all things without extent, dilated without place. Behold, all things that have been made are, by the very circumscription by which they were created, girded by an upper and a lower limit. For by their own law, because they begin to be from non-being, they hasten to non-being. Certain things are eternal in the future, but were not in the past. — But some have marvelously received that, although an upper end initiates them, yet a lower end does not constrain them; and although they begin to be, they do not cease to be for ever.

But the eternity of these is therefore unlike the highest eternity, because they began to be eternal. When we look toward their extremities, we do not comprehend their end, which is altogether absent; yet we discern their beginnings, when we call the mind back. And while we lead our mind below and above in them, we do not at all grasp how long they are, but we see from what point they are. But God — because there is in him, as it were, something long through eternity, which neither arises from a beginning nor is terminated by an end, nor admits in himself a 'from what' nor an 'up to what' — let it therefore be said: The number of his years is beyond estimation. By this, then, that the number of his years is spoken of, his enduring existence is shown.

But by this, that it is called 'beyond estimation,' this very being is shown to be infinite and incomprehensible. But because we have come to know that he is made known to human minds, since all men see him; and because we behold, in admiration, his greatness, since the number of his years is held to be beyond estimation, it now remains that we should also hear what he does. There follows: