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- 441299
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- confessions
- text
- in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These do
I seek in Thy books. Of Him did Moses write; this saith Himself; this
saith the Truth.
I would hear and understand, how "In the Beginning Thou madest the
heaven and earth." Moses wrote this, wrote and departed, passed hence
from Thee to Thee; nor is he now before me. For if he were, I would hold
him and ask him, and beseech him by Thee to open these things unto me,
and would lay the ears of my body to the sounds bursting out of his
mouth. And should he speak Hebrew, in vain will it strike on my senses,
nor would aught of it touch my mind; but if Latin, I should know what
he said. But whence should I know, whether he spake truth? Yea, and if
I knew this also, should I know it from him? Truly within me, within, in
the chamber of my thoughts, Truth, neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin,
nor barbarian, without organs of voice or tongue, or sound of syllables,
would say, "It is truth," and I forthwith should say confidently to that
man of Thine, "thou sayest truly." Whereas then I cannot enquire of him,
Thee, Thee I beseech, O Truth, full of Whom he spake truth, Thee, my
God, I beseech, forgive my sins; and Thou, who gavest him Thy servant to
speak these things, give to me also to understand them.
Behold, the heavens and the earth are; they proclaim that they were
created; for they change and vary. Whereas whatsoever hath not been
made, and yet is, hath nothing in it, which before it had not; and
this it is, to change and vary. They proclaim also, that they made not
themselves; "therefore we are, because we have been made; we were not
therefore, before we were, so as to make ourselves." Now the evidence
of the thing, is the voice of the speakers. Thou therefore, Lord, madest
them; who art beautiful, for they are beautiful; who art good, for they
are good; who art, for they are; yet are they not beautiful nor good,
nor are they, as Thou their Creator art; compared with Whom, they are
neither beautiful, nor good, nor are. This we know, thanks be to Thee.
And our knowledge, compared with Thy knowledge, is ignorance.
But how didst Thou make the heaven and the earth? and what the engine of
Thy so mighty fabric? For it was not as a human artificer, forming one
body from another, according to the discretion of his mind, which can
in some way invest with such a form, as it seeth in itself by its inward
eye. And whence should he be able to do this, unless Thou hadst made
that mind? and he invests with a form what already existeth, and hath
a being, as clay, or stone, or wood, or gold, or the like. And whence
should they be, hadst not Thou appointed them? Thou madest the artificer
his body, Thou the mind commanding the limbs, Thou the matter whereof he
makes any thing; Thou the apprehension whereby to take in his art, and
see within what he doth without; Thou the sense of his body, whereby,
as by an interpreter, he may from mind to matter, convey that which he
doth, and report to his mind what is done; that it within may consult
the truth, which presideth over itself, whether it be well done or no.
All these praise Thee, the Creator of all. But how dost Thou make them?
how, O God, didst Thou make heaven and earth? Verily, neither in the
heaven, nor in the earth, didst Thou make heaven and earth; nor in the
air, or waters, seeing these also belong to the heaven and the earth;
nor in the whole world didst Thou make the whole world; because there
was no place where to make it, before it was made, that it might be. Nor
didst Thou hold any thing in Thy hand, whereof to make heaven and earth.
For whence shouldest Thou have this, which Thou hadst not made, thereof
to make any thing? For what is, but because Thou art? Therefore Thou
spokest, and they were made, and in Thy Word Thou madest them.
But how didst Thou speak? In the way that the voice came out of the
cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son? For that voice passed by and
passed away, began and ended; the syllables sounded and passed away,
the second after the first, the third after the second, and so forth in
order, until the last after the rest, and silence after the last. Whence
it is abundantly clear and plain that the motion of a creature expressed
it, itself temporal, serving Thy eternal will. And these Thy words,
created for a time, the outward ear reported to the intelligent soul,
whose inward ear lay listening to Thy Eternal Word. But she compared
these words sounding in time, with that Thy Eternal Word in silence, and
said "It is different, far different. These words are far beneath me,
nor are they, because they flee and pass away; but the Word of my Lord
abideth above me for ever." If then in sounding and passing words Thou
saidst that heaven and earth should be made, and so madest heaven and
earth, there was a corporeal creature before heaven and earth, by whose
motions in time that voice might take his course in time. But there was
nought corporeal before heaven and earth; or if there were, surely Thou
hadst, without such a passing voice, created that, whereof to make this
passing voice, by which to say, Let the heaven and the earth be made.
For whatsoever that were, whereof such a voice were made, unless by
Thee it were made, it could not be at all. By what Word then didst Thou
speak, that a body might be made, whereby these words again might be
made?
Thou callest us then to understand the Word, God, with Thee God, Which
is spoken eternally, and by It are all things spoken eternally. For what
was spoken was not spoken successively, one thing concluded that the
next might be spoken, but all things together and eternally. Else have
we time and change; and not a true eternity nor true immortality. This I
know, O my God, and give thanks. I know, I confess to Thee, O Lord, and
with me there knows and blesses Thee, whoso is not unthankful to assure
Truth. We know, Lord, we know; since inasmuch as anything is not which
was, and is, which was not, so far forth it dieth and ariseth. Nothing
then of Thy Word doth give place or replace, because It is truly
immortal and eternal. And therefore unto the Word coeternal with Thee
Thou dost at once and eternally say all that Thou dost say; and whatever
Thou sayest shall be made is made; nor dost Thou make, otherwise than by
saying; and yet are not all things made together, or everlasting, which
Thou makest by saying.
Why, I beseech Thee, O Lord my God? I see it in a way; but how to
express it, I know not, unless it be, that whatsoever begins to be, and
leaves off to be, begins then, and leaves off then, when in Thy eternal
Reason it is known, that it ought to begin or leave off; in which Reason
nothing beginneth or leaveth off. This is Thy Word, which is also "the
Beginning, because also It speaketh unto us." Thus in the Gospel He
speaketh through the flesh; and this sounded outwardly in the ears of
men; that it might be believed and sought inwardly, and found in
the eternal Verity; where the good and only Master teacheth all His
disciples. There, Lord, hear I Thy voice speaking unto me; because He
speaketh us, who teacheth us; but He that teacheth us not, though
He speaketh, to us He speaketh not. Who now teacheth us, but the
unchangeable Truth? for even when we are admonished through a changeable
creature; we are but led to the unchangeable Truth; where we learn
truly, while we stand and hear Him, and rejoice greatly because of the
Bridegroom's voice, restoring us to Him, from Whom we are. And therefore
the Beginning, because unless It abided, there should not, when we
went astray, be whither to return.