- char_end
- 492146
- char_start
- 484149
- chunk_index
- 68
- chunk_total
- 89
- estimated_tokens
- 2000
- source_file_key
- confessions
- text
- varieties, until I flow together into Thee, purified and molten by the
fire of Thy love.
And now will I stand, and become firm in Thee, in my mould, Thy truth;
nor will I endure the questions of men, who by a penal disease thirst
for more than they can contain, and say, "what did God before He made
heaven and earth?" Or, "How came it into His mind to make any thing,
having never before made any thing?" Give them, O Lord, well to
bethink themselves what they say, and to find, that "never" cannot be
predicated, when "time" is not. This then that He is said "never to have
made"; what else is it to say, than "in 'no time' to have made?" Let
them see therefore, that time cannot be without created being, and cease
to speak that vanity. May they also be extended towards those things
which are before; and understand Thee before all times, the eternal
Creator of all times, and that no times be coeternal with Thee, nor any
creature, even if there be any creature before all times.
O Lord my God, what a depth is that recess of Thy mysteries, and how far
from it have the consequences of my transgressions cast me! Heal mine
eyes, that I may share the joy of Thy light. Certainly, if there be mind
gifted with such vast knowledge and foreknowledge, as to know all things
past and to come, as I know one well-known Psalm, truly that mind is
passing wonderful, and fearfully amazing; in that nothing past, nothing
to come in after-ages, is any more hidden from him, than when I sung
that Psalm, was hidden from me what, and how much of it had passed away
from the beginning, what, and how much there remained unto the end. But
far be it that Thou the Creator of the Universe, the Creator of souls
and bodies, far be it, that Thou shouldest in such wise know all things
past and to come. Far, far more wonderfully, and far more mysteriously,
dost Thou know them. For not, as the feelings of one who singeth what he
knoweth, or heareth some well-known song, are through expectation of the
words to come, and the remembering of those that are past, varied,
and his senses divided,--not so doth any thing happen unto Thee,
unchangeably eternal, that is, the eternal Creator of minds. Like then
as Thou in the Beginning knewest the heaven and the earth, without any
variety of Thy knowledge, so madest Thou in the Beginning heaven and
earth, without any distraction of Thy action. Whoso understandeth, let
him confess unto Thee; and whoso understandeth not, let him confess
unto Thee. Oh how high art Thou, and yet the humble in heart are Thy
dwelling-place; for Thou raisest up those that are bowed down, and they
fall not, whose elevation Thou art.
BOOK XII
My heart, O Lord, touched with the words of Thy Holy Scripture, is much
busied, amid this poverty of my life. And therefore most times, is the
poverty of human understanding copious in words, because enquiring hath
more to say than discovering, and demanding is longer than obtaining,
and our hand that knocks, hath more work to do, than our hand that
receives. We hold the promise, who shall make it null? If God be for us,
who can be against us? Ask, and ye shall have; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh,
receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh,
shall it be opened. These be Thine own promises: and who need fear to be
deceived, when the Truth promiseth?
The lowliness of my tongue confesseth unto Thy Highness, that Thou
madest heaven and earth; this heaven which I see, and this earth that I
tread upon, whence is this earth that I bear about me; Thou madest it.
But where is that heaven of heavens, O Lord, which we hear of in the
words of the Psalm. The heaven of heavens are the Lord's; but the earth
hath He given to the children of men? Where is that heaven which we see
not, to which all this which we see is earth? For this corporeal whole,
not being wholly every where, hath in such wise received its portion of
beauty in these lower parts, whereof the lowest is this our earth; but
to that heaven of heavens, even the heaven of our earth, is but earth:
yea both these great bodies, may not absurdly be called earth, to that
unknown heaven, which is the Lord's, not the sons' of men.
And now this earth was invisible and without form, and there was I know
not what depth of abyss, upon which there was no light, because it had
no shape. Therefore didst Thou command it to be written, that darkness
was upon the face of the deep; what else than the absence of light? For
had there been light, where should it have been but by being over all,
aloft, and enlightening? Where then light was not, what was the presence
of darkness, but the absence of light? Darkness therefore was upon it,
because light was not upon it; as where sound is not, there is silence.
And what is it to have silence there, but to have no sound there? Hast
not Thou, O Lord, taught his soul, which confesseth unto Thee? Hast not
Thou taught me, Lord, that before Thou formedst and diversifiedst this
formless matter, there was nothing, neither colour, nor figure, nor
body, nor spirit? and yet not altogether nothing; for there was a
certain formlessness, without any beauty.
How then should it be called, that it might be in some measure conveyed
to those of duller mind, but by some ordinary word? And what, among all
parts of the world can be found nearer to an absolute formlessness, than
earth and deep? For, occupying the lowest stage, they are less beautiful
than the other higher parts are, transparent all and shining. Wherefore
then may I not conceive the formlessness of matter (which Thou hadst
created without beauty, whereof to make this beautiful world) to be
suitably intimated unto men, by the name of earth invisible and without
form.
So that when thought seeketh what the sense may conceive under this,
and saith to itself, "It is no intellectual form, as life, or justice;
because it is the matter of bodies; nor object of sense, because being
invisible, and without form, there was in it no object of sight or
sense";--while man's thought thus saith to itself, it may endeavour
either to know it, by being ignorant of it; or to be ignorant, by
knowing it.
But I, Lord, if I would, by my tongue and my pen, confess unto Thee the
whole, whatever Thyself hath taught me of that matter,--the name whereof
hearing before, and not understanding, when they who understood it not,
told me of it, so I conceived of it as having innumerable forms and
diverse, and therefore did not conceive it at all, my mind tossed up and
down foul and horrible "forms" out of all order, but yet "forms" and I
called it without form not that it wanted all form, but because it had
such as my mind would, if presented to it, turn from, as unwonted and
jarring, and human frailness would be troubled at. And still that which
I conceived, was without form, not as being deprived of all form, but
in comparison of more beautiful forms; and true reason did persuade me,
that I must utterly uncase it of all remnants of form whatsoever, if
I would conceive matter absolutely without form; and I could not; for
sooner could I imagine that not to be at all, which should be deprived
of all form, than conceive a thing betwixt form and nothing, neither
formed, nor nothing, a formless almost nothing. So my mind gave over to
question thereupon with my spirit, it being filled with the images of
formed bodies, and changing and varying them, as it willed; and I bent
myself to the bodies themselves, and looked more deeply into their
changeableness, by which they cease to be what they have been, and begin
to be what they were not; and this same shifting from form to form, I
suspected to be through a certain formless state, not through a mere
nothing; yet this I longed to know, not to suspect only.-If then my
voice and pen would confess unto