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- confessions
- text
- 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 Thee the whole, whatsoever knots Thou
didst open for me in this question, what reader would hold out to take
in the whole? Nor shall my heart for all this cease to give Thee honour,
and a song of praise, for those things which it is not able to express.
For the changeableness of changeable things, is itself capable of all
those forms, into which these changeable things are changed. And this
changeableness, what is it? Is it soul? Is it body? Is it that which
constituteth soul or body? Might one say, "a nothing something", an
"is, is not," I would say, this were it: and yet in some way was it even
then, as being capable of receiving these visible and compound figures.
But whence had it this degree of being, but from Thee, from Whom are all
things, so far forth as they are? But so much the further from Thee, as
the unliker Thee; for it is not farness of place. Thou therefore,
Lord, Who art not one in one place, and otherwise in another, but the
Self-same, and the Self-same, and the Self-same, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord
God Almighty, didst in the Beginning, which is of Thee, in Thy Wisdom,
which was born of Thine own Substance, create something, and that out of
nothing. For Thou createdst heaven and earth; not out of Thyself, for so
should they have been equal to Thine Only Begotten Son, and thereby to
Thee also; whereas no way were it right that aught should be equal to
Thee, which was not of Thee. And aught else besides Thee was there not,
whereof Thou mightest create them, O God, One Trinity, and Trine Unity;
and therefore out of nothing didst Thou create heaven and earth; a great
thing, and a small thing; for Thou art Almighty and Good, to make all
things good, even the great heaven, and the petty earth. Thou wert, and
nothing was there besides, out of which Thou createdst heaven and earth;
things of two sorts; one near Thee, the other near to nothing; one to
which Thou alone shouldest be superior; the other, to which nothing
should be inferior.
But that heaven of heavens was for Thyself, O Lord; but the earth which
Thou gavest to the sons of men, to be seen and felt, was not such as we
now see and feel. For it was invisible, without form, and there was a
deep, upon which there was no light; or, darkness was above the deep,
that is, more than in the deep. Because this deep of waters, visible
now, hath even in his depths, a light proper for its nature; perceivable
in whatever degree unto the fishes, and creeping things in the bottom
of it. But that whole deep was almost nothing, because hitherto it
was altogether without form; yet there was already that which could be
formed. For Thou, Lord, madest the world of a matter without form, which
out of nothing, Thou madest next to nothing, thereof to make those
great things, which we sons of men wonder at. For very wonderful is this
corporeal heaven; of which firmament between water and water, the second
day, after the creation of light, Thou saidst, Let it be made, and it
was made. Which firmament Thou calledst heaven; the heaven, that is, to
this earth and sea, which Thou madest the third day, by giving a visible
figure to the formless matter, which Thou madest before all days. For
already hadst Thou made both an heaven, before all days; but that was
the heaven of this heaven; because In the beginning Thou hadst made
heaven and earth. But this same earth which Thou madest was formless
matter, because it was invisible and without form, and darkness was
upon the deep, of which invisible earth and without form, of which
formlessness, of which almost nothing, Thou mightest make all these
things of which this changeable world consists, but subsists not; whose
very changeableness appears therein, that times can be observed and
numbered in it. For times are made by the alterations of things, while
the figures, the matter whereof is the invisible earth aforesaid, are
varied and turned.
And therefore the Spirit, the Teacher of Thy servant, when It recounts
Thee to have In the Beginning created heaven and earth, speaks nothing
of times, nothing of days. For verily that heaven of heavens which
Thou createdst in the Beginning, is some intellectual creature, which,
although no ways coeternal unto Thee, the Trinity, yet partaketh of
Thy eternity, and doth through the sweetness of that most happy
contemplation of Thyself, strongly restrain its own changeableness; and
without any fall since its first creation, cleaving close unto Thee, is
placed beyond all the rolling vicissitude of times. Yea, neither is this
very formlessness of the earth, invisible, and without form, numbered
among the days. For where no figure nor order is, there does nothing
come, or go; and where this is not, there plainly are no days, nor any
vicissitude of spaces of times.
O let the Light, the Truth, the Light of my heart, not mine own
darkness, speak unto me. I fell off into that, and became darkened; but
even thence, even thence I loved Thee. I went astray, and remembered
Thee. I heard Thy voice behind me, calling to me to return, and scarcely
heard it, through the tumultuousness of the enemies of peace. And now,
behold, I return in distress and panting after Thy fountain. Let no man
forbid me! of this will I drink, and so live. Let me not be mine own
life; from myself I lived ill, death was I to myself; and I revive in
Thee. Do Thou speak unto me, do Thou discourse unto me. I have believed
Thy Books, and their words be most full of mystery.
Already Thou hast told me with a strong voice, O Lord, in my inner ear,
that Thou art eternal, Who only hast immortality; since Thou canst not
be changed as to figure or motion, nor is Thy will altered by times:
seeing no will which varies is immortal. This is in Thy sight clear to
me, and let it be more and more cleared to me, I beseech Thee; and in
the manifestation thereof, let me with sobriety abide under Thy wings.
Thou hast told me also with a strong voice, O Lord, in my inner ear,
that Thou hast made all natures and substances, which are not what
Thyself is, and yet are; and that only is not from Thee, which is not,
and the motion of the will from Thee who art, unto that which in a less
degree is, because such motion is transgression and sin; and that no
man's sin doth either hurt Thee, or disturb the order of Thy government,
first or last. This is in Thy sight clear unto me, and let it be
more and more cleared to me, I beseech Thee: and in the manifestation
thereof, let me with sobriety abide under Thy wings.
Thou hast told me also with a strong voice, in my inner ear, that
neither is that creature coeternal unto Thyself, whose happiness
Thou only art, and which with a most persevering purity, drawing its
nourishment from Thee, doth in no place and at no time put forth its
natural mutability; and, Thyself being ever present with it, unto Whom
with its whole affection it keeps itself, having neither future to
expect, nor conveying into the past what it remembereth, is neither
altered by any change, nor distracted into any times. O blessed
creature, if such there be, for cleaving unto Thy Blessedness; blest in
Thee, its eternal Inhabitant and its Enlightener!