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| He Rejoices that He Proceeded from Plato to the Holy Scriptures, and Not the Reverse.
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Chapter XX.—He Rejoices that He
Proceeded from Plato to the Holy Scriptures, and Not the
Reverse.
26. But having then read those books of the Platonists, and being
admonished by them to search for incorporeal truth, I saw Thy
invisible things, understood by those things that are made;562
and though
repulsed, I perceived what that was, which through the darkness of
my mind I was not allowed to contemplate,—assured that Thou wert,
and wert infinite, and yet not diffused in space finite or
infinite; and that Thou truly art, who art the same ever,563
| 563 See sec. 17, note, above. | varying
neither in part nor motion; and that all other things are from
Thee, on this most sure ground alone, that they are. Of these
things was I indeed assured, yet too weak to enjoy Thee. I
chattered as one well skilled; but had I not sought Thy way in
Christ our Saviour, I would have proved not skilful, but ready to
perish. For now, filled with my punishment, I had begun to desire
to seem wise; yet mourned I not, but rather was puffed up with
knowledge.564
For where
was that charity building upon the “foundation” of humility,
“which is Jesus Christ”?565
Or, when would these books teach me
it? Upon these, therefore, I believe, it was Thy pleasure that I
should fall before I studied Thy Scriptures, that it might be
impressed on my memory how I was affected by them; and that
afterwards when I was subdued by Thy books, and when my wounds were
touched by Thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish
what a difference there is between presumption and
confession,—between those who saw whither they were to go, yet
saw not the way, and the way which leadeth not only to behold but
to inhabit the blessed country.566
| 566 We have already quoted a passage from Augustin’s
Sermons (v. sec. 5, note 7, above), where Christ as God is
described as the country we seek, while as man He is the way to go
to it. The Fathers frequently point out in their controversies with
the philosophers that it little profited that they should know of a
goal to be attained unless they could learn the way to reach
it. And, in accordance with the sentiment, Augustin says: “For it
is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way
lieth between him who goes and the place whither he goes, there is
hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not
where it is, what boots it to know whither he should go?” (De
Civ. Dei, xi. 2.) And again, in his De Trin. iv. 15:
“But of what use is it for the proud man, who, on that account,
is ashamed to embark upon the ship of wood, to behold from afar his
country beyond the sea? Or how can it hurt the humble man not to
behold it from so great a distance, when he is actually coming to
it by that wood upon which the other disdains to be borne?” | For had I first been moulded in Thy
Holy Scriptures, and hadst Thou, in the familiar use of them, grown
sweet unto me, and had I afterwards fallen upon those volumes, they
might perhaps have withdrawn me from the solid ground of piety; or,
had I stood firm in that wholesome disposition which I had thence
imbibed, I might have thought that it could have been attained by
the study of those books alone.
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