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| The Love of God, in His Nature Superior to All Creatures, is Acquired by the Knowledge of the Senses and the Exercise of Reason.
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Chapter VI.—The Love of God, in
His Nature Superior to All Creatures, is Acquired by the Knowledge
of the Senses and the Exercise of Reason.
8. Not with uncertain, but with assured
consciousness do I love Thee, O Lord. Thou hast stricken my heart
with Thy word, and I loved Thee. And also the heaven, and earth,
and all that is therein, behold, on every side they say that I
should love Thee; nor do they cease to speak unto all, “so that
they are without excuse.”844
But more profoundly wilt Thou have
mercy on whom Thou wilt have mercy, and compassion on whom Thou
wilt have compassion,845
otherwise do both heaven and earth
tell forth Thy praises to deaf ears. But what is it that I love in
loving Thee? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor
the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet
melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers,
and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant
to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love
my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and
fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the
light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner
man—where that light shineth unto my soul which no place can
contain, where that soundeth which time snatcheth not away, where
there is a fragrance which no breeze disperseth, where there is a
food which no eating can diminish, and where that clingeth which no
satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my
God.
9. And what is this? I asked the earth; and it
answered, “I am not He;” and whatsoever are therein made the
same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping
things that lived, and they replied, “We are not thy God, seek
higher than we.” I asked the breezy air, and the universal air
with its inhabitants answered, “Anaximenes846
| 846 Anaximenes of Miletus was born about 520 B.C. According to his philosophy the air was
animate, and from it, as from a first principle, all things in
heaven, earth, and sea sprung, first by condensation (πύκνωσις), and after that by a process of
rarefaction (ἀραίωσις). See Ep.
cxviii. 23; and Aristotle, Phys. iii. 4. Compare this theory
and that of Epicurus (p. 100, above) with those of modern
physicists; and see thereon The Unseen Universe, arts. 85,
etc., and 117, etc. | was deceived, I am not God.” I
asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars: “Neither,” say
they, “are we the God whom thou seekest.” And I answered unto
all these things which stand about the door of my flesh, “Ye have
told me concerning my God, that ye are not He; tell me something
about Him.” And with a loud voice they exclaimed, “He made
us.” My questioning was my observing of them; and their beauty
was their reply.847
| 847 In Ps. cxliv. 13, the earth he describes as
“dumb,” but as speaking to us while we meditate upon its
beauty—Ipsa inquisitio interrogatio est. | And I
directed my thoughts to myself, and said, “Who art thou?” And I
answered, “A man.” And lo, in me there appear both body and
soul, the one without, the other within. By which of these should I
seek my God, whom I had sought through the body from earth to
heaven, as far as I was able to send messengers—the beams of mine
eyes? But the better part is that which is inner; for to it, as
both president and judge, did all these my corporeal messengers
render the answers of heaven and earth and all things therein, who
said, “We are not God, but He made us.” These things was my
inner man cognizant of by the ministry of the outer; I, the inner
man, knew all this—I, the soul, through the senses of my body. I
asked the vast bulk of the earth of my God, and it answered me,
“I am not He, but He made me.”
10. Is not this beauty visible to all whose senses
are unimpaired? Why then doth it not speak the same things unto
all? Animals, the very small and the great, see it, but they
are unable to question it, because their senses are not endowed
with reason to enable them to judge on what they report. But men
can question it, so that “the invisible things of Him . . . are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made;”848
but by
loving them, they are brought into subjection to them; and subjects
are not able to judge. Neither do the creatures reply to such as
question them, unless they can judge; nor will they alter their
voice (that is, their beauty),849
| 849 See note 2 to previous section. | if so be one man only sees, another
both sees and questions, so as to appear one way to this man, and
another to that; but appearing the same way to both, it is mute to
this, it speaks to that—yea, verily, it speaks unto all but they
only understand it who compare that voice received from without
with the truth within. For the truth declareth unto me, “Neither
heaven, nor earth, nor any body is thy God.” This, their nature
declareth unto him that beholdeth them. “They are a mass; a mass
is less in part than in the whole.” Now, O my soul, thou art my
better part, unto thee I speak; for thou animatest the mass of thy
body, giving it life, which no body furnishes to a body but thy God
is even unto thee the Life of life.
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