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| Of the Very Dangerous Allurements of the Eyes; On Account of Beauty of Form, God, the Creator, is to Be Praised.
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Chapter XXXIV.—Of the Very
Dangerous Allurements of the Eyes; On Account of Beauty of Form,
God, the Creator, is to Be Praised.
51. There remain the delights of these eyes of
my flesh, concerning which to make my confessions in the hearing of
the ears of Thy temple, those fraternal and devout ears; and so to
conclude the temptations of “the lust of the flesh”927
which still
assail me, groaning and desiring to be clothed upon with my house
from heaven.928
The eyes
delight in fair and varied forms, and bright and pleasing colours.
Suffer not
these to take possession of my soul; let God rather possess it, He
who made these things “very good”929
indeed; yet is He my good, not
these. And these move me while awake, during the day; nor is rest
from them granted me, as there is from the voices of melody,
sometimes, in silence, from them all. For that queen of colours,
the light, flooding all that we look upon, wherever I be during the
day, gliding past me in manifold forms, doth soothe me when busied
about other things, and not noticing it. And so strongly doth it
insinuate itself, that if it be suddenly withdrawn it is looked for
longingly, and if long absent doth sadden the mind.
52. O Thou Light, which Tobias saw,930
when, his
eyes being closed, he taught his son the way of life; himself going
before with the feet of charity, never going astray. Or that which
Isaac saw, when his fleshly “eyes were dim, so that he could not
see”931
by reason of
old age; it was permitted him, not knowingly to bless his sons, but
in blessing them to know them. Or that which Jacob saw, when he
too, blind through great age, with an enlightened heart, in the
persons of his own sons, threw light upon the races of the future
people, presignified in them; and laid his hands, mystically
crossed, upon his grandchildren by Joseph, not as their father,
looking outwardly, corrected them, but as he himself distinguished
them.932
This is the
light, the only one, and all those who see and love it are one. But
that corporeal light of which I was speaking seasoneth the life of
the world for her blind lovers, with a tempting and fatal
sweetness. But they who know how to praise Thee for it, “O God,
the world’s great Architect,”933
| 933 From the beginning of the hymn of St. Ambrose, part
of which is quoted, ix. sec. 32, above. | take it up in Thy hymn, and are not
taken up with it934
| 934 Assumunt eam, in hymno tuo, non absumuntur ab
ea. | in their
sleep. Such desire I to be. I resist seductions of the eyes, lest
my feet with which I advance on Thy way be entangled; and I raise
my invisible eyes to Thee, that Thou wouldst be pleased to “pluck
my feet out of the net.”935
Thou dost continually pluck them
out, for they are ensnared. Thou never ceasest to pluck them out,
but I, constantly remain fast in the snares set all around me;
because Thou “that keepest Israel shall neither slumber nor
sleep.”936
53. What numberless things, made by divers
arts and manufactures, both in our apparel, shoes, vessels, and
every kind of work, in pictures, too, and sundry images, and these
going far beyond necessary and moderate use and holy signification,
have men added for the enthralment of the eyes; following outwardly
what they make, forsaking inwardly Him by whom they were made, yea,
and destroying that which they themselves were made! But I, O my
God and my Joy, do hence also sing a hymn unto Thee, and offer a
sacrifice of praise unto my Sanctifier,937
| 937 Sanctificatori meo, but some mss. have sacreficatori. | because those beautiful patterns,
which through the medium of men’s souls are conveyed into their
artistic hands,938
| 938 See xi. sec. 7, and note, below. | emanate from
that Beauty which is above our souls, which my soul sigheth after
day and night. But as for the makers and followers of those outward
beauties, they from thence derive the way of approving them, but
not of using them.939
| 939 See note 6, sec. 40, above. | And though they see Him not, yet is
He there, that they might not go astray, but keep their strength
for Thee,940
and not
dissipate it upon delicious lassitudes. And I, though I both say
and perceive this, impede my course with such beauties, but Thou
dost rescue me, O Lord, Thou dost rescue me; “for Thy
loving-kindness is before mine eyes.”941
For I am taken miserably, and Thou
rescuest me mercifully; sometimes not perceiving it, in that I had
come upon them hesitatingly; at other times with pain, because I
was held fast by them.
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