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| He Argues Against Adversaries Concerning the Heaven of Heavens.
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Chapter XV.—He Argues Against
Adversaries Concerning the Heaven of Heavens.
18. “Will you say that these things are
false, which, with a strong voice, Truth tells me in my inner ear,
concerning the very eternity of the Creator, that His substance is
in no wise changed by time, nor that His will is separate from His
substance? Wherefore, He willeth not one thing now, another anon,
but once and for ever He willeth all things that He willeth; not
again and again, nor now this, now that; nor willeth afterwards
what He willeth not before, nor willeth not what before He willed.
Because such a will is mutable and no mutable thing is eternal; but
our God is eternal.1106
| 1106 See xi. sec. 41, above. | Likewise He tells me, tells me in
my inner ear, that the expectation of future things is turned to
sight when they have come; and this same sight is turned to memory
when they have passed. Moreover, all thought which is thus varied
is mutable, and nothing mutable is eternal; but our God is
eternal.” These things I sum up and put together, and I find that
my God, the eternal God, hath not made any creature by any new
will, nor that His knowledge suffereth anything
transitory.
19. What, therefore, will ye say, ye
objectors? Are these things false? “No,” they say. “What is
this? Is it false, then, that every nature already formed, or
matter formable, is only from Him who is supremely good, because He
is supreme? . . . . Neither do we deny this,” say they. “What
then? Do you deny this, that there is a certain sublime creature,
clinging with so chaste a love with the true and truly eternal God,
that although it be not co-eternal with Him, yet it separateth
itself not from Him, nor floweth into any variety and vicissitude
of times, but resteth in the truest contemplation of Him only?”
Since Thou, O God, showest Thyself unto him, and sufficest him, who
loveth Thee as much as Thou commandest, and, therefore, he
declineth not from Thee, nor toward himself.1107
| 1107 In his De Vera Relig. c. 13, he says: “We
must confess that the angels are in their nature mutable as God is
Immutable. Yet by that will with which they love God more than
themselves, they remain firm and staple in Him, and enjoy His
majesty, being most willingly subject to Him alone.” | This is the house of God,1108
| 1108 In his Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 2, he
speaks of all who are holy, whether angels or men, as being God’s
dwelling-place. | not
earthly, nor of any celestial bulk corporeal, but a spiritual house
and a partaker of Thy eternity, because without blemish for ever.
For Thou hast made it fast for ever and ever; Thou hast given it a
law, which it shall not pass.1109
Nor yet is it co-eternal with
Thee, O God, because not without beginning, for it was
made.
20. For although we find no time before it,
for wisdom was created before all things,1110
—not certainly that Wisdom
manifestly co-eternal and equal unto Thee, our God, His
Father, and by Whom all things were created, and
in Whom, as the Beginning, Thou createdst heaven and earth; but
truly that wisdom which has been created, namely, the intellectual
nature,1111
which, in
the contemplation of light, is light. For this, although created,
is also called wisdom. But as great as is the difference between
the Light which enlighteneth and that which is enlightened,1112
| 1112 On God as the Father of Lights, see p. 76, note 2.
In addition to the references there given, compare in Ev. Joh.
Tract. ii. sec. 7; xiv. secs. 1, 2; and xxxv. sec. 3. See also
p. 373, note, below. | so great
is the difference between the Wisdom that createth and that which
hath been created; as between the Righteousness which justifieth,
and the righteousness which has been made by justification. For we
also are called Thy righteousness; for thus saith a certain servant
of Thine: “That we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him.”1113
Therefore,
since a certain created wisdom was created before all things, the
rational and intellectual mind of that chaste city of Thine, our
mother which is above, and is free,1114
and “eternal in the heavens”1115
(in what
heavens, unless in those that praise Thee, the “heaven of
heavens,”1116
because
this also is the “heaven of heavens,” which is the
Lord’s)—although we find not time before it, because that which
hath been created before all things also precedeth the creature of
time, yet is the Eternity of the Creator Himself before it, from
Whom, having been created, it took the beginning, although not of
time,—for time as yet was not,—yet of its own very
nature.
21. Hence comes it so to be of Thee, our God,
as to be manifestly another than Thou, and not the Self-same.1117
| 1117 Against the Manichæans. See iv. sec. 26, and part
2 of note on p. 76, above. | Since,
although we find time not only not before it, but not in it (it
being proper ever to behold Thy face, nor is ever turned aside from
it, wherefore it happens that it is varied by no change), yet is
there in it that mutability itself whence it would become dark and
cold, but that, clinging unto Thee with sublime love, it shineth
and gloweth from Thee like a perpetual noon. O house, full of light
and splendour! I have loved thy beauty, and the place of the
habitation of the glory of my Lord,1118
thy builder and owner. Let my
wandering sigh after thee; and I speak unto Him that made thee,
that He may possess me also in thee, seeing He hath made me
likewise. “I have gone astray, like a lost sheep;”1119
yet upon
the shoulders of my Sheperd,1120
thy builder, I hope that I may be
brought back to thee.
22. “What say ye to me, O ye objectors whom
I was addressing, and who yet believe that Moses was the holy
servant of God, and that his books were the oracles of the Holy
Ghost? Is not this house of God, not indeed co-eternal with God,
yet, according to its measure, eternal in the heavens,1121
where in
vain you seek for changes of times, because you will not find them?
For that surpasseth all extension, and every revolving space of
time, to which it is ever good to cleave fast to God.”1122
“It
is,” say they. “What, therefore, of those things which my heart
cried out unto my God, when within it heard the voice of His
praise, what then do you contend is false? Or is it because the
matter was formless, wherein, as there was no form, there was no
order? But where there was no order there could not be any change
of times; and yet this ‘almost nothing,’ inasmuch as it was not
altogether nothing, was verily from Him, from Whom is whatever is,
in what state soever anything is.” “This also,” say they,
“we do not deny.”
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