Theological Orations 27-30 2-1 part 2/2

Wherefore he too sets all the lower knowledge as nothing beyond mirrors and riddles, as standing in small images of the truth.

But if I do not seem to some excessively superfluous and over-curious in examining such matters: perhaps there were no other things than these, "which cannot now be borne," which the Word Himself hinted at as to be borne and made clear at some time;

and which John the forerunner of the Word, the great voice of the truth, declared that not even the world below itself could contain.

All truth, then, and all reasoning is hard to trace out and hard to contemplate;

and as it were with a small instrument we fashion great things, hunting the knowledge of beings with human wisdom, and assailing intelligible things with—or not apart from—the senses, by which we are whirled about and led astray, and we cannot, encountering bare realities with the bare mind, draw any nearer to the truth, or have the mind stamped by [its] apprehensions.

But the discourse about God, the more perfect it is, the more difficult to attain, and [it has] more objections and more laborious solutions.

For everything that opposes, even if it be very slight, checks and hinders the course of the discourse, and cuts off its forward motion;

just like those who, by the reins, suddenly pull back horses in full career, and overturn them by the unexpectedness of the jolt.

Thus Solomon, who was wise beyond all who were before him and in his own time, to whom breadth of heart was a gift of God, and an outpouring of contemplation more abundant than the sand—the more he enters into the depths, the more he is dizzied, and makes it the end of wisdom to have found how much it had escaped him.

And Paul attempts to reach—I do not yet say the nature of God, for this he knew to be utterly impossible, but only the judgments of God;

but since he finds no way out, nor any stopping-place for the ascent, nor does the inquisitiveness of his mind come to any manifest end, with something of the deficiency always showing itself;

O the wonder! (that I too may suffer the same)—

[Consider] the mutual relation between begetters and begotten, that [the race] may be held together by affection; how the species stand fixed and are distinguished by their characters, the properties of so many being unattainable [to comprehension]; how the same living being is mortal and immortal—the one by removal, the other by generation; for the one passed out, the other came in instead, as in the current of a river that does not stand still or remain.

And you might still philosophize much about limbs and parts, and their fitting relation to one another, composed and divided for use and beauty at once, projecting and projected upon, united and divided, containing and contained, by the law and reason of nature.

Much [might one say] about voices and hearings:

how the one are borne through the vocal organs, and the others receive them, mingling with one another through the percussion and impression of the air in between.

Much about sight, which holds ineffable communion with visible things, and is moved together [with them] by the mere willing, and undergoes the same as the mind;

for with equal speed the one [mind] mingles with intelligible things, and the other [sight] with visible things.

Much about the other senses, which are certain receptions of external things, not contemplated by reason.

Much about the rest taken in sleep, and the refashioning through dreams, and memory and recollection, and reasoning and anger and desire—and, in brief, all the things by which this little world, man, is governed.

Would you have me also enumerate the differences of the other animals—both toward us and toward one another—their natures and births and rearings, their habitats and characters and, as it were, polities? How some are gregarious, others solitary; some grass-eating, others flesh-devouring; some fierce-tempered, others gentle; some fond of man and companionable, others untamed and free; some, as it were, nearer to reason and instruction, others utterly irrational and most unteachable; some of more senses, others of fewer; some immovable, others migratory; some swiftest, others most sluggish; some surpassing in size and beauty, or in one of these, others smallest or most ill-formed, or both; some valiant, others weak; some apt at defense, others wary and treacherous; some watchful, others unguarded; some industrious and provident, others wholly idle and improvident; and, still before these, how some are creeping, others upright; some homeloving, others amphibious; some lovers of beauty, others unadorned; coupling and uncoupling; chaste and unchaste; prolific and not prolific; long-lived and short-lived? Our discourse would weary, were it to go through them in detail.

Consider for me too the swimming nature gliding through the waters, and as it were flying through the liquid element, breathing its own [element], the air, yet endangered by ours—just as we are in the waters;

[consider] their habits and passions, their matings and breedings, their sizes and beauties, their love of haunts and their wanderings, their gatherings and partings, and their properties almost akin to those of land creatures, but in some cases their communities and properties are opposite, both in kinds and in names.

Consider for me too the flocks of birds, and their varieties in shapes and colors, both of the others and of the songsters;

and what is the reason of their melody, and from whom? Who gave the cicada the lyre upon its breast, and the songs and chirpings upon the branches, when, stirred by the sun, they make their noontide music and fill the groves with sound and escort the wayfarer with their voices? Who weaves the swan's song for it, when it spreads its wing to the breezes and makes the rushing [air] into a tune? For I forbear to speak of the artificial voices, and all that the arts contrive against the truth.

[The peacock] makes a theater of its beauty for its admirers, with a stately gait? Indeed the divine Scripture marvels even at the wisdom of women in weaving, saying, "Who gave to women the wisdom of weaving and the knowledge of embroidery?"—this [belongs] to a rational creature, surpassing in wisdom, and journeying even unto heavenly things.

But marvel for me also at the natural intelligence of irrational creatures, and give the reasons [for it]:

how birds have for nests rocks and trees and roofs, fashioned at once for safety and beauty, and suited to their young; whence comes to bees and spiders their industriousness and love of craft, so that the one weave and join together their honeycombs by means of hexagonal and alternating cells, and contrive their stability through the dividing wall in the middle and the alternation of the angles interwoven with the straight lines—and these in cells so dark and in invisible structures;

If reasoning about these things is within your reach, and you have understood the intelligence concerning them, consider also the differences of plants, even down to the artistry in the leaves, [contrived] for what is at once most pleasant to the eyes and most useful for the fruits.

Consider for me too the variety and abundance of fruits, and especially the fairest of those most necessary.

And consider for me the powers of roots, and juices, and flowers, and odors—not only most pleasant, but also conducive to health—and the graces and qualities of colors.

And further, the costliness and translucency of stones;

since nature has set all things before you, as at a common banquet, both what is necessary and what is for enjoyment;

so that, if nothing else, from the benefits [you receive] you may come to know God, and through your needs become wiser concerning yourself.

From here, let there come before me the breadths and lengths of earth, the common mother of all, and the bays of the sea bound to one another and to the land, and the beauties of groves, and rivers, and springs both copious and ever-flowing—not only of cold and potable waters, and those above the earth, but also all those that flow beneath the earth, running through certain hollows, then thrust out by a violent wind and meeting resistance, then set ablaze by the vehemence of the struggle and the opposition, breaking forth little by little wherever they find a way, and thence affording us the use of hot baths in many places of the earth, and, by the contrary power, a healing free of charge and spontaneous.

What is this great and artless weaving?

[Are these things] not as praiseworthy in their relation to one another as when contemplated each by itself? How does the earth stand firm and unswerving? Upon what is it borne, and what is it that props it up? And that again, upon what? For reason has nothing on which it may be stayed, except the divine will.

[The plains] are cut off from the mountains, and each, split off and ending toward some other limit, is a most evident token of God's mighty working. As for the sea—if I had not its magnitude to marvel at, I would have marveled at its tameness, and how it stands loosed [yet] within its own bounds;

and if not its tameness, then certainly its magnitude.

But since [it has] both, I shall praise the power in both.

What gathered it? What bound it? How is it raised up and stands, as if in awe of its neighbor the land? How does it also receive all the rivers, and yet remain the same, through superabundance of fullness—or I know not what one ought to say? How is sand a boundary to it, so vast an element? Have the natural philosophers anything to say—they who are wise in vain things, and who truly measure the sea with a cup, [measuring] such great things by their own fancies? Or shall I briefly philosophize this from the Scripture, more convincingly and more truly than [from] their long discourses? "A decree set a girdle upon the face of the water."

This is the bond of the liquid nature.

And how does it lead the land-dweller as a sailor by a little wood and the wind?—do you not marvel, seeing this? Is your mind not amazed?—that land and sea may be bound together by [mutual] needs and intercourse, and that things so far separated in nature may come into one for man's sake? And what are the first springs of the springs? Search out, O man, if any of these can be traced out or found by you.

And who is it that cleft [channels] for the rivers through plains and mountains, and gave them an unhindered course? And how is the wonder [wrought] out of opposites—the sea neither overflowing, nor the rivers standing still? And what is the nourishment of the waters, and what is the difference therein—some [plants] being watered from above, others given drink at the roots—that I too may take some delight in the discourse, expounding the delight of God? Come then, leaving the earth and earthly things, lift yourself toward the air on the wings of the mind, that the discourse may proceed with you along the way;

and from there I will lead you up to the heavenly things, and to heaven itself, and to the things above heaven.

And to the things that follow the discourse shrinks from advancing, yet it shall advance nonetheless, as far as is permitted.

Who is it that poured out the air, this great and abundant wealth—not measured out by worth, nor by fortunes, nor mastered by boundaries, nor parceled out by ages, but, after the manner of the distribution of the manna, embraced in sufficiency and honored with equal sharing;

—the vehicle of the winged nature, the seat of the winds, the seasonableness of the seasons, the animating of living things, or rather the conjoining of the soul to the body, in which are bodies, and with which is reason, in which is light and the thing illumined, and the sight that flows through it? But consider for me also the things that follow;

for I am not permitted to give to the air the whole [dominion];

—the dominion of those things that are reckoned to belong to the air.

To me [belong the contemplation] of heaven also and of the heavenly things.

But let faith lead us forward rather than reason, if indeed you have learned [your own] weakness in things nearer, and have come to know as reason the knowing of things beyond reason—lest you be altogether earthly or earthbound, ignorant even of this very thing: your ignorance.

Who wheeled the heaven around and set the stars in order? Or rather, what were heaven and the stars before all this? Could you tell me—you who soar aloft, yet are ignorant of what lies at your feet, who cannot even take your own measure, yet busy yourself with what is beyond your nature and stand gaping at the immeasurable? Grant that you can grasp orbits and revolutions, approaches and recedings, risings and settings, certain degrees and minute fractions, and all the things by which you pride yourself on this wonderful science of yours;

even so, this is not yet a comprehension of realities, but only the observation of some movement, which, confirmed by greater practice and gathering into one the observations of many, and then devising an explanation, has been named a science;

just as the phenomena concerning the moon have become familiar to the many, sight having furnished the beginning of their knowledge.

But you, if you are so very learned in these things and justly seek to be admired, tell me: what is the cause of this order and of this motion? Whence does the sun, like the leader of some chorus, hold up its beacon-light for the whole inhabited world and for all eyes, outshining the other stars in brightness more than any of them outshine the rest? And here is the proof: they shine back with reflected light, but he shines over all, and does not even let it be perceived that they rise together with him—'beautiful as a bridegroom, swift as a giant' and great;

for I will not consent to extol him from any other source than my own Scriptures;

so great is he in power that from one extremity he grasps the other by his heat, and nothing escapes his perception, but he fills every sight with light and every bodily nature with warmth;

warming, yet not scorching, by the gentleness of its balanced temperature and the orderliness of its movement, since it is present to all and embraces all alike.

And consider how great this further point is, if you have grasped it:

'What the sun is among things perceptible, that God is among things intelligible,' as one of the outsiders said;

for the sun illumines sight, just as God illumines the mind;

and the sun is itself the most beautiful of things seen, just as God is the most beautiful of things conceived.

But what was it that set the sun in motion from the beginning? What is it that ever moves it and wheels it about—itself fixed by reason and unmoved, truly tireless, life-bringing and nature-quickening, and all that the poets have rightly sung of it—never ceasing either from its own course or from its benefactions? How is it the maker of day above the earth and of night beneath the earth? Or rather, I do not know what one ought to say when one gazes upon the sun.

What is this adding and subtracting of theirs, and this equality of inequality—if I may say something paradoxical? How is the sun the maker and apportioner of the seasons, which in good order come on and pass away, and as in a dance interweave with one another and stand apart, the one by the law of friendship, the other by that of orderliness, and which are blended little by little, and by their nearness steal away the sameness of days and nights, so that they may not grieve us by their abruptness? But let the sun pass on for us;

[and let us turn to the angelic nature,] which is called or which comes to be fire and spirit;

for it is said that 'He makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire';

unless indeed 'to make' here means to preserve them by the same word by which they came into being.

But it is called spirit and fire:

the one as being an intelligible nature, the other as being purifying;

since I know that the same appellations belong also to the first Essence.

Yet for us at least let it be incorporeal, or as nearly so as possible.

Do you see how we grow dizzy over this subject, and have no place to advance to, except so far as to know that there are certain angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, splendors, ascents, intellectual powers or minds, natures pure and unalloyed, immovable toward evil or hardly movable, ever dancing in chorus about the first Cause?

Or how could anyone fittingly hymn them, illumined from thence with the purest illumination, or each illumined differently according to the proportion of its nature and rank?

so shaped and stamped by the Good that they become other lights and are able to enlighten others, by the inflowings and impartings of the first Light;

ministers of the divine will, mighty in strength both natural and acquired, traversing all things, present readily to all everywhere, both by their eagerness for service and by the lightness of their nature;

different ones having received different parts of the inhabited world as their portion, or being set in charge of some other region of the universe, as He knows who ordered and distinguished these things;

leading all things into one, toward the single inclination of Him who created all things;

singers of the divine majesty, beholders of eternal glory and eternally so—not that God may be glorified, for there is nothing that can be added to the Full, to Him who is also the supplier of good things to others, but that there may be no lack of benefaction even toward the natures that are first after God. If these things have been hymned according to their worth, thanks be to the Trinity and to the one Godhead in the three;

but if it has fallen short of my desire, even so my discourse has its victory.

For this is what it strove to establish: that even the nature of the secondary beings is superior to mind—not to mention that of the first and only nature, for I shrink from saying that it is above all things.