What is that light of beauty, when we shall see him as he is, and when the tears shall have passed away which have been my bread day and night, while it is daily said to me, 'Where is thy God?' And I say: My God, where art thou? Behold, here art thou. I breathe a little in thee, when I pour out my soul above myself in the voice of exultation and confession, the sound of one that keeps holyday. And still it is sorrowful, because it slips back and becomes an abyss, or rather feels that it is still an abyss. My faith speaks to it, the faith which thou hast kindled in the night before my feet: 'Why art thou sorrowful, O my soul, and why dost thou disquiet me? Hope in the Lord; his word is a lamp unto thy feet.'
Hope and persevere, until the night pass, the mother of the unrighteous; until the wrath of the Lord pass, whose children we too once were — darkness, whose remnants we drag about in the body that is dead because of sin — until the day breathe and the shadows be removed. Hope in the Lord: in the morning I will stand and contemplate; I will ever confess to him. In the morning I will stand, and will see the salvation of my countenance, my God, who shall quicken even our mortal bodies because of his Spirit that dwelleth in us, for mercifully he was borne above our inner part, dark and flowing. Whence in this pilgrimage we have received a pledge, that we may already be light, while as yet we are saved by hope, and are children of light and children of the day, not children of the night nor of the darkness — which yet we once were.
Between them and us, in this still uncertain state of human knowledge, thou alone dividest, who triest our hearts and callest the light day and the darkness night. For who discerns us but thou? And what have we that we have not received of thee, out of the same lump being vessels unto honour, of which others also were made unto dishonour? Or who but thou, our God, hast made for us a firmament of authority over us in thy divine Scripture? For the heaven shall be folded up as a book, and now is stretched over us like a skin. For of more sublime authority is thy divine Scripture, now that those mortals through whom thou didst dispense it to us have undergone this death.
And thou knowest, O Lord, thou knowest how thou didst clothe men with skins, when by sin they became mortal. Whence, like a skin, thou hast stretched out the firmament of thy book — thy harmonious oracles, namely, which through the ministry of mortals thou didst set over us. For by their very death the solid framework of authority in thine oracles, published through them, is sublimely stretched over all that is beneath; which, while they lived here, was not so sublimely stretched out. Not yet hadst thou stretched out the heaven like a skin; not yet hadst thou spread abroad on every side the fame of their death. Let us behold, O Lord, the heavens, the works of thy fingers; clear from our eyes the cloud wherewith thou hast veiled them. There is thy testimony, giving wisdom unto the little ones.
Perfect, O my God, thy praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. For we know no other books that so lay low pride, that so lay low the enemy and the defender who resists thy reconciliation by defending his own sins. I know not, O Lord, I know not other oracles so chaste, which thus persuade me to confession and soothe my neck under thy yoke, and invite me to worship thee freely. Let me understand them, good Father; grant me this, who am set under them, for thou hast made them firm for those set beneath. There are other waters above this firmament, immortal, I believe, and secret from earthly corruption.
Let them praise thy name, let them praise thee, thou supercelestial peoples of thine angels, who have no need to look up to this firmament and by reading to know thy word. For they ever behold thy face, and there read, without syllables of time, what thy eternal will would have. They read, they choose, and they love; they ever read, and that which they read never passes away. For by choosing and by loving they read the very unchangeableness of thy counsel. Their book is not closed, nor is their scroll folded up, because thou thyself art this to them, and art so for ever; for thou hast ordained them above this firmament, which thou hast made firm over the infirmity of the lower peoples, where they might look up and acknowledge thy mercy, declaring thee in time, thou who madest the times.
For in heaven, O Lord, is thy mercy, and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. The clouds pass away, but the heaven remains. The preachers of thy word pass away from this life into another life, but thy Scripture is stretched over the peoples even unto the end of the world. Yea, both heaven and earth shall pass away, but thy words shall not pass away; because the skin shall be folded up, and the grass over which it was stretched shall pass away with its glory, but thy word abideth for ever; which now appears to us in the riddle of the clouds and through the mirror of heaven, not as it is, because we too, although we are beloved of thy Son, it doth not yet appear what we shall be. He hath looked through the nets of the flesh, and hath spoken us fair and inflamed us, and we run after the savour of him.
But when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is: to see him as he is, O Lord, is ours, which is not yet ours. For as for how thou altogether art, thou alone knowest, since thou art unchangeably, and knowest unchangeably, and willest unchangeably; and thy essence knoweth and willeth unchangeably, and thy knowledge is and willeth unchangeably, and thy will is and knoweth unchangeably; nor doth it seem just before thee that, as the unchangeable Light knoweth itself, so it should be known by the changeable thing it enlightens. Therefore my soul is unto thee as a land without water; for as it cannot enlighten itself of itself, so neither can it satisfy itself of itself. For thus with thee is the fountain of life, as in thy light we shall see light.
Who hath gathered the embittered into one society? For one and the same is their end — that of temporal and earthly felicity, for the sake of which they do all things, although they fluctuate amid an innumerable variety of cares. Who, O Lord, but thou, who saidst, 'Let the waters be gathered together into one gathering, and let the dry land appear,' thirsting after thee, for thine is the sea, and thou madest it, and the dry land thy hands formed? For not the bitterness of wills, but the gathering of waters, is called the sea. For thou restrainest even the evil lusts of souls, and settest bounds, how far the waters may be suffered to advance, so that their billows may break upon themselves; and thus thou makest the sea, by the order of thy command over all things.
But the souls that thirst after thee and appear unto thee, distinguished by another end from the society of the sea, thou waterest with a secret and sweet fountain, that the earth also may yield her fruit:
and it yields its fruit, and at thy bidding, O Lord its God, our soul brings forth the work of mercy after its kind, loving its neighbour in the relief of bodily needs, having in itself seed after its likeness; for out of our own infirmity we have compassion, so as to succour the needy, helping them in like manner as we ourselves would wish help to be brought us, if in the same way we were in want — not only in easy things, as in the seed-bearing herb, but also in the protection of aid with strong might, like the fruit-bearing tree: that is, the kindness of rescuing him who suffers wrong out of the hand of the powerful, and of affording the shelter of protection by the strong might of righteous judgment.
So, O Lord, so, I pray thee, let it arise, as thou doest, as thou givest cheerfulness and ability — let truth spring up out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven, and let there be lights in the firmament. Let us break our bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that have no shelter into our house; let us clothe the naked, and despise not those of the household of our own seed. From these fruits born in the earth behold that it is good; and let our seasonable light break forth, and from this lower harvest of action, attaining the higher word of life in the delights of contemplation, let us appear as lights in the world, cleaving to the firmament of thy Scripture.
For there thou disputest with us, that we may divide between things intelligible and things sensible, as between day and night, or between souls, some given to intelligible things, others to sensible; so that now not thou alone, in the hidden place of thy discernment, as before the firmament was made, dividest between light and darkness, but also thy spiritual ones, set in the same firmament and made distinct, thy grace being made manifest throughout the world, may shine over the earth, and divide between day and night, and signify the seasons — because old things are passed away, behold, they are become new; and because our salvation is nearer than when we believed; and because the night is far spent, and the day is at hand; and because thou blessest the crown of thy year, sending labourers into thy harvest, in the sowing whereof others have laboured, sending them also into another sowing, whose harvest is at the end.
Thus thou givest their desires to those that long, and thou blessest the years of the righteous; but thou thyself art the Selfsame, and in thy years, which fail not, thou preparest a garner for the years that pass away. For by eternal counsel, in their proper seasons, thou givest heavenly goods upon the earth; since indeed to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom — as the greater light — for the sake of those who delight in the light of manifest truth, as in the beginning of the day; and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit — as the lesser light; to another faith; to another the gift of healings; to another the workings of powers; to another prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues — and all these as stars.
For all these things the one and the same Spirit works, distributing his own gifts to each as he wills, and making the stars to appear in their manifestation for the common profit. But the utterance of knowledge, by which all the mysteries are contained—mysteries that vary with the seasons like the moon, together with the other notices of the gifts which are reckoned thereafter like stars—differ as far from that brightness of wisdom in which the aforesaid day rejoices, as the beginning of night differs from the day. For these are necessary to those to whom that most prudent servant of yours could not speak as to spiritual men, but as to carnal—he who speaks wisdom among the perfect.
But let the animal man, like a little child in Christ and a drinker of milk, until he be strengthened for solid food and steady his eye to gaze upon the sun, not have his night deserted, but be content with the light of the moon and the stars. These things you discuss with us most wisely, our God, in your book, your firmament, that we may discern all things by wonderful contemplation, though still under signs and seasons and days and years. But first wash yourselves, be clean, put away wickedness from your souls and from before my eyes, that the dry land may appear.
Learn to do good, judge for the orphan and do justice to the widow, that the earth may bring forth the green herb for fodder and the fruit-bearing tree; and come, let us reason together, says the Lord, that there be lights in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. That rich man asked of the good Master what he should do to obtain eternal life. Let the good Master say to him—whom he supposed to be a man and nothing more, yet he is good because he is God—let him say to him that, if he wishes to come unto life, he must keep the commandments, separate from himself the bitterness of malice and wickedness, not kill, not commit adultery, not steal, not bear false witness, that the dry land may appear and bring forth the honor of mother and father and the love of neighbor. I have done, he said, all these things.
Whence then so many thorns, if the earth is fruitful? Go, root out the bushy thickets of avarice, sell what you possess and be filled with fruits by giving to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and follow the Lord, if you wish to be perfect, joined to those among whom he speaks wisdom who knows what to distribute to the day and to the night, that you too may know it, that for you also there may be lights in the firmament of heaven—which will not come to pass unless your heart be there; which likewise will not come to pass unless your treasure be there, as you have heard from the good Master. But the barren earth was made sorrowful, and the thorns choked the word.
But you, the chosen race in the firmament of the world, who have forsaken all things to follow the Lord, go after him and confound the strong; go after him, you beautiful feet, and shine in the firmament, that the heavens may declare his glory, dividing between the light of the perfect—yet not as of angels—and the darkness of the little ones—yet not of the despairing: shine over all the earth, and let the day, glowing with the sun, pour forth to the day the word of wisdom, and the night, the shining moon, announce to the night the word of knowledge. The moon and the stars shine for the night, but the night does not obscure them, since they themselves illumine it according to its measure. For behold, as it were with God saying:
Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven; suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind borne along, and there appeared divided tongues as it were of fire, which also rested upon each one of them, and there were made lights in the firmament of heaven, having the word of life. Run everywhere, holy fires, comely fires! For you are the light of the world, and you are not under a bushel. He to whom you have cleaved is exalted, and he has exalted you. Run and make yourselves known to all nations. Let the sea also conceive and bring forth your works, and let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls. For by separating the precious from the vile you have become the mouth of God, through which he might say:
Let the waters bring forth not a living soul, which the earth shall bring forth, but the creeping things of living souls and the winged things flying above the earth. For your mysteries, O God, crept forth through the works of your saints amid the surging waves of the temptations of the world, to imbue the nations with your name in your baptism. And amid these things were wrought great and wonderful deeds, like great whales, and the voices of your messengers flying above the earth beside the firmament of your book, with it set over them as authority, beneath which they might fly wherever they went. For there are no speeches nor languages whose voices are not heard, since their sound went out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world, because you, O Lord, by blessing, have multiplied these things.
Do I lie, or do I confound by mixture, and fail to distinguish the lucid knowledge of these things in the firmament of heaven from the bodily works in the billowy sea and beneath the firmament of heaven? For of those things whose notices are solid and bounded, without the increases of generations, like the lights of wisdom and knowledge, the bodily operations are many and varied; and one thing growing from another, they are multiplied in your blessing, O God, who have consoled the weariness of mortal senses, so that in the knowledge of the mind one thing may be figured and expressed in many ways through the motions of the body. The waters brought these things forth, but in your word:
The necessities of the peoples estranged from the eternity of your truth brought these things forth, but in your gospel, since those very waters cast them out, whose bitter sickness was the cause that in your word these should come forth. And all things are beautiful, you making them, and behold, you are unspeakably more beautiful, who made all things. From whom, had Adam not fallen, there would not have been poured forth from his womb the brine of the sea, the human race profoundly curious and stormily swollen and unstably fluid; and so there would have been no need for your stewards to work mystic deeds and words bodily and sensibly in many waters.
For thus there now occurred to me the creeping things and the winged things, by which men imbued and initiated, made subject to bodily mysteries, would not advance further unless the soul should come to life spiritually by another step and, after the word of initiation, look toward consummation. And through this, in your word it is not the depth of the sea, but the earth separated from the bitterness of the waters, that casts forth not creeping things of living souls and winged things, but a living soul. For now it has no need of baptism, of which the nations have need, as it had need when it was covered with waters: for there is no other way of entering into the kingdom of heaven from that point, by which you appointed that one should so enter; nor does it seek the great deeds of wonders by which faith might be made:
For 'unless he sees signs and wonders, he does not believe'—when now the faithful earth is already distinguished from the waters of the sea, bitter with unbelief, and tongues are for a sign not to the faithful but to the unbelieving. Nor therefore has the earth, which you founded upon the waters, need of that winged kind which the waters brought forth by your word. Send into it your word through your messengers. For we narrate their works, but it is you who work in them, and let them work a living soul.
The earth brings it forth, because the earth is the cause that these things should be done in it, just as the sea was the cause that there should be done the creeping things of living souls and the winged things beneath the firmament of heaven—of which now the earth has no need, although it may eat the fish raised from the deep upon that table which you have prepared in the sight of believers; for therefore was he raised from the deep, that he might nourish the dry land. And the birds are a marine progeny, yet nevertheless they are multiplied upon the earth. For the unbelief of men was the cause of the first voices of those evangelizing; but the faithful too are exhorted and blessed by them manifoldly from day to day.
But the living soul takes its beginning from the earth, because it profits none but those already faithful to restrain themselves from the love of this world, that their soul may live to you, which was dead while living in pleasures—deadly pleasures, O Lord; for you are the life-giving delights of the pure heart.
Let your ministers therefore now work upon the earth, not as in the waters of unbelief, by announcing and speaking through miracles and mysteries and mystic voices, where ignorance, the mother of wonder, becomes intent in awe of hidden signs—for such is the entrance to faith for the sons of Adam who have forgotten you, while they hide themselves from your face and become an abyss—but let them work also as upon the dry land, separated from the whirlpools of the abyss, and let them be a pattern to the faithful by living before them and stirring them up to imitation. For thus men hear not only to listen but also to do: Seek God, and your soul shall live, that the earth may bring forth a living soul. Be not conformed to this world; restrain yourselves from it.
By avoiding, the soul lives, which by craving dies. Restrain yourselves from the monstrous savagery of pride, from the listless pleasure of luxury, and from the false name of knowledge, that there may be tame beasts and subdued cattle and harmless serpents. For these are motions of the soul in allegory: but the haughtiness of self-exaltation and the delight of lust and the venom of curiosity are the motions of a dead soul, for it does not so die as to be wholly bereft of motion, since by departing from the fount of life it dies, and so is taken up by the passing world and conformed to it. But the Word, O God, is the fount of eternal life and does not pass away: therefore in your word that departure is held in check, while it is said to us:
Be not conformed to this world—that the earth may bring forth in the fount of life a living soul, in your word, through your evangelists, a soul restraining itself by imitating the imitators of your Christ. For this is 'after its kind,' since the emulation of a man comes from a friend: Be, he says, as I am, because I too am as you are. So in the living soul there shall be good beasts in the gentleness of action. For you have commanded, saying: In gentleness perfect your works, and you shall be loved by every man.
And good cattle, neither having abundance if they eat, nor lacking if they do not eat; and good serpents, not pernicious to do harm, but cunning to take heed, and exploring temporal nature only so far as suffices that eternity may be discerned, understood by the things that are made. For these animals serve reason, when, held back from the deadly course, they live and are good. For behold, O Lord our God, our Creator, when the affections have been restrained from the love of the world by which we were dying through evil living, and the soul has begun to be a living soul by living well, and your word has been fulfilled, by which through your apostle you said:
Be not conformed to this world—there shall follow that which you immediately added, saying: But be transformed by the renewing of the spirit of your mind—no longer 'after its kind,' as imitating the nearest one who goes before, nor living by the authority of a better man. For you did not say: Let man be made after his kind, but: Let us make man after our image and likeness, that we may prove what is your will. For to this end that steward of yours, begetting sons through the gospel, lest he should always have little ones whom he nourished with milk and cherished as a nurse, says: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And therefore you do not say: Let man be made, but:
Let us make; nor do you say: after its kind, but: after our image and likeness. For renewed in mind and beholding your truth once understood, a man has no need of a man as demonstrator, that he should imitate his kind, but with you demonstrating, he himself proves what is your will, what is good and acceptable and perfect; and you teach him, now made capable, to behold the Trinity of the Unity, or the Unity of the Trinity. And therefore, though it was said in the plural, Let us make man, yet it is brought in in the singular: And God made man; and though it was said in the plural, After our image, it is brought in in the singular: After the image of God.
Thus man is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him, and being made spiritual he judges all things which are indeed to be judged, but he himself is judged by no one. But that he judges all things—this is that he has power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all cattle and wild beasts and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth. For this he does through the understanding of his mind, by which he perceives the things that are of the Spirit of God. Otherwise man, being set in honor, did not understand; he is compared to the senseless beasts and is made like unto them.
Therefore in your Church, our God, according to your grace which you have given to her—since we are your workmanship, created in good works—not only those who spiritually preside, but also those who are spiritually subject to those who preside—male and female you made man in this manner, in your spiritual grace, where according to the sex of the body there is no male and female, because there is neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free—the spiritual then, whether those who preside or those who obey, judge spiritually, not concerning the spiritual knowledges which shine in the firmament—for it is not fitting to judge concerning so sublime an authority—nor concerning your book itself, even if something there does not shine, since we submit to it our
understanding, and we hold for certain that even what is closed to our sight has been rightly and truly spoken—for thus a man, although now spiritual and renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him, ought nevertheless to be a doer of the law, not a judge of it—nor does he judge concerning that distinction, namely of spiritual and carnal men, who are known to your eyes, our God, and have not yet appeared to us by any works, that from their fruits we might know them; but you, O Lord, already know them, and you have divided and called them in secret, before the firmament was made.
Nor does the spiritual man, however spiritual, judge concerning the turbulent peoples of this world. For what has he to do with judging those who are without, he being ignorant who from thence is to come into the sweetness of your grace and who is to remain in the perpetual bitterness of impiety? And therefore man, whom you made after your image, did not receive power over the lights of heaven, nor over the hidden heaven itself, nor over the day and the night, which you called before the constitution of heaven, nor over the gathering together of the waters, which is the sea; but he received power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all cattle and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth.
For he judges and approves what he finds rightly done, but disapproves what he finds done amiss, whether in that solemnity of the sacraments by which are initiated those whom your mercy searches out in many waters, or in that wherein is set forth that fish which the pious earth eats, raised from the deep, or in the signs of words and the voices subjected to the authority of your book, as it were flying beneath the firmament—by interpreting, expounding, discoursing, disputing, blessing and invoking you, the signs bursting forth and resounding from the mouth, that the people may answer: Amen. The cause of all these voices being uttered bodily is the abyss of the world and the blindness of the flesh, by which thoughts cannot be seen, so that there is need to make a noise in the ears.
Thus, although the winged things are multiplied upon the earth, yet they draw their origin from the waters. The spiritual man judges also by approving what is right, and disapproving what he finds done amiss, in the works and conduct of the faithful—in almsgivings, like a fruitful earth, and in affections tamed from the living soul, in chastity, in fastings, in pious thoughts concerning those things which are perceived through the bodily sense. For he is now said to judge concerning these things, in which he also has the power of correcting. But what is this, and what manner of mystery is it? Behold, you bless men, O Lord, that they may increase and multiply and fill the earth.
Do you not hint to us something from this, that we may understand somewhat why you did not so bless the light which you called day, nor the firmament of heaven, nor the lights, nor the stars, nor the earth, nor the sea? I would say, our God, who created us after your image—I would say that you willed to bestow this gift of blessing properly upon man, had you not in like manner blessed the fishes and the whales, that they should increase and multiply and fill the waters of the sea, and that the winged things should be multiplied upon the earth. Likewise I would say that this blessing pertains to those kinds of things which propagate themselves by begetting, if I found it in shrubs and bushes and in the cattle of the earth. But now it was said neither to herbs and trees, nor to beasts and serpents: