But even if there be an incorruptible body, such as is promised to the saints in the resurrection, it has indeed the inamissible quality of that very incorruption, yet, its corporeal substance remaining, it is not that which incorruption itself is. For that incorruption is even through the several parts of the body whole, nor greater in one place, less in another; for no part is more incorruptible than another; but the body itself is greater in the whole than in a part; and when one part in it is larger, another smaller, the one that is larger is not more incorruptible than the one that is smaller. The body, therefore, which is not everywhere its own whole, is one thing; the incorruption, which is everywhere whole in it, another—because every part of an incorruptible body, though unequal to the rest, is equally incorrupt.
For not, by way of example, because the finger is smaller than the whole hand, is the hand therefore more incorruptible than the finger. Thus, though the hand and the finger are unequal, the incorruptibility of the hand and of the finger is nevertheless equal. And hence, although incorruptibility is inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance by which it is called a body is one thing, and its quality by which it is called incorruptible is another. And therefore, even so, it is not that which it has. The soul too, even if it be always wise, as it will be when it is set free for eternity, will nevertheless be wise by participation in the immutable wisdom, which is not what the soul itself is. For neither, if the air poured over with light is never forsaken by it, is it therefore not one thing that the air itself is, and another the light by which it is illumined.
Nor would I have said this as though the air were the soul, which some supposed who could not conceive an incorporeal nature. But these things have to those a certain similitude, even in great dissimilarity, so that it is not unfitting to say that the incorporeal soul is thus illumined by the incorporeal light of the simple wisdom of God, just as the body of air is illumined by corporeal light; and just as the air grows dark when deserted by that light (for the darkness of any bodily places whatsoever which are so called are nothing else than air lacking light), so the soul grows dark when deprived of the light of wisdom.
According to this, then, those things are called simple which are principally and truly divine, because in them quality is not one thing and substance another, nor are they either divine, or wise, or blessed by participation in anything else. Yet in the sacred Scriptures the Spirit of wisdom is called manifold, because it holds many things within itself; but the things it holds, these it also is, and all of them are one. For there are not many wisdoms, but one, in which lie certain treasures of intelligible things, infinite yet to it finite, wherein are all the invisible and unchangeable reasons of things, even of visible and mutable things, which were made through it. For God made nothing in ignorance, which cannot rightly be said even of any human craftsman;
and further, if He made all things knowingly, He assuredly made those things which He knew. From this there arises in the mind something marvellous yet true: that this world could not be known to us unless it existed, whereas unless it were known to God it could not exist. Since these things are so, in no manner indeed, according to any interval of time, were those spirits whom we call angels first darkness; but the moment they were made, they were made light. Yet they were not so created merely that they should in some fashion exist and in some fashion live, but also illumined, that they should live wisely and blessedly. Turned away from this illumination, certain angels did not attain the excellence of a wise and blessed life, which beyond doubt is nothing if not eternal, and certain and secure of its own eternity;
but they possess a rational life, though an unwise one, in such a way that they cannot lose it, not even if they wished. But to what extent, before they sinned, they were partakers of that wisdom, who can define? And in what manner shall we say that in the participation of it these were equal to those who are truly and fully blessed, precisely because they are in no way deceived concerning the eternity of their blessedness? Since indeed, had they been equal in it, these too would have remained equally blessed in its eternity, because equally certain. For a life cannot truly be called eternal, however long it may last, in the same way as eternal life, if it is to have an end; for a life is named from living only, but eternal life from having no end.
Wherefore, although not everything that is eternal is on that account blessed—for the penal fire also is called eternal—yet if a truly and perfectly blessed life is nothing if not eternal, then such was not the life of these, since it was one day to cease and therefore not eternal, whether they knew this or, not knowing it, thought otherwise; because in those who knew, fear, and in those who knew not, error, in no way permitted them to be blessed. But if they were ignorant of this in such a way that they did not trust false or uncertain things, but neither toward the one side nor the other were carried by a firm assent as to whether their good was to be everlasting or one day to have an end: then that very hesitation concerning so great a felicity did not possess that fullness of the blessed life which we believe to be in the holy angels.
For we do not so contract the term 'blessed life' to certain narrow limits of meaning as to call God alone blessed; who nevertheless is so truly blessed that no greater blessedness can exist, in comparison with whom, what and how great is it that the angels are blessed with a certain supreme blessedness of their own, as great as can exist in angels? Nor do we think that these alone, so far as pertains to the rational or intellectual creature, are to be called blessed.
For who would dare to deny that those first human beings in paradise were blessed before their sin, although they were uncertain how long their blessedness would last, or whether it would be eternal (yet it would have been eternal, had they not sinned)—since even today we not shamelessly call those blessed whom we see leading this life justly and piously, with the hope of future immortality, without any crime laying waste the conscience, and readily obtaining divine mercy for the sins of this infirmity? Who, though they be certain of the reward of their perseverance, are yet found uncertain of the perseverance itself.
For what man knows that he will persevere to the end in the practice and progress of righteousness, unless he be made certain by some revelation from Him who by a just and hidden judgment instructs not all concerning this matter, yet deceives no one? Accordingly, so far as pertains to the enjoyment of a present good, the first man was more blessed in paradise than any righteous man in this mortal infirmity; but so far as pertains to the hope of the future, any man is more blessed amid whatsoever torments of the body, to whom it is manifest, not by opinion but by certain truth, that without end he shall have the fellowship of the angels, free from all trouble, in the participation of the most high God, than was that man, uncertain of his own fall, in that great felicity of paradise.
Wherefore it now readily occurs to anyone that blessedness, which the intellectual nature desires by a right purpose, is brought about by the joining of both: namely, that it should both enjoy without any trouble the unchangeable good which is God, and should neither by any doubt hesitate, nor by any error be deceived, that it will remain in Him forever. This we believe by pious faith that the angels of light possess; this the sinning angels, who by their own perversity were deprived of that light, did not possess even before they fell—this we gather by consequent reasoning; yet that they had some blessedness, though not prescient, they are certainly to be believed to have had, if they led a life before their sin.
Or if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels were made, some were so made that they did not receive foreknowledge either of their perseverance or of their fall, while others were so made that with most certain truth they knew the eternity of their blessedness—but that all were created from the beginning of equal felicity, and so remained until those who are now evil fell of their own will from that light of goodness: without doubt it is far harder now to suppose that the holy angels are uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and that they themselves are ignorant concerning themselves of what we have been able to know concerning them through the holy Scriptures.
For what catholic Christian is ignorant that no new devil will ever hereafter arise out of the good angels, just as neither will that one ever return into the fellowship of the good angels? For the Truth in the Gospel promises to the holy and faithful that they shall be equal to the angels of God; to whom it is also promised that they shall go into life eternal. Moreover, if we are certain that we shall never fall from that immortal felicity, but they are not certain, then we shall be superior to them, not equal. But since the Truth in no wise deceives, and we shall be equal to them, then assuredly they too are certain of their eternal felicity.
Since those others were not certain of their felicity (for their felicity, of which they might be certain, was not eternal, seeing it was to have an end), it remains that either they were unequal, or, if they were equal, then after the ruin of the latter there accrued to the former a certain knowledge of their everlasting felicity. Unless perhaps someone should say that what the Lord says of the devil in the Gospel:
'He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth,' is to be taken in such a way that he was not only a murderer from the beginning—that is, from the beginning of the human race, from which point indeed man was made whom by deceiving he might slay—but also that from the beginning of his own creation he stood not in the truth, and therefore was never blessed together with the holy angels, refusing to be subject to his Creator, and rejoicing in his own power as though it were, by his pride, a private power; and thereby was false and deceitful, since no one escapes the power of the Almighty, and he who by pious subjection was unwilling to hold fast that which truly is, affects by proud exaltation to counterfeit that which is not: so that thus may be understood also what the blessed apostle John says:
'From the beginning the devil sins'—that is, from the time he was created he refused righteousness, which none but a will pious and subject to God could possess. Whoever assents to this opinion does not think as those heretics do, namely the Manichaeans, and if there be any other pestilent sects that hold this: that the devil has a certain nature of evil proper to himself, as it were from some opposing principle; who dote with such great vanity that, although they hold these evangelical words in authority together with us, they do not attend that the Lord did not say, 'He was a stranger to the truth,' but, 'He stood not in the truth,' where He willed it to be understood that he had lapsed from the truth, in which assuredly, had he stood, being made a partaker of it, he would have remained blessed with the holy angels.
He added moreover an indication, as though we had asked whence it is shown that he stood not in the truth, and says: 'Because there is no truth in him.' But there would be truth in him, if he had stood in it. Yet it is expressed by a less usual manner of speech. For it seems to sound thus: 'He stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him,' as though this were the cause, that he stood not in the truth—namely, that truth is not in him; whereas rather this is the cause, that truth is not in him—namely, that he stood not in the truth. This same manner of speech is also in the Psalm: 'I cried, because Thou hast heard me, O God'; whereas it might seem it ought to have been said: 'Thou hast heard me, O God, because I cried.' But when he had said,
'I cried,' as though it were asked of him whence he might show that he had cried, he shows the affection of his crying from the effect of God's hearing; as though he said: 'Hence I show that I cried, because Thou hast heard me.' That also which John says of the devil, 'From the beginning the devil sins,' they do not understand: that if his nature is such, there is in no way any sin. But what is answered to the prophetic testimonies, whether to what Isaiah says, noting the devil under the figured person of the prince of Babylon: 'How is Lucifer fallen, who rose in the morning?'; or to what Ezekiel says: 'Thou wast in the delights of the paradise of God, adorned with every precious stone'? Where it is understood that he was at some time without sin. For a little after it is said to him more expressly:
'Thou didst walk in thy days without fault.' If these words cannot be more suitably understood otherwise, we must also take that which was said, 'He stood not in the truth,' in this way: that he was in the truth, but did not remain in it; and that 'from the beginning the devil sins' is not to be thought to mean that he sinned from the beginning at which he was created, but from the beginning of sin, that is, from the point at which sin began to be from his own pride. Nor is that which is written in the book of Job, when the discourse was concerning the devil: 'This is the beginning of the Lord's fashioning, which He made to be mocked by His angels' (with which the Psalm also seems to accord, where it is read:
'This dragon, whom Thou hast formed to mock him'), is to be understood in such a way that we suppose him to have been created such from the beginning that he might be mocked by the angels—but ordained to this in the punishment after his sin. His beginning, therefore, is the Lord's fashioning; for there is no nature, even among the lowest and meanest little creatures, which He did not establish, from whom is every measure, every form, every order, without which nothing of things can be found or even conceived—how much more the angelic creature, which in dignity of nature precedes all the other things that God has created!
For among those things which in some manner exist and yet are not what God is, from whom they were made, the living are set before the non-living, as those which have the power of generating, or even of desiring, before those which lack this motion; and among things that live, the sentient are set before the non-sentient, as animals before trees; and among things that have sense, the intelligent are set before the non-intelligent, as men before beasts; and among things that understand, the immortal are set before the mortal, as angels before men. But these are set before by the order of nature;
there is however another and yet another measure of valuation according to each one's use, whereby it comes about that we set certain things lacking sense before certain sentient things—to such a degree that, if it were in our power, we would wish to remove them altogether from the nature of things, whether ignorant of the place they hold in it, or, even if we know it, subordinating them to our own conveniences. For who would not rather have bread in his house than mice, or coins than fleas? But what wonder is it, when even in the valuation of men themselves, whose nature is assuredly of such great dignity, a horse is for the most part bought at a higher price than a slave, or a jewel than a serving-maid?
Thus by the liberty of judging, the reasoning of the one who considers differs greatly from the necessity of the one who is in need, or the pleasure of the one who desires; since the former weighs what a thing is worth in itself in the ranks of things, whereas necessity considers what it seeks for the sake of what, and the former looks at what appears true to the light of the mind, whereas pleasure looks at what pleasantly flatters the senses of the body. But so great is the force in rational natures of a certain weight, as it were, of will and love, that although in the order of nature the angels are set before men, yet by the law of righteousness good men are preferred to evil angels. Therefore we rightly understand that it was said on account of the nature, not on account of the malice, of the devil: 'This is the beginning of the Lord's fashioning.'
Because without doubt, where there is the vice of malice, an unvitiated nature preceded. But vice is so contrary to nature that it cannot but harm nature. It would therefore be no vice to depart from God, unless it were more fitting to the nature whose vice it is to be with God. Wherefore even an evil will is great testimony to a good nature. But God, just as He is the best creator of good natures, so is He the most just ordainer of evil wills; so that, when they make evil use of good natures, He Himself makes good use even of evil wills.
And so He brought it about that the devil, good by His institution but evil by his own will, being ordained among the lower things, should be mocked by His angels—that is, that his temptations should profit the saints, whom he desires them to harm. And since God, when He created him, was assuredly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw what goods He Himself would make out of his evil, therefore the Psalm says: 'This dragon, whom Thou hast formed to mock him,' so that in that very act by which He formed him—good indeed by His goodness—He may be understood already by His foreknowledge to have prepared how He would make use of him even in his evil.
For God would not create any—I say not of the angels, but even of men—whom He foreknew would be evil, unless He equally knew for what uses of the good He would accommodate them, and would thus adorn the order of the ages, like a most beautiful poem, even by certain, as it were, antitheses. For antitheses, as they are called, are among the most becoming ornaments of eloquence; which in Latin might be called opposita, or, as it is more expressly said, contraposita—though this term is not in customary use among us, even though the Latin tongue also uses these same ornaments of speech, indeed the tongues of all nations. With these antitheses even the apostle Paul, in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, pleasantly unfolds that passage where he says:
'By the arms of righteousness on the right hand and on the left: by glory and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.' As therefore these contraries set against contraries render the beauty of the discourse, so by a certain eloquence not of words but of things, the beauty of the world is composed by the opposition of contraries. This is most openly set forth in the book of Ecclesiasticus in this manner: 'Against evil is good, and against death is life; so against the godly is the sinner.'
'And so behold all the works of the Most High, two by two, one against one.' Although, therefore, the obscurity of the divine discourse is even for this useful, that it brings forth many opinions of truth and produces them into the light of knowledge, while one understands it thus and another thus (yet in such a way that what is understood in an obscure place should be confirmed either by the attestation of manifest things or by other passages in no wise doubtful; and either, when many things are discussed, one should arrive also at that which he who wrote it perceived, or, though this remain hidden, on occasion of treating the profound obscurity certain other true things should be spoken):
it does not seem to me an absurd opinion, drawn from the works of God, if, when that first light was made and the angels are understood to have been created, there was a distinction made between the holy angels and the unclean, where it was said: 'And God divided between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.' For He alone could discern these things, who could also, even before they fell, foreknow that they would fall, and that, deprived of the light of truth, they would remain in dark pride. For between this day and night most familiar to us—that is, between this light and these darknesses—He commanded the luminaries of heaven, most commonly known to our senses, to divide, saying:
'Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven, that they may shine upon the earth and divide between the day and the night'; and a little after: 'And God made two great luminaries, the greater luminary to rule the day, and the lesser luminary to rule the night, and the stars; and God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to preside over the day and the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness.' But between that light, which is the holy society of angels shining intelligibly by the illumination of truth, and its contrary darkness—that is, the most foul minds of the evil angels turned away from the light of righteousness—He alone could divide, to whom also the future evil, not of nature but of will, could not be hidden or uncertain.
Finally, neither is that to be passed over in silence, that where God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light,' immediately there was subjoined: 'And God saw the light, that it was good'—not after He had separated between the light and the darkness and called the light day and the darkness night, lest He should seem to have borne witness of His approval to such darkness together with the light. For where the darkness is blameless, between which and this light visible to these eyes the luminaries of heaven divide, it is added not before but after: 'And God saw that it was good.' 'He set them,' it says, 'in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth, and to preside over the day and the night, and to separate between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.'
Both pleased Him, because both are without sin. But where God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light; and God saw the light, that it was good'; and it is afterward subjoined: 'And God separated between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day, and the darkness He called night'—there is not added in this place, 'And God saw that it was good,' lest both should be called good, since of these one was evil, by its own vice, not by nature. And therefore there the light alone pleased the Creator: but the angelic darkness, though it had to be ordained, was nevertheless not to be approved. For what else is to be understood in that which is said throughout, 'God saw that it was good,' but the approval of a work made according to the art which is the wisdom of God?
But God so far did not, when it was made, then learn that it was good, that none of these things would have been made, had it been unknown to Him. When therefore He sees that it is good—that which, unless He had seen it before it was made, would assuredly not have been made—He teaches that it is good, He does not learn it. And Plato indeed dared to say more, namely that God was elevated with joy at the completion of the universe of the world. Wherein even he was not so far foolish as to think that God was made more blessed by the novelty of His work; but he wished thus to show that the work already made pleased its artificer, as it had pleased Him to be made in His art—not that the knowledge of God is in any way varied, so that things which are not yet make one thing in it, things which now are another, things which have been yet another;
for not in our manner does He either look forward to what is future, or look upon what is present, or look back upon what is past; but in a certain other manner, far and deeply diverse from the custom of our thoughts. For He indeed sees, not with a thought changed from this to that, but altogether unchangeably; so that those things which come to pass temporally—the future being not yet, and the present now being, and the past being now no longer—He comprehends all these by a stable and everlasting presence; nor in one way with the eyes, in another with the mind, for He does not consist of soul and body; nor in one way now, in another before, and in another afterward;
since His knowledge, too, is not, like ours, varied by the variety of the three times, namely the present, the past, and the future—with whom is no change, nor shadow of a moment's turning. For His intention does not pass from thought to thought, in whose incorporeal gaze all the things He knows are present together; since He knows times by no temporal notions of His own, even as He moves temporal things by no temporal motions of His own. There, therefore, He saw that what He made was good, where He saw that it was good to make it;
nor because He saw it made did He double His knowledge or increase it in any part, as though He had been of lesser knowledge before He made what He saw—He who would not have wrought so perfectly, save by so perfect a knowledge, to which nothing could be added from His works. Wherefore, if it were only to be intimated to us who made the light, it would suffice to say, 'God made the light'; but if not only who made it, but also by what He made it, it would be enough to be thus declared: 'And God said, Let there be light, and there was light'—so that we might know not only that God, but also that by the Word, He made the light. But since three things especially it behoved to be intimated to us concerning the creature—who made it, by what He made it, why He made it—'God said,' it says:
'Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.' If therefore we ask who made it: it is God; if by what He made it: He said, 'Let it be,' and it was made; if why He made it: 'Because it is good.' Neither is there an author more excellent than God, nor an art more efficacious than the Word of God, nor a cause better than that a good thing should be created by the good God. This also Plato says is the most just cause of founding the world, that good works should be made by the good God; whether he read this, or perhaps learned it from those who had read it; or whether by his most keen intellect he beheld the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made, or whether he himself also learned it from those who had beheld these things.
Yet this cause—that is, the goodness of God for creating good things—this cause, I say, so just and fitting, which, diligently considered and piously pondered, terminates all controversies of those who inquire into the origin of the world, certain heretics did not see; because this needy and frail mortality of our flesh, itself already coming from just punishment, when things do not suit it, offends against very many things, such as fire, or cold, or a wild beast, or anything of that sort;
and they do not attend how these things flourish in their own places and natures, and are disposed in a beautiful order, and how much they contribute, according to their portions of beauty, to the universe of things as into a common commonwealth, or bestow of their convenience upon us ourselves, if we use them fittingly and knowingly—so that even the very poisons, which through unsuitableness are pernicious, when fittingly applied are turned into wholesome medicines; and how, on the contrary, even these things in which they delight, such as food and drink and this very light, by immoderate and unseasonable use are felt to be noxious.