I. That God is supreme and unchangeable. 1.1. The supreme good is God, because He is unchangeable and cannot at all be corrupted. But the creature is good, yet not supreme, because it is changeable, so that, although it is indeed good, it nevertheless cannot be also supreme. 1.2. What is God's immortality, if not His unchangeableness? For both angels and souls are immortal, but they are not unchangeable. And therefore God alone is called immortal, because He alone is unchangeable. For the soul dies when, God forsaking it, it is changed from good to evil. So too the angel, when, God forsaking it, it fell. 1.3. That which has matter from which it exists is changeable, because it passes from the formless to form.
But that which has no matter is unchangeable, as God assuredly is. These qualities are in God well and substantially, that is, incorruption, immortality, unchangeableness. Hence deservedly He is set before every creature. 1.4. It is the work, not the counsel, that is changed with God, nor is He varied because through various times He has enjoined diverse things; but remaining the same, unchangeable and eternal, what was fitting for each time abode from that very eternity in the deliberation of His counsel. 1.5. God is not, according to our usage, to be thought one thing, and His beauty another, and His greatness itself yet another, just as a man is one thing, and beauty another, because, beauty ceasing, the man remains.
And on this account, whoever thus understands God, believes Him to be corporeal, whereas the beauty and greatness of God is God Himself. 1.6a. Therefore God is called simple, either by not losing what He has, or because He Himself is not one thing and what is in Him another. 1.6b. Those things which are in God in an ordered way—such as simplicity, which is sometimes said in place of foolishness, though it is not so—are spoken of or compared disorderly with vices. But in God there is supreme simplicity. According to this rule the rest also are to be judged. II. That God is immeasurable and almighty. 2.1a. God does not fill heaven and earth in such a way that they should contain Him, but rather that they themselves should be contained by Him. Nor does God fill all things piecemeal, but although He is one and the same, yet He is everywhere whole. 2.1b.
God is not to be thought to be in all things in such a way that each single thing receives Him according to the greatness of its own portion, that is, the greatest receiving more and the least receiving less; whereas He is rather Himself whole in all things, or all things in Him. 2.2. The omnipotence of the divine majesty encloses all things by the immeasurableness of its power, nor will anyone be able to find an entrance for escaping His power, because He binds all things round about on every side. For all things are confined within the omnipotence of the divine judgment, whether those which are to be contained so that they may be saved, or those which are to be cut off so that they may perish. In no way, then, can anyone flee from God. For he who does not have Him appeased will by no means escape Him angered. 2.3.
The immeasurableness of the divine greatness is such that we may understand Him to be within all things but not enclosed, outside all things but not excluded; and therefore interior, that He may contain all things, therefore exterior, that by the immeasurableness of His uncircumscribed greatness He may enclose all things. Through that, then, whereby He is exterior, He is shown to be the Creator; but through that whereby He is interior, He is demonstrated to govern all things. And lest the things which have been created should be without God, God is within all things; but lest they should be outside God, God is exterior, so that all things may be enclosed by Him. 2.4. Of the completion of some deed 'perfection' is spoken. But how is God, who was not made, 'perfect' (made-through)?
But human poverty takes this word from our usage, as it does the rest of our words, so that what is ineffable may in some fashion be spoken, since human speech says nothing worthily concerning God. 2.5. Although God is not local, yet He walks locally in His saints, when He is preached by them from place to place. For God, who is moved neither by place nor by time, is nevertheless moved both in time and in place in His servants, as often as He is preached locally by them. 2.6. Although concerning God nothing may be worthily said according to position, nor according to quality, nor according to state or motion, yet there is in Him in a certain manner a breadth of charity, by which He both gathers us from error and holds us in the truth.
There is in Him also length, by which He long-sufferingly bears with the evil, until, once amended, He restores them to the fatherland to come. There is in Him also height, through which He surpasses every understanding by the immeasurableness of His knowledge. There is in Him also depth, by which, disposing according to equity those to be condemned below, He foreordains them. III. That God is invisible. 3.1a. Although Scripture, speaking of God, very often says 'Behold, God,' it does not show Him as though visible, but signifies that He is present everywhere, through that which it says, 'Behold, the Lord'; or because no sense, not even the angelic, can attain to the greatness of His divinity. 3.1b.
Although after the resurrection human nature advances even to equality with the angels, and rises up untiring to the contemplation of God, yet it is not able fully to see His essence, which not even the angelic perfection itself wholly attains to knowing, according to the Apostle who says: 'The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding'—so that you may understand also that of the angels. For the Trinity alone is fully known to Itself, and the humanity assumed by Christ, which is the third Person in the Trinity. 3.2a. Intelligibly, in a certain wondrous manner, the essence of God can be known, while He is believed to be. But His work, which assuredly cannot be equaled to Him, and His judgments are known by no one at all. 3.2b. The secret judgments of God cannot be penetrated by sense, whether angelic or human.
And therefore, because they are hidden yet just, it is fitting equally to venerate and to fear them, not to discuss or to inquire into them, according to the Apostle who says: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?' IV. That the Creator may be recognized from the beauty of the creature. 4.1. Often the corporeal greatness of created things is compared to the incorporeal greatness of the Creator, so that great things may be considered from small, and invisible things estimated from visible, and the Maker of works recognized from the beauty of the things made—yet not by a like equality, but from a certain subordinate and created appearance of good. 4.2a.
Just as art reflects praise back upon the artist, so the Creator of things is praised through His creature, and how much more excellent He is, is shown from the very fashioning of the work. 4.2b. From the beauty of the circumscribed creature God causes His own beauty, which cannot be circumscribed, to be understood, so that by those very traces by which he was turned away man may return to God; so that, because through love of the beauty of the creature he withdrew himself from the form of the Creator, he may again through the loveliness of the creature return to the beauty of the Creator. 4.3.
By certain degrees of understanding man advances through the creature to the knowledge of God the Creator: that is, rising from insensible things to sensible things, rising from sensible things to rational things, and rising from rational things to the Creator. Intelligible things praise God of themselves; irrational and insensible things praise Him not of themselves but through us, when, considering them, we praise God. Yet they too are said to praise, because the cause of them brings forth that same praise. The ancients said that nothing is so dull that it does not have some perception directed toward God. Hence it is that a spark is struck from the hard flint. And though the fire is in the stone, surely perception is there felt where life does not feel itself. That certain likenesses are applied to God from our own usage.
According to our usage God is said to be jealous or to grieve. For of such motions there is no disturbance in God, in whom there is the highest tranquillity. The judgment of the mind must not be so hastily precipitated that we should believe a disturbance of fury or of change can befall God; rather, Holy Scripture has named 'wrath' that very equity of justice by which He punishes the guilty, since what is equity in the one who judges is fury and indignation in the one who suffers it. So too, then, we must understand the other passions which Scripture draws from human affection and applies to God: that He is to be believed unchangeable in Himself, and yet, according to the effects of causes, that He may the more easily be understood, He is named after the manner of our speech and by a kind of mutability.
So mercifully does God provide for human weakness that, since we cannot know Him as He is, He makes Himself known to us after the manner of our speech. Hence He is written to have the quality of our members, and He willed unworthy things concerning the passions to be said of Himself, that He might draw us to His own things through our own, and that while He condescends to us we might rise up to Him. In many ways God, to signify Himself to men, draws likenesses to Himself from lower things. Yet He is truly established, according to His own substance, to be invisible and incorporeal.
Very often likenesses of qualities are taken from bodies and applied to God, which nevertheless are not in God, since in His own nature He is incorporeal and uncircumscribed; but according to the effects of causes the likenesses of things are written of Him: so that, because He sees all things, He is called an eye; and because He hears all things, He is called an ear; but because He turns away, He is said to walk; because He waits, He is said to stand. So too in other things like these, a likeness is drawn to God from human minds: as being forgetful and remembering. Hence the prophet says: 'The Lord of hosts has sworn by His own soul' — not that God has a soul, but He tells this according to our affection. And elsewhere, by a similar figure, He is understood as both a worm and a beetle.
Nor is it any wonder if He is figured by lowly signs, who is known to have descended even to the reproaches of our passions and of the flesh. For Christ is written as a lamb — not by nature but for innocence; and a lion — for strength, not by nature; and a serpent — for death and wisdom, not by nature. For in the prophet the likeness of a wagon carrying hay is applied to God. And Christ is all these things by figure, because none of them belongs to the propriety of His substance. Not according to essence but according to likeness are these images applied to God, nor for the propriety of substance but for the effects of causes.
Hence it is believed that God never appeared visibly to men except through an assumed likeness of created things. Certain foolish men are deceived when they read that man was made to the image of God, thinking that God is corporeal, whereas it is not the flesh, which is body, but the soul, which is spirit, that bears the image of God. Therefore there is no bodily form in God, who made man to His own image, since He created the mind, not the flesh, to His likeness. Consider, then, what sort of body Truth has; and when you cannot find one, this is God. The face of God in the Holy Scriptures is understood not as flesh but as divine knowledge, for this reason: that by the face beheld each person is recognized. For this is said to God in prayer:
'Show us Thy face' — as if it were said: give us the knowledge of Thee. The mouth of God is His only-begotten Son. For just as, for the words which are made by the tongue, we often say 'this or that tongue,' so also for the Word of God 'mouth' is put, because it is the custom that words be formed by the mouth. And if you wish to demonstrate by that manner of speech in which he who effects is named by that which is effected, you rightly put 'mouth' for the Word, just as 'tongue' for words, just as 'hand' for letters. The footprints of God are that by which God is now recognized through a mirror.
But the Almighty is found in perfection when in the future He shall be presented face to face to each of the elect, that they may contemplate that very form whose footprints they now strive to grasp — that is, Him whom they are said to see through a mirror. So too the rest. That no succession of times is ascribed to God. Divine eternity precedes all times, nor is anything past, present, or future believed to be in God, but all things are said to be present in Him, because by His eternity He embraces all things. Otherwise God must be believed changeable, if successions of times are ascribed to Him. If there were always some times together with God, it would not be time but eternity, nor would the times change, but they would stand still.
Present, past, and future are ours to have, not the Lord's: for example, for the present we say 'I hold the book,' for the past 'I held,' for the future 'I shall hold.' But God holds the whole; and for 'He held' and 'He shall hold' it is said 'He holds.' Nor is there any departure or accession of times even for the angels themselves. For there are two things among creatures over which the vicissitude of times has no power: namely the angels, because they cleave to the unchangeable Creator; and that formless matter, before all these things which now roll on in time were formed out of it — over this too time had no power. Time, therefore, pertains not to those creatures which are above the heavens, but to those which are beneath the heaven:
for times do not accede to the angels nor succeed one another for them, but to us who dwell beneath the heaven in this weak world. Concerning times. There were no times before the beginning of the world, because, since time itself is a creature, it must nevertheless be believed to have been made in the beginning of the world. It is therefore called 'the beginning,' because from it the origin of all things took its start. Times have no bodily extension, because they retreat almost before they come. And therefore there is no fixed state of times in things, because by the swift motion of the creature they are changed.
A hundred years is not one time, nor is one year one time, nor is one month one time, nor a day, nor an hour, since, while all these come and go by their particles, how can that be called one which does not exist all at once? Whether there be a past or future time as there is a present, and if there be, one ought to know where it is. But observe that all things — future, past, and present — are rather to be sought in the mind. These three, past, present, and future, are found only in the mind: the past by remembering, the present by beholding, the future by expecting. We hope, therefore, for things coming, we behold things present, we recollect things passing. These are not so in God, to whom all things are present at once. Concerning the world.
The world consists of things visible, yet unsearchable. But man, composed from the whole of things, was created as it were another world in miniature. The plan of the world is to be considered from a single man. For just as through the dimensions of ages man inclines toward his end, so also the world, by that which is stretched out in time, declines; for whence man and the world seem to grow, thence each of them is diminished. In vain is it said that after so many ages past a new thought arose in God, who had been at leisure, of making the world — since the construction of this world remained in His eternal counsel, and there was no time before the beginning, but eternity. Time indeed began from the substituting of the creature; the creature did not begin from time.
Certain men say: 'What was God doing before He made heaven? Why did a new will arise in God to found the world?' But no new will arose in God, because, although the world did not exist in fact, yet in His eternal reason and counsel it always existed. Some say that God suddenly willed to make the world, which He had not made before, thinking that the will of God is changed — as one who at one time willed what at another time he willed not. To whom it must be answered: 'The will of God is God, because His will is not one thing and He another; but to will is for Him the very thing that He Himself is, and what He Himself is, is surely eternal and unchangeable.' This, then, is His will.
The matter from which the world was formed preceded the things made from it in origin, not in time, as sound precedes song. For sound is prior to song, because the sweetness of the melody belongs to the sound of the voice, not the sound to the sweetness. And by this both exist together, but that to which the song belongs is prior — that is, the sound. The matter from which heaven and earth were formed is called 'formless' because there had not yet been formed from it the things which remained to be formed. But this matter itself had been made from nothing. It is one thing for something to be able to come to be, another for it to be necessary that it come to be. It is necessary that come to be which God has implanted in natures; but it is able to come to be that which the Creator reserved to make, whenever He should will, outside the appointed course of natures.
Darkness is not therefore to be believed to have substance because the Lord says through the prophet: 'I, the Lord, forming light and creating darkness.' But because the angelic nature which did not transgress is called light, while that which transgressed is named by the name of darkness. Hence also in the beginning light is divided from darkness. But because God created both these and those, therefore He is 'forming light and creating darkness'; yet the good angels He not only creates but also forms; the evil ones He only creates, does not form. This is also to be understood of good and evil men.
After the creature of heaven and earth has been enumerated, the Holy Spirit is then named in Genesis, so that, because it was fitting to say that He was borne above, those things should first be named above which the Holy Spirit their Creator was said to be borne. This the Apostle also indicates when he shows the surpassing way of charity. Therefore the Holy Spirit is said to be borne above the waters because He is the gift of God, in whom, abiding, we find rest, and by protecting us He is borne above us. Each nature strives by its own weight. But fire and oil rightly always seek the higher places, because by their figure the Holy Spirit is proved to be borne above the whole creation. The first day made were the angels.
For the sake of intimating their unity, it was called not 'the first day' but 'day one.' And therefore it is always repeated in the carrying out of the creation. This day — that is, the nature of the angels — when it contemplated the creature itself, in a certain manner grew toward evening. But not remaining in the contemplation of that creature, and referring its praise to God and beholding it better in the divine reason, it straightway became morning. But if it had remained, neglecting the Creator, in the beholding of the creature, then it would have become not evening but surely night. When the creature knows itself better in God than in itself, that very self-knowledge, which is greater in God, is called day and light.
But its knowledge of itself in itself, in comparison with that knowledge which is in God — because it is far inferior — is named evening. And therefore after evening it became morning, because, when the creature recognized that its knowledge in itself could not satisfy it, that it might be able to know itself more fully, it referred itself to God, in whom, by knowing, it might better become day. God did not say 'let heaven be made in the beginning' as we transitorily say 'let something be made.' For that was said eternally in the one Word. If it had been said transitorily by God, 'let it be made,' there would surely have been some creature from which such an utterance might already be produced.
But because, before He said 'let it be made,' no creature existed, that very 'let it be made' which was spoken was uttered in the eternity of the Word, not in the sound of a voice. The creature was not seen by God seven times and praised seven times — the creature which, before it was made, was perfectly seen by Him; but while we, seeing each single thing, praise it, as though He Himself saw and praised through us, as in that saying: 'It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father.' Accordingly, just as He speaks through us, so He sees and praises through us; but through Himself He sees perpetually and eternally, whereas through us He sees temporally.
Note that the creation as a whole is called 'very good,' but singly only 'good'; because even the members of the body, though they are singly good, yet make a greater good when all the several members together make up a very good body. The comeliness of all the elements consists in the beautiful and the fitting. But that is beautiful which is beautiful through itself, as man consisting of soul and all his members. That is fitting, however, like clothing and food. And therefore man is called beautiful in himself, because man is not necessary to clothing and food, but these to man. But those things are fitting, because they are not beautiful for themselves, as man is, nor for themselves, but for another — that is, adapted to man, not necessary for themselves.
This is also to be said of the other natures of the elements. All things that are and have been made are exceedingly wondrous, but by familiarity they have grown cheap. And therefore search the divine works in such a way that you may always ponder them as immense. God made all things very good. Nothing therefore is by nature evil, since even those things which seem to be penal in creatures, if they are well used, are good and prosperous; if ill used, they harm. So then the creature is to be weighed by our non-good usage, not by its own nature, which is very good. Whence comes evil. Evil was not created by the devil but invented, and therefore evil is nothing, because without God nothing was made. But God did not make evil.
Not that somewhere or at some time there was an evil from which the devil might be made evil, but because it is a defect: while he was a good angel, by pride he was made evil, and therefore evil is rightly said to have been invented by him. There is no nature of evil, because every nature is either unchangeable, as God is, or changeable, as the creature is. But evil is therefore no nature, because by acceding to a good nature it makes it vicious. And when it departs, the nature remains, and the evil which was in it is nowhere. From the fact that a defect harms a nature, it is recognized that a defect is not a nature, because nothing which is natural harms.
When a good nature is condemned on account of an evil will, that very evil will is a witness to the good nature, which it so far testifies to be good that God does not leave it unavenged for its evil. It is believed by heretics that the mind was created by God, the vices by the devil. Hence by them also two natures, good and evil, are supposed. But vices are not natures, and though they be truly from the devil, yet they were not created. For what cause did God permit the state of evil to arise, except that from contrary evils the comeliness of good natures might stand out? This mode is found even in words. This mode is called antithesis, which in Latin is named 'the opposed' or 'the contraposed,' and a beautiful speech is made when contraries are presently set forth alongside things favorable.
So evil is intermingled in things, that the good of nature might, by comparison, excel evil. God made all things very good. Nothing therefore is by nature evil, since even those very things which seem to be penal in creatures, if they are well used, are good and prosperous; if ill used, they harm. So then the creature is to be weighed by our non-good usage, not by its own nature, which is very good. If you shave off a man's eyebrow, you take away a small thing, but you bring foulness upon the whole body. So too in the whole of creation: if you call the least little worm evil by nature, you do injury to the whole creation. All evils have been transferred, as a penalty, through the sin of the first man upon the whole human race.
Accordingly, whatever things seem to be evils rage against us partly by origin, partly by fault. The perverse call many things in creatures evil, as fire because it burns, iron because it kills, a wild beast because it bites. But man, not attending to their benefits, accuses in them what ought rather to be imputed to himself. For each man's sin these things were made harmful, which had been subject to him in every part before sin. By our own fault, not by their nature, those things are evils to us which harm us. For light, though it be good, is harmful to weak eyes; and then it is the defect of the eyes, not of the light. So too the rest.
When man is scourged by the goads of creatures and the adversities of the elements, this exacts the penalty of sin: that man, being proud toward God, should suffer as adverse those things which are beneath himself. Hence also in Wisdom it is read on God's behalf: 'The world fought with Him against the senseless.' Rightly, therefore, it was brought about, for sins, that things naturally prosperous should be changed for man into adversities. Hence Solomon: 'The creature blazes into torment against the unjust, and is gentler to do good to those who trust in God.' The flesh will not be subject to the soul, nor the vices to reason, if the mind is not subject to its Maker. But then are all things rightly made subject to us which are beneath us, if we are made subject to Him by whom those things were made subject to us.
For even those things which seem subject to him who is not subject to God — he rather is made subject to them, who subjugates his own will to the love of those things which he supposes to be subject to himself. Concerning the angels. The name 'angel' is of office, not of nature; for according to nature they are called spirits. For when they are sent from the heavens to announce things to men, from that very announcing they are named 'angels.' By nature they are spirits, but they are called angels when they are sent. The nature of the angels is changeable, because changeability is in them by nature; but eternal charity makes them incorrupt. It is by grace, not by nature, that the angels are unchangeable. For if they were by nature unchangeable, the devil surely would not have fallen.
The contemplation of the Creator therefore comes to the aid of the changeableness of nature in them. And thence the apostate angel was deprived of it, since he willed to guard his strength not from God but from himself. Before all creation the angels were made, when it was said: 'Let there be light.' For of them Scripture says: 'Wisdom was created before all things.' They are called 'light' by participating in the eternal light; and they are called 'wisdom' as begotten by cleaving to Wisdom. And though they are by nature changeable, yet the divine contemplation does not allow them to be changed. Before all creation of the world the angels were created, and before all creation of the angels the devil was founded, as it is written: 'He is the beginning of the ways of God.'