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18. But there are yet more testimonies in the divine Scriptures
concerning the love of God. For in it, those other two [namely,
memory and understanding] are understood by consequence, inasmuch as
no one loves that which he does not remember, or of which he is wholly
ignorant. And hence is that well known and primary commandment,
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." The human mind, then, is so
constituted, that at no time does it not remember, and understand,
and love itself. But since he who hates any one is anxious to injure
him, not undeservedly is the mind of man also said to hate itself when
it injures itself. For it wills ill to itself through ignorance, in
that it does not think that what it wills is prejudicial to it; but it
none the less does will ill to itself, when it wills what would be
prejudicial to it. And hence it is written, "He that loveth
iniquity, hateth his own soul." He, therefore, who knows how to
love himself, loves God; but he who does not love God, even if he
does love himself, a thing implanted in him by nature, yet is not
unsuitably said to hate himself, inasmuch as he does that which is
adverse to himself, and assails himself as though he were his own
enemy. And this is no doubt a terrible delusion, that whereas all
will to profit themselves, many do nothing but that which is most
pernicious to themselves. When the poet was describing a like disease
of dumb animals, "May the gods," says he, "grant better things to
the pious, and assign, that delusion to enemies. They were rending
with bare teeth their own torn limbs." Since it was a disease of the
body he was speaking of, why has he called it a delusion, unless
because, while nature inclines every animal to take all the care it can
of itself, that disease was such that those animals rent those very
limbs of theirs which they desired should be safe and sound? But when
the mind loves God, and by consequence, as has been said remembers
and understands Him, then it is rightly enjoined also to love its
neighbor as itself; for it has now come to love itself rightly and not
perversely when it loves God, by partaking of whom that image not only
exists, but is also renewed so as to be no longer old, and restored so
as to be no longer defaced, and beatified so as to be no longer
unhappy. For although it so love itself, that, supposing the
alternative to be proposed to it, it would lose all things which it
loves less than itself rather than perish; still, by abandoning Him
who is above it, in dependence upon whom alone it could guard its own
strength, and enjoy Him as its light, to whom it is sung in the
Psalm, "I will guard my strength in dependence upon Thee," and
again, "Draw near to Him, and be enlightened," it has been made
so weak and so dark, that it has fallen away unhappily from itself
too, to those things that are not what itself is, and which are
beneath itself, by affections that it cannot conquer, and delusions
from which it sees no way to return. And hence, when by God's mercy
now penitent, it cries out in the Psalms, "My strength faileth me;
as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me."
19. Yet, in the midst of these evils of weakness and delusion,
great as they are, it could not lose its natural memory, understanding
and love of itself. And therefore what I quoted above can be rightly
said, "Although man walketh in an image, surely he is disquieted in
vain: he heapeth up treasures, and knoweth not who shall gather
them." For why does he heap up treasures, unless because his
strength has deserted him, through which he would have God. and so
lack nothing? And why cannot he tell for whom he shall gather them,
unless because the light of his eyes is taken from him? And so he does
not see what the Truth saith, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall
be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast
provided?" Yet because even such a man walketh in an image, and the
man's mind has remembrance, understanding, and love of itself; if it
were made plain to it that it could not have both, while it was
permitted to choose one and lose the other, viz. either the treasures
it has heaped up, or the mind; who is so utterly without mind, as to
prefer to have the treasures rather than the mind? i For treasures
commonly are able to subvert the mind, but the mind that is not
subverted by treasures can live more easily and unencumberedly without
any treasures. But who will be able to possess treasures unless it be
by means of the mind? For if an infant, born as rich as you please,
although lord of everything that is rightfully his, yet possesses
nothing if his mind be unconscious, how can any one possibly possess
anything whose mind is wholly lost? But why say of treasures, that
anybody, if the choice be given him, prefers going without them to
going without a mind; when there is no one that prefers, nay, no one
that compares them, to those lights of the body, by which not one man
only here and there, as in the case of gold, but every man, possesses
the very heaven? For every one possesses by the eyes of the body
whatever he gladly sees. Who then is there, who, if he could not
keep both, but must lose one, would not rather lose his treasures than
his eyes? And yet if it were put to him on the same condition,
whether he would rather lose eyes than mind, who is there with a mind
that does not see that he would rather lose the former than the latter?
For a mind without the eyes of the flesh is still human, but the eyes
of the flesh without a mind are bestial. And who would not rather be a
man, even though blind in fleshly sight, than a beast that can see?
20. I have said thus much, that even those who are slower of
understanding, to whose eyes or ears this book may come, might be
admonished, however briefly, how greatly even a weak and erring mind
loves itself, in wrongly loving and pursuing things beneath itself.
Now it could not love itself if it were altogether ignorant of itself,
i.e. if it did not remember itself, nor understand itself by which
image of God within itself it has such power as to be able to cleave to
Him whose image it is. For it is so reckoned in the order, not of
place, but of natures, as that there is none above it save Him.
When, finally, it shall altogether cleave to Him, then it will be
one spirit, as the apostle testifies, saying, "But he who cleaves
to the Lord is one spirit." And this by its drawing near to partake
of His nature, truth, and blessedness, yet not by His increasing in
His own nature, truth and blessedness. In that nature, then, when
it happily has cleaved to it, it will live unchangeably, and will see
as unchangeable all that it does see. Then, as divine Scripture
promises, "His desire will be satisfied with good things," good
things unchangeable, the very Trinity itself, its own God, whose
image it is. And that it may not ever thenceforward suffer wrong, it
will be in the hidden place of His presence, filled with so great
fullness of Him, that sin thenceforth will never delight it. But
now, when it sees itself, it sees something not unchangeable.
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