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8. Not with uncertain, but with assured consciousness do I love
Thee, O Lord. Thou hast stricken my heart with Thy word, and I
loved Thee. And also the heaven, and earth, and all that is
therein, behold, on every side 1;hey say that I should love Thee;
nor do they cease to speak unto all, "so that they are without
excuse." But more profoundly wilt Thou have mercy on whom Thou wilt
have mercy, and compassion on whom Thou wilt have compassion.
otherwise do both heaven and earth tell forth Thy praises to deaf
ears. But what is it that I love in loving Thee? Not corporeal
beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so
pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds,
nor the flagrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not
manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I
love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain
kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement
in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and
embracement of my inner man where that light shineth unto my soul
which no place can contain, where that soundeth which time snatcheth
not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperseth, where
there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clingeth
which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my
God.
9. And what is this? I asked the earth; and it answered, "I am
not He;" and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I
asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping things that lived, and
they replied, "We are not thy God, seek higher than we." I asked
the breezy air, and the universal air with its inhabitants answered,'
'Anaximenes. was deceived, I am not God." I asked the heavens,
the sun, moon, and stars: "Neither," say they, "are we the God
whom thou seekest." And I answered unto all these things which stand
about the door of my flesh, "Ye have told me concerning my God,
that ye are not He; tell me something about Him." And with a loud
voice they exclaimed, "He made us." My question-mg was my
observing of them; and their beauty was their reply? And I directed
my thoughts to myself, and said, "Who art thou?" And I
answered, "A man." And lo, in me there appear both body and
soul, the one without, the other within. By which of these should I
seek my God, whom I had sought through the body from earth to
heaven, as far as I was able to send messengers the beams of mine
eyes? But the better part is that which is inner; for to it, as both
president and judge, did all these my corporeal messengers render the
answers of heaven and earth and all things therein, who said, "We
are not God, but He made us." These things was my inner man
cognizant of by the ministry of the outer; I, the inner man, knew
all this I, the soul, through the senses of my body. I asked the
vast bulk of the earth of my God, and it answered me, "I am not
He, but He made me."
10. Is not this beauty visible to all whose senses are unimpaired?
Why then doth it not speak the same things unto all? Animals, the
very small and the great, see it, but they are unable to question it,
because their senses are not endowed with reason to enable them to judge
on what they report. But men can question it, so that "the invisible
things of Him . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made;"' but by loving them, they are brought into
subjection to them; and subjects are not able to judge. Neither do
the creatures reply to such as question them, unless they can judge;
nor will they alter their voice (that is, their beauty). if so be
one man only sees, another both sees and questions, so as to appear
one way to this man, and another to that; but appearing the same way
to both, it is mute to this, it speaks to that yea, verily, it
speaks unto all but they only understand it who compare that voice
received from without with the truth within. For the truth declareth
unto me, "Neither heaven, nor earth, nor any body is: thy God."
This, their nature declareth unto him that beholdeth them.
"They are a mass; a mass is less in part than in the whole." Now,
O my soul, thou art my better part, unto thee I speak; for thou
animatest the mass of thy body, giving it life, which no body
furnishes to a body but thy God is even unto thee the Life of life.
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