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6. But it is by love that we must stand firm to this and cleave to
this, in order that we may enjoy the presence of that by which we are,
and in the absence of which we could not be at all. For as "we walk
as yet by faith, and not by sight," we certainly do not yet see
God, as the same [apostle] saith, "face to face:" whom however
we shall never see, unless now already we love. But who loves what he
does not know? For it is possible something may be known and not
loved: but I ask whether it is possible that what is not known can be
loved; since if it cannot, then no one loves God before he knows
Him. And what is it to know God except to behold Him and
steadfastly perceive Him with the mind? For He is not a body to be
searched out by carnal eyes. But before also that we have power to
behold and to perceive God, as He can be beheld and perceived, which
is permitted to the pure in heart; for "blessed are the pure in
heart. for they shall see God;" except He is loved by faith, it
will not be possible for the heart to be cleansed, in order that it may
be apt and meet to see Him. For where are there those three, in
order to build up which in the mind the whole apparatus of the divine
Scriptures has been raised up, namely Faith, Hope, and Charity's
except in a mind believing what it does not yet see, and hoping and
loving what it believes? Even He therefore who is not known, but yet
is believed, can be loved. But indisputably we must take care, lest
the mind believing that which it does not see, feign to itself
something which is not, and hope for and love that which is false.
For in that case, it will not be charity out of a pure heart, and of
a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, which is the end of the
commandment, as the same apostle says.
7. But it must needs be, that, when by reading or hearing of them
we believe in any corporeal things which we have not seen, the mind
frames for itself something under bodily features and forms, just as it
may occur to our thoughts; which either is not true, or even if it be
true, which can most rarely happen, yet this is of no benefit to us to
believe in by faith, but it is useful for some other purpose, Which
is intimated by means of it. For who is there that reads or hears what
the Apostle Paul has written, or what has been written of him, that
does not imagine to himself the countenance both of the apostle
himself, and of all those whose names are there mentioned? And
whereas, among such a multitude of men to whom these books are known,
each imagines in a different way those bodily features and forms, it is
assuredly uncertain which it is that imagines them more nearly and more
like the reality. Nor, indeed, is our faith busied therein with the
bodily countenance of those men; but only that by the grace of God
they so lived and so acted as that Scripture witnesses: this it is
which it is both useful to believe, and which must not be despaired
of, and must be sought. For even the countenance of our Lord
Himself in the flesh is variously fancied by the diversity of countless
imaginations, which yet was one, whatever it was. Nor in our faith
which we have of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that wholesome which the
mind imagines for itself, perhaps far other than the reality, but that
which we think of man according to his kind: for we have a notion of
human nature implanted in us, as it were by rule, according to which
we know forthwith, that whatever such thing we see is a man or the form
of a man.
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