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3. But in respect to bodies, it may be the case that this gold and
that gold may be equally true [real], but this may be greater than
that, since magnitude is not the same thing in this case as truth; and
it is one thing for it to be gold, another to be great. So also in
the nature of the soul; a soul is not called great in the same respect
in which it is called true. For he, too, has a true [real] soul
who has not a great soul; since the essence of body and soul is not the
essence of the truth [reality] itself; as is the Trinity, one
God, alone, great, true, truthful, the truth. Of whom if we
endeavor to think, so far as He Himself permits and grants, let us
not think of any touch or embrace in local space, as if of three
bodies, or of any compactness of conjunction, as fables tell of
three-bodied Geryon; but let whatsoever may occur to the mind, that
is of such sort as to be greater in three than in each singly, and less
in one than in two, be rejected without any doubt; for so everything
corporeal is rejected. But also in spiritual things let nothing
changeable that may have occurred to the mind be thought of God. For
when we aspire from this depth to that height, it is a step towards no
small knowledge, if, before we can know what God is, we can already
know what He is not. For certainly He is neither earth nor heaven;
nor, as it were, earth and heaven; nor any such thing as we see in
the heaven; nor any such thing as we do not see, but which perhaps is
in heaven. Neither if you were to magnify in the imagination of your
thought the light of the sun as much as you are able, either that it
may be greater, or that it may be brighter, a thousand times as much,
or times without number; neither is this God. Neither as we think of
the pure angels as spirits animating celestial bodies, and changing and
dealing with them after the will by which they serve God; not even if
all, and there are "thousands of thousands," were brought together
into one, and became one; neither is any such thing God. Neither if
you were to think of the same spirits as without bodies a thing indeed
most difficult for carnal thought to do. Behold and see, if thou
canst, O soul pressed down by the corruptible body, and weighed down
by earthly thoughts, many and various; behold and see, if thou
canst, that God is truth. For it is written that "God is light;"
not in such way as these eyes see, but in such way as the heart sees,
when it is said, He is truth [reality]. Ask not what is truth
[reality] for immediately the darkness of corporeal images and the
clouds of phantasms will put themselves in the way, and will disturb
that calm which at the first twinkling shone forth to thee, when I
said truth [reality]. See that thou remainest, if thou canst, in
that first twinkling with which thou art dazzled, as it were, by a
flash, when it is said to thee, Truth [Reality]. But thou canst
not; thou wilt glide back into those usual and earthly things. And
what weight, pray, is it that will cause thee so to glide back,
unless it be the bird-lime of the stains of appetite thou hast
contracted, and the errors of thy wandering from the right path?
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