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14. I know that wisdom is an incorporeal substance, and that it is
the light by which those things are seen that are not seen by carnal
eyes; and yet a man so great and so spiritual [as Paul] says, "We
see now through a glass, in an enigma, but then face to face." If
we ask what and of what sort is this "glass," this assuredly occurs
to our minds, that in a glass nothing is discerned but an image. We
have endeavored, then, so to do; in order that we might see in
some;way or other by this image which we are, Him by whom we are
made, as by a glass. And this is intimated also in the words of the
same apostle: "But we with open face, beholding as in a glass the
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." "Beholding as in a
glass," he has said, i.e. seeing by means of a glass, not looking
from a watch-tower: an ambiguity that does not exist in the Greek
language, whence the apostolic epistles have been rendered into
Latin. For in Greek, a glass, in which the images of things are
visible, is wholly distinct in the sound of the word also from a
watch-tower, from the height of which we command a more distant view.
And it is quite plain that the apostle, in using the word
"speculantes" in respect to the glory of the Lord, meant it to come
from "speculum," not from "specula." But where he says, "We
are transformed into the same image," he assuredly means to speak of
the image of God; and by calling it "the same," he means that very
image which we see in the glass, because that same image is also the
glory of the Lord; as he says elsewhere, "For a man indeed ought
not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of
God," a text already discussed in the twelfth book. He means,
then, by "We are transformed," that we are changed from one form to
another, and that we pass from a form that is obscure to a form that is
bright: since the obscure form, too, is the image of God; and if an
image, then assuredly also "glory," in which we are created as men,
being better than the other animals. For it is said of human nature in
itself, "The man ought not to cover his head, because he is the
image and glory of God." And this nature, being the most excellent
among things created, is transformed from a form that is defaced into a
form that is beautiful, when it is justified by its own Creator from
ungodliness. Since even in ungodliness itself, the more the
faultiness is to be condemned, the more certainly is the nature to be
praised. And therefore he has added, "from glory to glory:" from
the glory of creation to the glory of justification. Although these
words, "from glory to glory," may be understood also in other ways;
from the glory of faith to the glory of sight, from the glory whereby
we are sons of God to the glory whereby we shall be like Him, because
"we shall see Him as He is." But in that he has added "as from
the Spirit of the Lord," he declares that the blessing of so
desirable a transformation is conferred upon us by the grace of God.
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