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1. The knowledge of things terrestrial and celestial is commonly
thought much of by men. Yet those doubtless judge better who prefer to
that knowledge, the knowledge of themselves; and that mind is more
praiseworthy which knows even its own weakness, than that which,
without regard to this, searches out, and even comes to know, the
ways of the stars, or which holds fast such knowledge already
acquired, while ignorant of the way by which itself to enter into its
own proper health and strength. But if any one has already become
awake towards God, kindled by the warmth of the Holy Spirit, and in
the love of God has become vile in his own eyes; and through wishing,
yet not having strength to come in unto Him, and through the light He
gives, has given heed to himself, and has found himself, and has
learned that his own filthiness cannot mingle with His purity; and
feels it sweet to weep and to entreat Him, that again and again He
will have compassion, until he have put off all his wretchedness; and
to pray confidently, as having already received of free gift the pledge
of salvation through his only Saviour and Enlightener of man: such an
one, so acting, and so lamenting, knowledge does not puff up,
because charity edifieth; for he has preferred knowledge to knowledge,
he has preferred to know his own weakness, rather than to know the
walls of the world, the foundations of the earth, and the pinnacles of
heaven. And by obtaining this knowledge, he has obtained also
sorrow; but sorrow for straying away from the desire of reaching his
own proper country, and the Creator of it, his own blessed God.
And if among men such as these, in the family of Thy Christ, O
Lord my God, I groan among Thy poor, give me out of Thy bread to
answer men who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness, but are
sated and abound. But it is the vain image of those things that has
sated them, not Thy truth, which they have repelled and shrunk from,
and so fall into their own vanity. I certainly know how many figments
the human heart gives birth to. And what is my own heart but a human
heart? But I pray the God of my heart, that I may not vomit forth
(eructuem) into these writings any of these figments for solid
truths, but that there may pass into them only what the breath of His
truth has breathed into me; cast out though I am from the sight of
His eyes, and striving from afar to return by the way which the
divinity of His only-begotten Son has made by His humanity. And
this truth, changeable though I am, I so far drink in, as far as in
it I see nothing changeable: neither in place and time, as is the
case with bodies; nor in time alone, and in a certain sense place, as
with the thoughts of our own spirits; nor in time alone, and not even
in any semblance of place, as with some of the reasonings of our own
minds. For the essence of God, whereby He is, has altogether
nothing changeable, neither in eternity, nor in truth, nor in will;
since there truth is eternal, love eternal; and there love is true,
eternity true; and there eternity is loved, and truth is loved.
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