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15. It is rightly asked then, whether all knowledge is a word, or
only knowledge that is loved. For we also know the things which we
hate; but what we do not like, cannot be said to be either conceived
or brought forth by the mind. For not all things which in anyway touch
it, are conceived by it; but some only reach the point of being
known, but yet are not spoken as words, as for instance those of which
we speak now. For those are called words in one way, which occupy
spaces of time by their syllables, whether they are pronounced or only
thought; and in another way, all that is known is called a word
imprinted on the mind, as long as it can be brought forth from the
memory and defined, even though we dislike the thing itself; and in
another way still, when we like that which is conceived in the mind.
And that which the apostle says, must be taken according to this last
kind of word, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the
Holy Ghost;" since those also say this, but according to another
meaning of the term "word," of whom the Lord Himself says, "Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven." Nay, even in the case of things which we hate,
when we rightly dislike and rightly censure them, we approve and like
the censure bestowed upon them, and it becomes a word. Nor is it the
knowledge of vices that displeases us, but the vices themselves. For
I like to know and define what intemperance is; and this is its word.
Just as there are known faults in art, and the knowledge of them is
rightly approved, when a connoisseur discerns the species or the
privation of excellence, as to affirm and deny that it is or that it is
not; yet to be without excellence and to fall away into fault, is
worthy of condemnation. And to define intemperance, and to say its
word, belongs to the art of morals; but to be intemperate belongs to
that which that art censures. Just as to know and define what a
solecism is, belongs to the art of speaking; but to be guilty of one,
is a fault which the same art reprehends. A word, then, which is the
point we wish now to discern and intimate, is knowledge together with
love.
Whenever, then, the mind knows and loves itself, its word is joined
to it by love. And since it loves knowledge and knows love, both the
word is in love and love is in the word, and both are in him who loves
and speaks.
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