| #### CHAPTER III. GENESIS I. 3, OF "LIGHT," HE UNDERSTANDS AS IT IS SEEN IN THE SPIRITUAL CREATURE. |

| #### #### 4. But what Thou saidst in the beginning of the creation, "Let there be light, and there was light,". I do not unfitly understand of the spiritual creature; because there was even then a kind of life, which Thou mightest illuminate. But as it had not deserved of Thee that it should be such a life as could be enlightened, so neither, when it already was, hath it deserved of Thee that it should be enlightened. For neither could its formlessness be pleasing unto Thee,unless it became light,- not by merely existing, but by beholding the illuminating light, and cleaving unto it; so also, that it lives, and lives happily? it owes to nothing whatsoever but to Thy grace; being converted by means of a better change unto that which can be changed neither into better nor into worse; the which Thou only art because Thou only simply art, to whom it is not one thing to live, another to live blessedly, since Thou art Thyself Thine own Blessedness. #### CHAPTER IV. ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN CREATED BY THE GRACE OF GOD, AND ARE NOT OF HIM AS STANDING IN NEED OF CREATED THINGS. #### 5. What, therefore, could there be wanting unto Thy good, which Thou Thyself art, although these things had either never been, or had remained formless, the which Thou madest not out of any want, but out of the plenitude of Thy goodness, restraining them and converting them to form not as though Thy joy were perfected by them? For to Thee, being perfect. their imperfection is displeasing, and therefore were they perfected by Thee, and were pleasing unto Thee; but not as if Thou wert imperfect, and wert to be perfected in their perfection. For Thy good Spirit was borne over the waters, not borne up by them as if He rested upon them. #### For those in whom Thy. good Spirit is said to rest. He causes to rest in Himself. But Thy incorruptible and unchangeable will, which in itself is all-sufficient for itself, was borne over that life which Thou hadst made, to which to live is not all one with living happily, since, flowing in its own darkness, it liveth also; for which it remaineth to be converted unto Him by whom it was made, and to live more and more by" the fountain of life," and in His light to "see light, and to be perfected, and enlightened, and made happy. ####  |