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But is it so, that God the Father, from whom is born the Word that
is God of God, is it so, then, that God the Father, in respect
to that wisdom which He is to Himself, has learned some things by
His bodily senses, and others by Himself? Who could say this, who
thinks of God, not as a rational animal, but as One above the
rational soul? So far at least as He can be thought of, by those who
place Him above all animals and all souls, although they see Him by
conjecture through a glass and in an enigma, not yet face to face as
He is. Is it that God the Father has learned those very things
which He knows, not by the body, for He has none, but by Himself,
from elsewhere from some one? or has stood in need of messengers or
witnesses that He might know them?
Certainly not; since His own perfection enables Him to know all
things that He knows. No doubt He has messengers, viz. the
angels; but not to announce to Him things that He knows not, for
there is nothing He does not know. But their good lies in consulting
the truth about their own works. And This it is which is meant by
saying that they bring Him word of some things, not that He may learn
of them, but they of Him by His word without bodily sound. They
bring Him word, too, of that which He wills, being sent by Him to
whomever He wills, and hearing all from Him by that word of His,
i.e. finding in His truth what themselves are to do: what, to
whom, and when, they are to bring word. For we too pray to Him,
yet do not inform Him what our necessities are. "For your Father
knoweth," says His Word, "what things ye have need of, before you
ask Him." Nor did He become acquainted with them, so as to know
them, at any definite time; but He knew beforehand, without any
beginning, all things to come in time, and among them also both what
we should ask of Him, and when; and to whom He would either listen
or not listen, and on what subjects. And with respect to all His
creatures, both spiritual and corporeal, He does not know them
because they are, but they are because He knows them. For He was
not ignorant of what He was about to create; therefore He created
because He knew; He did not know because He created. Nor did He
know them when created in any other way than He knew them when still to
be created, for nothing accrued to His wisdom from them; but that
wisdom remained as it was, while they came into existence as it was
fitting and when it was fitting. So, too, it is written in the book
of Ecclesiasticus: "All things are known to Him ere ever they were
created: so also after they were perfected." "So," he says, not
otherwise; so were they known to Him, both ere ever they were
created, and after they were perfected. This knowledge, therefore,
is far unlike our knowledge. And the knowledge of God is itself also
His wisdom, and His wisdom is itself His essence or substance.
Because in the marvellous simplicity of that nature, it is not one
thing to be wise and another to be, but to be wise is to be; as we
have often said already also in the earlier books. But our knowledge
is in most things capable both of being lost and of being recovered,
because to us to be is not the same as to know or to be wise; since it
is possible for us to be, even although we know not, neither are wise
in that which we have learned from elsewhere. Therefore, as our
knowledge is unlike that knowledge of God, so is our word also, which
is born from our knowledge, unlike that Word of God which is born
from the essence of the Father. And this is as if I should say,
born from the Father's knowledge, from the Father's wisdom; or
still more exactly, from the Father who is knowledge, from the
Father who is wisdom.
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