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1. Beginning, as I now do henceforward, to speak of subjects which
cannot altogether be spoken as they are thought, either by any man,
or, at any rate, not by myself; although even our very thought, when
we think of God the Trinity, falls (as we feel) very far short of
Him of whom we think, nor comprehends Him as He is; but He is
seen, as it is written, even by those who are so great as was the
Apostle Paul, "through a glass and in an enigma:" first, I pray
to our Lord God Himself, of whom we ought always to think, and of
whom we are not able to think worthily, in praise of whom blessing is
at all times to be rendered, and whom no speech is sufficient to
declare, that He will grant me both help for understanding and
explaining that which I design, and pardon if in anything I offend.
For I bear in mind, not only my desire, but also my infirmity. I
ask also of my readers to pardon me, where they may perceive me to have
had the desire rather than the power to speak, what they either
understand better themselves, or fail to understand through the
obscurity of my language, just as I myself pardon them what they
cannot understand through their own dullness.
2. And we shall mutually pardon one another the more easily, if we
know, or at any rate firmly believe and hold, that whatever is said of
a nature, unchangeable, invisible and having life absolutely and
sufficient to itself, must not be measured after the custom of things
visible, and changeable, and mortal, or not self-sufficient. But
although we labor, and yet fail, to grasp and know even those things
which are within the scope of our corporeal senses, or what we are
ourselves in the tuner man; yet it is with no shamelessness that
faithful piety burns after those divine and unspeakable things which are
above: piety, I say, not inflated by the arrogance of its own
power, but inflamed by the grace of its Creator and Saviour
Himself. For with what understanding can man apprehend God, who
does not yet apprehend that very understanding itself of his own, by
which he desires to apprehend Him? And if he does already apprehend
this, let him carefully consider that there is nothing in his own
nature better than it; and let him see whether he can there see any
outlines of forms, or brightness of colors, or greatness of space, or
distance of parts, or extension of size, or any movements through
intervals of place, or any such thing at all. Certainly we find
nothing of all this in that, than which we find nothing better in our
own nature, that is, in our own intellect, by which we apprehend
wisdom according to our capacity. What, therefore, we do not find in
that which is our own best, we ought not to seek in Him who is far
better than that best of ours; that so we may understand God, if we
are able, and as much as we are able, as good without quality, great
without quantity, a creator though He lack nothing, ruling but from
no position, sustaining all things without "having" them, in His
wholeness everywhere, yet without place, eternal without time, making
things that are changeable, without change of Himself, and without
passion. Whoso thus thinks of God, although he cannot yet find out
in all ways what He is, yet piously takes heed, as much as he is
able, to think nothing of Him that He is not.
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