|
25. Now, therefore, let us see what this prolix discourse has
effected, what it has gathered, whereto it has reached. It belongs
to all men to will to be blessed; yet all men have not faith, whereby
the heart is cleansed, and so blessedness is reached. And thus it
comes to pass, that by means of the faith which not all men will, we
have to reach on to the blessedness which every one wills. All see in
their own heart that they will to be blessed; and so great is the
agreement of human nature on this subject, that the man is not deceived
who conjectures this concerning another's mind, out of his own: in
short, we know ourselves that all will this. But many despair of
being immortal, although no otherwise can any one be that which all
will, that is, blessed. Yet they will also to be immortal if they
could; but through not believing that they can, they do not so live
that they can. Therefore faith is necessary, that we may attain
blessedness in all the good things of human nature, that is, of both
soul and body. But that same faith requires that this faith be limited
in Christ, who rose in the flesh from the dead, not to die any more;
and that no one is freed from the dominion of the devil, through the
forgiveness of sins, save by Him; and that in the abiding place of
the devil, life must needs be at once miserable and never-ending,
which ought rather to be called death than life. All which I have
also argued, so far as space permitted, in this book, while I have
already said much on the subject in the fourth book of this work as
well; but in that place for one purpose, here for another, namely,
there, that I might show why and how Christ was sent in the fullness
of time by the Father, on account of those who say that He who sent
and He who was sent cannot be equal in nature; but here, in order to
distinguish practical knowlege from contemplative wisdom.
26. For we wished to ascend, as it were, by steps, and to seek in
the inner man, both in knowledge and in wisdom, a sort of trinity of
its own special kind, such as we sought before in the outer man; in
order that we may come, with a mind more practised in these lower
things, to the contemplation of that Trinity which is God, according
to our little measure, if indeed, we can even do this, at least in a
riddle and as through a glass. If, then, any one have committed to
memory the words of this faith in their sounds alone, not knowing what
they mean, as they commonly who do not know Greek hold in memory
Greek words, or similarly Latin ones, or those of any other language
of which they are ignorant, has not he a sort of trinity in his mind?
because, first, those sounds of words are in his memory, even when he
does not think thereupon; and next, the mental vision (acies) of his
act of recollection is formed thence when he conceives of them; and
next, the will of him who remembers and thinks unites both. Yet we
should by no means say that the man in so doing busies himself with a
trinity of the interior man, but rather of the exterior; because he
remembers, and when he wills, contemplates as much as he wills, that
alone which belongs to the sense of the body, which is called hearing.
Nor in such an act of thought does he do anything else than deal with
images of corporeal things, that is, of sounds. But if he holds and
recollects what those words signify, now indeed something of the inner
man is brought into action; not yet, however, ought he to be said or
thought to live according to a trinity of the tuner man, if he does not
love those things which are there declared, enjoined, promised. For
it is possible for him also to hold and conceive these things,
supposing them to be false, in order that he may endeavor to disprove
them. Therefore that will, which in this case unites those things
which are held in the memory with those things which are thence
impressed on the mind's eye in conception, completes, indeed, some
kind of trinity, since itself is a third added to two others; but the
man does not live according to this, when those things which are
conceived are taken to be false, and are not accepted. But when those
things are believed to be true, and those things which therein ought to
be loved, are loved, then at last the man does live according to a
trinity of the inner man; for every one lives according to that which
he loves. But how can things be loved which are not known, but only
believed? This question has been already treated of in former books;
and we found, that no one loves what he is wholly ignorant of, but
that when things not known are said to be loved, they are loved from
those things which are known. And now we so conclude this book, that
we admonish the just to live by faith, which faith worketh by love, so
that the virtues also themselves, by which one lives prudently,
boldly, temperately, and justly, be all referred to the same faith;
for not otherwise can they be true virtues. And yet these in this life
are not of so great worth, as that the remission of sins, of some kind
or other, is not sometimes necessary here; and this remission comes
not to pass, except through Him, who by His own blood conquered the
prince of sinners. Whatsoever ideas are in the mind of the faithful
man from this faith, and from such a life, when they are contained in
the memory, and are looked at by recollection, and please the will,
set forth a kind of trinity of its own sort.? But the image of God,
of which by His help we shall afterwards speak, is not yet in that
trinity; a thing which will then be more apparent, when it shall have
been shown where it is, which the reader may expect in a succeeding
book.
|
|