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9. First of all, then, it is necessary that we should be led by the
fear of God to seek the knowledge of His will, what He commands us
to desire and what to avoid. Now this fear will of necessity excite in
us the thought of our mortality and of the death that is before us, and
crucify all the motions of pride as if our flesh were nailed to the
tree. Next it is necessary to have our hearts subdued by piety, and
not to run in the face of Holy Scripture, whether when understood it
strikes at some of our sins, or, when not understood, we feel as if
we could be wiser and give better commands ourselves. We must rather
think and believe that whatever is there written, even though it be
hidden, is better and truer than anything we could devise by our own
wisdom.
10. After these two steps of fear and piety, we come to the third
step, knowledge, of which I have now undertaken to treat. For in
this every earnest student of the Holy Scriptures exercises himself,
to find nothing else in them but that God is to be loved for His own
sake, and our neighbor for God's sake; and that God is to be loved
with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and
one's neighbor as one's self that is, in such a way that all our love
for our neighbor, like all our love for ourselves, should have
reference to God. And on these two commandments I touched in the
previous book when I was treating about things. It is necessary,
then, that each man should first of all find in the Scriptures that
he, through being entangled in the love of this world i.e., of
temporal things has been drawn far away from such a love for God and
such a love for his neighbor as Scripture enjoins. Then that fear
which leads him to think of the judgment of God, and that piety which
gives him no option but to believe in and submit to the authority of
Scripture, compel him to bewail his condition. For the knowledge of
a good hope makes a man not boastful, but sorrowful. And in this
frame of mind he implores with unremitting prayers the comfort of the
Divine help that he may not be overwhelmed in despair, and so he
gradually comes to the fourth step, that is, strength and resolution,
in which he hungers and thirsts after righteousness. For in this frame
of mind he extricates himself from every form of fatal joy in transitory
things, and turning away from these, fixes his affection on things
eternal, to wit, the unchangeable Trinity in unity.
11. And when, to the extent of his power, he has gazed upon this
object shining from afar, and has felt that owing to the weakness of
his sight he cannot endure that matchless light, then in the fifth step
that is, in the counsel of compassion he cleanses his soul, which is
violently agitated, and disturbs him with base desires, from the filth
it has contracted. And at this stage he exercises himself diligently
in the love of his neighbor; and when he has reached the point of
loving his enemy, full of hopes and unbroken in strength, he mounts to
the sixth step, in which he purifies the eye itself which can see
God, so far as God can be seen by those who as far as possible die to
this world. For men see Him just so far as they die to this world;
and so far as they live to it they see Him not. But yet, although
that light may begin to appear clearer, and not only more tolerable,
but even more delightful, still it is only through a glass darkly that
we are said to see, because we walk by faith, not by sight, while we
continue to wander as strangers in this world, even though our
conversation be in heaven. And at this stage, too, a man so purges
the eye of his affections as not to place his neighbor before, or even
in comparison with, the truth, and therefore not himself, because not
him whom he loves as himself. Accordingly, that holy man will be so
single and so pure in heart, that he will not step aside from the
truth, either for the sake of pleasing men or with a view to avoid any
of the annoyances which beset this life. Such a son ascends to
wisdom, which is the seventh and last step, and which he enjoys in
peace and tranquillity. For the fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom. From that beginning, then, till we reach wisdom itself, our
way is by the steps now described.
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