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18. "Will you say that these things are false, which, with a
strong voice, Truth tells me in my inner ear, concerning the very
eternity of the Creator, that His substance is in no wise changed by
time, nor that His will is separate from His substance? Wherefore,
He willeth not one thing now, another anon, but once and for ever He
willeth all things that He willeth; not again and again, nor now
this, now that; nor willeth afterwards what He willeth not before,
nor willeth not what before He willed. Because such a will is mutable
and no mutable thing is eternal; but our God is eternal.s Likewise
He tells me, tells me in my inner ear, that the expectation of future
things is turned to sight when they have come; and this same sight is
turned to memory when they have passed. Moreover, all thought which
is thus varied is mutable, and nothing mutable is eternal; but our
God is eternal." These things I sum up and put together, and I
find that my God, the eternal God, hath not made any creature by any
new will, nor that His knowledge suffereth anything transitory.
19. What, therefore, will ye say, ye objectors? Are these
things false? "No," they say. "What is this? Is it false,
then, that every nature already formed, or matter formable, is only
from Him who is supremely good, because He is supreme? . . . .
Neither do we deny this," say they. "What then? Do you deny
this, that there is a certain sublime creature, clinging with so
chaste a love with the true and truly eternal God, that although it be
not co-eternal with Him, yet it separateth itself not from Him, nor
floweth into any variety and vicissitude of times, but resteth in the
truest contemplation of Him only?" Since Thou, O God, showest
Thyself unto him, and sufficest him, who loveth Thee as muce as
Thou commandest, and, therefore, he declineth not from Thee, nor
toward himself. This is the house of God, not earthly, nor of any
celestial bulk corporeal, but a spiritual house and a partaker of Thy
eternity, because without blemish for ever. For Thou hast made it
fast for ever and ever; Thou hast 'given it a law, which it shall
not pass? Nor yet is it co-eternal with Thee, O God, because not
without beginning, for it was made.
20. For although we find no time before it, for wisdom was created
before all things. not certainly that Wisdom manifestly
co-eternal and equal unto Thee, our God, His Father, and by
Whom all things were created, and in Whom, as the Beginning, Thou
createdst heaven and earth; but truly that wisdom which has been
created, namely, the intellectual nature,t which, in the
contemplation of light, is light. For this, although created, is
also called wisdom. But as great as is the difference between the
Light which enlighteneth and that which is enlightened? so great is
the difference between the Wisdom that createth and that which hath
been created; as between the Righteousness which justifieth, and the
righteousness which has been made by justification. For we also are
called Thy righteousness; for thus saith a certain servant of Thine:
"That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.''s
Therefore, since a certain created wisdom was created before all
things, the rational and intellectual mind of that chaste city of
Thine, our mother which is above, and is free,' and "eternal in
the heavens. (in what heavens, unless in those that praise Thee,
the "heaven of heavens," because this also is the "heaven of
heavens," which is the Lord's) although we find not time before
it, because that which hath been created before all things also
precedeth the creature of time, yet is the Eternity of the Creator
Himself before it, from Whom, having been created, it took the
beginning, although not of time, for time as yet was not, yet
of its own very nature.
21. Hence comes it so to be of Thee, our God, as to be
manifestly another than Thou, and not the Self-same. Since,
although we find time not only not before it, but not in it (it being
proper ever to behold Thy face, nor is ever turned aside from it,
wherefore it happens that it is varied by no change), yet is there in
it that mutability itself whence it would become dark and cold, but
that, clinging unto Thee with sublime love, it shineth and gloweth
from Thee like a perpetual noon. O house, full of light and
splendour! I have loved thy beauty, and the place of the habitation
of the glory of my Lord, thy builder and owner. Let my wandering
sigh after thee; and I speak unto Him that made thee, that He may
possess me also in thee, seeing He hath made me likewise. "I have
gone astray, like a lost sheep;. yet upon the shoulders of my
Sheperd. thy builder, I hope that I may be brought back to thee.
22. "What say ye to me, O ye objectors whom I was addressing,
and who yet believe that Moses was the holy servant of God, and that
his books were the oracles of the Holy Ghost? Is not this house of
God, not indeed co-eternal with God, yet, according to its
measure, eternal in the heavens, n where in vain you seek for changes
of times, because you will not find them? For that surpasseth all
extension, and every revolving space of time, to which it is ever good
to cleave fast to God." "It is," say they. "What, therefore,
of those things which my heart cried out unto my God, when within it
heard the voice of His praise, what then do you contend is false? Or
is it because the matter was formless, wherein, as there was no form,
there was no order? But where there was no order there could not be
any change of times; and yet this ' almost nothing,' inasmuch as it
was not altogether nothing, was verily from Him, from Whom is
whatever is, in what state soever anything is.""This also," say
they, "we do not deny."
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