De theologia

Second Theological Oration—On Theology. Since we have cleansed the theologian by our discourse, having set forth what sort of person he must be, with whom he must philosophize, and when, and to what extent—that he be as pure as possible, so that light may be apprehended by light; and that he address the more attentive, lest the word fall on barren ground; and that we have calm within from the external turmoil, so that we are not, like those possessed, torn apart by the spirit; and to the extent we have been capable, or are capable—since these things are so, and we have plowed divine furrows for ourselves, so as not to sow among thorns, and have leveled the face of the earth, being both formed and forming by Scripture—come, let us now approach the words of theology, having set before our discourse the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, concerning whom the discourse is, so that the one may be well pleased, the other may cooperate, and the third may inspire; or rather, that from the one Godhead there may be a single illumination, divided in a unified manner and united in a divided manner, which is also paradoxical.

As I eagerly ascend the mountain—or, to speak more truly, as I am both eager and anxious, the one because of hope, the other because of weakness—so that I may enter within the cloud and consort with God (for this is what God commands), if someone is an Aaron, let him ascend and stand near, even if he must remain outside the cloud, accepting this. But if someone is a Nadab or an Abioud, or one of the council of elders, let him ascend, but let him stand at a distance, according to the degree of his purification. But if someone is one of the many, unworthy of such a height and contemplation, if he is utterly impure, let him not even approach, for it is not safe; but if he has been purified at least for a time, let him remain below, and let him hear only the voice and the trumpet, the bare words of piety; let him see the mountain smoking and struck by lightning, both a threat and a wonder to those unable to ascend. But if someone is a wicked and savage beast, utterly incapable of receiving words of contemplation and theology, let him not lurk in the thickets with malice and ill intent, so as to seize upon some doctrine or phrase, suddenly springing forth and tearing apart the sound words with his insults; but let him stand still far off, and depart from the mountain, or he will be stoned, and crushed, and perish miserably, an evil man; for true and solid words are stones to the beastly. Whether it be a leopard, let it die along with its variegated markings; or a lion, seizing and roaring, seeking to make a meal of our souls or our phrases; or a boar, trampling the beautiful and translucent pearls of truth; or an Arabian wolf, a foreigner, or even sharper than these in its sophistries.

or a fox—some crafty and faithless soul, changing with the times and needs, conforming to circumstances, which feeds on dead and stinking bodies—or small vineyards, from which the great ones have escaped; or something else of the flesh-eating and rejected by the law, and not pure for food and enjoyment. For the word, having departed from these, wishes to be inscribed on solid and stone tablets, and on both sides, because of the visible and the hidden aspects of the law: the former for the many who remain below, the latter for the few who reach above. What has happened to me, O friends and initiates and fellow lovers of truth? I was running as if to seize God, and thus I ascended the mountain, and parted the cloud, entering within, away from matter and material things, and as far as possible, I gathered myself into myself. But when I looked, I barely saw the back parts of God; and this, sheltered by the rock—by the Word of God made flesh for us—and peeping out a little, I saw not the first and pure nature, known to itself, I mean to the Trinity, and as much as remains within the first veil and is concealed by the cherubim, but that which is last and reaches us. And this is, as far as I can know, the majesty in the creatures and in the things projected and governed by him, or, as the divine David names it, the magnificence. For these are the back parts of God: all that after him are his manifestations, like shadows and images of the sun on waters, shown to weak eyes, since it is not possible to look at the sun itself, which overcomes perception by the purity of its light.

Thus you will theologize, even if you are a Moses and a god to Pharaoh, even if you reach the third heaven according to Paul and hear unspeakable words, even if you become higher than that, deemed worthy of some angelic or archangelic station and order. For even if you are entirely heavenly, even if you are something super-heavenly and far higher in nature than us, and nearer to God, you are further from God and from perfect comprehension than you surpass our composite, lowly, and downward-burdened mixture.

So we must begin again in this way: To conceive God is difficult, but to express him is impossible, as one of the Greek theologians philosophized—not without skill, it seems to me, so that he might both appear to have comprehended by saying it is difficult, and escape refutation by the inexpressibility. But to express him is impossible, as my argument holds, and to conceive him is even more impossible. For what is conceived might perhaps be revealed by speech, even if not adequately, yet dimly, to one whose ears are not entirely corrupted and whose mind is not sluggish. But to encompass such a thing with the mind is altogether impossible and unattainable, not only for the sluggish and downward-bent, but also for the exceedingly lofty and God-loving, and equally for every created nature, and for those whom this darkness and this thick flesh obstruct from the understanding of truth. I do not know, however, whether even the higher and intellectual natures, which because of their proximity to God are illuminated by the whole light, might perhaps be clear, if not entirely, yet more perfectly and distinctly than we, and some more and some less, according to the proportion of their rank.

Let this be set down here. But our own [teaching]—not only does the peace of God surpass every mind and comprehension, nor only those things that are laid up for the righteous in promises, things neither visible to eyes, nor audible to ears, nor conceivable by the mind, at least not easily, nor even the precise understanding of creation (for be persuaded that even of this you have only shadows, when you hear: "I will see the heavens, works of your fingers, the moon and stars, and the fixed order in them"—as if not seeing now, but about to see at some time); but far before these, the nature that is above them and from which they come is ungraspable and incomprehensible. I mean, not that it is, but what it is. For our proclamation is not empty, nor our faith vain, nor is this what we dogmatize—lest you take our good sense as a beginning of atheism and slander, and exalt yourself as though we confess ignorance. For there is a very great difference between being convinced that something exists and knowing what that something is. For that God exists, and is the creative and sustaining cause of all things, both sight and natural law teach: sight, by engaging with things seen, which are well fixed and moving, and moving without motion, so to speak, and being carried; and natural law, by inferring from things seen and ordered the originator of these. For how could this universe have come to be or hold together, if God had not both given substance to all things and sustains them? For neither does one, seeing a beautifully crafted lyre and its harmony and good order, or the lyre-playing itself,

When he hears, will he think of something other than the maker of the cithara and the citharode, and will he not run back in his mind to him, even if he happens not to know him by sight? So also for us the creative power is clear, and that which moves and preserves the things created, even if it is not comprehended by the mind; and he is very ungrateful who does not proceed willingly at least this far, following the natural proofs. But not even this is God, that which we have imagined or formed an impression of, or which reason has described. But if someone has ever, even to some extent, been in a state of comprehension of this, what is the proof? Who has ever arrived at such an extreme of wisdom? Who has ever been deemed worthy of so great a gift? Who has so opened the mouth of the mind and drawn in breath, that by investigating and knowing all things and the depths of God with the spirit he might comprehend God, and no longer need anything further, having already the ultimate object of desire, and that toward which every pursuit of the lofty and every intellect hastens? For what will you suppose the divine to be, if you trust all the logical approaches? Or to what will reason, when examined, lead you, O most philosophical and theological one, who boast beyond measure? Is it body? And how can it be infinite, indefinite, formless, intangible, invisible? Or are these also bodies? What license! For this is not the nature of bodies. Or is it body, but not these things? What crudeness! So that the divine has nothing more than we. For how can it be venerable if it is circumscribed? Or how will it escape being composed of elements and being resolved back into them, or being dissolved at all? For composition is the beginning of strife; strife, of separation; separation, of dissolution; dissolution is entirely alien to God and to the first nature.

Therefore there is no separation, lest there be dissolution; nor conflict, lest there be separation; nor composition, lest there be conflict; for this reason it is not a body, lest there be composition. The argument, ascending from the last to the first, halts thus.

8 How then will it be preserved that God pervades all things and fills all things, according to: "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the Lord, and "The Spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world," if one thing is bounded and the other is bounded? For either he will pass through the void of the universe, and all things will be lost to us, so that God is insulted, becoming a body, and not containing what he has made; or a body will be among bodies, which is impossible; or he will be interwoven and juxtaposed, like liquids that mix, and he will cut and be cut, which is more absurd and more old-womanish than the atoms of the Epicureans; and thus the argument about the body will collapse for us, and he will have no body nor any stability. But if we say he is immaterial, if it is the fifth element, as some thought, moving in a circle, let it be something immaterial and a fifth body, if they wish, and even incorporeal, according to their autonomous movement and refashioning of the argument; for I will not now dispute about this. But according to what among moving and carried things will he be, not to mention the insult, if the maker will be moved in the same way as the things made, and the carrier as the things carried, if indeed they grant this? And what again moves this? And what moves the whole? And that, what? And that again, what? And this to infinity. And how is he not entirely in a place, if he is carried?

If they should claim something other than the fifth, if it is angelic, whence is it that angels are bodies, and what are these? And how much would God be above an angel, whose minister is an angel? But if it is above these, again an irrational swarm of bodies is introduced, and a depth of nonsense, unable to stand anywhere. Thus, then, God is not a body for us. For no one among the inspired has either said or accepted this, nor is it the argument of our court. It remains, then, to suppose him incorporeal. But if incorporeal, this is not yet indicative and comprehensive of the essence, just as the unbegotten, the unoriginate, the unchangeable, the imperishable, and all that is said about God or to be about God are not. For what is it that belongs to him in his nature and hypostasis, to have no beginning, not to change, not to be limited? But it remains to encompass the whole of being

to philosophize further and examine more closely for one who truly has a mind of God and a more perfect contemplation. For just as it is not enough to say body, or to have been born, to present and make clear the thing about which these are said, but one must also state the subject underlying these, if the thing thought is to be presented perfectly and adequately—for either man or ox or horse is this embodied and born and perishable thing—so too there one will not stop at saying what the one who inquires into the nature of being is not, but one must, in addition to saying what it is not, also say what it is—insofar as it is easier to encompass one thing than to deny each of all things—so that from both the removal of what it is not and the positing of what it is, the thing thought may be encompassed.

But he who says what it is not, yet is silent about what it is, does something similar—as if, when asked what twice five is, he should say that it is not two, nor three, nor four, nor five, nor twenty, nor thirty, nor any number, to put it briefly, among those within the decade or the decimal numbers, yet should not say that it is ten, nor fix the mind of the questioner upon what is sought. For it is much easier and shorter to indicate what it is not from what it is, than to show what it is by removing what it is not. Or this is obvious to everyone. Since the divine is incorporeal for us, let us examine a little further: is this nowhere, or is it somewhere? For if it is nowhere, one of the more inquisitive might ask how it could even exist. For if what is not is nowhere, what is nowhere is perhaps not even existent. But if it is somewhere, then since it exists, it is either in the universe or beyond the universe. But if it is in the universe, it is either in something or everywhere. And if it is in something, it will be encompassed by that something, which is lesser; if it is everywhere, it will be encompassed by something greater and much else—I mean the contained by the container, if the universe is to be encompassed by the universe, and no place is free from circumscription. These things, if it is in the universe. And where was it before the universe came to be? For this too is no small difficulty. But if it is beyond the universe, then was there nothing separating it from the universe? And where is the beyond? And how was the transcending and that which is transcended conceived, when there is no boundary cutting and separating them? Or must there necessarily be a middle, and that by which the universe and the beyond the universe are bounded? And what else is this but place, which we have fled?

And I do not yet say that the divine is altogether circumscribed, even if it is comprehensible by the mind; for comprehension is one form of circumscription. For what purpose, then, have I gone through these things, and perhaps more elaborately than suits the ears of the many, and contrary to the now prevailing style of discourse, which, having dishonored the noble and simple, has introduced the crooked and enigmatic—as if the tree is known from its fruit, I mean the one that produces such doctrines, darkness from the gloom of what is said? Not that I myself might seem to speak paradoxes and appear extraordinary in wisdom, weaving together connectives and dissolving established things—that great wonder of Daniel—but in order to make clear that which my argument set out to say from the beginning. And what was this? That the divine is not graspable by the human mind, nor can it be imagined in its entirety as it is. And this is neither due to envy—for envy is far from the divine nature, which is impassible, alone good, and sovereign, especially concerning its most honorable creatures; for what is the Word to rational beings? Since even the very subsistence is from the highest goodness—nor for the sake of its own honor and the glory of the fullness, so that it might have worth and reverence through being unattainable. For this is altogether sophistical and alien, not only to God, but not even to a moderately decent human being who is conscious of some rightness in himself, to procure preeminence by hindering others. But if it is also for other reasons, those closer to God and the spectators and beholders of his inscrutable judgments would know, if indeed there are any so great in virtue, walking, as the saying goes, in the tracks of the abyss.

But as far as we have comprehended, measuring the difficult-to-see with small measures, perhaps it is so that the ease of acquisition may not make the loss of what is acquired easy; for what is acquired with toil is more likely to be retained, while what is acquired easily is very quickly spat out, as it can be taken again; and thus the lack of readiness in the benefaction becomes a benefit, at least for those who have sense. Perhaps also it is so that we may not suffer the same as the fallen Morning Star, who from having received the whole light before the Lord Almighty became haughty and fell from his exaltation a most pitiable fall. And perhaps it is so that there may be some further prize from there for industry and a bright life for those who are purified here and are patient for what they desire. For this reason, this bodily darkness stands between us and God, like the cloud of old between the Egyptians and the Hebrews. And this is perhaps what he set as darkness, a concealment of himself, our own thickness, through which few and only a little peep out. Let those who are concerned with this philosophize about it, and let them go as far as possible in the inquiry. But for us, prisoners of the earth, as the divine Jeremiah says, and clothed in this thick flesh, it is known that just as it is impossible to overstep one's own shadow, even for one who is very swift—for it always reaches as far as it is overtaken—or for the eyes to approach visible things without the light and air in between, or for the swimming nature to slip through outside the waters, so it is impossible for those in bodies to be altogether with the objects of the mind without bodily things.

always something of our own will intrude, even if the mind, having separated itself as much as possible from visible things and become by itself, attempts to approach what is akin and invisible. You will know it thus. Are not spirit and fire and light, love and wisdom and justice, and mind and word, and such things, the appellations of the first nature? What then? Will you conceive spirit without motion and diffusion? Or fire apart from matter, and from upward motion, and from its own color and shape? Or light not mixed with air and separable from that which generates and illuminates it? And what mind? Not the one in another, whose movements are thoughts, at rest or projecting? And what word besides the one that is silent in us, or that which is poured out? I hesitate to say, dissolved. And if wisdom, what besides the disposition and that in speculations, whether divine or human? And justice and love, are they not praised dispositions, the one opposed to injustice, the other to hatred, intensified and relaxed, acquired and lost, and altogether making us and altering us, just as colors affect bodies? Or must we, standing apart from these, see the divine itself by itself from these, as far as possible, gathering some partial image from likenesses? What then is the device to be from these and yet not these? Or how are all these, and each perfectly, the one nature, uncompounded and without likeness? Thus our mind struggles to escape corporeal things and to commune with the incorporeal nakedly, as long as it considers with its own weakness things beyond its power. For every rational nature yearns for God and the first cause.

But to comprehend it is impossible, for the reasons I have stated. And being weary with longing, and, as it were, struggling, and not bearing the loss, it makes a second voyage, either to look at visible things and to make some one of them a god, knowing ill—for what of visible things is higher and more godlike than the one who sees, and how great is the difference, that one should be the worshipper and the other the worshipped?—or to recognize God through the beauty of visible things and their good order, and to use sight as a guide to things beyond sight, but not to lose God through the magnificence of visible things.

14 Hence some have worshipped the sun, others the moon, others the host of stars, others the heaven itself together with these, to which they have also assigned the governance of the whole according to the quality or quantity of their motion; others the elements—earth, water, air, fire—because of their usefulness, without which human life cannot subsist; others whatever each chanced upon among visible things, setting up as gods the most beautiful things they saw. There are also those who have worshipped images and statues, first of their own kindred—those who are more emotional and more corporeal, honoring the departed with memorials; then also of strangers, those after them and far removed from them, in ignorance of the first nature, and in consequence of the honor handed down, as if it were lawful and necessary, since custom, confirmed by time, came to be considered law. And I think that some, flattering power, praising strength, and admiring beauty, have made a god in time of the one honored, also taking up some myth as an aid to deception.

The more passionate among them even considered the passions to be gods, or honored as gods such things as anger, bloodshed, licentiousness, drunkenness, and I know not what else akin to these, finding in this no fair or just excuse for their own sins. And some they left below, others they hid beneath the earth—this alone they did sensibly—and others they raised up to heaven. O what a ridiculous allotment! Then, having affixed to each of their creations the name of some god or demon, according to the authority and self-will of their error, and having set up images, whose costly bait is there, they thought to honor this with blood and burnt offerings, and some even with utterly shameful acts, with frenzies and human sacrifices. For such honors were fitting for such gods. And already they have debased themselves with beasts, quadrupeds, reptiles, and with the most shameful and ridiculous of these, and have attached to them the glory of God, so that it is not easy to judge whether one should rather despise the worshippers or the worshipped. Perhaps indeed much more the worshippers, because, being of rational nature and having received the grace of God, they set the worse before them as the better. And this is the cunning device of the Evil One, who misused the good for evil, as is the case with many of his malefactions. For having taken their desire, which was wandering in search of God, in order to draw the power to himself and steal their longing, like one leading a blind man who yearns for a certain road, he cast them down in different directions and scattered them into some abyss of death and destruction.

These then are those things. But as for us, reason, having received us who yearn for God and cannot endure what is unguided and unsteered, and then applying itself to visible things and encountering them from the beginning, did not stop at these—for it was not reasonable to give leadership to things of equal rank according to perception—and through these it leads us to what is beyond them, and to that by which these things have their being. For what is it that ordered the heavenly and the earthly, all that is through the air and all that is in water, and even more than these, heaven, earth, air, and the nature of water? Who mixed and divided these? What is the community of these with each other, their growing together, and their common breath? For I praise the one who said this, even if he is a stranger. What is it that has set these in motion and leads the unceasing and unhindered motion? Is it not the craftsman of these things, who has placed reason in all, according to which the whole is borne and conducted? And who is the craftsman of these things? Is it not the one who made them and brought them into being? For we must not attribute such power to chance. For let the coming to be be from chance. To whom does the ordering belong? And this, if you wish, let us grant. To whom does the preserving and guarding according to the principles by which they first subsisted belong? To some other, or to chance? Clearly to some other besides chance. And what else is this but God? Thus reason from God, innate in all, and the first law in us, and conjoined to all, has led us up to God from visible things. And so let us begin again. What God is in nature and essence, no human has ever found, nor will ever find.

But whether it will ever find it, let this be investigated and philosophized by those who wish. It will find it, in my account, when this godlike and divine thing—I mean our mind and reason—mingles with its own kind, and the image ascends to the archetype, for which it now has the desire. And this seems to me to be the whole point of philosophy: that we will one day know to the extent that we are known. But for now, everything that reaches us is a small outflow, like a tiny gleam from a great light. So that even if someone has known God, or is attested to have known him, he has known only as much as one who, having been illuminated more than another, appears more luminous. And the surpassing degree was considered perfect, not in truth, but measured by the capacity of the neighbor.

18 For this reason Enos hoped to call upon the Lord. The hope was the achievement, and this was not of knowledge, but of invocation. Enoch was translated, but it is not yet clear whether he comprehended or will comprehend the nature of God. Noah’s merit was his good standing, he who was entrusted with saving the whole world from the waters, or the seeds of the world, on a small ark fleeing the flood. Abraham was justified by faith, the great patriarch, and he offers a strange sacrifice, a type of the great one. But he did not see God as God; he fed him as a man, and was praised, having revered as much as he comprehended.

Jacob envisioned a high ladder, an ascent of angels, and anointed a pillar mystically, perhaps to prefigure the stone anointed for our sake, and gave the name "Place of God" to a certain location in honor of what was seen, and wrestled with God as with a man—whatever that wrestling of God with a man may be, or perhaps the testing of human virtue against God—and bears on his body the marks of the wrestling, showing the defeat of the created nature, and receives as a prize for piety the change of his name, being renamed Israel instead of Jacob—that great and honorable name. But neither he nor anyone above him among the twelve tribes of which he was father has boasted up to this day that he comprehended the nature or entire vision of God.

To Elijah, neither a violent wind, nor fire, nor an earthquake—as you hear in the story—but a slight breeze sketched the presence of God, and this not the nature. To which Elijah? The one whom a fiery chariot carries up to heaven, showing the righteous man's transcendence of humanity. Manoah the judge earlier, and Peter the disciple later—how have you not marveled? The former could not even bear the vision of the God he saw, and therefore said, "We are lost, O wife, for we have seen God," since not even a divine vision is comprehensible to humans, let alone the nature. The latter did not accept the Christ who appeared to him in the boat, and for that reason was sent away. Yet Peter was more fervent than the others in recognizing Christ, and for this reason was blessed and entrusted with the greatest things.

What would you say about Isaiah, and Ezekiel, the beholder of the greatest visions, and the rest of the prophets? Of whom one saw the Lord Sabaoth seated on a throne of glory, and this one surrounded by the six-winged seraphim, praised and hidden, and himself purified by the coal, and prepared for prophecy; and the other describes the chariot of God, the cherubim, and the throne above them, and the firmament above that, and the one appearing in the firmament, and certain voices, and movements, and actions—and whether this was a daytime vision, visible only to the saints, or a truthful night vision, or an impression of the ruling mind communing with future things as if present, or some other ineffable form of prophecy, I cannot say; but the God of the prophets knows, and those who are engaged in such things. Yet neither these, of whom the account speaks, nor any other like them, stood in the hypostasis and essence of the Lord, according to what is written, nor did they see or declare the nature of God.

As for Paul, if the things which the third heaven provided, and the progress or ascent or assumption up to that point, were communicable, we might perhaps have known something more about God, if indeed that was the mystery of the rapture. But since they were ineffable, let them be honored by us with silence. Let us, however, hear Paul himself saying this much, that we know in part and prophesy in part. These and similar things are confessed by one who is no layman in knowledge, who threatens the test of the Christ speaking in him, the great champion and teacher of the truth. For this reason he sets all lower knowledge as nothing beyond mirrors and riddles, as standing in small images of the truth. And if I do not seem to some too superfluous and meddlesome in examining such things, perhaps these were none other than those which cannot now be borne, which the Word himself hinted at, as things that will one day be borne and made clear; and which John, the forerunner of the Word, the great voice of the truth, declared that even the lower world itself could not contain.

Every truth and every account is both hard to discern and hard to contemplate; and as if with a small tool we fashion great things, hunting down the knowledge of beings with human wisdom, and attacking intelligible things with the senses, or not without the senses, by which we are carried about and wander, and we do not, with the naked mind encountering naked realities, approach the truth any more, nor is the mind formed by its apprehensions. But the account concerning God, the more perfect it is, the more difficult to attain, and it has more objections and more laborious solutions. For every objection, even the slightest, checks and hinders the course of the argument, and breaks its forward motion, just as those who suddenly pull back the reins on horses in full career overturn them by the unexpectedness of the jolt. Thus Solomon, who was wise beyond all who came before him and beyond himself, to whom the breadth of heart was a gift of God, and the outpouring of contemplation more abundant than sand, the more he delves into the depths, the more he grows dizzy, and makes it an end of wisdom to find how much has escaped him. And Paul attempts to reach, I do not say the nature of God—for he knew this to be utterly impossible—but only the judgments of God; but since he finds no way out nor any resting place for the ascent, nor does the meddlesomeness of the mind end in any clear limit, with something lacking always appearing—O the wonder (that I too may suffer the same).

amazement circumscribes the account, and calls such a thing wealth of God and depth, and confesses the incomprehensibility of the judgments of God, almost uttering the same words as David, who sometimes calls the judgments of God a great abyss, whose seat cannot be grasped either by measure or by sense, and sometimes says that knowledge is to be wondered at from himself and his own constitution, and that it is strengthened more than according to his own power and grasp.

For, leaving aside other things, he says, I will look to myself, and to the whole human nature and composition: what is our mixture? what is our motion? how was the immortal blended with the mortal? how do I flow downward and am borne upward? how is the soul circumscribed? how does it give life and partake of passion? how is the mind both circumscribed and unlimited, remaining in us and traversing everything with the speed of motion and flux? how is it received by reason and transmitted, and how does it pass through air and enter with things? how does it commune with sense and withdraw from the senses? and before these, what is our first formation and constitution in the workshop of nature? and what is the final shaping and perfection? what is the desire for and distribution of food? and what led to the first sources and starting points of life spontaneously? how is the body nourished by foods, but the soul by reason? what is the attraction of nature and toward

the relation of parents to offspring, that they may be held together by affection? How the forms are fixed and distinct in their characters, and yet so many that their properties are beyond reach? How the same animal is both mortal and immortal—mortal by its passing away, immortal by generation? For one has departed, the other has entered in its place, as in the flow of a river that does not stand still. And you might still philosophize much about limbs and parts, and the harmonious arrangement of these toward one another, their fitting together and standing apart for both use and beauty, their projecting and being projected, their being united and divided, their containing and being contained, according to the law and reason of nature. Much about voices and hearings: how some are carried through the vocal organs, while others receive them, mingling with one another through the striking and impression of the air in between. Much about sight, which communicates ineffably with visible things, moving at the mere will and simultaneously, and experiencing the same as the mind: for with equal speed the mind mingles with things thought, and sight with things seen. Much about the other senses, which are certain receptions of external things, not contemplated by reason. Much about rest in sleep, and the formation through dreams, about memory and recollection, about reasoning and passion and desire, and, to speak concisely, all by which this little cosmos, man, is governed. Do you wish me also to enumerate the differences of other animals in relation to us and to one another—their natures, generations, upbringings, habitats, habits, and, as it were, their constitutions? How some are gregarious, others solitary?

Some are herbivorous, some carnivorous; some high-spirited, some tame; some friendly to humans and domestic, some untamable and free; and some are, as it were, closer to reason and learning, while others are utterly irrational and most unteachable; some have more senses, some fewer; some are stationary, some mobile; some are very swift, some very slow; some excel in size or beauty or both, while others are very small or very ugly or both; some are strong, some weak; some are defensive, some suspicious and treacherous; some are watchful, some unwary; some are industrious and thrifty, while others are utterly idle and improvident; and before these, how some are creeping, some upright; some fond of one place, some amphibious; some fond of adornment, some unadorned; gregarious and solitary; temperate and licentious; prolific and not prolific; long-lived and short-lived. Our discourse would grow weary in going through them in detail.

Consider also the swimming nature of the waters, gliding through and, as it were, flying over the liquid element, drawing its own air but endangered in ours, just as we are in the waters: their habits and passions, their unions and births, their sizes and beauties, their attachments to places and wanderings, their gatherings and departures, and properties in small things similar to those of land creatures, and in some cases even communities and opposite properties, both in forms and names. Consider also the flocks of birds, and the variety in both shapes and colors, especially of the songbirds: and what is the account of their melody, and from whom does it come?

Who gave the cicada the plectrum on its chest, and the songs and chirps on the branches, when they move with the sun, making music at midday, and fill the groves with sound, and accompany the traveler with their voices? Who weaves the song for the swan, when it spreads its wing to the breezes and makes the whistling a melody? For I pass over the violent sounds, and all that arts contrive against the truth. Whence the peacock, the vainglorious and Median bird, so fond of beauty and ambitious (for it is aware of its own beauty), that when it sees someone approaching, or, as they say, adorns itself for the females, it raises its neck, and having set its golden and starry tail in a circle, it displays its beauty to its admirers with a haughty gait? Now divine scripture also admires the wisdom of women in weaving: "Who gave," it says, "to women the wisdom of weaving and the art of embroidery?" This belongs to a rational being, one of exceptional wisdom, and one that travels even to the heavens. But you, for your part, marvel at the natural intelligence of irrational beings, and set forth the reasons. How is it that for birds, nests are rocks and trees and roofs, fashioned both for security and beauty, and suitable for the young? Whence for bees and spiders the love of work and art, so that for the former the honeycombs are woven and held together by hexagonal tubes and alternating ones, and their stability is contrived through the middle partition and the alternation of angles interwoven with the straight lines, and this in such dark hives and invisible constructions?

And those which, through such fine and almost airy threads, stretched out in manifold ways, weave intricate webs, and this from invisible beginnings, both a precious dwelling and a hunt for the weaker for the enjoyment of food? What Euclid imitated these things, philosophizing with lines that do not exist, and laboring in his demonstrations? Of what Palamedes are the tactical movements and formations of cranes, as they say, and the same lessons of those moving in order, and with varied flight? What Phidias and Zeuxis and Polygnotus, and some Parrhasius and Aglaophon, who knew how to paint and sculpt beauties to excess? What Cnossian chorus of Daedalus, wrought for a bride in abundance of beauty, or a Cretan labyrinth, difficult to exit and hard to unravel, to speak poetically, and often meeting itself with the sophistries of art? And I pass over in silence the storehouses and stewards of ants, and the storing of food proportionate to the season, and all the other things we have learned from history concerning their paths and leaders and good order in their works. If the account of these things is attainable for you, and you have understood the understanding concerning them, consider also the differences of plants, even to the artistry in leaves for both the most pleasant to the sight and the most useful for fruits. Consider for me also the variety and abundance of fruits, and especially the most beautiful of the most necessary. And consider for me also the powers of roots and juices and flowers and scents, not only the most pleasant, but also those suitable for health, and the graces and qualities of colors. And further, the costliness and transparency of stones.

Since He has set before you everything, as in a common feast, both what is necessary and what is for enjoyment, nature—so that, if nothing else, from the benefits you receive, you may recognize God, and by your need become wiser than yourself. From here, go through for me the breadths and lengths of the earth, the common mother of all, and the hollows of the seas bound together with each other and with the earth, and the beauties of groves, and rivers, and abundant and ever-flowing springs, not only of cold and drinkable waters, and those above the earth, but also those flowing beneath the earth, running through certain caverns, then forced out by violent wind and repelled, then set on fire by the vehemence of the struggle and opposition, where they burst forth little by little as it gives way, and from this they grant us the use of hot baths in many places of the earth, and along with the opposite power, a gratuitous and spontaneous healing. Tell me how and whence these things come. What is this great and artless web? Are they not no less praiseworthy for their relation to each other than when each is considered individually? How does the earth stand firm and unshaken? On what is it borne, and what is it that supports it? And what is that again? For reason has nothing on which to rest, except the divine will. And how is it that some is raised into mountain peaks, while some settles into plains, and this in manifold and varied ways, changing by gradual alternations, both more abundant for use and more graceful in variety? And how is it that some is divided into dwellings, while some is uninhabited, as much as the excesses

Mountains are cut off, and one ridge branching off toward another limit and diverging—is this not the most evident sign of God's great work? As for the sea, if I could not marvel at its size, I would have marveled at its gentleness, and how it stands, though fluid, within its own boundaries. But if not at its gentleness, then certainly at its size. Since it has both, I will praise the power in both. What brought it together? What bound it? How does it rise and stand, as if respecting the neighboring land? How does it receive all rivers, yet remain the same through the abundance of their multitude—or I know not what to call it? How is sand its boundary, for so great an element? Do the natural philosophers and the wise in vain things have anything to say, who truly measure the sea with a ladle, such great things by their own contrivances? Or shall I briefly philosophize this from Scripture, more convincingly and truly than long arguments? A decree encircled the face of the water. This is the bond of the liquid nature. And how does it guide the land-dwelling sailor with a small piece of wood and wind—do you not marvel at this when you see it? Does your mind not stand amazed?—so that land and sea are bound together by needs and interminglings, and things so far apart by nature come together for man? What are the first sources of springs—inquire, O man, if it is possible for you to trace or find any of these. And who divided rivers, and plains, and mountains, and gave them an unhindered course? And how, from opposites, comes the wonder—neither does the sea advance, nor do the rivers stand still?

What is the nourishment of waters, and what is the difference in this, some being watered from above, others being watered at the roots, so that I too may luxuriate in discourse, expounding the luxury of God? Come now, leaving earth and things concerning earth, be lifted up to the air on the wings of your mind, so that the discourse may proceed along your path; and from there I will lead you up to the heavenly things, and to heaven itself, and to what is beyond heaven. The discourse hesitates to proceed to what follows, but it will proceed nonetheless as far as is possible. Who poured out the air, this great and abundant wealth, measured not by worth, not by lots, not restrained by boundaries, not divided by ages, but, like the distribution of manna, encompassed by self-sufficiency and honored by equal share—the vehicle of the winged nature, the seat of the winds, the opportune season of the seasons, the ensoulment of living beings, or rather the preservation of the soul in relation to the body, in which are bodies, and with which is reason, in which are light and that which is illuminated, and the vision that flows through it? And consider also what follows; for I am not permitted to give over to the air the entire dominion of what are thought to be things of the air. What are the storehouses of the winds? What are the treasuries of snow? Who is it that has produced clods of dew, according to what is written? And from what belly does frost come forth?

Who binds water in clouds, and sets some upon the clouds—O marvel—a flowing nature held by reason, and pours others upon the face of the whole earth, sowing them in due measure and equally, neither letting the whole liquid substance go free and unconstrained—for the cleansing at the time of Noah suffices, and the most truthful one is not forgetful of his own covenant—nor allowing it to cease altogether, lest we again need some Elijah to dissolve the drought? If he shuts, it is said, the heaven, who will open it? And if he opens the floodgates, who will hold them together? Who will bear the immoderation of the rain-giver in both directions, if he does not guide all things by his own measures and balances? Why will you philosophize about lightning and thunder, O you who thunder from the earth and are not illumined even by small sparks of truth? What vapors from the earth will you allege as creators of cloud, or some condensation of air, or compression or collision of the thinnest clouds, so that compression produces lightning for you, and collision thunder? And what wind, being confined and then having no outlet, so that it flashes when compressed and thunders when broken? If you have traversed the air in thought, and all that pertains to air, touch now also

To me belong both heaven and the heavenly. Let faith lead us more than reason, if you have learned the weakness in nearer things, and have known that reason is to know what is beyond reason, so that you may not be wholly earthly or earthbound, ignorant even of this very thing, ignorance. Who set the heaven in motion, who ordered the stars? Or rather, what before these are heaven and stars, could you say, you who are lofty, you who are ignorant of what lies at your feet, and cannot even measure yourself, yet meddle with what is beyond your nature, and gape at the immeasurable? For suppose you do grasp circles and periods and conjunctions and departures, risings and settings, and certain degrees and minutes, and all with which you dignify this wondrous science of yours—this is not yet comprehension of what exists, but observation of some motion, which, confirmed by more practice, and bringing together what has been observed by many, then devising a theory, has been called science; just as the affections of the moon have become known to many, taking sight as the beginning of knowledge. But you, if you are so very knowledgeable in these matters, and justly seek to be admired, tell me what is the cause of the order and the motion? Whence does the sun shine as a beacon to the whole inhabited world and to all eyes, like the leader of some chorus, concealing the other stars more by its brightness than some of those conceal others? Proof: some shine back, but it outshines, and does not even allow them to be known when they rise together, beautiful as a bridegroom, swift as a giant and great; for I cannot bear to dignify it from any other source than my own.

So great is its power that from one extreme it seizes others with its heat, and nothing escapes its perception, but every vision of light and every bodily nature is filled with heat—warming, not burning, with the gentleness of good mixture and the order of motion, so that it is present to all and encompasses all equally. And what do you think of this, if you have considered it? "What the sun is among perceptible things, that God is among intelligible things," said one of the outsiders. For it illumines sight, as he does mind; it is also the most beautiful of visible things, as he is of intelligible things. But what set it in motion from the beginning? And what always moves and drives it around, while it stands still in reason and is not moved, truly untiring, life-bearing, and nature-nourishing, and all that poets have sung in accordance with reason, and never ceasing either from its own course or from its benefits? How is it the creator of day above the earth and of night below the earth? Or I know not what one should say when looking at the sun. What is the addition and subtraction of these things, and the equality of inequality, to speak somewhat paradoxically? And how is it the maker and divider of seasons, which come and go in good order, and like a chorus intertwine with and separate from each other, partly by the law of friendship, partly by that of good order, and are mixed gradually, and by their nearness steal the same from days and nights, so that they may not cause pain by their strangeness? But let the sun go for us.

You have come to know the nature of the moon, its phases, its measures of light, its courses, and how the sun holds sway by day while the moon presides by night, and how the sun gives boldness to wild beasts while the sun rouses man to his work, whether rising or setting for the greatest benefit? Have you understood the Pleiades’ bond or Orion’s fence, as one who numbers the multitudes of stars and calls them all by name, and the difference in glory of each, and the order of their motion, that I might trust you through these things as you weave our affairs together and arm creation against the creator?

31 What do you say? Shall we stop our discourse here, at matter and visible things? Or, since the word knows Moses’ tabernacle as a copy of the whole cosmos—I mean the system composed of both visible and invisible things—shall we tear through the first veil, transcend sensation, and peep into the holy of holies, the intelligible and heavenly nature? We cannot see even this nature without a body, even though it is called or becomes incorporeal, fire and spirit. For it is said that he makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire—unless “to make” means to preserve by the word according to which they came to be. And one hears “spirit” and “fire”: the former as an intelligible nature, the latter as purifying; for I know the same appellations for the first substance as well. Nevertheless, let it be incorporeal for us, or as near as possible.

You see how we reel around the argument, and have nowhere to advance, except so far as to know that there are some angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, splendors, ascents, intellectual powers, or intellects, pure and unadulterated natures, immovable toward the worse or hard to move, always dancing around the first cause; or how one might hymn them, illumined from there with the purest illumination, or each differently according to the proportion of its nature and rank; so formed and stamped by the good that they become other lights and are able to illuminate others by the influxes and transmissions of the first light; ministers of the divine will, powerful by natural and acquired strength, traversing everything, readily present everywhere to all, by eagerness of service and lightness of nature; some having taken charge of one part of the inhabited world, others assigned to some other part of the whole, as the one who ordered and defined these things knows; all leading to one, to a single convergence toward the one who created all things; hymn-singers of divine majesty, spectators of eternal glory and eternally, not that God may be glorified—for nothing can be added to the full, to the one who supplies good things to others—but that the first natures after God may not lack being benefited. If these things have been hymned worthily, it is the grace of the Trinity and of the one divinity in the three; if more deficient than the desire, the argument still has the victory even so. For this it struggled to show, that the nature of the secondary beings is superior to intellect, not to mention the first and only nature—I hesitate to say—beyond all.