Those who are delighted by these truths are fed by them. Those whose god is their belly find no delight in them. For it is not what is given that bears the fruit, but the spirit in which it is given. Therefore, I see clearly why he [Paul] rejoiced over one who served God and not his own belly. I see it and I rejoice with him. For he had received from the Philippians what they had sent by Epaphroditus to him. I understand why he rejoiced. He rejoiced at what he fed on. For, speaking in truth, he says, I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that now at last your care of me has flourished again, in which you were once so careful, but it had become a weariness to you. These Philippians, then, had dried up with a long weariness and withered, as it were, as to bearing this fruit of a good work; and he rejoices for them because they flourished again, not for himself, that they ministered to his needs. So he adds, Not that I speak in respect of my lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content with it. I know how to be abashed and how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

At what, then, do you rejoice in all things, O great Paul? At what do you rejoice? On what do you feed, O man renewed in the knowledge of God after the image of him who created in the living soul of so much self-denial, O tongue, speaking mysteries like flying birds? (For to such creatures, this food is due.) What is it that feeds you? Joy! Hear what follows: Nevertheless you have done well in that you have shared my trouble. This is what causes him to rejoice; this is what he feeds on, because they had done well, not because his need was relieved. For he said to you, you have enlarged me when I was in distress, he knew how to abound and how to suffer want in you, who strengthened him. And he goes on to say, For you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. He now rejoices that they have returned to these good works, and he is gladdened that they flourished again, as when a fruitful field becomes green again.

Was it for his own necessities that he said, You sent help for my needs? Is he rejoicing for that? Surely not for that. But how do we know this? Because he himself continues, not because I desire a gift, bit I desire fruit.

I have learned of you, my God, to distinguish between a gift and a fruit. A gift is the thing itself which he gives who bestows those necessities on us: money, food, drink, clothing, shelter, help. But the fruit is the good and right will of the giver. For the good Master says not only He who receives a prophet, but adds, in the name of a prophet. And he does not say only, he who receives a righteous man, but adds in the name of a righteous man. So verify shall the one receive the reward of a prophet, and the other the reward of a righteous man. He does not say only, He who shall give one of my little ones a cup of cold water to drink, but adds in the name of a disciple, and so he concludes, Verily I say to you, the name of a disciple, and so he concludes, verily I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. the gift is to receive a prophet, to receive a righteous man, to give a cup of cold water to his disciple. But the fruit is to do this in the name of a prophet, in the name of a righteous man, in the name of a disciple.

With fruit Elijah was fed by the widow who knew he was a man of God and therefore fed him. But he was fed by the raven with a gift. The inner man of Elijah was not fed by the raven's gift, but the outer man only, which might have perished from the lack of that food.

Therefore I will speak in your presence, O Lord, what is true, that when carnal men and unbelievers (for gaining and preparing of whom the sacraments and the mighty workings of miracles are necessary - people we suppose to be signified by the terms fishes and whales), when such people undertake the bodily refreshment or otherwise give your servant aid with something useful for this present life, since they are ignorant as to why this is done, and to what purpose, they neither feed these servants nor are these [spiritually] fed by them, because they do not do it out of a holy and righteous intent, nor do the receivers rejoice at their gifts, since they yet see no fruit. For it is fruit that the soul feeds on, for which it is glad. And therefore the fishes and whales do not feed on such food as the earth alone brings forth until after they have been separated and divided from the bitterness of the waters of the sea.

And you, O God, saw everything that you had made, and behold, it was very good. Yes, we also see the same, and behold, all things are very good. Of the several kinds of your works, when you said, Let them be, and they came to be, you saw each one that it was good. I have counted it written seven times that you saw that what you made was good, and this is the eighth time, that you saw everything that you had made, and behold it was not only good, but very good. Apart, they were only good, but then being all together, they are both good and very good. All beautiful bodies also express this, for a body consisting of members, all of them beautiful, is far more beautiful than the same members by themselves. By a well-ordered union, the whole is complexed even though the members separately are also beautiful.

And I looked closely to see whether it was seven or eight times you saw that your works were good when they pleased you. But I found no periods of time in your seeing, by which I might understanding that you saw so often what you made. And I said, "Lord, is not this your Scripture true, since you are true, and being Truth have set it forth? Why, then, does it say to me that in your sight there are no times, while this Sacred Scripture tells me that what you made each day you saw that it was good?" And when I counted them, I found how often. To this you reply to me, for you are my God, and with a strong voice you tell your servant in his inner ear, bursting through my deafness and crying, "O man, I say what Sacred Scripture says. And yet they speak in terms of time, but time has no relation to my Word, because my Word exists in equal eternity with myself. So the things which you see through my Spirit, I see; just as what you speak by my Spirit, I speak. And so when you see those things in time, I do not see them in time, just as when you speak in time, I do not speak them in time."

And I heard, O Lord my God, and drank up a drop of sweetness from your truth, and understood that there are some men who dislike your works, and say that you made many of them compelled by necessity - such as the fabric of the heavens and the courses of the stars; and that you made them, not of what was yours, but that they were from elsewhere and were created from other sources, that you might collect them, compact them and combine them when you raised up walls of the universe from your conquered enemies, so that they, bound down by this structure, might not be able to rebel against you again. For other things, they say that you neither made them nor even fashioned them - such as all flesh and all the very minute creatures, and whatever has its roots in the earth; but that a mind hostile to you, and another nature not created by you and in every way contrary to you, gave birth to and framed these things in the lowest depths of the world. They who speak this way are mad, because they do not see your works by your Spirit nor recognize you in them.

 But as for those who see these things by your Spirit, it is you who see in them. Therefore, when they see that these things are good, you see that they are good. And whatever things are pleasing for your sake, you are pleased in them. And what pleases us through your Spirit, pleases you in us. For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we, he says, have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And I am reminded that truly no one comprehends the things of God, but the Spirit of God; but how, then, do we know what things are given to us by God? The answer comes to me: "Because the things which we know by his Spirit, even these no one knows but the Spirit of God." For as it is rightly said to those that were to speak by the Spirit of God, It is not you who speak, so it is rightly said to them that know by the Spirit of God, "It is not you who know." And no less then it is rightly said to those who see by the Spirit of God, "It is not you who see"; therefore, whatever they see by the Spirit of God to be good, it is not they, but God who sees that it is good.

It is one thing for a man to suppose that which is good to be bad, as those mentioned above think. It is another thing that a man should see as good what is good (as your creatures are pleasing to man because they are good, yet you are not pleased in them when they choose to enjoy them rather than to enjoy you). It is till another thing that when a man sees a thing to be good, God in him sees that it is good - that in truth he may be loved in what he has made, who cannot be loved but by the Holy Spirit which he has given. Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us, by whom we see that whatever in any degree is, is good. For it is from him, who himself is - not in any partial degree, but is what he is.

Thanks be to you, O Lord. We see heaven and earth, whether a corporeal part, upper and lower, or a spiritual and physical creation. And we see the light made and divided from the darkness for the embellishment of these parts, consisting of the universal mass of the world or the whole created universe. We see the firmament of heaven, either that primal body of the world between the spiritual 'upper' waters and the material 'lower' waters, or since this is also called heaven, that expanse of air through which the birds of heaven fly, between those waters which are carried in clouds above, and on clear nights distil down in dew and those heavier waters which flow along the earth. We see waters gathered together in the plains of the sea; and the dry land rising clear of the waters so as to be visible and settled, and the material of herbs and trees. We see the lights shinning from above - the sun to serve the day, the moon and the stars to cheer the night; and that by all these, periods of time can be marked and noted. We see on every side a humid element, replete with fishes, beasts and birds, because the density of the air which bears up the flight of birds is increased by the evaporation of the waters. We see the face of the earth decked out with terrestrial creatures, and man, created after your image and likeness, in that very image and likeness of you (that is, having the power of reason and understanding), set over all irrational creatures. And as his soul there is one power which rules by directing, another is made subject that is might obey; so, woman was made (as regards the body) for man. In the mind of her rational understanding she was created equal in nature, but pertaining to the sex of her body, she was made subject to the sex of her husband in the same way that the appetite for action is subjected by the reason of the mind to conceive the skill of acting rightly. These things we behold, and they are severally good, and all together they are very good.

Let your works praise you, that we may love you; and let us love you, that your works may praise you, which have their beginning and ending in time, their rising and setting, their growth and decay, perfection and imperfection. They have, then, their succession of morning and evening, in part secretly, in part apparent; for they were made from nothing by you, not of you, and not of any matter which was not yours, nor which was created before, but as matter 'concreated' - that is, matter that was created by you at the same time, because you gave form to its formless state without any interval of time. For since the material of heaven and earth is one thing, the form another, you made the matter of absolutely nothing, but the form of the world, you made out of the formless matter. yet you made both together at the same time, so that form followed matter with no interval of delay.

We have also examined what you willed to be figuratively expressed, either by their creation or the description of things in their particular order. And we have seen that things separately are good and together, very good, in your Word, in your only begotten Son, heaven and earth, the Head and body of the Church, in your predestination before all time, without morning and evening. But when you began to execute in time the things predestined beyond time, to the end that you might reveal hidden things and adjust our disorders (for our sins hung over us and we had sunk into profound darkness), your good Spirit moved upon us to help us in due season. And you justified the ungodly, and divided them from the wicked; and you made your Book the firmament of authority between those placed above, who would be obedient to you, and those placed under, who were to be obedient to them. And you gathered together the society of unbelievers into one conspiracy, so that the zeal of the faithful might appear, and that they might bring forth works of mercy to you, even distributing to the poor their earthly riches to obtain heavenly ones. And after this, you kindled certain lights in the firmament, your saints, having the Word of life, and shinning with a sublime authority given them by their spiritual gifts. 

After that, again, for the instruction of unbelieving nations, you produced the sacraments from corporeal matter, and visible miracles, and the preached word according to the firmament of your Book, by which the faithful should be blessed and multiplied. Next, you formed the living soul of the faithful through the taming of their passions by vigorous self-denial; and then, the mind, subjected to you alone and needing no human authority, you renewed after your image and likeness, and subjected its rational actions to the higher excellence of the understanding, as the woman to the man. And to all offices of your ministry, necessary for the perfecting of the faithful in this life, you willed that these same faithful ones should themselves bring forth good things for their temporal uses, good things, fruitful in the time to come.

All these we see, and they are very good, because you see them in us - you, Lord, who have given us your Spirit by which we may see them and so love you in them.

O Lord God, grant us peace, for you have given us all things. Grant us the peace of quietness, the place of the Sabbath which has no evening. For all this most goodly order of things, all very good, having finished their courses, will pass away, for in them there is morning and evening.

But the seventh day has no evening, nor has it any setting, because you have sanctified it to an everlasting continuance; so that what you yourself did after your works, which were very good, resting on the seventh day (even though you made them in unbroken rest), the voice of your Book may announce beforehand to us that we also, after our works (which are also very good because you have given them to us), may rest in you in the Sabbath of eternal life.

For you shall rest in us then, as you work in us now. And your rest shall be through us, just as your works are now done through us. But you, Lord, ever work and are ever at rest. You do not see in time, nor do you move in time, nor rest in time. And yet you make the scenes of time, and indeed time itself, and the rest which results from time. 

Therefore, we see those things which you made because they are. But they are, because you see them. And we see them outwardly, what they are, and inwardly, that they are good. But you saw them as made when you saw that they were to be made. And we were at a later time moved to do well, after our hearts had so conceived by your Spirit. But in the former time we were moved to do evil, forsaking you. But you, the One, the good God, have never ceased to do good. And we also have some good works by your good gift, but they are not eternal. After them, we hope to rest in your great hallowing. But you, the Good, needing no other good, are ever at rest, because you yourself are your rest. And what man can teach to understand this? Or what angel can teach the angels? Or what angel, a man? We must ask it of you, seek for it in you, knock for it at your gate. Only so, even so shall we receive; so shall we find; so it shall be opened to us. Amen! 

BY  SAINT  AUGUSTINE  OF  HIPPO 

 

And thus through your Word, it is not the depth of the sea but 'the earth', separated from the bitterness of the waters, that brings forth, not the creeping and flying creatures that have life, but the living soul itself. For now it has more need of baptism as the heathen have, and as it had itself when it was covered with the [bitter] waters, for there is no other entrance into the kingdom of heaven, since you have appointed that this should be the entrance. Nor does this soul seek after great, miraculous works any longer in order to produce belief. For it is not such that unless it sees signs and wonders, it will not believe, now that the faithful earth is separated from the waters made bitter by infidelity. And tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that do not believe. That earth which you have founded upon the waters has no need of those flying kinds of creatures which the waters brought forth at your word. Rather, send forth your Word into it by your messengers. For we tell of their works, but it is you who work in them that they may bring forth a living soul, because the earth is the cause that they work these things in it, just as the sea was the cause that produced the creeping creatures that have life and the fowls that fly under the firmament of heaven, of whom the earth now has no need.

Yet the earth feeds upon that FISH that was taken out of the deep upon that Table which you have prepared in the presence of those who believe. For this reason he was raised from the deep, that he might feed the dry land. And the birds, though bred in the sea, are yet multiplied on the earth.

For man's infidelity was the cause of the first preaching of the Evangelists, but the faithful are also exhorted and greatly blessed by them in many ways from day to day. But the living soul takes its origin from the earth, for it profits only the faithful to keep themselves from the love of this world so that their soul may live unto you, their soul which was dead while it lived in pleasures, in death-bringing pleasures, Lord. For you, Lord, are the life-giving delight of the pure heart.

Now, therefore, let your ministers work on the earth - not as in the waters of infidelity, by preaching and speaking, by miracles and signs and mysterious words, in which ignorance, the mother of marvels, maybe intent upon them out of a fear of occult signs. For such is the entrance to the faith for the sons of Adam, forgetful of you while they hide themselves from your face and become a dark deep. But let your ministers work now as on the dry land, separated from the swirling eddies of the great deep. Let them be an example to the faithful by living before them and stirring them up to imitation. People listen to them not only to hear, but also to act. Seek the Lord and your soul shall live, that the earth may bring forth the living soul. Be not conformed to the world. Keep yourselves from it. The soul lives by avoiding what dies by loving. Keep yourselves from the unbridled savagery of pride, the lazy, sensual pleasures of luxury, and from what is falsely called knowledge. Thus the wild beasts may be tamed, the cattle subdued to the yoke, the serpents rendered harmless. For these are the movements of our mind allegorically figured; that is to say, the haughtiness of pride, the delight of lust and the poison of curiosity are the movements of a dead soul - not so dead as to lose all motion, however. It dies by forsaking the fountain of life, and so is received by this transitory world and conformed to it.

But your Word, O God, is the fountain of eternal life and does not pass away. Therefore, this departure of the soul is kept in check by your Word when it says to us be not conformed to this world, so that the earth may bring forth a living soul in the fountain of life - that is, a soul restrained in your Word through your Evangelists by imitating the followers of your Christ. For this is what after its kind means, because a man is likely to follow his friends. Because as I am, Paul says, because I have become as you are. Thus in this living soul there shall be good beasts in gentleness of action. For you have commanded, Do your work in meekness and you will be loved by all. And there will be good cattle, which neither if they eat shall over abound, nor starve if they eat too little; and good serpents, not destructive to do harm, but wise, to take heed; and only exploring as much into this temporal creation as is sufficient that eternity may be clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made. For these creatures are obedient to reason when, kept in check from their deadly propensities, they live and are good.

Thus, O Lord our God, our Creator, when our affections have been turned from the love of the world, by which we were dying by evil living, and when we have begun to be living soul by good living, and when your Word Be not conformed to this world which you spoke by your apostle is made good in us, you immediately add another word to it, But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now it does not say after your kind, as if following your neighbour who went before you, nor as living after the example of some better man, for you did not say, "Let man be made after his kind," but Let us make man after our own image and likeness, so that we might prove what your will is.

This is why that dispenser of yours who fathered children by the Gospel said, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, in order that they might not forever remain as babes who needed to be fed with milk, nor have to be cared for by a nursemaid.

Therefore you did not say, "Let man be made," but Let us make man. Nor did you say, 'according to his kind', but after our image and likeness. For when man is renewed in his mind, and sees and understands your truth, he does not need another person as his director, that he may imitate his kind. But by your direction he proves what is that good, that acceptable and perfect will of yours. Yes, you teach him, now made capable, to perceive the Trinity of the Unity and the Unity of the Trinity. And so it is said in the plural, Let us make man. Then this is added in the singular: And God made man. To the plural, After our likeness, is added the singular, After the image of God. Thus mankind is renewed in the knowledge of God after the image of him that created him, and being made spiritual, he judges all things (all things, that is, which are to be judged), yet he himself is judged of no man.

The words, he judges all things, mean that mankind has dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over all cattle and wild beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. For he does this by the discernment of his mind, by which he perceives the things of the Spirit of God. Without this, man being placed in honour, had no understanding, and is compared to the brute beasts and became like one of them.

In your Church, therefore, O our God, according to your grace which you have bestowed on it (for we are your workmanship, created for good works), you made not only those who are in spiritual authority, but those who are spiritually subject to them (male and female you made mankind). But in your grace spiritually, there is neither male nor female according to the sex of the body, neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free. Therefore spiritual persons, whether they are those in authority or those who obey, judge spiritually. They do not judge by that spiritual knowledge which shines in the firmament, for they ought not to presume to judge by so sublime an authority; nor does it become them to judge your Book itself, even though some things there do not seem clear, because we submit our understanding to it and hold it certain that even what is hidden from our understanding is still rightly and truly spoken. In this way man, though now spiritual and renewed in the knowledge of God after the image of him who created him, ought to be a doer of the Law, not a judge. Neither does the judge concerning the division between spiritual and carnal men, who are known to your eyes, O God, and who have not as yet revealed themselves to us by works, that by their fruits we may know them. But you, O Lord, already know them, and you have divided and called them in secret before the firmament was made. Nor does this person, though spiritual, judge the storm-tossed people of the world. For what has he to do to judge those who are outside, knowing not which of them shall hereafter come into the sweetness of your grace, and which of them will continue in the perpetual bitterness of their ungodliness?

Humanity, therefore, whom you have made after your own image, did not receive dominion over the lights of heaven, nor over that hidden heaven itself, nor over the day and night, which you called into being before the creation of heaven, nor over the gathering together of the waters which is called the sea. But he received dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and over all, cattle, and over all the earth, and over all creeping things which crawl on the earth.

He judges and approves what he finds right, and disapproves what he finds amiss, whether in the celebration of those sacraments by which those are initiated whom your mercy searches out in many waters; or in that, in which that FISH is set forth, which, raised from the deep, the devout earth feeds upon; or in the expressions and signs of words, subjected to the authority of your Book, which burst forth sound out of the mouth, as it were, under the firmament, by interpreting, explaining, discoursing, disputing, blessing, or praying to you, so that the people may answer Amen. The reason all these words must be vocally pronounced is the deep of this world, the blindness of the flesh which cannot see thoughts, so that it is necessary to speak aloud in the ears. Thus, although winged birds are multiplied on 'the earth', yet they derive their beginning from 'the waters.'

The spiritual man also judges by approving what is right and disapproving what he finds wrong in the works and morals of the faithful, in their alms, which is signified by the earth bringing forth fruit; and he judges concerning the living soul, living by the taming of its passions by chastity, by fasting, by holy meditations. And he judges concerning those things which are perceived by the bodily senses, for it is now said that he should judge concerning everything in which he also had the power of correction.

But what is this? What kind of mystery, that you bless mankind, Lord, that they may increase and multiply and replenish the earth? Do you not give us a hint to understand something in this? Why did you not also bless the light, which you called day, nor the firmament of heaven, nor the [greater and lesser] lights, nor the stars, nor the earth, nor the sea? I might say, O God, who created us after your image, that it was your good pleasure to bestow this blessing exclusively on mankind if you had not in the same way blessed the fishes and the whales, that they should increase and multiply and replenish the waters of the sea, and that the birds should be multiplied on the earth. In the same way, I might say that this blessing pertained properly to such creatures as are bred of their own kind if I had found it given to the fruit trees and herbs, and beasts of the earth. But it is not said Increase and multiply either to the herbs, or the trees, or the beasts or the reptiles. Yet all of these increase by propagation and preserve their kind.

What shall I say then, O Truth, my Light? Shall I say that it was said idly and vainly? Not so, Father of goodness! Far be it from a minister of your Word to say so. And if I do not understand what you mean by that phrase, let my betters - those who have more understanding than I have - make better use of it, in proportion as you, my God, have given to each one to understand. But let my confession also be pleasing in your eyes, which I confess to you, that I believe, Lord, that you have not spoken this way in vain; and I will not suppress what this lesson suggests to me. For it is true, and I do not see what should hinder me from understanding the figurative sayings of your Holy Bible/Sacred Scripture in this way. For I know a thing may be conveyed many ways by bodily expressions, which is understood in only one way by the mind, and that the mind may understand in many different ways what is signified by one bodily expression. Behold the single love of God and of our neighbour is expressed by how many sacraments and innumerable languages and how many different ways of speaking there are in each language. Thus do the off-springs of the waters increase and multiply. Observe again, whoever reads this; see what Sacred Scripture declares and the voice pronounces only one way: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Is it not understood in many different ways, not by any deceit of error, but by different kinds of true meanings? Thus do man's 'off-springs' increase and multiply.

If, then, we conceive of the different natures of the things themselves (not allegorically, but properly), then the phrase increase and multiply corresponds to all things that come from seed. But if we treat the words as spoken figuratively, which I rather suppose to be the purpose of the Sacred Scripture (which surely does not superfluously ascribe this blessing only to the off-spring of marine animals and man), then we find that multitude applies to spiritual creatures as well as physical ones, as heaven and earth, and to souls both righteous and unrighteous, as light and darkness; and the word refers to holy writers through whom the Law was ministered to us as the firmament which is placed between the waters [above] and the waters [below]; and to the society of bitter people as the sea; and to the zeal of holy souls as the dry land; and to the works of mercy belonging to this present life as green herbs, bearing seed, and trees bringing forth fruit; and to spiritual gifts which are manifest for our edification as the lights of heaven; and to passions shaped to temperance as the living soul. In all these instances we meet with multitudes, abundance, and increase. 

But it will increase and multiply in such a way that one thing may be expressed many ways, and one expression may be understood many ways. We do not find this true except in ideas mentally conceived and expressed through bodily signs. I interpret the phase, the generation of the waters, to refer to the bodily signs [words and sacraments] made necessary by our involvement in the flesh. By things mentally conceived - human generations - I take to refer to that in which reason brings forth its fruit. And therefore I believe, Lord, that you have said to both these kinds, Increase and multiply. For in this blessing I see that you have granted us a power and a faculty to express in several ways what we understand in only one, and to understand in several ways what we read expressed obscurely in only one way. Thus the waters of the sea are replenished which can be moved only by a variety of signs. Thus the earth is also replenished with human off-spring, its dryness appearing in its thirst for truth and by the fact that reason rules over it.

I would also say, O Lord and God, what the following Sacred Scripture reminds me of. I will say it without fear. For I will say the truth, you inspiring me with what you will that I say out of these words. For I believe myself to speak truth by no other inspiration than yours since you are the Truth and every man a liar. He, therefore, who speaks a lie speaks of his own. So I will speak of you that I may speak the truth.

You have given us for food every seed-bearing herb on all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit, and not to us alone, but also to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth, and to all creeping things. But you have not given them to the fish and to the great whales. Now we were saying that these fruits of the earth signified and allegorically expressed the works of mercy which are provided for the necessities of this life out of the fruitful earth. Such an earth was the devout Onesiphorus, to whose house you gave mercy because he often refreshed your Paul and was not ashamed of his chains. This also the Macedonian brethren did, and they bore the same fruit, supplying what he [Paul] needed. But how he grieved over some 'trees' who did not afford him the fruit due to him, when he says, At my first answer no man stood by me; but all forsook me! I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. For these fruits are due to such as minister spiritual doctrine to us through their understanding of the divine mysteries, and they are due to them as men. Yes, and they are due to them also as the living souls who give themselves as examples in their own self-denial. And they are due to them as flying creatures, because of their blessings which are multiplied on the earth, for their sound has gone forth into all the earth.

Those who are delighted by these truths are fed by them. Those whose god is their belly find no delight in them. For it is not what is given that bears the fruit, but the spirit in which it is given. Therefore, I see clearly why he [Paul] rejoiced over one who served God and not his own belly. I see it and I rejoice with him. For he had received from the Philippians what they had sent...  - P A G E  T H R E E -

BY  SAINT  AUGUSTINE  OF  HIPPO 

-   WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY   - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -

But as yet we walk by faith and not by sight, for we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope. As yet deep calls unto deep, but now in the noise of your waterfalls. As yet Paul who says I could not speak to you as to spiritual ones, but only as unto carnal, even he does not think himself to have apprehended, but forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, groans being burdened. And his soul thirsts after the living God, as the hart after the water brooks, and says, "When shall I come?" desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven. And he calls upon this lower deep, saying, Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and be children in understanding, but in malice be children that in understanding you may become perfect, and O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? But now it is no longer in his own voice, but in your voice, who sent your Spirit from above through him who ascended upon high, and set open the floodgates of his gifts, that the force of his streams might make glad the city of God. For it is for him this friend of the bridegroom longs, having now the first fruits of the Spirit laid up with him, yet still groaning within himself and waiting for the adoption, namely, the redemption of the body.

To him he sighs, as a member of the Bride; he is jealous for him, as being a friend of the Bridegroom; for him he is jealous, not for himself; because in the voice of the waterfalls, not in his own voice, he calls to that other deep, for whom, being jealous, he fears as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so their minds should be corrupted from the purity that is in our Bridegroom, your only Son. Oh what a light of beauty that will be when we shall see him as he is! and when those tears have passed away which have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, "Where is your God?"

Behold, I, too, say, "O my God, where are you?" In you I breathe a little while I pour out my soul by myself in the voice of joy and praise, in the voice of him who keeps holy day. And yet again it is cast down because it relapses and becomes a deep, or rather feels that it is still a deep. My faith which you have kindled to brighten my path in the night speaks to it, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you troubled within me? Hope in God. His word is a lantern for your feet. Hope and endure until the night passes, that mother of the wicked, until the wrath of the Lord is past, for we were once children of wrath, who were sometimes darkness, whose relics we still carry about as in our bodies, dead because of sin, until the day break and the shadows flee away. Hope in the Lord." In the morning I shall stand in your presence and contemplate you. I shall ever offer praise to you. In the morning I shall in your presence and shall see  the health of my countenance, my God, who shall also quicken our mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwells in us, because in his mercy he has moved over our inner dark and restless deep. From him we have received an earnest in this pilgrimage of what is to come, that we should now be light even while we are being saved by hope, and are children of the light and children of the day, not the children of the night nor of the darkness which at one time we were.

Between him and us, in this as yet uncertain state of human knowledge, only you can rightly divide [light from darkness in us] - you who test our hearts and call the light day, and the darkness night. For who truly knows us but you? And what do we have that we have not received from you? Out of the same clay some vessels are made to honour, while others are made to dishonour.

Or who, but you, our God, made for us that firmament of authority over us in your divine Scripture? As it is said, For heaven shall be rolled up like a scroll, and now it is stretched over us like a skin. Your divine Scripture is of more sublime authority since those mortals through whom you conveyed it to us have died. And you know, lord, you know, how you clothed men with skins when they became mortal through sin. And so, like a skin you stretched out the firmament of your Book; that is, you have spread your harmonious words over us by the ministry of mortal men. For by their very death that solid firmament of the authority that was in your sayings set forth by them, was more sublimely stretched over all that are under it. That authority was not so eminently extended while they were living here. You had not as yet spread abroad the heaven like a skin. You had not yet spread the glory of their deaths in all directions.

Let us look, O Lord, at the heavens, the work of your fingers. Clear from our eyes that cloud which has covered them. There is your testimony, which gives wisdom to the little ones. perfect, O my God, your praise out of the mouth of babes and suckling. For we know no other book so destructive to pride, so destructive to the enemy and the defender who resists your reconciliation in defence of his own sins. I do not know, Lord, I do not know any other such pure words, which so persuade me to confess, and make my neck submissive to your yoke, and invite me to serve you for nothing. Let me understand them, good Father. Grant this to me, placed under them as I am, because you have established them for those placed under them.

There are other 'waters' above this 'firmament', I believe - immortal and removed from earthly corruption. Let them praise your name: let them praise you, those super-celestial beings, your an gels, who have no need to gaze up at this firmament, or to know your Word by reading it. For they always behold your face, and there they read without any time-bound syllables what your eternal will wills. They read, they choose, they love. They are always reading, and what they read never passes away: for by choosing and by loving, they read the very unchangeableness of your counsel. Their book is never closed, nor is their scroll rolled up, because you yourself are this to them, and you are this eternally to them, because you have appointed them to be above this firmament. These Holy Scriptures you have firmly established over the weakness of the lower people, so they might look up and learn the weakness of the lower people, so they might look up and learn your mercy, which always proclaims you in time who made all times. For your mercy, O Lord, is the heavens, and your truth reaches to the clouds. 

The clouds pass away, but the heavens abide. The preachers of your Word pass away from this life into another, but your Scripture is spread abroad over the people, even to the end of the world. Heaven and earth also shall pass away, but your words shall not pass away. Because the scroll shall be rolled together, and the grass over which it was spread, shall pass away with the goodliness of it. But your Word endures for ever, which now appears to us under the dark image of the clouds, and through the glass of heaven, and not as it truly is; because we also, even though we are now well-beloved through your Son, yet it does not yet appear what we shall be. He looks through the lattice of our flesh, and he speaks tenderly to us, and enkindles us, and we follow his sweet perfume. But when he shall appear, then we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. As he is, O Lord, we shall see him - but the time is not yet.

For only you know altogether what you are. You are unchangeably, and know unchangeably and will unchangeably. And your essence knows and wills unchangeably; and your knowledge is and wills unchangeably; and your will is and knows unchangeably. It does not seem right in your eyes that as the Unchangeable Light knows Itself, It should be so known by the thing that is enlightened and changeable. Therefore my soul is like a land where no water is, because, as it cannot of itself enlighten itself, so it cannot of itself satisfy itself. Thus the fountains of life is with you and in your light we shall see light.

Who gathered the embittered ones together in one society? For they all have the same end, that of a temporal and earthly happiness, and to attain it they do everything, although they toss up and down with an innumerable variety of cares. Who, Lord, but you, said, "Let the waters be gathered together into one place," and "Let dry land appear," and thirst after you? For the sea also is yours and you made it, and your hands formed the dry land. The gathering together of the waters called sea is the bitterness of men's wills, for you restrain the wicked desires of men's souls, and set their bounds for them - how far they may be allowed to pass, that their waves may break against one another; and thus you make it a sea by the order of your dominion over all things.

But as for the souls that thirst after you and appear before you (being divided by the other boundaries from the society of the sea), you water them by a sweet spring, so that the earth may bring forth its fruit, and you so commanding it, O Lord God, our souls may bud forth in works of mercy according to their kind - loving our neighbour in the relief of his bodily necessities, having seed in itself after its kind, so that the feeling of our own infirmity moves us with compassion to relieve the needy, helping them as we would wish to be helped if we were in like need - not only in easy things, as in the herb-yielding seed, but also in the protecting aid of our very strength, like the tree yielding fruit. But this I mean our well-doing in seeking to rescue him who suffers injury from the hands of the powerful, and giving him the shelter protection by the mighty strength of just judgement.

So, Lord, I beseech you, let it spring up just as you have made it, just as you give cheerfulness and ability - let truth spring out of the earth and righteousness look down from heaven, and let there be lights in the firmament. Let us break our bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into our house. Let us clothe the naked, and not despise those of our own flesh.

These fruits springing out of the earth show that it is good. And let our light break forth as the morning, and let us from this inferior fruit of action possess the delights of contemplation and the Word of Life above. And let us appear as lights in the world, holding fast to the firmament of your Scripture. For there, you instruct us to distinguish between things intellectual and things of the senses, as between the day and the night. In the same way you distinguish between souls, some given to intellectual things, others to things of sense. Before the firmament was made you distinguished between the light and the darkness in the secret of your judgement. But now, your spiritual children, also set and ranked in the same firmament (now that your grace is manifest throughout the world), may give light on the earth, and distinguish between the day and the night. They are, as it were, signs of the times, that old things have passed away, and, behold, all things have become new; and that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; and that the night is far spent, and the day is at hand, and that you will crown your year with blessing, sending the labourers of your goodness into your harvest, where others have laboured to sow. You send them also into other fields, whose harvest shall not be until the end. Thus you grant the prayers of him who ask, and bless the years of the just. But you are the same, and in your years that fail not, you prepare a harvest for our passing years. For by an eternal decree you bestow heavenly blessings on the earth in their proper seasons.

For indeed to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, as it were, the greater light, for the sake of those who are delighted with the light of clear truth (as given for the ruling of the day). To another is given the word of knowledge by the same Spirit, as it were, the lesser light. To another is given faith,: to another, the gift of healing; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, discerning of spirits; to another, various kinds of tongues. And all these are like stars. For in all these the one and same Spirit is at work, dividing to every man his own as he wills, causing these stars to shine clearly to the profit of the whole. But the word of knowledge contains all the sacraments, varied in their seasons like the moon. And it includes those other kinds of gifts, which one after another are considered like stars, since they come short of the brightness of wisdom which gladdens the day. They are only for ruling the night, but they are necessary to those to whom your most prudent servant, Paul, could not speak as to those who speaks wisdom among those who are mature. But the natural man - like a babe in Christ, must be fed on milk until he is strengthened for solid meat and his eyes is able to look at the sun. Let him not dwell in a night void of all light, but let him be content with the light of the moon and the stars. So you speak to us, our all-wise God, in your Book, your firmament, that we may discern all things in wondering contemplation - though as yet in signs and seasons, in days and years.

But, first, Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from your souls and from before my eyes, that the dry land may appear. Learn to do good; judge the fatherless, plead for the widow, that the earth may bring forth the green herb for food and the tree bearing fruit. And come, let us reason together, says the Lord, that there may be lights in the firmament of heaven, and that they may shine upon the earth.

The rich man asked of the good Master what he should do to gain eternal life. let the good Master tell him, whom he thought no more than a man (but he is good because he is God), and let him tell him that if he would enter life, he must keep the commandments; let him put away from him the bitterness of malice and wickedness; let him not kill, not commit adultery, not steal, not bear false witness, that the dry land may appear and bring forth the honouring of father and mother and the love of our neighbour.

"All these." he says, "I have kept from my youth." Why, then, so many thorns, if the earth is fruitful? Go, root up the woody thicket of covetousness. Sell what you have, and be filled with fruit by giving to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And follow the Lord if you would be perfect, in association with those among whom he speaks wisdom - he who knows what to distribute to the day and to the night, that you may also know it, and so that there may be lights in the firmament of heaven for you, too, which will not be, unless your heart is there. And your heart will not be there unless your treasure is there, as you have heard from the good Master. But that 'barren earth' was grieved at this, and the thorns choked the word.

But you, chosen generation, weak things of the world, who have forsaken all that you may follow the Lord: go after him and confound the mighty. Go after him, O beautiful feet, and shine in the firmament, that the heavens may declare his glory; discerning between the light of the perfect (though not as angels) and the darkness of the little ones (though they are to be despised). Shine over the earth, and let the day, lightened by the Sun, utter day to day the speech of wisdom; and let the night , shinning with the moon, show night to night the word of knowledge. The moon and stars shine for the night; yet the night does not obscure them, since they give it light to a degree. For behold, it is as if God says, Let there be lights in the firmament of heavens, and there came suddenly a sound from heaven, as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and there appeared cloven tongues of fire and sat upon each of them. And they were made lights in the firmament of heaven, having the Word of Life.

Run to and from, everywhere, you holy fires, you beautiful fires: for you are the light of the world, and you are not to be hid under a bushel. he to whom you cling is exalted and he has exalted you. Run to and from, and be known to all the nations.

Let the sea also conceive and bring forth your works; and let the waters bring forth the moving creatures and have life. For by separating the precious from the vile you have been made as the mouth of God, by whom he says, Let the waters bring forth, not the living creatures which the earth brings forth, but the creeping creatures that have life, and the fowls that fly above the earth. For your sacraments, O God, by the ministry of your holy ones, have made their way amid the billows of the temptations of the world, to instruct the nations in your name in your baptism. And among these things, many great wonders have been wrought, as it were great whales. And the voices of your messengers fly above the earth near the open firmament of your Book which has been set over them as their authority, under which they are to fly wherever they go. For there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, since their sound has gone through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world; because you, Lord, have multiplied them by your blessing. 

Do I speak falsely, or do I mingle and confuse, and fail to distinguish between the lucid knowledge of these things in the firmament of heaven, and the corporeal works in the wave tossed sea, and under the firmament of heaven? For there are those things, the knowledge of which is solid and defined, without any increase generation by generation, like the lights of wisdom and knowledge. But even of these, the physical manifestations are many and varied. And one thing grows out of another, and as they multiply by your blessing, O God, you have refreshed the weakness of our mortal senses that in the understanding of our mind one thing may be expressed in many ways by the motions of the body.

These sacraments [or signs] the waters have produced through your Word. The necessities of the people estranged from the eternity of your truth have brought them forth through your Gospel, because the waters themselves cast them out - the waters whose diseased bitterness was the reason they came forth through your Word. 

Now all things that you made are fair, but lo, you are inexpressibly fairer who made them all. If Adam had not fallen from you, the saltiness of the sea would never have flowed out of him - that is, the human race so profoundly curious, so furiously raging, so restlessly moving up and down. And then there would have been no need of your dispensers to work in these many waters to show forth in a corporeal and sensible way mysterious deeds and sayings. For this is what those creeping and flying creatures now seem to me to mean. By them people are instructed and consecrated by material sacraments, but without further profit to themselves unless these souls had a higher spiritual life, and unless, after sacrament of admission, they look forward to maturity.

And thus through your Word, it is not the depth of the sea but 'the earth'. separated from the bitterness of the waters, that brings forth, not the creeping and flying creatures that have life, but the living soul itself. For now it has more need of baptism as the heathen have, and as it had itself when it was covered with the [bitter] waters, for there is no other entrance into the kingdom of heaven, since you have appointed that this should be the entrance....... -   P A G E   T W O   -

BY  SAINT  AUGUSTINE  OF  HIPPO

-   WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY   - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -