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
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 -
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