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