THIS is the business of our life. By labour and prayer, to advance in the grace of God, till we come to that height of perfection in which, with clean hearts, we may behold God. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - (354 - 430)
OUR actions have a tongue of their own; they have an eloquence of their own, even when the tongue is silent. For deeds prove the lover more than words. - Saint Cyril of Jerusalem - (315 - 386)
REMEMBER that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love. - Saint Therese of Lisieux - (1567 - 1622)
THE EXAMINED LIFE - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. -
- Page Nine - You, Lord, are my judge, because, although no man/woman knows the things of a man/woman but the spirit of a man/woman which is in Him, yet there is something of man/woman which the spirit of man/woman that is in Him, itself, does not know. But you, Lord, know him/her completely, for You made him/her. And although I despise myself in your sight and account myself dust and ashes, I know something of You which I do not know of myself. Truly, now we see through a glass darkly, not face to face as yet. As long, then, as I am absent from you, I am more present with myself than with you. And I know that you cannot be violated, but I do not know which temptations I can resist and which I cannot. There is hope, because you are faithful, who will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, so that we may be able to bear it. I will confess then what I know of myself, I will confess also what I do not know of myself. What I know of myself I know by your light shinning upon me; and what I do not know of myself, I continue not to know until my darkness becomes as the noonday in the light of your countenance.
I love you, Lord, without any doubt, but with assured certainty. You have stricken my heart with your Word, and I love you. Yes, also, heaven and earth and all that is in them on every side bid me to love you. They will not cease to say to everyone, so that they are without excuse. But more profoundly, you will have mercy on whom you will have mercy, and compassion on whom you will have compassion. Otherwise, the heaven and the earth speak your praises to deaf ears.
But what do I love when I love you? Not the beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor the brightness of the lights, so gladsome to our eyes; not the sweet melodies of various songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices; not manna and honey; not the limbs that physical love likes to embrace. It is none of these that I love when I love my God. Yet I love a kind of light, a kind of melody, a kind of fragrance, a kind of food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God: the light, the melody, the fragrance, the food and the embrace of the inner man/woman, where their shines into my soul what space cannot contain, and there sounds what time cannot carry away. I breathe a fragrance which no breeze scatters, and I taste there what is not consumed by eating; and there I lie in the embrace that no satiety can ever separate. This is what I love when I love my God.
And what is it? I asked the earth, and it answered me, "I am not He." And whatever is in the earth confessed the same. I asked the sea and its deeps, and the living, creeping things, and they answered, "We are not your God; seek Him above us." "I asked the moving air; and the whole air with its inhabitants answered, "Anaximenes was deceived; I am not God," ( From Cicero: "After Anaximander came Anaximenes, who taught that the air is God." On the Nature of the Gods. ) I asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars. "No," say they, "we are not the God whom you seek." And I replied to all the things that throng about the senses of my flesh, "you have told me of my God, that you are not He. Tell me something of Him." And they cried, "He made us." My questioning of them was my thoughts about them, and their form of beauty gave the answer. And I turned myself to myself, and said to myself, "What are you?" And I answer, "A man." And behold, in me there appear both soul and body, one outside and the other within. By which of these should I seek my God? I had sought Him in the body from earth to heaven, as far as I could send my eyesight as messengers. But the better part is the inner, for to it, as the ruler and judge, all the bodily messengers reported the answers of heaven and earth and all things in them, who said, "We are not God, but He made us." These things my inner man knew by means of the outer. I, the inner man, knew them. I, the whole frame of the world about my God; and it answered me, "I am not He, but He made me."
Is not this outward appearance visible to all who have use of their senses? Why then does it not say the same thing to all? Animals small and great see it, but they cannot ask it anything, because their senses are not endowed with reason, so they cannot judge what they see. But men can ask, so that the invisible things of God may be clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. But in loving them, they are brought into subjection to them, and subjects cannot judge. ( Plotinus said that to admire, to take as an object of pursuit anything different from one's own nature, is to acknowledge one's inferiority to it. ) Nor do these things answer unless the questioners can judge. The creatures do not change their voice, they do not appear one way to this man, another to that; but appearing the same what to both, they are dumb to one and speak to the other. Rather, they speak to all, but only those understand who compare the voice received externally with the internal truth. For truth says to me, "Neither heaven nor earth nor any other body is your God." This, their very nature says to him who sees them, "They are a mass; a mass is less in part than in the whole." Now I speak to you, O my soul, your are my better part, for you quicken the whole mass of my body, giving it life. Nobody can give life to a body. But your God is the Life of your life.
What do I do, then, when I love my God? Who is He who is so high above my soul? But my very soul I will ascend to Him. I will soar beyond that power by which I am united to my body, filling its whole frame with life. But I do not find God by that power, for then, so could horse and mule that have no understanding find Him, for it is the same power by which their bodies live. ( The Latin word is anima - physical life. Augustine sees animals as possessing the interior sensus which correlates the data of sense perception, but lacks ratio - the reason, which forms judgements. ) But there is another power, not only that by which I am made alive, but that, too, by which I imbue my flesh with sense, which the Lord has made for me, commanding the eye not to hear and the ear not to see; but commanding the eye that I should see through it, and the ear that I should hear through it, and the several other senses, what is to each their own proper places and functions. Through these different senses, I, as a single mind, act. I will go beyond this power of mine, too, for the horse and mule also have this power, for they also perceive through their bodily senses.
I will move on, then, beyond this power of my nature, rising by degrees to him who made me. And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of my memory, where the treasures of innumerable images are stored, brought there from all sorts of things perceived by the senses. Further, there is stored up in memory whatever thoughts we think, either by enlarging or diminishing, or changing in any other way those things which the senses have brought in; and whatever else has been committed and stored up, which forgetfulness has not yet swallowed up and buried. When I enter there, I ask what I want brought forth, and some things appear instantly; others must be sought after longer, and are brought, as it were, out of some inner storage place. Still others rush out in crowds, and while only one thing is desired and asked for, they leap into view as if to say, "Do you perhaps want me?" I drive these away from the face of my remembrance with the hand of my heart until what I wanted is unveiled and appears in sight out of its secret place. Other things come up readily, in unbroken order, as they are called for - those in front giving way to those that follow; and as they make way, they are hidden from sight, ready to come back at my will. All of this takes place when I repeat something by heart.
And all these things are preserved distinctly and under general heads, each having entered my memory by its own particular avenue: light and colours and forms of bodies, by the eyes; all sorts of sounds by the ears; all smells by the avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by the sensation of the whole body, what is hard or soft, hot or cold, smooth or rugged, heavy or light - either external or internal to the body. All these things the great recesses, the hidden and unknown caverns of memory receive and store, to be retrieved and brought forth when needed, each entering by its own gate. Yet the things themselves do not enter, but only the images of the things perceived are there, ready to be recalled in thought. But how these images are formed, who can tell? It is plain, however, which sense brought each one in and stored up. For even while I dwell in darkness and silence, I can produce colours in my memory if I choose, and I can discern between black and white. Sounds do not break in and alter the image brought in by my eyes which I am reviewing, though they also are there, lying dormant and stored, as it were, separately. I can call for these, too, and they immediately appear. And though my voice is still and my throat silent, I can sing as much as I will. Those images of colours do not intrude, even though they are there, when another memory is called for which came in by way of the ears. So it is with other things brought in and stored up by the other senses - I can recall them at my pleasures. Yes, I can tell the fragrance of lilies from violets, though I smell nothing; I prefer honey to sweet wine, smooth surface to rough ones - at the time neither tasting nor handling, but only remembering.
These things I do inside myself, in that vast hall of my memory. For present there with me are heaven, earth, sea and whatever I could think on them, in addition to what I have forgotten. There also I meet with myself, and recall myself - what, when and where I did a thing, and what my feelings were when I did it. All that I remember is there, either personal experiences or what I was told by others. Out of the same store I continually combine with the past, fresh images of things experienced, or what I have believed from what I have experienced. From these I can project future actions, events and hopes, and I can reflect on all these again in the present. I say to myself, in that great storehouse of my mind, filled with the images of so many and such great things, "I will do this or that, and this or that will follow." "Oh, would that this or that might be!" "May God prevent this or that!" This is the way I talk to myself, and when I speak, the images of all I speak about are present, out of the same treasury of memory. I could not say anything at all about them if their images were not there.
Great is the power of memory, exceedingly great, O my God: a large and boundless chamber! Who has ever sounded the depths of it? Yet this is a power of mine, and belongs to my nature. But I do not myself comprehend all that I am. Therefore the mind is too narrow to contain itself. But where can that part be which it does not itself contain? Is it outside it and not inside? How then does it not comprehend itself? A great wonder arises in me; I am stunned with amazement at this. And men go outside themselves to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the width of the ocean and the circuits of the stars, passing by themselves. They do not wonder at the fact that when I spoke of all these things, I did not see them with my eyes, yet I could not have spoken of them unless I then inwardly saw with my memory the mountains, waves, rivers and stars which I have seen, and that ocean which I believe to exist, and with the same vast spaces between them as if I saw them outside myself. Yet I did not actually draw them into myself by seeing them, when I beheld them with my eyes, but only their images. And I know which sense of the body impressed each of them on me.
Yet these are not all that the immeasurable capacity of my memory retains. Here also is all that I have learned of the liberal sciences and have not yet forgotten - removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no place............... - Page Nine -
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 -
No comments:
Post a Comment