Confessions 13.45–13.53

And I heard, Lord my God, and I licked a drop of sweetness from your truth, and I understood that there are some who are displeased with your works, and say that you made many of them under compulsion of necessity, such as the fabric of the heavens and the arrangement of the stars; and that you did not make these from what was yours, but that they had already been created elsewhere and from another source, and you drew them together and fastened and wove them together when, out of your conquered enemies, you built the walls of the world, so that, bound by that structure, they could not rebel against you again; and that other things you neither made nor put together at all, such as all flesh and all the tiniest living creatures and whatever holds the earth by roots; but that a hostile mind and another nature, not created by you and opposed to you, generates and forms these things in the lower regions of the world. Madmen say this, because they do not see your works through your Spirit, nor recognize you in them.

But in those who see them through your Spirit, you see. So when they see that they are good, you see that they are good; and whatever pleases for your sake, in it you please; and the things that please us through your Spirit please you in us. "For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So too no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. But we," he says, "have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, so that we may know the things that have been given to us by God." And I am prompted to say: certainly no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God; how, then, do we too know the things that have been given to us by God? The answer is given me: what we know through his Spirit, even so no one knows but the Spirit of God. For as it was rightly said, "For it is not you who speak," to those who would speak in the Spirit of God, so it is rightly said, "It is not you who know," to those who know in the Spirit of God. No less rightly, then, is it said, "It is not you who see," to those who see in the Spirit of God; so whatever they see in the Spirit of God to be good, it is not they but God who sees that it is good. It is one thing, then, for someone to think evil what is good, like those mentioned above; another for a man to see that what is good is good, as your creation pleases many because it is good, though you do not please them in it, so that they want to enjoy it rather than you; and another, when a man sees that something is good, for God to see in him that it is good, that is, so that God may be loved in what he made, who would not be loved except through the Spirit he has given; "because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us," through whom we see that whatever exists in any way is good; for it is from him who does not exist in any way, but is, is.

Thanks be to you, Lord! We see heaven and earth, whether the upper and lower bodily parts, or the spiritual and bodily creation; and in the adornment of these parts, of which either the whole mass of the world or the whole creation altogether consists, we see light made and divided from darkness. We see the firmament of heaven, whether between the upper spiritual waters and the lower bodily ones, the primary body of the world, or this space of air, for this too is called heaven, through which the birds of heaven wander between the waters that are borne above them as vapor and fall as dew even on clear nights, and those that flow heavily on the earth. We see the beauty of the gathered waters over the plains of the sea, and the dry land, whether bare or formed so as to be visible and ordered, the mother of plants and trees. We see the lights shining from above, the sun sufficing for the day, the moon and stars consoling the night, and by all these the times marked and signified. We see the moist element everywhere made fruitful with fish and sea monsters and birds, because the density of the air, which bears the flight of birds, is thickened by the evaporation of the waters. We see the face of the earth adorned with land animals, and man, in your image and likeness, set above all irrational living creatures by that very image and likeness of yours, that is, by the power of reason and understanding; and as in his soul there is one part which rules by deliberation and another which is subject so as to obey, so for man woman was made, bodily too, who in her mind would have an equal nature of rational understanding, but by the sex of her body would be subject to the male sex, as the appetite for action is subject to the reason of the mind in order to conceive from it the skill of acting rightly. We see these things, and each is good, and all are very good.

Your works praise you, so that we may love you, and we love you, so that your works may praise you. They have beginning and end in time, rising and setting, growth and decline, form and privation. So they have, in succession, morning and evening, partly hidden, partly evident. For they were made by you from nothing, not from you; not from some matter not yours or which existed before, but from matter concreated, that is, created by you at the same time, because you formed its formlessness without any interval of time. For although the matter of heaven and earth is one thing and the form of heaven and earth another, you made the matter from absolutely nothing and the form of the world from formless matter; yet you made both at once, so that form followed matter without any interval of delay.

We have also considered what you wished to be figured by these things being made in such an order, or written in such an order; and we have seen that each is good and all are very good, in your Word, in your only Son, heaven and earth, the head and body of the church, in predestination before all times, without morning and evening. But when you began to carry out in time what had been predestined, so as to reveal hidden things and to order our disorder (since our sins were over us, and we had gone away from you into the dark depth, and your good Spirit was borne over us to help us in due time), you justified the ungodly and separated them from the wicked, and you made firm the authority of your book between the higher ones, who would be teachable by you, and the lower ones, who would be subject to them; and you gathered the society of unbelievers into one conspiracy, so that the zeal of the faithful might appear, that they might bear works of mercy to you, even distributing their earthly goods to the poor to gain heavenly ones. And then you kindled certain lights in the firmament, your saints, holding the word of life and shining with sublime authority, raised high by spiritual gifts; and then, to initiate the unbelieving nations, you brought forth from bodily matter sacraments and visible miracles and the sounds of words according to the firmament of your book, by which the faithful too would be blessed; and next you formed the living soul of the faithful through affections ordered by the strength of continence; and then you renewed the mind, subject to you alone and needing no human authority to imitate, in your image and likeness, and you subjected rational action to the pre-eminent understanding, as woman to man; and you willed that for all your ministers, who are necessary for perfecting the faithful in this life, works useful for their temporal needs and fruitful for the future should be provided by those same faithful. All these things we see, and they are very good, because you see them in us, you who have given us the Spirit by which we might see them and love you in them.

Lord God, give us peace (for you have given us all things), the peace of rest, the peace of the sabbath, the peace without evening. For all this most beautiful order of very good things, when its measures have been fulfilled, will pass away: for in them there was morning and evening.

But the seventh day is without evening and has no setting, because you sanctified it to remain for ever; so that the fact that after your very good works, although you made them while at rest, you rested on the seventh day, the voice of your book may foretell to us that we too, after our works, which are very good because you have given them to us, may rest in you in the sabbath of eternal life.

For then too you will rest in us, as now you work in us; and so that rest of yours will be through us, as these works of yours are through us. But you, Lord, are always working and always at rest; you do not see in time, nor are you moved in time, nor do you rest in time; and yet you make both temporal seeings and times themselves and the rest that follows time.

So we see these things which you have made, because they are; but they are because you see them. And we see outwardly that they are, and inwardly that they are good; but you saw them made there where you saw that they were to be made. And we at a later time were moved to do good, after our heart conceived from your Spirit; but at an earlier time we were moved to do evil, forsaking you; but you, God, one and good, have never ceased to do good. And there are some good works of ours, from your gift indeed, but not eternal; after them we hope to rest in your great sanctification. But you, the Good that needs no good, are always at rest, since your rest is you yourself. And what man will give another man to understand this? What angel to an angel? What angel to a man? Let it be asked of you, sought in you, knocked for at your door: so, so will it be received, so will it be found, so will it be opened.