Letters 147.1–147.15

Mindful of the debt incurred by your request and my promise, Paulina, devout handmaid of God, I ought not to be negligent in paying it. For when you asked me to write to you at length and fully about the invisible God, whether he can be seen with bodily eyes, I could not refuse, lest I offend your holy zeal; but I put off my promise, either because of my other occupations or because what was being asked of me required somewhat longer thought. But since the matter was so great that, as I thought about it, it became more difficult, not so much as to what should be thought or said about it, as to how those who think otherwise might be persuaded, I decided that at some point an end must be put to the delay, hoping that divine help would be more present to me in writing than in delaying. For this reason it seems to me, first, that in this inquiry the manner of living counts for more than the manner of speaking. For those who have learned from the Lord Jesus Christ to be meek and humble of heart make more progress by thinking and praying than by reading and hearing. Not that speech will therefore cease to play its part; but when the planter and the waterer have performed the duty of their office, they leave the rest to him who gives the growth; for he also formed the planter and the waterer himself.

Receive, then, words of understanding according to the inner man. For he is renewed from day to day, even while this outer man is wasting away, whether through the discipline of abstinence, or some sickly state of health, or any chance whatever, or certainly, as must happen even to those who live long in sound health, through the very advance of age. Raise up, then, the spirit of your mind, which is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created it, where Christ dwells in you through faith, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, where you will not die when you begin to be released from the body, because there you have not withered either, though you are heavy with years. Lifted up in this inner self of yours, attend and see what I say. I do not want you to follow my authority, so as to think you must believe something because it is said by me; but believe either the canonical Scriptures, if there is something whose truth you do not yet see, or the truth showing itself within, so that you see it plainly.

To give an example by which you may be more surely prepared for these things, I shall take it chiefly from the very matter that has set us the labor of discussion in this work. We believe that God is seen; is that because we have now seen him, either with the eyes of the body, as we see this sun, or with the gaze of the mind, as each person sees himself within: sees himself living, sees himself willing, sees himself seeking, sees himself knowing, sees himself not knowing? You yourself, then, having read this letter, remember that you have seen the sun with the eyes of the body, and you can even see it at once, if it is the right time and you are in a place where the sky on that side lies open to your eyes so that you can look at the sun. But to see the things that I said are perceived by the mind, that is, that you live, that you wish to see God, that you are seeking this, that you know that you live and wish and seek, but do not know how God is seen: to see all these, I say, you do not use the eyes of the body, nor do you feel or look for any distance of space across which your gaze must be directed to reach and discern them. In this way you see your life, your will, your inquiry, your knowledge, your ignorance (for even this is not a sight to be despised, to see what you do not know). In this way, I say, you see all these things, so that you see them in yourself, have them with you, and perceive them without any outlines of shapes or brightness of colors, all the more clearly and surely the more simply and inwardly you behold them. Since, then, we do not now see God either with the eyes of the body, as we see bodies, whether heavenly or earthly, or with the gaze of the mind, as we see the things I have mentioned, which you behold most surely within yourself, why do we believe that he is seen, except because we give our faith to the Scripture where we read, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” and to whatever else has been written to this effect by the same divine authority, which we count it wicked not to believe, and do not doubt at all that it is a mark of piety to believe?

Hold to this distinction, then: if in my discussion I point out to you something that you either see with the eyes of the flesh or perceive with any other of its senses, or remember having perceived, as colors, sounds, smells, tastes, heat are perceived, and whatever else we perceive through the body by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching; or something that you see with the gaze of the mind, as you see your life, will, thought, memory, understanding, knowledge, faith, and whatever else you perceive with the mind and do not doubt to be so, not only by believing but by plainly seeing; then judge that I have shown it. But if I do not so show something that it is held as seen and perceived by the sense either of the body or of the mind, and yet I say something that must be either true or false but is not seen by either of those two kinds, it remains that it is only believed or not believed. But if it is confirmed by the clear authority of the divine Scriptures, namely those that are called canonical in the Church, it is to be believed without any doubt. As for other witnesses or testimonies by which one is urged to believe something, you may believe them or not, according as you judge them to have or not to have weight to produce belief.

For if we had believed nothing at all of what we have not seen, that is, have not perceived as present either by mind or by body, nor learned from the holy Scriptures by reading or hearing, how would we know that there are cities where we have never been, or that Rome was founded by Romulus, or, to speak of nearer things, Constantinople by Constantine? How, finally, would we know what parents begot us, from what fathers, grandfathers, and ancestors we were born? For although we know a great many such things, we have learned them neither by any sense, as present, like the sun or the will of our own mind, nor by the authority of the canonical writings, as that Adam was the first man or that Christ was born in the flesh, suffered, and rose again, but from others who reported them, whose testimony, at least in this kind of matter, we thought should not be doubted at all. If in these things we are sometimes deceived by believing either that something is so which is not so, or that something is not so which is so, we judge that there is no danger, provided it is not against that faith by which piety is formed. These preliminary remarks of mine do not yet discuss the proposed question, but they prepare you and others who will read this to know what kind of judges you ought to be, whether of my writings or of anyone’s, so that you do not suppose you know what you do not know, nor rashly believe what you have neither perceived by the senses of the body or the gaze of the mind in the evidence of the thing itself that is to be known, nor learned must be believed on the authority of the canonical Scriptures, even if it was not present to the senses of your mind or body.

Have we now come to the matter, then? Or must the reader still be instructed? For some think that what we call believing, when a true thing is believed, is simply beholding with the mind. If that is so, this preface of ours is mistaken, in which we distinguished perceiving something through the body, as the sun in the sky and a mountain, a tree, or any body on earth; and, on the other hand, beholding with the gaze of the mind a thing no less evident, as our will is perceived within by ourselves when we will something, or our thought when we think, or our memory when we remember, or some such thing in the mind without the body; and, on the other hand again, believing what is neither present to the view of body or mind nor remembered to have been present, as that Adam was created without parents, and that Christ was born of a virgin, suffered, and rose again. For these things were also done bodily and certainly could have been seen through the body if we had been there; but now they are not present, as this light is present, which is discerned with the eyes, or the will by which we now will something, which is perceived by the mind. But since this distinction is not false, that preparation was certainly lacking in this: that the difference between believing and beholding something present with the mind, so that they should not be thought entirely one and the same, had not been set out in clear enough language.

What, then, shall we say? Is it enough to say that seeing and believing differ in this, that things present are seen and things absent are believed? Perhaps it is quite enough, if we understand “present” here to mean what is at hand to the senses, whether of the mind or of the body, from which the word “present” is derived. For in this way I plainly see this light by the sense of the body, and in this way also my will, because it is at hand to the senses of my mind and is present to me within. But if someone whose face and voice are present to me tells me his will, yet, because the will itself that he tells me is hidden from the sense of my body and mind, I believe it, I do not see it; or, if I think he is lying, I do not believe it, even if perhaps it is as he says. Those things, therefore, are believed which are absent from our senses, if the testimony given to them seems adequate; but those are seen which are at hand, and hence are called present, to the senses of mind or body. For although there are five bodily senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, sight is attributed chiefly to the eyes; yet we use this word for the others too. For we say not only, “See what is shining,” but also, “See what is sounding,” “See what smells,” “See what tastes,” “See what is hot.” And since I said that those things are believed which are absent from our senses, let this not be taken to include things we once saw and remember having seen and are sure of, although they are not at hand when we recall them. For they are counted not among things believed but among things seen, and so they are known, not because we gave credit to other witnesses, but because we remember without doubt and know that we saw them.

Our knowledge, then, consists of things seen and things believed. But in the things we have seen or see, we ourselves are the witnesses; in the things we believe, we are moved to faith by other witnesses, when signs are given, in words or letters or other evidence, of things we neither remember having seen nor see, so that, when these signs are seen, the things not seen are believed. And we are not wrong to say that we know not only the things we have seen or see, but also those we believe when moved by testimonies or witnesses adequate to each matter. Further, if we are not inappropriately said to know even what we most surely believe, it follows that we are also said to see with the mind things rightly believed, even if they are not present to our senses. For knowledge is attributed to the mind, whether it holds something perceived and known through the senses of the body or through the mind itself; and faith itself is certainly seen by the mind, although what is believed by faith is not seen. Hence the apostle Peter also says: “In whom, though you do not now see him, you believe”; and the Lord himself: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

So when a man is told, “Believe that Christ has risen from the dead,” if he believes, note what he sees, note what he believes, and distinguish the two. He sees the man whose voice he hears, and the voice itself is counted among things seen bodily, according to what we said above. These are two, the witness and the testimony, one belonging to the eyes and the other to the ears. But perhaps he confirms this witness by the authority of other testimonies, namely of the divine Scriptures or any others by which he has been moved to faith. The Scriptures belong to things seen by the body: by the eyes if he reads them, or by the ears if he has heard them. But he sees with the mind whatever he has understood to be signified by the shapes of the letters or by the sounds; he sees his own faith, by which he answers without hesitation that he believes; he sees the thought by which he considers what benefit there can be for him in what he believes; he sees the will by which he has come to embrace the religion; he also sees a certain image of the resurrection itself formed in his mind, without which nothing said to have happened bodily can be understood, whether it is believed or not. But, I think, you distinguish how he sees his faith by which he believes, and how he sees that image of the resurrection formed in his mind, which even one who does not believe sees, if he hears of it.

All these things, then, he sees, partly with the body and partly with the mind. But the will of the one from whom he hears that he should believe, and the resurrection of Christ itself, he does not see but believes; and yet he is said to see it by a certain gaze of the mind, according to his faith in the testimonies rather than by the presence of the things believed. For the things he sees are present to the senses of mind or body; but the things he believes are absent from the senses of both mind and body, although the will of the one from whom he hears that he should believe is not past but remains in the speaker. The speaker himself sees it in himself; but the hearer does not see it but believes it. The resurrection of Christ, however, is past, and not even the men who lived then saw it; for those who saw Christ alive, whom they had seen dying, did not see the resurrection itself as it took place, but believed it most surely by seeing and touching alive the one they had known dead. We believe the whole: both that he rose, and that he was then seen and handled by men, and that he now lives in heaven and dies no more, and death no longer has dominion over him. But the thing itself is present neither to the senses of our body, as this sky and earth are present, nor to the gaze of our mind, as the very faith by which we believe it is present.

But I think you have now recognized well enough from this preface of mine what it is to see, whether with the mind or with the body, and how believing differs from these. Believing indeed takes place in the mind and is seen by the mind, since our faith is visible to our mind. And yet what is believed by that same faith is absent both from the sight of our body, as the body in which Christ rose is absent, and from the sight of another’s mind, as your faith is absent from the sight of my mind, although I believe it is in you, since I do not see it with the body, which you cannot either, nor with the mind, which you can, as I can my own, which you cannot. For no one knows what goes on in a man except the spirit of the man that is in him, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the thoughts of the heart, so that each will see not only his own but also those of others. For it was in this sense that the apostle said that no one knows what goes on in a man except the spirit of the man that is in him, in the sense in which we see in ourselves; for in the sense of what we believe without seeing, we both know many people to be believers and are known to many.

If these things have now been distinguished, let us come to the matter. We know that God can be seen, since it is written: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Or perhaps I ought not to have said “we know” but “we believe,” since we have never seen God either with the body, as we see this light, or with the mind, as we see within us the very faith by which we believe this, but we have no doubt at all that it is true only because it is written in that Scripture of which we are believers? Yet the apostle John, when he said something similar, said: “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” See, he said that he knew what had not yet happened and what he had come to know not by seeing but by believing. So we were right to say, “We know that God can be seen,” although we have not seen him but have believed the divine authority contained in the holy books.

What, then, of the same authority’s saying, “No one has ever seen God”? Perhaps the answer is that those testimonies are about God’s being seen in the future, not about his having been seen? For it was said, “they shall see God,” not “they have seen”; and not “we have seen” but “we shall see him as he is.” Therefore “No one has ever seen God” is not contrary to these statements. For those who have wished to be children of God with pure hearts will see him whom they have not seen. What, then, of “I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved”? Is this too not contrary to what was said, “No one has ever seen God”? And what was written of Moses, that he spoke with God face to face, as a man speaks to his friend; and what the prophet Isaiah says of himself, “I saw the Lord of hosts sitting on a throne”; and any other similar testimonies commonly brought forward from the same authority: how are they not contrary to the statement “No one has ever seen God”? And indeed the Gospel itself may be thought to contradict itself. For how is it true, as it says in it, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” if no one has ever seen God? How is it true, “Their angels always see the face of my Father,” if no one has ever seen God?

By what rule of understanding, then, shall we prove that these apparently contrary and conflicting statements are not contrary and do not conflict? For it cannot possibly be that this authority of the Scriptures lies in any part. Suppose we say that in the words “No one has ever seen God” only men are to be understood, as was also said, “No one knows what goes on in a man except the spirit of the man that is in him” (“no one,” that is, of men; for this cannot be taken of God, since it is written of Christ that he had no need for anyone to bear witness to him about man, because he himself knew what was in man; and the apostle explains this more plainly when he says, “whom no one of men has seen or can see”). If, then, “No one has ever seen God” was said as if it were said, “No one of men,” the question will seem solved to this extent: what the Lord said, “Their angels always see the face of my Father,” will not be contrary to that statement, so that we may believe that the angels see God, whom no one, that is, no one of men, has ever seen. How, then, did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Moses, Micaiah, Isaiah, and any others of whom the most truthful Scripture testifies that they saw God, see him, if no one of men has ever seen God or can see him?

And yet some, wishing to prove that even the wicked will see God, think that God was seen even by the devil himself, taking in this sense what is written in the book of Job, that the devil also came with the angels into the presence of God. Thus the further question arises how it was said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” and, “Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will be able to see God.” For I would be very surprised if those who think that the wicked will see God and that God was seen by the devil go so far as to assert that they are both pure in heart and pursue peace and holiness with all.