Recognitions 2.45–2.68

“Be sure, then, that you will not have us as partners in this audacity, nor shall we let ourselves be deceived by you. For it will not help us as an excuse in the judgment if we say that you deceived us, since it could not excuse the first woman either that she wrongly believed the serpent; but because she wrongly believed, she was condemned to death. For this reason Moses too, commending to the people faith in one God, says: ‘Take heed to yourself, lest you be seduced from the Lord your God.’ See that he uses the same word which the first woman used in her excuse, saying that she was seduced; but it profited her nothing. Above all, even if some true prophet were to arise who did signs and wonders, but wished to persuade us to worship other gods besides the God of the Jews, we could never believe him. For so the divine law has taught us, commending a secret saying more purely by tradition. It says: ‘If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives signs or wonders, and those signs or wonders come to pass, and he says to you, Let us go and worship other gods whom you do not know, you shall not hear the words of that prophet nor the dream of that dreamer, because he is testing you, to see whether you love the Lord your God.’”

“For this reason, then, our Lord too, while doing signs and wonders, preached the God of the Jews, and therefore his preaching is rightly believed. But you, even if you were truly a prophet and did signs and wonders, as you promise, and proclaimed other gods besides him who is the true God, it would be plain that you had been raised up as a test for the people of God, and therefore you cannot be believed at all. For there is one true God, who is the God of the Jews; and for this reason our Lord Jesus Christ taught that what must be sought is not God, whom they knew well, but his kingdom and righteousness, which the scribes and Pharisees, having received the key of knowledge, had not shut in but shut out. For if they had been ignorant of the true God, he would surely never have passed over the knowledge of this matter, which was the head of all, to blame them for small and least things—that they enlarged their fringes, claimed the first places at banquets, prayed standing at the crossroads, and other such things—which certainly, compared with this great charge, ignorance of God, seem slight and small.”

And Simon said to this: “From your master's words I will convince you that he too introduces a certain God unknown to all. For though Adam knew God, his creator and the founder of the world, and Enoch, as one translated by him, and Noah, as one commanded by him to build the ark, and with them Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all, every people and all nations, knew the founder of the world and confess him as God, your Jesus, who appeared long after the fathers, says: ‘No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.’ So your Jesus too confesses that there is another God, incomprehensible and unknown to all.”

Then Peter said: “You do not perceive that you are putting forward things contrary to yourself. For if our Jesus too knows this God whom you call unknown, then he is no longer known by you alone. Indeed, if our Jesus knew him, then Moses too, who prophesied that Jesus would come, was without doubt not ignorant of him either; for he was a prophet, and one who prophesied of the Son had without doubt known the Father. For if it is in the will of the Son to reveal the Father to whom he wishes, then the Son, who from the beginning and always was with the Father through every generation, revealed the Father to Moses, and likewise to the other prophets; and if this is so, it is established that the Father was unknown to no one. But to you, who do not believe the Son, how could the Father be revealed, who is known to no one except the one to whom the Son wishes to reveal him? The Son reveals the Father to those who honor the Son as they honor the Father.”

Then Simon said: “Remember that you said God has a son, which is an insult; for how can he have a son unless he undergoes things like men or animals? But now is not the time to refute your profound folly on these matters; for I am hastening to speak of the immensity of the highest light; listen now. I think there is a certain power of immense and ineffable light, whose greatness is held to be incomprehensible, a power of which even the creator of the world is ignorant, and Moses the lawgiver, and your master Jesus.”

Then Peter said: “Does it not seem to you a mark of madness that anyone should wish to assert that there is another God than the God of all, and say, ‘I think there is a certain power,’ and before he himself is certain of what he says, should want to confirm it to others? Is anyone so headlong as to believe your words, in which he sees you yourself doubting, and to admit that there is some power unknown to God the creator, to Moses, to the prophets, to the law, and even to Jesus our master—a power so good that it wishes to be known to no one but one only, and that one such as you? Then, if this power is new, why does it not give us some new sense besides these five that we have, so that by the new sense granted us by it we might grasp and understand that which is new? Or, if it cannot grant this, how did it grant it to you? Or, if it revealed itself to you, why not to us too? But if you understood by yourself what not even the prophets could perceive or understand, come, tell us now what each of us is thinking. For if there is so great a spirit in you that you know the things above the heavens, unknown to all and incomprehensible to all, much more easily do you know human thoughts, which are on earth. But if you cannot know the thoughts of us who stand here, how do you say you know things which you affirm are known to no one?”

“But believe me that you would never know what light is, had you not received from light itself both sight and the understanding of seeing; and so too with the rest. Having received understanding from this source, you devise something greater and more sublime, like a dream, yet taking the occasion from these five senses, to whose giver you are ungrateful. Be sure, however, that until you find some new sense beyond these five which we all use, you will not be able to assert a new God.” And Simon said: “Since all things that exist are grasped by the five senses, that power more eminent than all can add nothing new.” And Peter said: “That is false. For there is another, sixth sense, that of foreknowing; these five senses are capable of knowledge, but the sixth is of foreknowledge, which the prophets had. How, then, can you know a God unknown to all, you who have not known even the prophetic sense, which is that of foreknowledge?” Then Simon began to say: “This power which I call incomprehensible and more eminent than all, even than the God who founded the world, none of the angels knows, nor of the demons, nor of the Jews, nor any creature at all that has come into being from God the creator. For how could the law of the Creator himself teach me what the Creator himself did not know, since the law itself did not know what it should teach?”

And Peter said: “I wonder how you could learn more from the law than the law could teach or know, and how you say you bring from the law proofs of what you wish to assert, when you assert that neither the law knows the things you speak of, nor he who gave the law, that is, the creator of the world. And I wonder at this too: how you, who alone know these things, are standing here now with everyone, enclosed within the narrow bounds of this court.” And Simon, seeing Peter laughing with all the people, said: “Do you laugh, Peter, when the discussion concerns such great and eminent matters?” Then Peter said: “Do not be angry, Simon; for we are doing nothing beyond our promise: we have not stopped our ears, as you said, nor turned to flight as soon as we heard you bring forward ineffable things; we have not even moved from our place. For you bring forward nothing even plausible that could frighten us at all. Or at least open to us the meaning of this saying: how you learned from the law of a God whom the law itself does not know, and of whom he who gave the law is ignorant.” And Simon said: “If you have stopped laughing, I will prove it by clear assertions.” And Peter said: “Why, I will stop, so that I may learn from you how you learned from the law what the law does not know and what the God of the law himself is ignorant of.”

And Simon said: “Listen. It is plain to all, and discovered by a certain ineffable reasoning, that there is one God who is better than all, from whom everything that is took its beginning; hence also all things that are after him are necessarily subject to him, as to the chief and most eminent of all. So when I had learned that this God who had created the world is, according to what the law teaches, weak in many respects—and weakness is far removed from the perfect God—and saw that he is not perfect, I necessarily understood that there is another who is perfect. For this one, as I said, according to what the Scripture of the law teaches, is found to be weak in many respects. First, because the man whom he formed could not remain such as he himself had wished; and because he is not good either, he who gave the first man a law that he should eat of all the trees of paradise but not touch the tree of knowledge, and that if he tasted it he would die. For why should he forbid him to eat and to know what is good and what evil, so that, knowing, he might avoid evil and choose good? But he did not grant this; and because the man tasted contrary to the command and learned what is good, and learned for honor's sake to cover his private parts (for he felt it unseemly to stand before his Creator with them uncovered), he condemns to death the one who had learned to show honor to God, and curses the serpent who had shown him these things. But surely, if man was to be harmed by this, why did he place the cause of harm in paradise at all? And if what he placed in paradise was good, it is not the part of a good being to forbid another from good.”

“So, since he who made man and the world is, according to what the law relates, imperfect, he without doubt gives us to understand another who is perfect. For there must be someone more excellent than all, on whose account every creature keeps its order. Hence I too, knowing that there must by all means be someone kinder and more powerful than him who gave the law, an imperfect god, and understanding from comparison with the imperfect what the perfect is, understood from the Scripture itself that God of whom nothing had been written. And in this way, Peter, I was able to learn from the law what the law did not know. And even if the law had not given indications from which it could be gathered that the God who founded the world is imperfect, it was possible for me to gather it even from the evils that are done in this world and are not corrected: either that its creator is powerless, since he does not correct what is done wrongly, if he cannot; or, if he does not wish to take away evils, that he himself is evil; and if he neither can nor will, that he is neither powerful nor good. And from these it must be gathered that there is another God more excellent and more powerful than all. If you have anything to say to this, do not delay.”

Peter answered: “Such absurdities against God, Simon, are usually devised by those who read the law without teachers handing it on, but have themselves as teachers and think they can understand the law, though it has not been expounded to them by one who learned it from a teacher. Nevertheless now, so that we too may seem to follow the Scripture of the law according to your sense: since you say that the creator of the world is shown to be both powerless and not good, how did you not see that this power of yours too, which you say is more eminent than all, falls under and is liable to the very same reproaches? For it can be said of it in the same way, concerning all the things that are done wrongly here, that either it is powerless, since it does not correct them, or, if it can and will not, it is evil; and if it neither can nor will, it is both powerless and imperfect. Hence this new power of yours is found liable not only to the same fault but to a worse one, if, on top of all this, it is believed to exist when it does not. For as to him who created the world, the very fact that he exists is plain from the work by which he founded the world, as you yourself also confess. But this power, which you say you alone know, offers no indication of itself through which we could perceive even this, that it is and subsists.”

“What sort of thing would it be, then, that we should forsake God, in whose world we live and enjoy everything necessary for life, and follow I know not whom, from whom we not only obtain nothing good, but cannot even know whether he exists—since in fact he does not exist? For whether you call him light, and brighter than this light that we see, you borrow the very name from the creator of the world; or if you call him a substance above all, you take the idea from here with an enlargement of speech; or if you speak of mind, or goodness, or life, or anything else, you borrow the words from here. Since, then, you have nothing new about that power you speak of, not only for understanding it but not even for naming it, how do you introduce a new God, for whom you cannot find even a new name? For not only is the creator of the world called ‘power’, but also the ministers of his glory and the whole heavenly host. Does it not then seem better to you that we follow God our maker, as a father who trains and instructs us as he himself knows? And even if there is, as you say, some God kinder than all, it is certain that he is not angry with us; and if he is angry, he is evil. But our God, if he is angry and punishes, is not evil but just; for he chastises and corrects his own sons. But he who has nothing to do with us—if he should wish to punish us, how will he be good, taking vengeance on us because we did not forsake our father to follow him, drawn by empty suspicions? How, then, can such a one be asserted by you to be good, when he cannot even be understood to be just?”

Then Simon said: “Are you so far astray, Peter, as not to know that our souls are from that good God, more excellent than all, but have been led captive into this world?” And Peter: “Then he is not unknown to all, as you said a little earlier. And yet how did the good God allow the captivity of his souls to take place, if he was a power more powerful than all?” And Simon: “He himself sent the creator God to found the world; but he, when the world had been founded, proclaimed himself God.” And Peter: “Then he is not unknown to him who founded the world, as you said above; nor are the souls ignorant of him, since they were led away from him. To whom, then, will he now be unknown, if both the creator of the world knows him, as one sent by him, according to what you say, and all souls know him, as violently dragged here from him? Then I would like you to tell me: did he who sent the founder of the world not know that the one he sent would not keep faith? If he did not know, he was not foreknowing; but if he foreknew and allowed it, he himself is guilty of this deed, since he did not prevent it; and if he could not, he is not almighty. But if he did not forbid it, knowing it to be good, then the one who presumed to do what the sender did not know to be good is found to be better.”

And Simon said: “He receives those who wish to come to him and does good to them.” And Peter: “Nor is this new; for the one whom you confess as creator of the world does this too.” And Simon: “But the good God grants salvation only if he is known, whereas the founder of the world also requires the law to be fulfilled.” And Peter: “Then he saves even adulterers and murderers if they know him, but the good, the sober, or the merciful, if they receive no indication of him and so do not know him, he does not save! A great and good God you preach, who does not so much save the wicked as show no mercy to the good.” And Simon: “It is indeed a great labor for a man placed in the flesh to know him. For this body by which the soul is surrounded is darker than all darkness and heavier than all clay.” And Peter: “Then this good God of yours seeks what is difficult; but he who is truly God asks what is easier. So let him, as a good God, leave us with our Father and Creator; and when we have departed from the body and left behind this darkness you speak of, then we shall know him more easily, and then the soul will better understand that its creator is God, and will remain with him, and will no longer be wearied by diverse thoughts, nor wish to take refuge in another power, which is known to no one but Simon alone, and which is of such goodness that no one can come to it unless he has first been impious toward his own parent. I do not know how this power can be called either good or just, which no one can please unless he has acted impiously toward him by whom he was made.”

And Simon said: “It is not impious, for the sake of profit and greater gain, to take refuge with him who is of richer glory.” And Peter: “If, as you say, it is not impious to take refuge with a stranger, it is much more pious to remain with one's own father, even if he is poor. Or if you do not think it impious that we should leave our father and take refuge with another as better, and believe that our creator is not angry at this, much more will the good God not be angry that, when we were strangers to him, we did not take refuge with him but remained with our creator. And I think he will praise us the more for this, because we keep faith with God our creator, considering that if we had been his own, we could never have left him and been seduced by others' enticements. For if someone, enticed by richer promises, leaves his own parent and takes refuge with a stranger, it may happen that he will leave him in turn and go to another who has promised greater things, all the more because he was not his own son, since he could leave even the one who was his father by nature.” And Simon: “What if souls are from him, and do not know him, and he is truly their father?”

And Peter said: “You show clearly enough that he is weak. For if, as you say, he is more powerful than all, the weaker must never be believed to have taken spoils from the more powerful. Or, if the creator God could lead souls by force from him into this world, how will the good God call them to punishment when they have been sent out of the body and freed from the bonds of captivity—souls which, through his own negligence or weakness, could be dragged to this place and wrapped in the body as in the darkness of ignorance? You seem to me not to know what Father and God means. I could also tell you whence souls are, and when and how they were made; but it is not lawful to open these things to you now, placed as you are in so great an error about the knowledge of God.” Then Simon said: “There will be a time when you will repent that you did not understand me when I spoke of the ineffable power.” And Peter: “Give us, then, as I have often said, as a new God or as one who has come down from him, some new sense through which we may know the new God you speak of; for these five senses, which God the creator gave us, keep faith with their Creator and do not perceive any other to be God, their very nature affording them this.”

To this Simon said: “Turn your mind to what I am about to say, and make it go by invisible paths to reach the things I shall show you. Listen now: have you never, absorbed in thought, stretched your mind into regions or islands placed far off, and remained so fixed there in spirit that you could not even see those present or know where you were sitting, for the delight of the things before your eyes?” And Peter said: “It is true, Simon; this has often happened to me.” And Simon said: “So now stretch your sense into the heaven, and again above the heaven, and see that there must be some place beyond the world or outside the world, in which there is neither heaven nor earth, nor does any shadow of them produce darkness there; and therefore, since there are no bodies in it and no darkness from bodies, there must necessarily be immense light. And consider what kind of light that can be which no darkness succeeds. For if the light of this sun fills this whole world, how great do you reckon that incorporeal and infinite light to be? So great, without doubt, that this light of the sun seems darkness and not light in comparison with it.”

When Simon said this, Peter answered: “Listen patiently, then, on both points, that is, on the example of stretching out the mind and on the immensity of the light. I know, Simon, that I myself have sometimes, absorbed in thought, stretched my mind into regions, as you say, and islands placed far off, and viewed them with my mind no less than with my eyes. When I was at Capernaum, engaged in fishing, and was sitting on a rock, holding in my hand a hook tied to a line and fitted for deceiving fish, I did not feel the fish that had caught on it, while my mind ran about through Jerusalem, which I longed for, and to which indeed I had often gone up, keeping vigil, for the sake of offerings and prayers. I also used to admire this Caesarea, hearing others speak of it, and to long for it; and I seemed to see it, though I had not yet been in it, and I thought about it what it is fitting to think about a great city—gates, walls, baths, streets, lanes, markets, and the like—according, namely, to what I had seen in other cities; and I so delighted in the intentness of such gazing that truly, as you yourself said, I neither saw the one who was present and standing by, nor knew where I myself was sitting.” And Simon said: “Now you speak rightly.”

And Peter said: “So, occupied in mind, I did not at all feel that I had the very large fish that had caught on the hook, even when it violently snatched the line from my hands; and my brother Andrew, who was sitting with me, seeing me dazed and almost falling, poked my side with his elbow as if waking me from sleep and said: ‘Do you not see, Peter, what a big fish you have caught? Have you gone out of your mind, that you are so dazed and stunned? What is the matter with you? Tell me.’ But I, a little annoyed with him for drawing me away from the sweetness of what I was gazing at, answered that nothing was wrong with me, but that in spirit I was gazing at Jerusalem, which I longed for, and at Caesarea too, and that in body I was with him, but in mind wholly carried away there. But he, inspired I know not whence, uttered a hidden and secret word of truth.”

“‘Stop, Peter,’ he said; ‘what are you doing? For those who begin to be filled with a demon or moved in mind have beginnings of this kind: first they are carried by fantasies to whatever is pleasant and delightful; then they are poured out in vain and empty movements toward things that do not exist. This happens from a certain sickness of the soul, by which they do not see the things that are, but desire to bring before their sight the things that are not. So too it happens to those who suffer from frenzy and seem to themselves to see many images, because their soul, convulsed and moved from its places by excess of cold or heat, suffers a disorder of its natural function. And those who suffer from thirst, when they fall asleep, seem to themselves to see rivers and springs and to drink; this they suffer because they labor under the dryness of an ill-tempered body. Hence it is certain that these things come about from some fault either of soul or of body.’”

“Finally, that you may believe the matter: about Jerusalem, which I had often seen, I told my brother what places and gatherings I had seemed to myself to see. And about Caesarea, which I had never seen, I nonetheless maintained that it was such as I had conceived it in mind and thought. But when I came here and saw nothing at all like the things I had seen in fantasy, I reproached and blamed myself greatly, because I had given it gates and walls and other buildings from others I had seen, really taking the likeness from them. For no one can think of anything new, whose form has never existed. Even if someone wishes to form in his thought bulls with five heads each, he fashions those with five heads from the ones he has seen with one head each. And you too now, if you think you truly see something in your thought and gaze above the heavens, there is no doubt that you consider those things from the ones you see placed on earth. Or if you think your mind has easy access above the heavens, and that you can consider what is there and grasp the knowledge of that immense light, I think it is easier for one who can comprehend those things to cast his mind, which knows how to ascend there, into the heart and breast of one of us standing by, and say what thoughts he has in him. If, then, you can declare the thoughts of the heart of any of us—provided he is not inclined in your favor—we may perhaps believe you that you could also know the things above the heavens, though they are far loftier.”

To this Simon said: “You who have woven many trifles, listen now. It is impossible that anything which has come into a man's thought should not also subsist in fact and truth; for things that do not subsist have no form either, and things that have no form cannot occur to thought.” And Peter said: “If everything that can come into thought subsists, then as to that place of immensity which you say is outside the world: if one man thinks in his heart that it is light, and another that it is darkness, how can one and the same place be both light and darkness, according to those who thought differently about it?” And Simon said: “Leave aside now these things I have said; tell me what you think is above the heavens.”

And Peter said: “If you believed concerning the true source of light, I could teach you what that which is immense is and in what way it is, and I would give not a vain fantasy but a consistent and necessary account of the truth, using not sophistical assertions but the testimonies of the law and of nature, so that you would know that the law especially contains the belief concerning immensity. And if the account of immensity is not hidden from the law, nothing else at all can be hidden from it; and therefore your supposition that there is something the law does not know is false. Much more will nothing be hidden from him who gave the law. Yet I cannot speak to you about immensity and the things that are without end unless you have first either received our account of the heavens, which are bounded by a fixed end, or brought forward your own. But if you cannot understand the things enclosed by fixed bounds, much less will you be able to know or learn anything about the things that are without end.”

To this Simon said: “It seems better to me simply to believe that God exists, and that this heaven which we see is the only heaven in the whole universe.” And Peter said: “Not so; but it is fitting to confess one God who truly is, and that there are heavens made by him, as the law also says, of which one heaven is higher, by which the visible firmament also is contained; that that one is perpetual and eternal, with those who dwell there; but that this visible one is to be dissolved and to pass away at the consummation of the age, so that that heaven which is older and higher may appear after the judgment to the saints and the worthy.” To this Simon answered: “That these things are as you say may seem so to believers; but for one who looks for the reasons of these things, it is impossible to bring them forward from the law, and especially concerning the immensity of light.”