On True Religion 35–44

But if the gaze of the mind trembles at beholding these things, be still; do not struggle except with the habit of bodies: conquer that, and all will be conquered. We seek the One, than which nothing is simpler. So let us seek him in simplicity of heart. “Be still,” it says, “and you will know that I am the Lord”: not the stillness of sloth, but the stillness of thought, so that it is free from places and times. For these phantasms of swelling and of revolving do not allow us to see the constant unity. Places offer what we may love, times steal away what we love, and leave in the soul crowds of phantasms by which desire is roused toward one thing after another. So the mind becomes restless and full of trouble, longing in vain to hold the things by which it is held. It is called, then, to stillness, that is, not to love those things which cannot be loved without labor. For so it will rule them; so it will not be held but will hold. “My yoke,” he says, “is light.” Whoever is subject to this yoke has all else subject to him. So he will not labor; for what is subject does not resist. But the wretched friends of this world, whose masters they would be if they willed to be sons of God, since he gave them power to become sons of God, these friends of this world fear so much to be separated from its embrace that nothing is more laborious to them than not to labor.

But whoever sees at least this clearly, that falsity is that by which something is thought to be what it is not, understands that truth is that which shows what is. And if bodies deceive so far as they do not fulfill that One which they are shown to imitate (that Principle by which whatever is is one, and whatever strives toward whose likeness we naturally approve, because we naturally disapprove whatever departs from unity and tends toward its unlikeness), it is given us to understand that there is something which is so like that sole One, the Principle by which whatever is in any way one is one, that it wholly fulfills it and is the very same; and this is the Truth, and the Word in the Beginning, and the Word God with God. For if falsity comes from things that imitate the One, not insofar as they imitate it but insofar as they cannot fulfill it, that is the Truth which could fulfill it and be what that One is; it is that which shows it as it is: whence it is most rightly called its Word and its Light. Other things can be called like that One insofar as they are, for to that extent they are also true; but this is its very Likeness, and therefore the Truth. For as true things are true by truth, so whatever things are like are like by likeness. As truth, then, is the form of true things, so likeness is the form of like things. Therefore, since true things are true insofar as they are, and are insofar as they are like the principal One, that is the form of all things that are which is the supreme likeness of the Principle; and it is Truth, because it is without any unlikeness. Whence falsity arises, not from the things themselves deceiving, which show to the perceiver nothing but their own form, which they received according to the degree of their beauty; nor from the senses themselves deceiving, which, affected according to the nature of their body, report to the presiding mind nothing but their own affections; but sins deceive souls when they seek the true having abandoned and neglected the truth. For since they loved the works more than the artificer and the art itself, they are punished with this error, that they seek the artificer and the art in the works; and when they cannot find them (for God is not subject to the bodily senses, but transcends the mind itself), they think the works themselves are both the art and the artificer.

From this arises all impiety, not only of those who sin but also of those condemned for their sins. For not only do they wish to search into the creature contrary to God's precept, and to enjoy it rather than the law and truth itself (which is found to be the sin of the first man, misusing free choice), but in their very condemnation they add this too: that they not only love but also serve the creature rather than the Creator, and worship it in its parts, coming down from the highest to the lowest. Some keep themselves at this, that they worship in place of the supreme God the soul, and the first intellectual creature, which the Father made through the Truth to behold the Truth itself always, and itself through it, because it is in every way most like it. Then they come to the generative life, through which creature the eternal and unchangeable God works the begetting of visible and temporal things. From there they slip down to worshiping animals, and thence bodies themselves; and among these they first choose the more beautiful, among which the heavenly ones especially excel. So first the body of the sun presents itself, and some stop at it. Some think the brightness of the moon too worthy of worship: for it is, as is said, nearer to us; whence it is felt to have a nearer form. Others add the bodies of the other stars too, and the whole sky with its stars. Others join the air to the ethereal sky, and subject their souls to these two higher bodily elements. But among these, those seem to themselves most religious who think the whole creation together, that is, the whole world with all that is in it, and the life by which it breathes and is animated, which some believed bodily, others incorporeal: this whole together they think to be one great God, of whom the other things are parts. For they did not know the author and founder of the whole creation. Thence they are cast headlong into idols, and are sunk from the works of God down to their own works, which however are still visible.

For there is another worse and lower worship of images, by which men worship their own phantasms, and whatever they have imagined in thought with an erring mind, through pride or swelling, they observe under the name of religion, until it comes about in the soul that nothing at all is to be worshiped, and that men err who wrap themselves in superstition and entangle themselves in wretched servitude. But they think this in vain: for they do not bring it about that they do not serve; for the very vices remain by which they were drawn to think such things worthy of worship. For they serve a threefold desire: of pleasure, of excellence, or of spectacle. I deny that there is any of those who think nothing is to be worshiped who is not either subject to carnal joys, or cherishes vain power, or raves with delight in some spectacle. So, without knowing it, they love temporal things, so as to expect happiness from them. And to the things by which anyone wishes to be made happy he must be a slave, willing or not. For wherever they lead, he follows; and whoever seems able to take them away is feared. And a spark of fire and some small creature can take these away. Finally, to pass over countless adversities, time itself must take away all passing things. So, since this world encloses all temporal things, those who think nothing is to be worshiped, lest they serve, are slaves to all the parts of the world.

Yet although they lie wretched at this extremity of things, letting their vices rule them, condemned either by lust, or pride, or curiosity, or two of these, or all, as long as they are in this race-course of human life they may engage and conquer, if they first believe what they cannot yet understand, and do not love the world; for “all that is in the world,” as was divinely said, “is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world.” In this way those three are marked: for ‘the lust of the flesh’ signifies the lovers of the lowest pleasure; ‘the lust of the eyes,’ the curious; ‘the ambition of the world,’ the proud. A threefold temptation, too, was shown to be guarded against in the man whom Truth itself took up. “Tell these stones,” says the tempter, “to become bread.” But that one and only Teacher said: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” So he taught that the desire for pleasure must be tamed so that one should not yield even to hunger. But perhaps he who could not be deceived by the pleasure of the flesh could be by the pride of temporal domination; so all the kingdoms of the world were shown him, and it was said: “All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me.” To which the answer was: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” So pride was trampled. And there was presented the last allurement too, that of curiosity: for he urged him to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple for no other reason than to test something. But here too he was not conquered, and so he answered in such a way that we might understand that there is no need, in order to know God, of temptations that try to explore divine things visibly: “You shall not tempt,” he said, “the Lord your God.” Therefore whoever is fed inwardly by the word of God does not seek pleasure in this desert. Whoever is subject to the one God alone does not seek boasting on the mountain, that is, in earthly elevation. Whoever cleaves to the eternal spectacle of unchangeable truth is not cast down through the pinnacle of this body, that is, through these eyes, to know temporal and lower things.

What then remains from which the soul cannot recall the first beauty which it abandoned, when it can do so even from its own vices? For so the Wisdom of God reaches from end to end mightily. So through it that supreme Artificer wove his works together, ordered to one end of beauty. So that goodness, from the highest to the lowest, begrudged no beauty which could come from him alone; so that no one is cast down from truth itself who is not received by some image of truth. Ask what holds you in bodily pleasure: you will find nothing else but harmony; for if things in conflict produce pain, things in harmony produce pleasure. Recognize, then, what is the supreme harmony. Do not go outside; return into yourself; truth dwells in the inner man; and if you find your nature changeable, transcend yourself too. But remember, when you transcend yourself, that you are transcending a reasoning soul. So strive toward that from which the very light of reason is kindled. For where does every good reasoner arrive but at truth? Truth certainly does not arrive at itself by reasoning, but is itself what reasoners seek. See there a harmony than which there can be no higher, and come into harmony with it yourself. Confess that you are not what it is; for it does not seek itself, but you have come to it by seeking, not by distance of places but by the affection of the mind, so that the inner man may come into harmony with his indweller, not with the lowest and carnal pleasure but with the highest and spiritual. Or if you do not perceive what I say and doubt whether it is true, perceive at least whether you do not doubt that you doubt about these things; and if it is certain that you doubt, ask whence it is certain: there the light of this sun will not meet you at all, but “the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world.” This cannot be seen with these eyes, nor with those by which phantasms are thought, impressed on the soul through these same eyes; but with those by which it is said to the phantasms themselves: You are not what I seek, nor are you that by which I put you in order; and what meets me as foul among you, I disapprove; what is beautiful, I approve; though that by which I disapprove and approve is more beautiful; therefore I approve this itself more, and prefer it not only to you but to all those bodies from which I drew you. Then conceive the rule itself which you see in this way: Everyone who understands that he doubts understands something true, and is certain about this thing which he understands: so he is certain about something true. Everyone, then, who doubts whether there is truth has in himself something true about which he does not doubt; and nothing true is true except by truth. So he who could doubt about everything else ought not to doubt about truth. Where these things are seen, there is light without spaces of places and times, and without any phantasm of such spaces. Can these things be corrupted in any part, even if every reasoner perishes or grows old among the carnal dead below? For reasoning does not make such things but finds them. So before they are found they remain in themselves, and when they are found they renew us.

So the inner man is reborn, and the outer is corrupted day by day. But the inner looks at the outer and sees it foul in comparison with itself; yet beautiful in its own kind and rejoicing in the harmony of bodies, and corrupting what it turns to its own good, namely the food of the flesh: which, once corrupted, that is, losing their own form, pass into the structure of these members, and restore what is corrupted, passing into another form through harmony; and by the vital motion they are in a way sorted, so that from them what is fit is taken into the structure of this visible beauty, while what is unfit is expelled through suitable passages. Of these, the foulest part is returned to the earth to take on other forms, another part is exhaled through the whole body, another receives the hidden numbers of the whole animal and begins to become offspring, and, moved either by the union of two bodies or by some such phantasm, flows down through the generative passages from the very head in the lowest pleasure. Then in the mother, through fixed numbers of times, it is fitted into the numbers of places, so that each member occupies its own regions; and if they keep the measure of symmetry, with the light of color added, a body is born which is called beautiful, and is loved most ardently by its lovers: yet in it the form which is moved does not please more than the life which moves it. For if that living being loves us, it attracts us more violently; but if it hates us, we are angered and cannot bear it, even if it offers its very form to be enjoyed. This whole is the kingdom of pleasure, and the lowest beauty; for it is subject to corruption: and if it were not, it would be thought the highest. But divine providence is present, to show it to be not evil, because of such manifest traces of the first numbers, in which the wisdom of God has no number; and yet to be the lowest, by mixing with it pains and diseases and distortions of limbs, and darkness of color, and animosities and dissensions of minds, so that we may be admonished by these that something unchangeable must be sought. And it does this through the lowest ministers, for whom to do this is a pleasure; whom the divine Scriptures call destroyers and angels of wrath, though they themselves do not know what good is done through them. Like them are men who rejoice in others' miseries, and provide themselves with laughter and amusing spectacles, or want them provided, from the ruin and errors of others. And so in all these things the good are admonished, exercised, conquer, triumph and reign. But the wicked are deceived, tortured, conquered, condemned and serve; not the one supreme Lord of all, but the lowest servants, namely those angels who feed on the pains and misery of the condemned, and for that malevolence are tormented by the liberation of the good.

So all are ordered by their offices and ends into the beauty of the universe, so that what we shudder at in the part pleases very much if we consider it with the whole: because neither in judging a building should we consider only one corner, nor in a beautiful man only the hair, nor in one who speaks well only the movement of the fingers, nor in the course of the moon only the shapes of some three days. For these things, which are lowest precisely because they are perfect as wholes with imperfect parts, whether they are perceived as beautiful at rest or in motion, must be considered as wholes if we wish to judge rightly. For our judgment, if true, whether it judges of the whole or of a part, is beautiful: for it is raised above the whole world, and insofar as we judge truly, we cling to no part of it. But our error, clinging to a part of it, is itself foul in itself. But as a black color in a picture becomes beautiful with the whole, so the unchangeable divine providence fittingly presents this whole contest, assigning one thing to the conquered, another to those striving, another to the victors, another to the spectators, another to those at rest and contemplating God alone: since in all these there is no evil but sin and the punishment of sin, that is, a voluntary falling away from the supreme essence, and an involuntary toil among the lowest things; which can be said in another way thus: freedom from justice and slavery under sin.

The outer man is corrupted either by the progress of the inner, or by his own defect. But by the progress of the inner he is corrupted in such a way that he is wholly re-formed for the better, and restored to wholeness at the last trumpet, so that he is no longer corrupted nor corrupts. By his own defect, however, he is cast headlong into more corruptible beauties, that is, into the order of punishments. Nor should we wonder that I still call them beauties: for nothing is ordered which is not beautiful; and, as the Apostle says, all order is from God. We must admit that a weeping man is better than a happy worm: and yet I could speak copiously in praise of a worm without any lie, considering the brightness of its color, the smooth roundness of its body, the front parts fitting the middle and the middle the hind, striving for unity according to the lowliness of its nature; nothing formed on one side that does not correspond on the other with equal measure. What shall I say of the soul itself animating its little body: how it moves it rhythmically, how it seeks what suits it, how it overcomes or avoids obstacles as far as it can, and, referring all things to the one sense of its safety, suggests much more clearly than the body that unity which is the founder of all natures? I am speaking of any living worm whatever. Very many have spoken most truly and abundantly in praise of ashes and dung. What wonder then if I say that the soul of man, which, wherever it is and whatever it is like, is better than every body, is beautifully ordered, and that other beauties come from its punishments, since, when it is miserable, it is not where it is fitting for the happy to be, but where it is fitting for the miserable to be? Let no one deceive us at all. Whatever is rightly blamed is rejected in comparison with something better. But every nature, however last, however lowest, is rightly praised in comparison with nothing. And no one is well off if he can be better off. So if we can be well off with truth itself, we are badly off with any trace of truth whatever: much worse, then, with the last of traces, when we cling to the pleasures of the flesh. Let us conquer, then, either the caresses or the vexations of this desire; let us subjugate this woman to ourselves, if we are men. With us as leaders she too will be better, and will no longer be called desire but temperance. For when she leads and we follow, she is called desire and lust, and we rashness and folly. Let us follow Christ our head, so that she too may follow us, whose head we are. This can be commanded to women too, not by marital but by fraternal right; by which right in Christ we are neither male nor female. For they too have something manly by which they may subjugate feminine pleasures, by which they may serve Christ and command desire. This is manifest in many widows and virgins of God, and in many married women too who now keep the rights of marriage in a fraternal way, in the dispensation of the Christian people. But if by that part which God commands us to rule, and which he both exhorts and helps us to recover as our possession, if, then, by this part the man, that is, mind and reason, has been subjugated through negligence and impiety, the man will indeed be foul and miserable; but he is destined in this life, and after this life ordered, where that supreme Ruler and Lord judges he should be destined and ordered. So the universal creation is permitted to be stained by no foulness.

Let us walk, then, while we have the day, that is, while we can use reason, so that, turned to God, we may deserve to be enlightened by his Word, which is the true light, lest the darkness overtake us. For the day is the presence of that light which enlightens every man coming into this world. He said ‘man,’ because man can use reason, and where he fell, there lean in order to rise. If, then, the pleasure of the flesh is loved, let it be considered more carefully; and when the traces of certain numbers have been recognized there, it must be asked where they are without swelling. For there what is is more one. And if such numbers are in the very vital motion which works in seeds, they are more to be wondered at there than in the body. For if the numbers of seeds swelled like the seeds themselves, from half a fig seed half a tree would be born, and from animal seeds that are not whole, whole and entire animals would not be produced, nor would so tiny a single seed have the countless power of its own kind. For from one, according to its nature, crops of crops, forests of forests, flocks of flocks, peoples of peoples can be propagated through the ages, so that there is not a leaf or a hair, through so numerous a succession, whose principle was not in that first and one seed. Then we must consider how rhythmic, how sweet the beauties of sounds which the struck air carries when the nightingale sings, which the soul of that little bird would not produce so freely, whenever it pleased, unless it had them impressed incorporeally by vital motion. This can be noticed in the other animals too, which, lacking reason, do not lack sense. For there is none of them which does not produce something rhythmic and measured in its kind, either in the sound of its voice or in the other motion and activity of its members, not by any knowledge, but by the inmost bounds of nature, measured by that unchangeable law of numbers.

Let us return to ourselves, and leave those things which we have in common with trees and beasts. For the swallow builds its nest in one way, and each kind of bird in some one way of its own. What is it, then, in us by which we judge about all of them, what shapes they seek and how far they fulfill them, and by which we ourselves, as masters of all such shapes, devise countless things in buildings and other bodily works? What is it in us that understands inwardly that these visible masses of bodies are great or small by proportion; and that every body, however small, has a half, and if a half, countless parts: so that every grain of millet is as great to a part of itself of the size that our body holds in this world as the world is to us; and that this whole world is beautiful by the principle of its figures, not by its mass; and that it seems great not by its own quantity but by our smallness, that is, of the animals with which it is full; which again, since they too can be divided infinitely, are so small not in themselves but in comparison with others, and above all with the universe itself? Nor is there another principle in spaces of time; for as every length of place, so every length of time has a half of itself: for however short it is, it begins, proceeds and ends. So it cannot but have a half, since it is divided where it passes to its end. And by this the time of a short syllable is short compared with a longer one, and a winter hour compared with a summer hour is shorter. So the duration of an hour relative to a day, a day to a month, a month to a year, a year to a lustrum, a lustrum to greater cycles, and these referred to the whole of time, are short; while that very rhythmic succession and a certain gradation, whether of spaces of place or of time, is judged beautiful not by swelling or duration but by ordered harmony.

The measure of order itself lives in perpetual truth, neither vast in mass nor revolving in extension; but great in power above all places, unmoved in eternity above all times; without which, however, neither can the vastness of any mass be brought to unity, nor the extension of any time be kept from straying, nor anything be either a body so as to be a body, or a motion so as to be a motion. It is the one principal thing, neither thick through finite nor infinite extent, nor changeable through finite or infinite duration. For it does not have one thing here and another elsewhere, or one thing now and another later: because supremely one is the Father of Truth, the Father of his Wisdom, which, in no part unlike, is called his likeness and image, because it is from him. So the Son too is rightly said to be ‘from him,’ other things ‘through him.’ For the form of all things went before, supremely fulfilling the One from whom it is, so that the other things that are, insofar as they are like the One, should be made through that form.

Of these, some are through it in such a way that they are also toward it, like every rational and intellectual creature, among which man is most rightly said to be made to the image and likeness of God: for otherwise he could not behold unchangeable truth with the mind. Others are made through it in such a way that they are not toward it. And so, if the rational soul serves its Creator, by whom it was made, through whom it was made, and toward whom it was made, all other things will serve it: both the lowest life, which is so near to it and is its helper, through which it rules the body; and the body itself, the last nature and essence, over which, yielding in every way, it will rule at will, feeling no trouble from it; because it will no longer seek happiness from it or through it, but will receive it from God through itself. So it will govern the body re-formed and sanctified, without the loss of corruption and without the burden of difficulty. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but will be like the angels in heaven.” “Food is for the belly and the belly for food: but God will destroy both the one and the other”; since “the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy.”