Chapter 4.—God Must First Be Known by an Unerring Faith, that He May Be Loved.

6. But it is by love that we must stand firm to this and cleave to this, in order that we may enjoy the presence of that by which we are, and in the absence of which we could not be at all. For as “we walk as yet by faith, and not by sight,”660    2 Cor. v. 7 we certainly do not yet see God, as the same [apostle] saith, “face to face:”661    1 Cor. xiii. 12 whom however we shall never see, unless now already we love. But who loves what he does not know? For it is possible something may be known and not loved: but I ask whether it is possible that what is not known can be loved; since if it cannot, then no one loves God before he knows Him. And what is it to know God except to behold Him and steadfastly perceive Him with the mind? For He is not a body to be searched out by carnal eyes. But before also that we have power to behold and to perceive God, as He can be beheld and perceived, which is permitted to the pure in heart; for “blessed are the pure in heart. for they shall see God;”662    Matt. v. 8 except He is loved by faith, it will not be possible for the heart to be cleansed, in order that it may be apt and meet to see Him. For where are there those three, in order to build up which in the mind the whole apparatus of the divine Scriptures has been raised up, namely Faith, Hope, and Charity,663    1 Cor. xiii. 13 except in a mind believing what it does not yet see, and hoping and loving what it believes? Even He therefore who is not known, but yet is believed, can be loved. But indisputably we must take care, lest the mind believing that which it does not see, feign to itself something which is not, and hope for and love that which is false. For in that case, it will not be charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment, as the same apostle says.664    1 Tim. i. 5

7. But it must needs be, that, when by reading or hearing of them we believe in any corporeal things which we have not seen, the mind frames for itself something under bodily features and forms, just as it may occur to our thoughts; which either is not true, or even if it be true, which can most rarely happen, yet this is of no benefit to us to believe in by faith, but it is useful for some other purpose, which is intimated by means of it. For who is there that reads or hears what the Apostle Paul has written, or what has been written of him, that does not imagine to himself the countenance both of the apostle himself, and of all those whose names are there mentioned? And whereas, among such a multitude of men to whom these books are known, each imagines in a different way those bodily features and forms, it is assuredly uncertain which it is that imagines them more nearly and more like the reality. Nor, indeed, is our faith busied therein with the bodily countenance of those men; but only that by the grace of God they so lived and so acted as that Scripture witnesses: this it is which it is both useful to believe, and which must not be despaired of, and must be sought. For even the countenance of our Lord Himself in the flesh is variously fancied by the diversity of countless imaginations, which yet was one, whatever it was. Nor in our faith which we have of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that wholesome which the mind imagines for itself, perhaps far other than the reality, but that which we think of man according to his kind: for we have a notion of human nature implanted in us, as it were by rule, according to which we know forthwith, that whatever such thing we see is a man or the form of a man.

CAPUT IV.

6. Deus prius fide non errante cognoscendus, ut amari possit. Sed dilectione standum est ad illud et inhaerendum illi, ut praesente perfruamur a quo sumus, quo absente nec esse possemus. Cum enim per fidem adhuc ambulamus, non per speciem (II Cor. V, 7), nondum utique videmus Deum, sicut idem ait, facie ad faciem (I Cor. XIII, 12): quem tamen nisi nunc jam diligamus, nunquam videbimus. Sed quis diligit quod ignorat? Sciri enim aliquid et non diligi potest: diligi autem quod nescitur, quaero utrum possit; quia si non potest, nemo diligit Deum antequam sciat. Et quid est Deum scire, nisi eum mente conspicere, firmeque percipere? Non enim corpus est, ut carneis oculis inquiratur. Sed et priusquam valeamus conspicere atque percipere Deum, sicut conspici et percipi potest, quod mundicordibus licet; Beati enim mundicordes, quia ipsi Deum videbunt (Matth. V, 8): nisi per fidem diligatur, non poterit cor mundari, quo ad eum videndum sit aptum et idoneum. Ubi sunt enim illa tria, propter quae in animo aedificanda omnium divinorum Librorum machinamenta consurgunt, fides, spes, charitas (I Cor. XIII, 13); nisi in animo credente quod nondum videt, et sperante atque amante quod credit? Amatur ergo et qui ignoratur; sed tamen creditur. Nimirum autem cavendum est, ne credens animus id quod non videt, fingat sibi aliquid quod non est, et speret diligatque quod falsum est. Quod si fit, non erit charitas de corde puro et conscientia bona et fide non ficta, quae finis praecepti est, sicut idem apostolus dicit (I Tim. I, 5).

7. Necesse est autem, cum aliqua corporalia lecta vel audita quae non vidimus, credimus, fingat sibi aliquid animus in lineamentis formisque corporum, sicut occurrerit cogitanti, quod aut verum non sit, aut etiam si verum est, quod rarissime potest accidere: non hoc tamen fide ut teneamus quidquam prodest, sed ad aliud aliquid utile, quod per hoc insinuatur. Quis enim legentium vel audientium quae scripsit apostolus Paulus, vel quae de illo scripta sunt, non fingat animo et ipsius Apostoli faciem, et omnium quorum ibi nomina commemorantur? Et cum in tanta hominum multitudine quibus illae Litterae notae sunt, alius aliter lincamenta figuramque illorum corporum cogitet, quis propinquius et similius cogitet, utique incertum est. Neque ibi occupatur fides nostra, qua facie corporis fuerint illi homines; sed tantum quia per Dei gratiam ita vixerunt, et ea gesserunt quae Scriptura illa testatur: hoc et utile est credere, et non desperandum, et appetendum. Nam et ipsius Dominicae facies carnis, innumerabilium cogitationum diversitate variatur et fingitur, quae tamen una erat, quaecumque erat. Neque in fide nostra quam de Domino Jesu Christo habemus, illud salubre est quod sibi animus fingit, longe fortasse aliter quam res se habet, sed illud quod secundum speciem de homine 0952 cogitamus: habemus enim quasi regulariter infixam humanae naturae notitiam, secundum quam quidquid tale aspicimus, statim hominem esse cognoscimus vel hominis formam.