Chapter 14.—The Mind Loves God in Rightly Loving Itself; And If It Love Not God, It Must Be Said to Hate Itself. Even a Weak and Erring Mind is Always Strong in Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Itself. Let It Be Turned to God, that It May Be Blessed by Remembering, Understanding, and Loving Him.

18. But there are yet more testimonies in the divine Scriptures concerning the love of God. For in it, those other two [namely, memory and understanding] are understood by consequence, inasmuch as no one loves that which he does not remember, or of which he is wholly ignorant. And hence is that well known and primary commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.”883    Deut. vi. 5 The human mind, then, is so constituted, that at no time does it not remember, and understand, and love itself. But since he who hates any one is anxious to injure him, not undeservedly is the mind of man also said to hate itself when it injures itself. For it wills ill to itself through ignorance, in that it does not think that what it wills is prejudicial to it; but it none the less does will ill to itself, when it wills what would be prejudicial to it. And hence it is written, “He that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul.”884    Ps. xi. 5 He, therefore, who knows how to love himself, loves God; but he who does not love God, even if he does love himself,—a thing implanted in him by nature,—yet is not unsuitably said to hate himself, inasmuch as he does that which is adverse to himself, and assails himself as though he were his own enemy. And this is no doubt a terrible delusion, that whereas all will to profit themselves, many do nothing but that which is most pernicious to themselves. When the poet was describing a like disease of dumb animals, “May the gods,” says he, “grant better things to the pious, and assign that delusion to enemies. They were rending with bare teeth their own torn limbs.”885    Virg. Georg. iii. 513–514. Since it was a disease of the body he was speaking of, why has he called it a delusion, unless because, while nature inclines every animal to take all the care it can of itself, that disease was such that those animals rent those very limbs of theirs which they desired should be safe and sound? But when the mind loves God, and by consequence, as has been said remembers and understands Him, then it is rightly enjoined also to love its neighbor as itself; for it has now come to love itself rightly and not perversely when it loves God, by partaking of whom that image not only exists, but is also renewed so as to be no longer old, and restored so as to be no longer defaced, and beatified so as to be no longer unhappy. For although it so love itself, that, supposing the alternative to be proposed to it, it would lose all things which it loves less than itself rather than perish; still, by abandoning Him who is above it, in dependence upon whom alone it could guard its own strength, and enjoy Him as its light, to whom it is sung in the Psalm, “I will guard my strength in dependence upon Thee,”886    Ps. lix. 9 and again, “Draw near to Him, and be enlightened,”887    Ps. xxxiv. 5—it has been made so weak and so dark, that it has fallen away unhappily from itself too, to those things that are not what itself is, and which are beneath itself, by affections that it cannot conquer, and delusions from which it sees no way to return. And hence, when by God’s mercy now penitent, it cries out in the Psalms, “My strength faileth me; as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.”888    Ps. xxxviii. 10

19. Yet, in the midst of these evils of weakness and delusion, great as they are, it could not lose its natural memory, understanding and love of itself. And therefore what I quoted above889    C. 4. can be rightly said, “Although man walketh in an image, surely he is disquieted in vain: he heapeth up treasures, and knoweth not who shall gather them.”890    Ps. xxxix. 6 For why does he heap up treasures, unless because his strength has deserted him, through which he would have God, and so lack nothing? And why cannot he tell for whom he shall gather them, unless because the light of his eyes is taken from him? And so he does not see what the Truth saith, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?”891    Luke xii. 20 Yet because even such a man walketh in an image, and the man’s mind has remembrance, understanding, and love of itself; if it were made plain to it that it could not have both, while it was permitted to choose one and lose the other, viz. either the treasures it has heaped up, or the mind; who is so utterly without mind, as to prefer to have the treasures rather than the mind? For treasures commonly are able to subvert the mind, but the mind that is not subverted by treasures can live more easily and unencumberedly without any treasures. But who will be able to possess treasures unless it be by means of the mind? For if an infant, born as rich as you please, although lord of everything that is rightfully his, yet possesses nothing if his mind be unconscious, how can any one possibly possess anything whose mind is wholly lost? But why say of treasures, that anybody, if the choice be given him, prefers going without them to going without a mind; when there is no one that prefers, nay, no one that compares them, to those lights of the body, by which not one man only here and there, as in the case of gold, but every man, possesses the very heaven? For every one possesses by the eyes of the body whatever he gladly sees. Who then is there, who, if he could not keep both, but must lose one, would not rather lose his treasures than his eyes? And yet if it were put to him on the same condition, whether he would rather lose eyes than mind, who is there with a mind that does not see that he would rather lose the former than the latter? For a mind without the eyes of the flesh is still human, but the eyes of the flesh without a mind are bestial. And who would not rather be a man, even though blind in fleshly sight, than a beast that can see?

20. I have said thus much, that even those who are slower of understanding, to whose eyes or ears this book may come, might be admonished, however briefly, how greatly even a weak and erring mind loves itself, in wrongly loving and pursuing things beneath itself. Now it could not love itself if it were altogether ignorant of itself, i.e. if it did not remember itself, nor understand itself by which image of God within itself it has such power as to be able to cleave to Him whose image it is. For it is so reckoned in the order, not of place, but of natures, as that there is none above it save Him. When, finally, it shall altogether cleave to Him, then it will be one spirit, as the apostle testifies, saying, “But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit.”892    1 Cor. vi. 17 And this by its drawing near to partake of His nature, truth, and blessedness, yet not by His increasing in His own nature, truth and blessedness. In that nature, then, when it happily has cleaved to it, it will live unchangeably, and will see as unchangeable all that it does see. Then, as divine Scripture promises, “His desire will be satisfied with good things,”893    Ps. ciii. 5 good things unchangeable,—the very Trinity itself, its own God, whose image it is. And that it may not ever thenceforward suffer wrong, it will be in the hidden place of His presence,894    Ps. xxxi. 20 filled with so great fullness of Him, that sin thenceforth will never delight it. But now, when it sees itself, it sees something not unchangeable.

CAPUT XIV.

18. Mens se recte diligendo diligit Deum, quem si non diligat, se ipsam odisse dicenda est. Mens etiam infirma et errans pollet semper memoria et intellectu et amore sui. Ad Deum convertatur, ut ipsius recordando, eumque intelligendo et diligendo beata sit. De dilectione autem Dei plura reperiuntur in divinis eloquiis testimonia. Ibi enim et illa duo consequenter intelliguntur, quia nemo diligit cujus non meminit, et quod penitus nescit. Unde illud est notissimum praecipuumque praeceptum: Diliges Dominum Deum tuum (Deut. VI, 5). Sic itaque condita est mens humana, ut nunquam sui non meminerit, nunquam se non intelligat, nunquam se non diligat. Sed quoniam qui odit aliquem, nocere illi studet; non immerito et mens hominis, quando sibi nocet, odisse se dicitur. Nesciens enim sibi vult male, dum non putat sibi obesse quod vult: sed tamen male sibi vult, quando id vult quod obsit sibi, unde illud scriptum est, Qui 1050 diligit iniquitatem, odit animam suam (Psal. X, 6). Qui ergo se diligere novit, Deum diligit: qui vero non diligit Deum, etiam si se diligit, quod ei naturaliter inditum est, tamen non inconvenienter odisse se dicitur, cum id agit quod sibi adversatur, et se ipsum tanquam suus inimicus insequitur. Qui profecto est error horrendus, ut cum sibi omnes prodesse velint, multi non faciant nisi quod eis perniciosissimum sit. Similem morbum mutorum animalium cum poeta describeret: Di (inquit) meliora piis, erroremque hostibus illum! Discissos nudis laniabant dentibus artus. (Virgil. Georg. lib. 3, vers. 513, 514.)Cum morbus ille corporis fuerit, cur dixit errorem, nisi quia omne animal cum sibi natura conciliatum sit ut se custodiat quantum potest, talis ille erat morbus, ut ea quorum salutem appetebant, sua membra laniarent? Cum autem Deum diligit mens, et sicut dictum est, consequenter ejus meminit, eumque intelligit, recte illi de proximo suo praecipitur, ut eum sicut se diligat. Jam enim se non diligit perverse, sed recte, cum Deum diligit, cujus participatione imago illa non solum est, verum etiam ex vetustate renovatur, ex deformitate reformatur, ex infelicitate beatificatur. Quamvis enim se ita diligat, ut si alterutrum proponatur, malit omnia quae infra se diligit perdere, quam perire: tamen superiorem deserendo, ad quem solum posset custodire fortitudinem suam, eoque frui lumine suo, cui canitur in Psalmo, Fortitudinem meam ad te custodiam (Psal. LVIII, 10); et in alio, Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini (Psal. XXXIII, 6); sic infirma et tenebrosa facta est, ut a se quoque ipsa, in ea quae non sunt quod ipsa, et quibus superior est ipsa, infelicius laberetur per amores quos non valet vincere, et errores a quibus non videt qua redire. Unde jam Deo miserante poenitens clamat in Psalmis: Deseruit me fortitudo mea, et lumen oculorum meorum non est mecum (Psal. XXXVII, 11).

19. Non tamen in his tantis infirmitatis et erroris malis amittere potuit naturalem memoriam, intellectum, et amorem sui: propter quod merito dici potuit quod supra commemoravi (Cap. 4), Quanquam in imagine ambulat homo, tamen vane conturbatur. Thesaurizat, et nescit cui congregabit ea (Psal. XXXVIII, 7). Cur enim thesaurizat, nisi quia fortitudo ejus deseruit eum, per quam Deum habens, rei nullius indigeret? Et cur nescit cui congregabit ea, nisi quia lumen oculorum ejus non est cum eo? Et ideo non videt quod Veritas ait: Stulte, hac nocte animam tuam repetunt abs te; haec quae praeparasti cujus erunt (Luc. XII, 20)? Verumtamen, quia etiam talis in imagine ambulat homo, et habet memoriam, et intellectum, et amorem sui, hominis mens: si ei manifestaretur quod utrumque habere non posset, et unum e duobus permitteretur eligere, alterum perditurus, aut thesauros quos congregavit, aut mentem; quis usque adeo non habet mentem, ut thesauros mallet habere quam mentem? Thesauri enim mentem possunt plerumque subvertere: at mens quae non thesauris 1051 subvertitur sine ullis thesauris facilius et expeditius potest vivere. Quis vero ullos thesauros, nisi per mentem poterit possidere? Si enim puer infans, quamvis ditissimus natus, cum sit dominus omnium quae jure sunt ejus, nihil possidet mente sopita; quonam tandem modo quisquam quidquam mente possidebit amissa? Sed de thesauris quid loquor, quod eis quilibet hominum, si talis optio proponatur, mavult carere quam mente; cum eos nemo praeponat, nemo comparet luminibus corporis, quibus non ut aurum rarus quisque homo, sed omnis homo possidet coelum: per lumina enim corporis quisque possidet quidquid libenter videt? Quis ergo si tenere utrumque non possit, et alterutrum cogatur amittere, non thesauros quam oculos malit? Et tamen si ab eo simili conditione quaeratur, utrum oculos malit amittere, an mentem; quis mente non videat, eum oculos malle quam mentem? Mens quippe sine oculis carnis humana est, oculi autem carnis sine mente belluini sunt. Quis porro non hominem se malit esse etiam carne caecum, quam belluam videntem?

20. Haec dixi, ut etiam tardiores, quamvis breviter, commonerentur a me, in quorum oculos vel aures hae litterae venerint, quantum mens diligat se ipsam etiam infirma et errans, male diligendo atque sectando quae sunt infra ipsam. Diligere porro se ipsam non posset, si se omnino nesciret, id est, si sui non meminisset; nec se intelligeret: qua in se imagine Dei tam potens est, ut ei cujus imago est valeat inhaerere. Sic enim ordinata est naturarum ordine, non locorum, ut supra illam non sit nisi ille. Denique cum illi penitus adhaeserit, unus erit spiritus: cui rei attestatur Apostolus, dicens, Qui autem adhaeret Domino, unus spiritus est (I Cor. VI, 17): accedente quidem ista ad participationem naturae, veritatis, et beatitudinis illius, non tamen crescente illo in natura, veritate et beatitudine sua. In illa itaque natura, cum feliciter adhaeserit, immutabiliter vivet , et immutabile videbit omne quod viderit. Tunc, sicut ei divina Scriptura promittit, satiabitur in bonis desiderium ejus (Psal. CII, 5), bonis immutabilibus, ipsa Trinitate Deo suo cujus imago est: et ne uspiam deinceps violetur, erit in abscondito vultus ejus (Psal. XXX, 21), tanta ubertate ejus impleta, ut eam nunquam peccare delectet. Se ipsam vero nunc quando videt, non aliquid immutabile videt.