Chapter 15.—How Great is the Unlikeness Between Our Word and the Divine Word. Our Word Cannot Be or Be Called Eternal.

Is our word, then, born of our knowledge only? Do we not say many things also that we do not know? And say them not with doubt, but thinking them to be true; while if perchance they are true in respect to the things themselves of which we speak, they are yet not true in respect to our word, because a word is not true unless it is born of a thing that is known. In this sense, then, our word is false, not when we lie, but when we are deceived. And when we doubt, our word is not yet of the thing of which we doubt, but it is a word concerning the doubt itself. For although we do not know whether that is true of which we doubt, yet we do know that we doubt; and hence, when we say we doubt, we say a word that is true, for we say what we know. And what, too, of its being possible for us to lie? And when we do, certainly we both willingly and knowingly have a word that is false, wherein there is a word that is true, viz. that we lie, for this we know. And when we confess that we have lied, we speak that which is true; for we say what we know, for we know that we lied. But that Word which is God, and can do more than we, cannot do this. For it “can do nothing except what it sees the Father do;” and it “speaks not of itself,” but it has from the Father all that it speaks, since the Father speaks it in a special way; and the great might of that Word is that it cannot lie, because there cannot be there “yea and nay,”985    2 Cor. i. 19 but “yea yea, nay nay.” Well, but that is not even to be called a word, which is not true. I willingly assent, if so it be. What, then, if our word is true and therefore is rightly called a word? Is it the case that, as we can speak of sight of sight, and knowledge of knowledge, so we can speak of essence of essence, as that Word of God is especially spoken of, and is especially to be spoken of? Why so? Because to us, to be is not the same as to know; since we know many things which in some sense live by memory, and so in some sense die by being forgotten: and so, when those things are no longer in our knowledge, yet we still are: and while our knowledge has slipped away and perished out of our mind, we are still alive.

25. In respect to those things also which are so known that they can never escape the memory, because they are present, and belong to the nature of the mind itself,—as, e.g., the knowing that we are alive (for this continues so long as the mind continues; and because the mind continues always, this also continues always);—I say, in respect to this and to any other like instances, in which we are the rather to contemplate the image of God, it is difficult to make out in what way, although they are always known, yet because they are not always also thought of, an eternal word can be spoken respecting them, when our word is spoken in our thought. For it is eternal to the soul to live; it is eternal to know that it lives. Yet it is not eternal to it to be thinking of its own life, or to be thinking of its own knowledge of its own life; since, in entering upon this or that occupation, it will cease to think of this, although it does not cease from knowing it. And hence it comes to pass, that if there can be in the mind any knowledge that is eternal, while the thought of that knowledge cannot be eternal, and any inner and true word of ours is only said by our thought, then God alone can be understood to have a Word that is eternal, and co-eternal with Himself. Unless, perhaps, we are to say that the very possibility of thought—since that which is known is capable of being truly thought, even at the time when it is not being thought—constitutes a word as perpetual as the knowledge itself is perpetual. But how is that a word which is not yet formed in the vision of the thought? How will it be like the knowledge of which it is born, if it has not the form of that knowledge, and is only now called a word because it can have it? For it is much as if one were to say that a word is to be so called because it can be a word. But what is this that can be a word, and is therefore already held worthy of the name of a word? What, I say, is this thing that is formable, but not yet formed, except a something in our mind, which we toss to and fro by revolving it this way or that, while we think of first one thing and then another, according as they are found by or occur to us? And the true word then comes into being, when, as I said, that which we toss to and fro by revolving it arrives at that which we know, and is formed by that, in taking its entire likeness; so that in what manner each thing is known, in that manner also it is thought, i.e. is said in this manner in the heart, without articulate sound, without thought of articulate sound, such as no doubt belongs to some particular tongue. And hence if we even admit, in order not to dispute laboriously about a name, that this something of our mind, which can be formed from our knowledge, is to be already called a word, even before it is so formed, because it is, so to say, already formable, who would not see how great would be the unlikeness between it and that Word of God, which is so in the form of God, as not to have been formable before it was formed, or to have been capable at any time of being formless, but is a simple form, and simply equal to Him from whom it is, and with whom it is wonderfully co-eternal?

CAPUT XV.

Quanta sit dissimilitudo verbi nostri et Verbi divini. Verbum nostrum sempiternum esse aut dici non potest. Numquid verbum nostrum de sola scientia nostra nascitur? Nonne multa dicimus etiam quae nescimus? Nec dubitantes ea dicimus, sed vera esse arbitrantes: quae forte si vera sunt, in ipsis rebus de quibus loquimur, non in verbo nostro vera sunt; quia verbum verum non est, nisi quod de re quae scitur, gignitur. Falsum est ergo isto modo verbum nostrum, non cum mentimur, sed cum fallimur. Cum autem dubitamus, nondum est verbum de re de qua dubitamus, sed de ipsa dubitatione verbum est. Quamvis enim non noverimus an verum sit unde dubitamus, tamen dubitare nos novimus: ac per hoc cum hoc dicimus, verum verbum est; quoniam quod novimus dicimus. Quid, quod etiam mentiri possumus? Quod cum facimus, utique volentes et scientes falsum verbum habemus: ubi verum verbum est mentiri nos; hoc enim scimus. Et cum mentitos nos esse confitemur, verum dicimus: quod scimus enim dicimus; scimus namque nos esse mentitos. Verbum autem illud quod est Deus et potentius est nobis, hoc non potest. Non enim potest facere quidquam, nisi quod viderit Patrem facientem: et non a se ipso loquitur, sed a Patre illi est omne quod loquitur, cum 1078 ipsum Pater unice loquitur: et magna illius Verbi potentia est, non posse mentiri; quia non potest esse illic Est et non (II Cor. I, 19), sed Est, est; Non, non. At enim nec verbum dicendum est, quod verum non est. Si ita , libens assentior. Quid, cum verum est verbum nostrum, et ideo recte verbum vocatur, numquid sicut dici potest vel visio de visione, vel scientia de scientia, ita dici potest essentia de essentia, sicut illud Dei Verbum maxime dicitur maximeque dicendum est? Quid ita? quia non hoc est nobis esse, quod est nosse. Multa quippe novimus quae per memoriam quodam modo vivunt, ita et oblivione quodam modo moriuntur: atque ideo cum illa jam non sint in notitia nostra, nos tamen sumus; et cum scientia nostra animo lapsa perierit a nobis, nos tamen vivimus.

25. Illa etiam quae ita sciuntur, ut nunquam excidere possint, quoniam praesentia sunt, et ad ipsius animi naturam pertinent, ut est illud quod nos vivere scimus (manet enim hoc quamdiu animus manet, et quia semper manet animus, et hoc semper manet): id ergo et si qua reperiuntur similia, in quibus imago Dei potius intuenda est, etiamsi semper sciuntur, tamen quia non semper etiam cogitantur, quomodo de his dicatur verbum sempiternum, cum verbum nostrum nostra cogitatione dicatur, invenire difficile est. Sempiternum est enim animo vivere, sempiternum est scire quod vivit: nec tamen sempiternum est cogitare vitam suam, vel cogitare scientiam vitae suae; quoniam cum aliud atque aliud coeperit, hoc desinet cogitare, quamvis non desinat scire. Ex quo fit, ut si potest esse in animo aliqua scientia sempiterna, et sempiterna esse non potest ejusdem scientiae cogitatio, et verbum verum nostrum intimum nisi nostra cogitatione non dicitur, solus Deus intelligatur habere Verbum sempiternum sibique coaeternum. Nisi forte dicendum est, ipsam possibilitatem cogitationis, quoniam id quod scitur, etiam quando non cogitatur, potest tamen veraciter cogitari, verbum esse tam perpetuum, quam scientia ipsa perpetua est. Sed quomodo est verbum, quod nondum in cogitationis visione formatum est? Quomodo erit simile scientiae de qua nascitur, si ejus non habet formam, et ideo jam vocatur verbum quia potest habere? Tale est enim ac si dicatur, ideo jam vocandum esse verbum quia potest esse verbum. Sed quid est quod potest esse verbum, et ideo jam dignum est verbi nomine? Quid est, inquam, hoc formabile nondumque formatum, nisi quiddam mentis nostrae, quod hac atque hac volubili quadam motione jactamus, cum a nobis nunc hoc, nunc illud, sicut inventum fuerit vel occurrerit, cogitatur? Et tunc fit verum verbum, quando illud quod nos dixi volubili motione jactare, ad id quod scimus pervenit , atque inde formatur, ejus omnimodam similitudinem capiens; ut quomodo res quaeque scitur, sic etiam cogitetur, 1079 id est, sine voce, sine vocis cogitatione, quae profecto alicujus linguae est, sic in corde dicatur. Ac per hoc etiam si concedamus, ne de controversia vocabuli laborare videamur, jam vocandum esse verbum quiddam illud mentis nostrae quod de nostra scientia formari potest, etiam priusquam formatum sit, quia jam, ut ita dicam, formabile est; quis non videat, quanta hic sit dissimilitudo ab illo Dei Verbo, quod in forma Dei sic est, ut non antea fuerit formabile priusquam formatum, nec aliquando esse possit informe, sed sit forma simplex et simpliciter aequalis ei de quo est, et cui mirabiliter coaeterna est.