Chapter 1.—We are Made Perfect by Acknowledgement of Our Own Weakness. The Incarnate Word Dispels Our Darkness.

2. But since we are exiled from the unchangeable joy, yet neither cut off nor torn away from it so that we should not seek eternity, truth, blessedness, even in those changeable and temporal things (for we wish neither to die, nor to be deceived, nor to be troubled); visions have been sent to us from heaven suitable to our state of pilgrimage, in order to remind us that what we seek is not here, but that from this pilgrimage we must return thither, whence unless we originated we should not here seek these things. And first we have had to be persuaded how much God loved us, lest from despair we should not dare to look up to Him. And we needed to be shown also what manner of men we are whom He loved, lest being proud, as if of our own merits, we should recede the more from Him, and fail the more in our own strength. And hence He so dealt with us, that we might the rather profit by His strength, and that so in the weakness of humility the virtue of charity might be perfected. And this is intimated in the Psalm, where it is said, “Thou, O God, didst send a spontaneous rain, whereby Thou didst make Thine inheritance perfect, when it was weary.”435    [The original is: “ut sit participatio ejus in idipsum.” The English translator renders: “So that it may partake thereof in itself.” The thought of Augustin is, that the believing soul though mutable partakes of the immutable; and he designates the immutable as the in idipsum: the self-existent. In that striking passage in the Confessions, in which he describes the spiritual and extatic meditations of himself and his mother, as they looked out upon the Mediterranean from the windows at Ostia—a scene well known from Ary Schefer’s painting—he denominates God the idipsum: the “self same” (Confessions IX. x). Augustin refers to the same absolute immutability of God, in this place. By faith, man is “a partaker of a divine nature,” (2 Pet. i. 4.)—W.G.T.S.]    Ps. lxviii. 9.—Pluviam voluntariam.    1 Cor. xiii. 12 For by “spontaneous rain” nothing else is meant than grace, not rendered to merit, but given freely,436    Ps. cxxii. 3. Vulg.    Gratis.    Ps. xxxiv. 1 whence also it is called grace; for He gave it, not because we were worthy, but because He willed. And knowing this, we shall not trust in ourselves; and this is to be made “weak.” But He Himself makes us perfect, who says also to the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”437    Ps. cii. 26, 27    2 Cor. xii. 9 Man, then, was to be persuaded how much God loved us, and what manner of men we were whom He loved; the former, lest we should despair; the latter, lest we should be proud. And this most necessary topic the apostle thus explains: “But God commendeth,” he says, “His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”438    Rom. v. 8–10—Donavit. Also in another place: “What,” he says, “shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how has He not with Him also freely given us all things?”439    Rom. viii. 31, 32 Now that which is declared to us as already done, was shown also to the ancient righteous as about to be done; that through the same faith they themselves also might be humbled, and so made weak; and might be made weak, and so perfected.

3. Because therefore the Word of God is One, by which all things were made, which is the unchangeable truth, all things are simultaneously therein, potentially and unchangeably; not only those things which are now in this whole creation, but also those which have been and those which shall be. And therein they neither have been, nor shall be, but only are; and all things are life, and all things are one; or rather it is one being and one life. For all things were so made by Him, that whatsoever was made in them was not made in Him, but was life in Him. Since, “in the beginning,” the Word was not made, but “the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made by Him;” neither had all things been made by Him, unless He had Himself been before all things and not made. But in those things which were made by Him, even body, which is not life, would not have been made by Him, except it had been life in Him before it was made. For “that which was made was already life in Him;” and not life of any kind soever: for the soul also is the life of the body, but this too is made, for it is changeable; and by what was it made, except by the unchangeable Word of God? For “all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” “What, therefore, was made was already life in Him;” and not any kind of life, but “the life [which] was the light of men;” the light certainly of rational minds, by which men differ from beasts, and therefore are men. Therefore not corporeal light, which is the light of the flesh, whether it shine from heaven, or whether it be lighted by earthly fires; nor that of human flesh only, but also that of beasts, and down even to the minutest of worms. For all these things see that light: but that life was the light of men; nor is it far from any one of us, for in it “we live, and move, and have our being.”440    Acts xvii. 27, 28

CAPUT PRIMUM.

2. Per agnitionem infirmitatis nostrae perficimur. Verbum incarnatum tenebras nostras pellit. Sed quoniam exsulavimus ab incommutabili gaudio, nec tamen inde praecisi atque abrupti sumus, ut non etiam in istis mutabilibus et temporalibus aeternitatem, veritatem, beatitudinem quaereremus (nec mori enim, nec falli, nec perturbari volumus); missa sunt nobis divinitus visa congrua peregrinationi nostrae, quibus admoneremur non hic esse quod quaerimus, sed illuc ab ista esse redeundum, unde nisi penderemus, hic ea non quaereremus. Ac primum nobis persuadendum fuit, quantum nos diligeret Deus, ne desperatione non auderemus erigi in eum. Quales autem dilexerit, ostendi oportebat, ne tanquam de meritis nostris superbientes, magis ab eo resiliremus et in nostra fortitudine magis deficeremus: ac per hoc egit nobiscum, ut per ejus fortitudinem potius proficeremus, atque ita in infirmitate humilitatis perficeretur virtus charitatis. Hoc significat in Psalmo, ubi ait: Pluviam voluntariam segregans, 0888 Deus, haereditati tuae; et infirmata est, tu vero perfecisti eam (Psal. LXVII, 10). Pluviam quippe voluntariam nonnisi gratiam vult intelligi, non meritis redditam, sed gratis datam, unde et gratia nominatur: dedit enim eam, non quia digni eramus, sed quia voluit. Hoc cognoscentes, non fidentes in nobis erimus; et hoc est infirmari. Ipse vero perficit nos, qui etiam Paulo apostolo dixit: Sufficit tibi gratia mea; nam virtus in infirmitate perficitur (II Cor. XII, 9). Persuadendum ergo erat homini quantum nos dilexerit Deus, et quales dilexerit: quantum, ne desperaremus; quales, ne superbiremus. Hunc locum Apostolus pernecessarium sic explicat: Commendat autem, inquit, suam charitatem Deus in nobis, quoniam cum adhuc peccatores essemus, Christus pro nobis mortuus est; multo magis justificati nunc in sanguine ipsius, salvi erimus ab ira per ipsum. Si enim cum inimici essemus, reconciliati sumus Deo per mortem Filii ejus; multo magis reconciliati salvi erimus in vita ipsius (Rom. V, 8-10). Item alio loco: Quid ergo, inquit, dicemus ad haec? Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos? Qui proprio Filio non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum, quomodo non et cum illo nobis omnia donavit (Id. VII, 31, 32)? Quod autem factum nobis annuntiatur, hoc futurum ostendebatur et antiquis justis, ut per eamdem fidem etiam ipsi humiliati infirmarentur, et infirmati perficerentur.

3. Quia igitur unum Verbum Dei est, per quod facta sunt omnia, quod est incommutabilis veritas, ibi principaliter atque incommutabiliter sunt omnia simul; non solum quae nunc sunt in hac universa creatura, verum etiam quae fuerunt et quae futura sunt. Ibi autem nec fuerunt, nec futura sunt, sed tantummodo sunt; et omnia vita sunt, et omnia unum sunt, et magis unum est et una vita est. Sic enim omnia per ipsum facta sunt, ut quidquid factum est in his, in illo vita sit, et facta non sit: quia in principio non factum est Verbum, sed erat Verbum apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum, et omnia per ipsum facta sunt; nec per ipsum omnia facta essent, nisi ipsum esset ante omnia, factumque non esset. In iis autem quae per ipsum facta sunt, etiam corpus quod vita non est, per ipsum non fieret, nisi in illo, antequam fieret, vita esset. Quod enim factum est, jam in illo vita erat, et non qualiscumque vita: nam et anima vita est corporis, sed et haec facta est, quia mutabilis est; et per quid facta est, nisi per Dei Verbum incommutabile? Omnia enim per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil. Quod ergo factum est, jam in illo vita erat, et non qualiscumque vita, sed vita erat lux hominum: lux utique rationalium mentium, per quas homines a pecoribus differunt, et ideo sunt homines. Non ergo lux corporea, quae lux est carnium, sive de coelo fulgeat, sive terrenis ignibus accendatur, nec humanarum tantum carnium, sed etiam belluinarum et usque ad minutissimos quoque vermiculos. Omnia enim haec vident istam lucem: at illa 0889 vita lux hominum erat; nec longe posita ab unoquoque nostrum: in illa enim vivimus, et movemur, et sumus (Act. XVII, 27, 28).