Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
OF TRUE RELIGION 275 clear by that same light. By it I know that what I have said is true, and that I know that I know it. I know that that light has extension neither in space nor in time. I know that I cannot know unless I am alive, and I know more certainly that by knowing I attain a richer life. Eternal life surpasses temporal life in vivacity, and only by knowing do I get a ghmpse of what eternity is. By looking at eternity with the mind's eye I remove from it all changeableness, and in eternity I see no temporal duration, for periods of time are constituted by the movements, past or future, of things. In eternity there is neither past nor future. What is past has ceased to be, and what is future has not yet begun to be. Eternity is ever the same. It never "was" in the sense that it is not now, and it never "will be" in the sense that it is not yet. Wherefore, eternity alone could have said to the human mind "I am what I am." And of eternity alone could it be truly said: "He who is hath sent me" (Ex. 3:14).
1, 98. If we cannot yet cleave to eternity, at least let us drive away our phantasms, and cast out of our mental vision trifling and deceptive games. Let us use the steps which divine providence has deigned to make for us. When we delighted over much in silly figments, and grew vain in our thoughts, and turned our whole life into vain dreams, the ineffable mercy of God did not disdain to use rational angelic creatures to teach us by means of sounds and letters, by fire and smoke and cloudy pillar, as by visible words. So with parables and similitudes in a fashion he played with us when we were children, and sought to heal our inward eyes by smearing them with clay.
99. Let us then make clear to ourselves what faith we ought to repose in history and what in intelligence; what we ought to commit to memory, not knowing that it is true but believing all the same; where is the truth that neither comes nor passes away but abides ever the same; what is the mode of interpreting allegory, believed to have been spoken in wisdom through the Holy Spirit; whether it is enough to allegorize things that have been seen in ancient days and in more recent times, or is it to be applied to the affections and nature of the soul, and to unchangeable eternity. Do some stories signify visible deeds, others movements of minds, and others the law of eternity; or are some found in which all these are to be discovered? What is stable faith, historical and temporal or spiritual and eternal, according to which all interpretation of authoritative writings is to be directed? What advantage is to be derived from bc Heying temporal things for knowing and possessing eternal things. which is the end of all good actions? ^Vhat is the difference between allegorizing history and allegorizing facts or speeches or sacraments? How is the diction of the divine Scriptures to be received according to the idiom of various languages? Ever)' language has its own special modes of expression which seem absurd when translated into another language. What is the advantage of such a lowly form of speech? For in the sacred books we find mention made of the anger of God, his sadness, his awaking from sleep, his remembering and forgetting, and other things which can happen to good men. Not only so, there is also mention of his repentance, his zeal, his feasting and other such things. Are God's eyes and hands and feet, and other members named in Scripture, to be held to refer to something like the visible form of the human body? Or do they signify intelligible and spiritual powers, as do such words in Scripture as helmet, shield, sword, girdle and the like? Above all we must ask how it profits the human race that the divine providence has spoken to us by human rational and corporeal creatures who have been the ser\-ants of God. When we have come to know that one truth, all puerile impudence is driven from our minds and holy religion comes into its own. li, 100. Putting aside, therefore, all theatrical and poetic trifling, let us by the diligent study of the divine Scriptures, find food and drink for our minds; for they are weary and parched with the hunger and thirst of vain curiosity, and desire in vain to be refreshed and satisfied with silly phantasms, as unreal as painted banquets. Let us be wholesomely educated by this truly liberal and noble game. If wonderful and beautiful spectacles afford us delight, let us desire to see wisdom "which teaches from one end to the other with might, and pleasantly disposes of all things." What is more wonderful than incorporeal might making and ruling the corporeal world? What more beautiful than its ordering and adorning the material world?
Hi, 1 01. All admit that these things are perceived by the body, and that the mind is better than the body. Will not the mind by itself have some object that it can perceive which must be far miore excellent and far nobler? We are put in mind by the things of which we are judges to look to that standard by which we judge. We turn from artistic works to the law of the arts, and we shall behold with the mind the form by comparison with which all the things are tarnished which its very goodness has made beautiful. "For the in\isible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the