Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
that evil is nothing to the few who take refuge in the truth; by whom the universe even with its sinister aspects is perfect; by whom there is no absolute disharmony because bad and good together harmonize; whom everything capable of loving loves consciously or unconsciously; in whom are all things yet so that thou art unharmed by the baseness, malice or error of any of thy creatures; who hast willed that none but the pure can know the truth; Father of Truth, of Wisdom, of the True and Perfect
Life, of Beatitude, of the Good and Beautiful, of the Intelligible
Light, Father of our awakening and of our illumination, of the sign by which we are admonished to return to thee.
3. Thee I invoke, O God, the Truth, in, by and through whom all truths are true; the Wisdom, in, by and through whom all are wise who are wise; the True and Perfect Life, in, by and through whom live all who live truly and perfectly; the Beatitude, in, by and through whom all the blessed are blessed; the Good and the Beautiful, in, by and through whom all good and beautiful things have these quahties; the Intelligible Light, in, by and through whom all intel Ugible things are illumined; whose kingdom is this whole world unknown to corporeal sense; whose kingdom gives the Law also to these mundane realms; from whom to be turned is to fall; to whom to be turned is to rise; in whom to abide is to stand fast; from whom to depart is to die; to whom to return is to revive; in whom to dwell is to live; whom no man loses unless he be deceived; whom no man seeks unless he has been admonished; whom no man finds unless he has been purified; whom to abandon is to perish; to reach out to whom is to love; to see whom is true possession.
I invoke thee, O God, to whom faith calls us, hope lifts us, and charity unites us; by whom we overcome the enemy and are delivered from utter destruction; by whom we are admonished to awake; by whom we distinguish good from evil and shun evil and follow after good; by whom we yield not to adversities; our rightful Lord, whom we rightly serve; by whom we learn that those things are aUen which once we thought were ours and that those things are ours which once we thought were alien; by whom we do not cleave to the dehghts and enticements of wicked men, and are delivered from becoming insignificant through attention to trifles; by whom our better part is not left subject to our lower part; by whom death is swallowed up in victory; who convertest us to thyself; who divestest us of what is not, that thou mayest clothe us with what is; who hearest and defendest us and leadest us into all truth; who speakest to us all