On Consideration
On CONSIDERATION
In 1145 Eugenius III became Pope. He had once been a monk of Clairvaux and from what Bernard knew of him he had misgivings about his capacity to cope with his new office. During the next decade he wrote first one book, advising Eugenius to set aside time for his spiritual life amidst the pressures of daily business, and then four more.
Bernard chose the title On Consideration because it was the term Gregory the Great had used to describe the bishop's task in his Regula Pastoralis. Bernard himself explains that contemplation is the true and sure perception of the mind, an apprehension of truth in which there is no doubt. Consideration, on the other hand, is searching for truth, active thinking and balancing and judging (Csi ii. 5).
The second, third, and fourth books draw Eugenius on to consider what is below him and what is around him; here Bernard declares a view of papal plenitude of power and of the supremacy of spiritual over temporal power that was to be enormously influential in the later Middle Ages, continuing as it did the direction of the changes of the late eleventh century.
Book V deals with the upward aspiration of the soul to the contemplation of heavenly things.' Bernard tells Eugenius that he has not known in quite what manner to write to him. He wanted to make his letter personal and to address Eugenius as a close friend; on the other hand, what he has to say concerns issues of general importance, which require a more formal treatment.
1. See introduction to this volume.
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He begins with the position in which Eugenius finds himself. He has been snatched from the peace of contemplation, the embrace of Rachel,' and made Pope (I. 1). He has been taken forcibly from the solitude of monastic life and now he has no time for the exercises of his old life. This is a fresh wound and it must be causing Eugenius pain, but Bernard is afraid that the pain will numb him so that he no longer feels his loss. That would be natural enough. Acute pain cannot be borne indefinitely, and the sufferer's capacity to feel is bound to be blunted in time. But it is important for his soul's health that Eugenius should not forget
Rachel and how he loved her. If his heart grows hard it will destroy him. None with a hard heart has ever been saved (II. 3).
The way in which Eugenius is living at present is not balanced as it should be between the necessary practical demands of office and proper attention to his spiritual life. He is allowing his time and energy to be taken up in listening to litigants "from morning to night" (III. 4).
Patience is good, but it is not right to be patient with abuses (III. 4). Service is a good, but it is not right to be the servant of those who are interested only in their own financial gain (IV. 5).
Eugenius must look at his life as a whole and by "consideration" create a right balance between his duties to others and his spiritual life (V.6). Eugenius has to be a source and spring from which others may drink to satisfy their spiritual needs; but he is only a man, and he has spiritual needs too, which he himself must satisfy (V.6).
How is Eugenius to achieve this balance? "I speak not of the heroic, but of the possible" (VI.7), sa ys Bernard. Eugenius must distinguish between those matters which are his proper concern
(questions of sin) and those which are unworthy of his attention (disputes about property) (VI. 7). If Eugenius had unlimited time and energy he could attend to these, too, but as it is, he must not give himself up wholl ly to activity (VII.8), for that would be unbalanced. He must reserve time for solitude in which to be quiet with God.
This balance is achieved by "consideration. "^ Consideration 2. The motif of Leah and Rachel is discussed at length in Zinn.
3. See my The Thought of Gregory the Great (Cambridge, 1986).
ON CONSIDERATION
allows a man to stand away from his own actions and thoughts and assess them. Consideration clears the mind and makes for judiciousness (VII.8). All the virtues encourage balance and moderation. Neither he who indulges to excess nor he who denies himself everything is temperate. Prudence sets a boundary between desire and necessity (VIII. 9).
If Eugenius suddenly devotes himself wholeheartedly to consideration it will seem such strange behavior in a Pope that he will annoy many people. He will seem to be criticizing his predecessors implicitly (IX. 12). Bernard wants Eugenius to make the change slowly and thoughtfully. He must go on trying cases, but in a way that is appropriate (X.13). Many cases can be handed over to others to judge. The ambitious should not be allowed to thrust themselves and their affairs upon him (X.14). Eugenius should reserve his time for cases that it is proper for him to deal with. He should put the needs of widows and the poor high on the list (X.13).
Here Bernard ends his first book, but Eugenius is promised a second. Bernard was not stirred to write it until after the failure of the Second Crusade. He had been prevailed upon by Eugenius to preach in support of the Crusade in 1146, although at first he had misgivings. His enthusiasm grew so powerful, however, that it became very much his Crusade. Its collapse caused him great pain and bewilderment, and he begins the second book of De Consideratione with an attempt to make sense of what has happened. He can only conclude that the fault lay with the Crusaders: They were not true pilgrims at heart (II.ii.2).
He goes on to look further at the nature of consideration. It is almost but not quite synonymous with contemplation (II.11. 5).
Contemplation is direct and intuitive. Consideration involves searching with the mind. (Bernard is not in fact always consistent, and there are instances where the terms seem to be used more or less interchangeably.) A practical way for Eugenius to conduct this search 1s for him first to examine himself and then to think about what is below him, what is about him and what is above him. The remaining books of De Consideratione are concerned with these in turn.
Eugenius is Pope. Therefore he must consider himself not only as a private person, but as the holder of high office. He must,
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in a sense, put himself first. "Let your consideration begin and end with yourself" (II. iii.6), advises Bernard. That is because he must be concerned above all for his own salvation. He must never forget the profession he made as a monk (II. v.8). He set out then to be humble. That humility still befits him in his present high position (II. v.8). His elevation has not made any difference to the standing of his soul. It has simply given him great responsibilities to discharge. He must work at his spiritual life harder than ever.
The spiritual labor he must undertake now for others as well as for himself is nothing but the work of a sweating peasant (II. 9).
He can certainly not afford to relax in luxury or enjoy a life of pomp (II. 10). He must consider his failings carefully and do what
. he can to repair them (II. vii. 14).
Books III and IV contain a detailed working out of Eugenius's relations with those who are his subordinates and of his position in the world at large.
I.1 The first of these books, even though they go under the title On Consideration, have also had a good deal to say about practical affairs; for they teach or give advice on certain things which are not only for reflection but for action. But this present book is wholly concerned with consideration. Those things which are above you (for they are its subject) require not action but contemplation. There is no way in which you can act upon those things which always exist in the same way for eternity—and some of them from eternity.
I should like you to note carefully, Eugenius, since you are the wisest of men, that whenever your consideration wanders from these things to lesser and visible things, whether in search of knowledge or something for practical use, or to do your duty in administration or action, you go into exile. You do not do so if your consideration concentrates on these higher things, so that through them it seeks what is above. To consider in this way is to come home.
That is a higher and worthier use of present things, for then, according to Paul's wisdom, "The invisible things of God are clearly seen through the things which have been made" (Rom 1:20). Citizens do not need this ladder, but those in exile do. Our author saw this, and made a significant addition to what he said about the invisible being seen through the visible "by the creature of the world" (Rom 1:20). And
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truly, what need has someone who is already in possession of the throne of a ladder to reach it? The creature of heaven already has means by which he may contemplate invisible things. He sees the Word, and in the Word he sees what has been made through the Word (Jn 1:3). He has no need to beg knowledge from the Creator of what he has made.
Nor does he climb down to created things in order to know them, for he sees far better from where he is what they really are in themselves.
Therefore he does not need the medium of a bodily sense; he is himself sense and he senses them directly. The best way to see is to do it unaided; then you know at once everything you wish to know. More: outside help is unwelcome because to need it is to be less than perfect and not really free.
I.2. Why do you need anything, especially from your inferiors?
Surely that would be preposterous and unworthy? It is clearly a dishonor for a superior to ask the help of inferiors. No man will be perfectly free from such dishonor until he enters into the freedom of the sons of God (Rom 8:21). They shall all be taught by God (Jn 6:45) and they will be happy in God without the intervention of any creature.
'This will be a homecoming, when we leave the native land of the body for the realm of spirits. This realm is our God, the greatest Spirit, the great mansion of the blessed spirits. Let neither the bodily sense nor the imagination usurp anything for itself here, for he is truth and wisdom, virtue, eternity, the supreme Good. For now, we are absent from this place; the place where we are is a vale, and a vale of tears (Ps 83:7), in which sensuality rules and consideration is in exile, in which the bodily sense exercises itself freely and effectively, but shows the spiritual eye to be in darkness.'
Is it surprising if the stranger needs the help of someone who lives there? Happy is the traveler who in the course of his time on earth can make use of the kindness of the citizens, without which he cannot make the transition, using them rather than enjoying; urging rather than asking; demanding rather than begging.
1. On the regio dissimilitudinis, see F. Chátillon, Regio Dissimilitudinis, Mélanges E. Podéchard (Lyons, 1945), pp. 85-102.
2. On uti and frui Bernard would have drawn on Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana,
Liii.3, CCSL 32 (Turnholt, 1962).
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THE THREE SPECIES OF CONSIDERATION BY
Wuicu Ir Is PossiBLE To ASCEND II.3. He is great who knows how to empty the senses as though they were the wealth of those citizens and to use them for the benefit of his own salvation and that of many. He is no less great who makes himself steps to climb up to invisible things by studying philosophy. But the one is sweeter; the other more beneficial. The first is agreed to be happier; the second stronger. But the greatest of all is he who spurns the use of things which the senses can perceive (as far as human frailty can) and goes up not by steps but in great leaps beyond our imagining; he has learned to fly to the heights in contemplation at times.
I think Paul's raptures were like that: raptures, not steps up, for he himself says that he was "caught up" rather than that he "ascended"
(2 Cor 12:2). That is why he said, "If we are beside ourselves, it is for God" (2 Cor 5:13). Further, these three come together when consideration, even in the place of its exile (Ps 118:54), is brought higher by zeal for virtue and with the assistance of grace, and either restrains sensuality so that it does not get above itself, or holds it so that it does not wander, or flees it, so that it does not corrupt. In the first consideration is more powerful, in the second freer, in the third purer. Indeed that flight is made on twin wings of purity and eagerness.
II.4. Do you want me to name each of these species of consideration for you? If it seems acceptable to you, let us call the first practical, the second scientific, the third speculative.? The definitions which I am about to give will make plain the reasons for describing them in this way: consideration is practical when it makes use of the senses and the things the senses perceive in an orderly and coordinated Way, so as to please God. It is scientific when it wisely and carefully searches into and weighs the signs of God's work in the world. It is speculative when it retires into itself and, as far as God helps it, frees itself from human affairs for the contemplation of God.
I think that you are keenly aware that this last is the fruit of the others. If the others do not lead to this, they are not what they seem to be. And the first sows much and reaps nothing if it does not look to the last. The second meanders and makes no progress if it does not direct
3. A division drawn from Boethius's Opuscula Sacra. See note 14.
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itself to the last. Therefore what the first desires, the second scents and the third tastes. The other two lead to the same taste, but more slowly.
The first gets there more effortfully, the second more quietly.
III.5. You are saying, "You have told us enough about the way up; you must also tell us where the ascent is leading." If you hope for this you will be disappointed; it is beyond description. Do you think I am going to tell you what the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard and what has not entered the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9)? The Apostle says, "God has revealed it to us through his Spirit" (1 Cor 2:10). T herefore what is above us is not taught us by words but revealed by the Spirit. What words cannot explain, consideration seeks, prayer asks for, a well-led life deserves, purity attains.
Indeed, when I tell you of those things which are above, do not think I am sending you to stare at the sun, or moon, or stars, at the firmament, or the waters which are above the heavens (Ps 148:4). All those things, though they are "above" in place are "below" in dignity of nature. For they are bodies. Your portion is spirit; you will seek in vain for anything above which is not spirit. For God is a spirit (Jn 4:24) and so are the holy angels, and they are above you. But God is superior in nature, the angels in grace. You and the angels have in common that which is best in you, and that is reason. God has no "best" quality; he is wholly one Best. He, and those who are blessed spirits with him, are to be investigated by our consideration in three ways, as though by three paths: by opinion, faith, knowledge. The work of reason is to understand them; faith depends on authority; only opinion rests on a likeness to truth.
Two of these are certain of the truth, but to faith truth is hidden and obscure; to knowledge it is bare and plain. Yet opinion claims no certainty. It seeks truth by trying to discover what is like truth, rather than by grasping it directly.
III.6. Confusion must be avoided, so that faith does not cling to the uncertainty of opinion or call into question again what is firm and fixed by faith. And it is important to know this: that if opinion makes assertions, it is rash. If faith hesitates it is weak. And knowledge, if it tries to break the seal of faith, is considered an intruder, a squinter at majesty (Prv 25:27).
Many have thought their opinion knowledge, and they have been wrong. And yet opinion can be thought to be knowledge. But knowledge cannot be opinion. Why is that? Because the one can be wrong,
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the other not. Or if it could be deceived, it was not knowledge but opinion. True knowledge not only grasps the truth, but knows that it is the truth.
We can define each of them. Faith is a certain voluntary and confident foretaste of truth not yet apparent. Knowledge is a clear and certain grasp of something unseen. Opinion is holding as true something you do not know to be false.* Therefore, as I have said, faith has no doubt, or if it does, it is not faith but opinion.
How then does faith differ from knowledge? In that even though it is no more in doubt than knowledge, we hold what we believe as a mystery, as we do not do with knowledge. When you know something you seek no further. Or if you do, you have not yet "known."
There is nothing we should rather know than what we now believe. Our happiness will be complete when what is already certain to us will be as plain as it is sure.
Wuat WE OuGHT To CONTEMPLATE IN THE HEAVENLY SPIRITS
IV.7. Now that we have got these things out of the way, let us direct our consideration to that Jerusalem which is above, our mother (Gal
4:26); and let us carefully and watchfully investigate what is beyond investigation by all the three ways we have mentioned, as far as is lawful, or to the extent that is given to us.
First of all we have discovered by reading and we hold in faith that the citizens of heaven are spirits of power, glorious, blessed, having individuality and ranked in order (2 Jgs 30:16) of dignity from their creation, perfect of their kind, with ethereal bodies, immortal, not created incapable of suffering, but made so (that is, by grace not nature); pure in mind, kindly in affection, devout in piety, perfect in chastity, of one mind in agreement, secure in peace, created by God, dedicated to the praise and worship of God.
People hold different opinions about the bodies of the citizens of heaven, not only whence they come, but whether they have bodies at all. I should not disagree with anyone who said that this was a matter of opinion. That they are endowed with understanding we
4. The question of the degree of certainty to be accorded to opinion was discussed among contemporaries. See my Anselm and a New Generation (Oxford, 1980), pp. 81ff.
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^ hold not by faith nor by opinion, but by knowledge, for they cannot be without understanding and enjoy the presence of God. Likewise, we know certain of their names because we have heard them, and through these we can grasp and discern something of their merits, dignities, and orders, although hüman ears do not hear perfectly clearly. What is not learned by hearing is not faith; for "faith comes by hearing" (Rom 10:7). And so we have described these as matters of opinion.
Why are we told these heavenly names, if not to allow us, in faith, to take a view of what they name—angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principalities, dominations, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim: these names. What do they mean? Is there no difference between those spirits which are simply called angels and those called archangels?
IV.8. What does this distinction of orders signify??
Unless you think something else fits better, let us take it that those who are called angels, each of whom is believed to be entrusted with the care of a particular person, are sent to minister, as Paul teaches, to those who are heirs of salvation (Heb 1:14); of these the Savior says,
"Their angels always see the Father's face" (Mt 18:10).
Suppose that above these are the archangels who, knowing divine mysteries, are sent only on important and serious occasions. Of these we read that that great archangel Gabriel was sent to Mary (Lk 1:26) for a reason which could not have been more important.
Let us suppose that above them come the virtues, at whose bidding or by whose act signs and wonders appear in the elements or are formed from the elements, to instruct mortal men (Dt 6:22; Ps 134:9, etc.). Perhaps that is why when you read in the Gospel, "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars" (Lk 21:25), a little after we find, "For the powers of heaven will be moved" (Lk 21:26). These are certainly the spirits through whom powerful signs take place. Let us consider the powers to be above these, whose power checks the powers of darkness
(Lk 22:53) and binds the malignity of this air, so that it can do no evil, nor any harm, unless it is for our good.
Above these are, let us say, the principalities, by whose moderation and wisdom every power on earth is set up, ruled, kept
5. John Scotus Erigena's renderings of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius are conveniently accessible in PL 111. See especially the Celestial Hierarchy on the orders of angels.
6. Virtus: power or virtue, here translated virtue to distinguish it from potestas.
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within bounds, transferred, diminished, altered. Let us suppose the dominations to be ranked still higher, above all these orders, who are their ministering spirits (Heb 1:14). They are masters of the rulership of the principalities, guardians of the powers, the work of the virtues, the revelations of the archangels, the care and provision of the angels.
Let us suppose that the thrones have risen to reaches even higher than these, and that they are called "thrones" because they are seated and God is seated in them. For he cannot be seated upon those who are not themselves seated. Do you ask what I think this "sitting" is? I think it is supreme tranquillity, most placid serenity, the peace which passes all understanding (Phil 4:7). Such is he, the Lord of Sabaoth, who sits upon the throne, judging all things in tranquillity, most placid, most serene, most peaceful. And he has placed thrones for himself, who closely resemble himself.
Let us suppose the cherubim drink from the very fount of wisdom, which is the mouth of the Most High (Sir 24:5), and pour forth a stream of knowledge upon all the citizens of heaven. And let us see whether this is not that of which the prophet spoke, the rushing river which makes glad the city of God (Ps 45:5).
And let us suppose the Seraphim to be those who are aflame with the divine fire, and kindle the other citizens so that each is a burning and shining light, burning with love, shining with knowledge (Jn 5:35).
IV.9. O Eugenius, how good it is for us to be here (Mt 17:4)! But how much better it would be if perhaps we could at some time follow on wholly, whither we have gone in part. We have gone on in mind, but not with our whole mind; with only part, and that too small a part.
Our affections lie weighted down by this bodily mass, and they are stuck to the mire by desire; for now only dry and delicate consideration flies before. And yet from that little which is now given consideration freely cries, "Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house and the place of habitation of your glory" (Ps 25:8). What if the soul gathered itself wholly together and, with its affections recalled from all the places where they are held captive (Jer 29:14), (fearing what there is no need to fear, loving what is unworthy of love, grieving over nothing, rejoicing over less than nothing), it began to fly in utter freedom and to drive on in the power of the Spirit (Dn 14:35) and to glide along on the fragrance of grace? Surely when it begins to fly round those shining mansions and to look more intently into the bosom of Abraham (Lk 16:22) and to see again the souls of the martyrs under the altar (whatever that
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altar is) (Rv 6:9)," wearing the first robe (Lk 15:22) and patiently waiting for the second, will it not say with the prophet, even more insistently,
"One thing have I asked of the Lord; this will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may see the will of the Lord and visit his temple" (Ps 26:4)? Is not the heart of God to be seen there? Is the perfect and acceptable will of God not manifest there? (Rom 12:2), good in itself, pleasing in its effects, pleasing to those who enjoy it, perfect to the perfect, and the ultimate goal of those who seek? God's heart of mercy (Lk 1:78) is evident there, and the peacefulness of his thoughts (Jer 29:11), and the riches of his salvation (Is
33:6), and the mysteries of good will (Lk 2:16), the secrets of kindness which are hidden from mortals and not clearly glimpsed even by the elect. This is, indeed, for the good of their salvation, so that they do not cease to fear before their love makes them worthy.
IV.10 In these who are called seraphim we can see how he loves whose love arises from no need, but who hates nothing that he has made
(Wis 11:25). We can see how he takes care of those he has determined to save; how he carries them along; how he embraces them; how that fire (Dt 4:24; Heb 12:29) burns up the sins the elect have committed in their youth and the chaff of their ignorance, and renders them pure and worthy of his love.
We can see in the cherubim, who are said to be "fullness of knowledge," that the Lord is a God of knowledge (1 Sm 2:3), for in him there is no ignorance of any sort. For he is all light and in him is no darkness at all (1 Jn 1:5). He is all-seeing, and his eye never fails because it is never closed (Ps 16:2). He does not need to move into a light outside himself to see by, because he is the source of his own seeing. We can perceive how he sits on the thrones, as a judge who brings no fear to the innocent and who cannot be circumvented. He does not want to avoid judging, for as we have said, he sees and loves. Nor is it without significance that he sits. It signifies tranquillity. I would like my judgment to come from such a countenance full of love, unable to make a mistake, untroubled.
We see in the dominations how great is God's majesty, at whose nod an empire is set up, whose bounds are universal and eternal.
We see in the principalities the source from which all things come.
Just as a door hangs on a hinge, so the universe hangs on his rulership.
7. The "altar" of Rv 6:9 was a subject of speculation in medieval exegesis.
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We see in the powers that this same Prince powerfully protects those he rules and repels and drives away hostile powers.
We see in the virtues that one force of virtue extends everywhere equally, through which all things have their being as, invisible and motionless, it gives them life and affects them and moves all things for their good, holding them in strength. When it appears to men in uncommon effects, they speak of miracles or prodigies.
Lastly, we can see and wonder at in angels and archangels the truth and reality in experience of that saying, "For he cares about us" (1 Pt
5:7). He does not cease to delight us with visits from such beings, to instruct us by revelations, to whisper advice to us, and to take great care of us to our comfort.
V.11. All this the one and supreme Spirit who created (1 Cor 12:11) them has conferred on these spirits, giving to each as he willed.
He works these things in them and gives them these tasks, but to each in a different way. The seraphim burn, but with the fire of God, or rather, with the fire which is God. They love, for this is their special gift, but not as much as God or in the same way. The cherubim shine and are great in knowledge, they participate in truth, though not in the same way as Truth itself, or as much. The thrones sit, but by the beneficence of him who sits in them. They judge with tranquillity (Wis
12:18) but not in the measure or manner of the Bringer of peace (Jn 3:34), the peace which passes all understanding (Phil 4:7). The dominations rule, but under the Lord, and they also serve. What is this compared with his eternal sole dominion? The principalities are princes and they govern, but they themselves are governed, for they would not know how to govern if they were not governed. In the powers, strength is the outstanding quality, but he to whom they owe their strength is strong in a different way, and stronger than they are. Indeed, he is not so much strong as strength itself. The virtues have it as their ministry to stir up the lazy hearts of men by showing them signs. The virtue they have in them brings the signs about. They bring them about, but in comparison with what he does they do nothing. The difference is so great that it is to him alone that the prophets say, "You are God who does marvellous things" (Ps 76:15) and again, concerning him, "He who does great and wonderful things" (Ps 135:4).
V.12. Ifyou say that an angel can be present in us, I have no quarrel with that. I remember that it is written, "An angel spoke in me" (Zec
1:14). Yet there is a difference, and it is this. An angel is "within" when he suggests that we do good. He does not enter to cause us to do good.
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He is in us exhorting us to do good, not making us good. God is in us in such a way that he causes something to happen, so that he infuses or, rather, floods us, so that we partake of him. This happens in such a way that a man need not be afraid.to say that God is one Spirit with our spirit, even if he is not one person or one substance. For you have,
"He who clings to God is one in Spirit with him" (1 Cor 6:17). Therefore the angel is with the soul; God is in the soul. The angel is in the soul as its companion, God as its life.
And so just as the soul sees through the eyes, hears through the ears, smells with the nostrils, tastes with the mouth, and touches with all the rest of the body, so God does different things through different spirits, for example, in some showing his love, in others his knowledge, in others more of what he does, just as the manifestation of the Spirit is made to each for his benefit (1 Cor 12:7). Who is this we speak of so familiarly, but who is in reality so far off? How do we speak of him in our talk when he is hidden in his majesty and completely beyond our seeing and feeling?
Hear what he himself says to men: "Just as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Is 55:9). We are said to love; so is God, and many more things of that sort. But God loves as Love itself; he knows as Truth itself. He sits as Equity, rules as Majesty, governs as Prince, keeps safe as Salvation, works as Strength, reveals as Light, is with us as Holiness. All these things the angels do, and so do we; but in a far lowlier way, and not because of the good we are but because of the good we share.
Wuat Is ro BE CONTEMPLATED IN THE ESSENCE OF GOD.
Tue Heresy oF THOSE Wuo Say "Gop Is Gop iN His DiviNITY, Bur THE Divinity Is Nor Itse_r Gop: Gop Is ONE"?
VI.13. Pass beyond those spirits for now and you may perhaps be able to say with the Bride, "Almost as soon as I had passed them I found him whom my soul loves" (Sg 3:4). Who is he? I cannot think of any
8. The debate to which Bernard refers here concerned the teaching of Gilbert of Poitiers. For a discussion, see the introduction to N. M. Háring's edition of Gilbert of Poitiers's Commentaries on Boethius (Toronto, 1966).
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better way to put it than to say that he is *He who is" (Ex 3:14). This is what he wanted to be said of him. He enjoined Moses to say this to the people, "He who is has sent me to you" (Ex 3:14). Rightly indeed.
Nothing is more fitting to the eternity which God is. If you say that God is good or great or blessed or wise or anything of that sort, it is all summed up by saying that he "is." For to him, to be is what it is to be all these things. If you were to add a hundred such things you would not have gone beyond saying that he is. If you said those things you would not have added anything. If you did not mention them you would have subtracted nothing.
If you have now seen how unique and how supreme his being is, surely you consider that in comparison with him, whatever is not this being rather fails to exist than exists?
What is God? That without which nothing exists (Jn 1:3). Just as nothing exists without him, so he cannot exist without himself. He exists for himself and for all, and so in some way he alone exists who is his own existence and that of everything else.
What is God? The beginning. This is what he called himself (jn 8:25). Many things are called beginnings, but that is because something comes after them. If you look back and see that one thing precedes another, you will call that the beginning. So if you are seeking the true and absolute beginning, it is necessary for you to discover that which has no beginning. That from which everything began had itself no beginning. For if it had a beginning it must have had a source. Nothing begins from itself—unless perhaps someone thinks that that which was not could have given a beginning to its own existence. Or that something existed before it existed? But since reason does not accept either of these things, it is clear that nothing exists as its own beginning. And indeed what had its beginning from something else was not first.
Therefore the true Beginning did not have a beginning in any way, but began wholly from itself.
VI.14. What is God? A Being for whom the ages have not come or gone, and are coeternal with him. What is God? He "from whom and through whom and in whom are all things" (Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6).
"From whom" are all things through creation, not as from a source.
"Through whom" are all things (in case you think the Author and the Creator are not one and the same). *In whom" are all things, not as in a place, but as if "in power." "From whom" are all things, as from one beginning, the Author of all things. "Through whom" are all things, lest we think the Maker is not the beginning. *In whom" are all things
ON CONSIDERATION
(in case we think there is some third thing, a place). "From whom," that is, not of whom, for God is not material.
He is the efficient not the material cause.' In vain do the philosophers search for matter. God did not need matter. He did not look for a workshop or a craftsman. He himself made everything through himself and in himself. Whence? From nothing. For if he made it from anything, he did not make that something, and thus he did not make everything. Perish the thought that from his incorrupt and incorruptible substance he should make so many corruptible things, good though they are.
Do you ask where he is if all things are in him? I can say no more than this: What place can hold him? Do you ask where he is not? That, too, I cannot say. What place is without God? God is beyond understanding (Jer 32:19). But you have grasped something if you have realized this about him: that he who is not enclosed in any place is nowhere and he who is not excluded from any place is everywhere. In his own sublime and incomprehensible way, just as all things are in him
(Col 1:16—7), so he is in all things (1 Cor 15:28). As the Evangelist says, *He was in the world" (Jn 1:10). Yet he is now where he was before the world began. There is nowhere further to ask about. There was nothing but God and so he was in himself (Jn 1:3).
VII.15. What is God? He is that than which nothing better? can be thought. If you think that is correct you should not hold that there is anything from which God is and which is not itself God. For if there were such a thing it would undoubtedly be the better. How could it not be better than God if it is not God and yet is that which causes God to be? But it is better for us to say that that divinity by which they say that God is, is nothing other than God. For there is nothing in God but God. "What?" they say. "Do you deny that God has divinity?" No, but that which he is, he is. "Do you deny that he is God by divinity?"
No, but that divinity is nothing but what he himself is."
If you have found something else, if the Trinity which is God assists me, I shall rise up boldly against it. The earth has far corners to 9. This division of types of causes had become a commonplace; Abelard could not trace it to its Greek origin, but he discusses it in Theologia Christiana, II.28, ed. M. Buytaert,
CCCM XII (Turnholt, 1969), pp. 144 et alibi. s 10. Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, adapts Anselm's dictum that God is that than which nothing greater can be thought, and speaks, as Bernard does here, of melius. See
The Works of Gilbert Crispin, ed. A. S. Abulafia and G. R. Evans (London, 1986).
11. See note 8.
ON CONSIDERATION
limit it. That is not what God is like. God is a Trinity. God is each of the three Persons. If it pleases you to add a fourth divinity,
Iam already convinced that this person who is not God is not worthy of worship. I think you agree, for "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve" (Lk 4:8). It is a glorious divinity which does not dare to claim divine honor for itself. But it is better that we reject this fourth than receive it without honor. Many things are said to be in God, and in a most true and Catholic'? way, but the many are one. Otherwise, if we were to think them separate, we should not have a fourness but a hundredfold. For example, we call God great, good, just, and innumerable things of that sort, but unless you consider all to be one in God and with God, you will have a multiple God.
VII.16. I can think of a better God than this God of yours. You ask what God? Pure simplicity. True judgment puts a simple nature higher than a compound one. I know what they are accustomed to reply to this. They say, "We do not attribute many things to God as conditions of his existence, but only this one: divinity." You therefore assert, if not a multiple God, at least a dual one, and you have not arrived at pure simplicity, nor at that than which nothing better can be thought.
That which is under even one form is not simple, just as she who has known even one man is not a virgin. I speak with confidence. He who is even double shall not be my God. For I have a better. Certainly I should put this dual God before a numerous and multiple one, but I despise such a God in comparison with a simple God. My God is universal. He does not have this or that attribute, any more than he possesses these or those. He is who he is (Ex 3: 14), not what he is.
He is pure, simple, whole, perfect, constant to himself, with nothing about him which is temporal or local or involved in the particularities of created things. He gives up nothing of himself to such things.
There is nothing of his which can be counted, nothing which can be made to add up to a total of one. He is one, but not a unity of many things. He is not made of parts like a body, or diffused in feelings like a soul. He is not a substance with forms, like all things which are made
(Jn 1:3), not a single form as he seems to these thinkers to be.? Great praise be to God that he is claimed to be made free of forms by a single form! This is to say that everything else is under many forms and God
12. Catholicus was often used for Christianus in the twelfth century.
13. The reference is to Gilbert of Poitiers and his disciples. See N. M. Hiring's introduction to his edition of Gilbert of Poitiers, Commentaries on Boethius (Toronto, 1966).
ON CONSIDERATION
is under only one. What is this? Shall he by whose beneficence all things exist himself bow in acknowledgement to another's beneficence?
That praise, as they say, amounts to blasphemy. Is it not greater to be in need of nothing than of one thing? Have reverence enough for God to attribute to him what is greater. If your thinking cannot ascend so high, how can you place God lower? He is his own form; he is his own essence. For now I look up to his level and if another higher should appear I would rather grant him to be that. Surely we need not fear that thought will fly higher than he? However high it goes he is beyond it. To look for the Most High below the highest point man's thought can reach is ridiculous. To put him at that point is impious. He is to be sought beyond it, not this side of it.
VII.17. Climb, if you can, to a still loftier thought and God will be exalted (cf. Ps 63:7-8). God is not formed; he is form. He is not affected; he is feeling. He is not a composite; he is pure simplicity. And you know exactly what I mean by simple: It is the same as one. God is as simple as one. He is one as nothing else is. If it can be put this way, he is "one-est." The sun is one, for there is no other sun. The moon is one, again because there is no other. He is one in that way, but more so. What is more than that? He is one in himself.
You wish this to be explained to you? He is always the same, and in the same way. The sun is not one like that, nor the moon. Both declare that they are not, for one moves and the other wanes. God is not only one to himself; he is one in himself. There is nothing in him but himself. He does not change with time. Nor does his substance alter.
Hence Boethius says of him, "This is truly one in which there is no number, nothing but what it is. For it cannot be made subject to forms because it is a form."!* Compare this with everything else which can be said to be one and nothing else will seem one.
Yet God is a Trinity. What then? Have we made nonsense of what has been said about unity by bringing in Trinity? No. But we establish what the unity is. We say that he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet not three Gods but one. What is this number without number, so to speak? If it is three how can it not be a number? If it is one, how is it a number? "But I have," you say, "something I can number and something I cannot." The substance is one but the Persons are three. Is that 14. Boethius, De Trinitate, 2, Theological Tractates, ed. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester (London, 1973).
ON CONSIDERATION
startling or incomprehensible? Not if the Persons are thought of apart from the substance. Now since those three Persons are that substance and that substance is those three Persons, who can deny that there is number? For they are truly three. But who can number them? For truly they are one.
But if you think that is easily explained, tell me what you have numbered in speaking of three. Natures? There is one. Essences?
There is one. Substances?" There is one. Deities? There is one. "I number not these but the Persons," you say, which are not that one nature, one essence, one substance, one divinity. You are a Catholic.
You will not say this.
VIIL.18. The Catholic Church believes that the properties of the Persons are no other than the Persons themselves, and that the Persons are no other than one God, one divine substance, one divine nature, one divine and supreme majesty. Number them if you can, either the Persons without the substance (which is what they are) or the properties without the Persons (which are what they are). But if anyone tries to divide the Persons from the substance or the properties from the Persons, I do not know how he who goes so much too far in numbering can profess himself a worshiper of the Trinity. And so we speak of three, but not to the prejudice of unity. We speak of one, but not to the confusion of Trinity. For these names are not empty, nor are they words without meaning.
Does someone ask how this may be (Jn 3:9)? Let it be enough for him to believe this, not as something which is clear to reason, nor as something which is a matter of uncertain opinion, but as something of which he is convinced by faith. This is a great mystery (Eph 5:32) and to be revered, not peered into. How is there plurality in unity or unity in plurality? It is rash to enquire into this; it is devout to believe it; to know it is life, and life eternal (Jn 17:3). Therefore, Eugenius, if you consider it of value, think how many kinds of "one" there are, so that the supremacy of this unique *one" may be more obvious.
There is what can be called a collective unity, as when we make a pile of many stones. There is a constituted unity (1 Cor 12:12,12:20), as where a body is constituted of many members or when many parts make a whole of some sort. There is conjugal unity by which two cease to be two and become one flesh (Gn 2:24; Mk 19:5—6; 1 Cor 6: 16). There
15. Augustine uses natura, essentia, substantia interchangeably.
ON CONSIDERATION
is unity of nature as when soul and flesh make one man. There is moral unity by which a virtuous man tries to free himself from instability and inconsistency and always to be at one with himself. 'There is a unity of consent, when through charity many men are of one mind and one spirit (Acts 4:32). There is a unity of devotion, when the soul, clinging to God with all its desires, is one in spirit with him (1 Cor 6:17). There is a unity of deigning, by which our clay was assumed by the Word of God in a single Person.
VIII.19. What are all these compared with that supreme and, so to speak, "unique" One, where shared substance makes unity. If you compare any of them to that unity it will be in some way one, but there will be no comparison between them. Therefore among all the things which are rightly said to be one, the unity of the Trinity is first, in which three Persons are one substance. It excels, putting it into second place, that unity by which three substances are one Person in Christ.
Moreover, these and the others which can be said to be one are called one in imitation of that supreme unity, not by comparison with it, as true and sober consideration demonstrates. Nor are we led away from professing this unity by asserting that it is a unity of three, for in this
Trinity we do not find any multiplicity, any more than there is solitude in its unity. Therefore when I say "one" the number of the Trinity does not disturb me, for it does not multiply the essence or change it or divide it. Again, when I say "three," the idea of unity does not argue against me, for this unity does not confuse the three entities or beings, or reduce them to singularity.
IX.20. I tell you that I think the same of that unity to which I have attributed the honor of being second to this among other "ones." I say that in Christ the Word, the soul and the body are one Person without confusion of essences, and that without prejudice to the unity of Person they keep their numerical distinctness. Nor would I deny that this unity is of that sort by which the soul and the body are one man.'° It was indeed appropriate that that mystery brought about for man should fit his constitution so closely and in a way so like it. It was appropriate, too, that it should be like that supreme unity which is in God and is
God, so that in the same way as in him three Persons are one essence, so the three essences should, on the contrary, be one person. Do you not see how beautifully he is placed between the two unities, he who 16. See H. Denzinger, Encbiridion Symbolorum (Rome, 1967), p. 42.
ON CONSIDERATION .
is made the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5)? Most lovely fittingness, I say, that the mystery of salvation should correspond to both by an appropriate similarity, that is, both to the Savior and to the saved. Thus this unity stands in the middle between the two unities, lowlier than the one, higher than the other, and as much lower than the one as it is higher than the other.
IX.21. That Person, Christ, in whom God and man are one", is in himself such a great and powerful expression of unity that you would not go wrong if you were to predicate either of the other, truly and in a Catholic way pronouncing God to be man and man to be God. You cannot (except by talking nonsense) predicate the body of the soul or the soul of the body in the same way, even though body and soul are similarly one man. It is not suprising that the soul is not equally able to bind to itself a body by the mere intention of giving it life, strong though that is, and to hold a body by its affections, as divinity has done in the case of that man who was predestined to be the Son of God in power (Rom 1:14). Divine predestination is a long and powerful chain to bind, stretching from eternity. What is longer than eternity? What is more powerful than divinity? That is why this unity cannot be dissolved even by death, though body and soul are separated by death.
Perhaps this is what he felt who said that he was unworthy to loose the strap of his sandal (Mk 1:7).
X.22. It would not seem inappropriate to me if someone linked with these three essences in Christ those three measures of flour in the Gospel (Mt 13:3; Lk 13:21), which, mixed and leavened, make one bread. How well the woman leavened them, so that the Word was not separated from the body or the soul even at the division of body and soul. Even in separation there remained inseparable unity. For the separation in part which took place could not break that unity which remained in all three. Whether body and soul were joined or divided, the unity of Person continued in all three. One and the same Christ, one and the same Person, was the Word, the soul and the body, even after death. It was in the Virgin's womb, as I think, that this mingling and leavening took place, and that Woman who mingled also leavened —for perhaps I should not go far astray in identifying this leaven as Mary's faith. She who truly believes is truly blessed, for what the Lord said to her was fulfilled in her (Lk 1:45). These things would not have been
— 17. Ibid.
ON CONSIDERATION
fulfilled unless, as the Lord said, they were all leavened and unleavened perpetually (Mt 13:33), keeping for us, in death as in life, the one perfect Mediator of God and men with his divinity, the Man Christ Jesus
(1 Tm 2:5).
CONCERNING THOSE WHO ASSERT THAT THE FLESH OF CHRIST
Is SOMETHING NEW
CREATED IN THE VIRGIN, AND Not TAKEN FROM THE FLESH OF
THE VIRGIN
X.23. We must take note in this wonderful mystery of the marvellous and most fitting degrees of distinction, according to the number of measures of meal: new, old, eternal. The new is the soul, which we believe to be created from nothing at the moment it is infused. The old is the flesh, which we know is passed on from the first man, that is, from Adam. The eternal is the Word, which is, with undoubted truth, asserted to have been coeternal with the Father from eternity, and begotten by him. And in these you will see, if you look carefully, a triple kind of divine power (2 Mc 7:28). Something is made from nothing; something new is made from something old, something everlasting and blessed from something damned and dead. What does this have to do with our salvation? A great deal in every way (Rom 3:2). First, because having been brought to nothing by our sin, we are created new again by this in some way, so that there is a sense in which we are the beginning of his creation (Jas 1:18). Second, because we have been freed from the old slavery and made sons of God (Rom 8:21) and we walk in newness of spirit (Rom 6:4, 7:6). Lastly, because we are called from the power of darkness (Col 1:13) to the kingdom of eternal brightness in which even now he has caused us to sit, in Christ (Eph 2:6). Let those who try to separate us from the flesh of Christ be cut off from us, for wickedly asserting that the flesh of Christ was created newly (2 Cor
5:17) in the Virgin and not taken from her. Long before that prophetic spirit spoke beautifully about this view, or rather, blasphemy, of the wicked, when he said, "A shoot shall come forth from the root of Jesse and a flower spring up from his root" (Is 11:1). He could have said, "and a flower from the shoot," but he preferred "from the root" in order to show that the shoot and the flower had the same origin. Therefore flesh was assumed from the origin from which the Virgin came forth and was not created new in the Virgin; for it was derived from the same root.
ON CONSIDERATION.
Tue Many Expressions or DiviNE CONTEMPLATION XI.24. Perhaps you will groan if we ask again what God is: both because we have asked that question so often already, and because you doubt whether we are going to find an answer. I tell you, Father Eugenius, it is only God who can never be sought in vain (Is 45:19), even when he cannot be found. Let your own experience convince you of that, not, believe an expert, not myself, but the Holy One, who said,
"Lord you are good to those who hope in you, to the soul which seeks you" (Lam 3:25).
What, then, is God? He is the purpose to which the universe looks, the salvation of the elect. What he is to himself, only he knows. What is God? All-powerful will, benevolent virtue, eternal light, changeless reason, supreme blessedness. He creates minds to share in himself, gives them life, so that they may experience him, causes them to desire him, enlarges them to grasp him, justifies them so that they may deserve him, stirs them to zeal, ripens them to fruition, directs them to equity, forms them in benevolence, moderates them to make them wise, strengthens them to virtue, visits them to console, enlightens them with knowledge, sustains them to immortality, fills them with happiness, surrounds them with safety.
Gop Is No Less THE PUNISHMENT OF THE PROUD
THAN THE GLORY OF THE HUMBLE
XIL.25. What is God? He is not less the punishment of the wicked than the glory of the humble. He is, as it were, the rational principle of equity, unchanging and never compromising; indeed, he reaches everywhere, and every evil which meets him must be confounded (Wis 8:1).
Is it not obvious that everything which is swollen or distorted must be shaken to pieces when it is thrown against it? Woe to anything which comes up against a righteousness which, because it is also fortitude, does not know how to give way. What is contrary and opposed to evil will as always to be striving and clashing, but for nothing. Woe to rebellious wills, which get only punishment when they oppose themselves. What is a worse punishment than always to will what will never be and to be constantly opposing what will always be? What is condemned like a will given up to this compulsion to desire and to turn away, so that it experiences both only perversely, and, for that reason,
ON CONSIDERATION
wretchedly? It will never have what it wants and it will endure forever what it does not want. It is wholly just that he who is never drawn to what is right should never attain what he wants. Who makes this so?
The righteous Lord our God, who deals with the perverse in their own perverse way (Ps 91:16, 17:27). Right and wrong never agree, for they are opposed (Gal 5:17), even when they do not harm one another. The harm they do is to one another, certainly not to God. "It is hard for you," he says, "to kick against the goad" (Acts 9:15). It is not for the goad that it is hard, but for him who kicks. God is also the punishment of the wily man, for he is light. What is so hateful as light to obscene and profligate minds? Truly, "everyone who does evil hates the light"
(Jn 3:20). But, I say, can they not avoid it? No. It shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it (Jn 1:5). The light sees the darkness, because for light to shine is to see. But the light is not seen in turn by the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it. It is seen so that it can be confounded; it does not see, for if it did it would be comforted. It is seen not only by the light but in the light. By whom?
By everyone who sees, so that the multitude of witnesses may add to their confusion. But out of so large a number of spectators no eye causes each more trouble than his own. From no scrutiny in heaven or on earth
(1 Cor 8:5) would a heavy conscience be more glad to flee, and from none is he less able to flee. The darkness does not hide even itself.
Those who see nothing else see themselves. The works of darkness pursue them (Rom 13:12), and they have no place to hide from them (Ps
18:7), not even in darkness.
This is the worm which does not die (Mk 9:43), the memory of things past (Wis 11:13). Once it is put into a person, or rather, born in a person through sin, it clings there stubbornly, and it is never afterward to be removed. It never stops gnawing at the conscience. Feeding on this food which is never exhausted, it draws out its life. I am filled with horror by this gnawing worm, and by such a living death. I am filled with horror at the thought of falling into the hands of this living
(Heb 10:31) death, this dying life.
XII.26. This is the second death (Rv 20:14) which never actually kills, but is always killing. Who can grant that they die once and not allow that they die forever? Those who say to the mountains, "Fall upon us" and to the hills, "cover us" (Lk 23:30), what is it they wish to end but death, or else avoid through the kindness of death? It is said,
"They will call upon death but death will not come" (Jb 3:21). See this more clearly. It is agreed that the soul is immortal and that it will never
ON CONSIDERATION:
exist without its memory, or else it would not be the soul any longer.'?
So long as the soul lasts, the memory lasts. But in what condition? Defiled with shameful acts, disgusting with crimes, swollen with vanity, scruffy and neglected with contempt. What was has passed away (2 Cor
5:17), but it is both past and not past? It has passed from the hand but not the mind. What is done cannot be undone. Even if it was done in time, what has been done lasts for eternity. What you have done wrong and remember for eternity must gnaw away for eternity. Thus you will know from experience how true is the saying, "I will stand before you and accuse you" (Ps 49:21). The Lord has spoken (Dt 4:10) and every- 'one who is opposed to him must be opposed to himself, so that in the end he complains, "O guardian of men, why have you set me against you. Why have I become a burden to myself" (Jb 7:20).
That is how it is, Eugenius. No being can be opposed to God and in harmony with itself. Whoever God accuses, accuses himself. Surely there will be no way in the next life in which reason can ignore the truth or the soul without its body and gathered into itself, ignore the eye of reason. How could it, when death has sent to sleep and imprisoned the senses through which the soul used to rush out from itself into the transient beauty of this world (1 Cor 7:31)? Do you see that everything is ready to bring confusion on vile men when they were brought forth to become a spectacle to God, the angels and men themselves (1 Cor 4:9)?
Oh, how badly placed are all the wicked! They are set in opposition to this torrent of absolute justice and exposed to the light of naked truth.
Surely this is what it is to be perpetually tossed about and perpetually confounded? The prophet says, "Destroy them with a double destruction, O Lord our God" (Jer 17:8).
Wuart Is THE LENGTH AND BREADTH AND HEIGHT AND DeptH?
XIII.27. What is God? He is the length and breadth and height and depth (Eph 3:18). "What!" you say. "Are you taking to teaching quaternity, which you abominated before?" Not at all. I did and do abominate it. I seem to have listed many things, but they are one. The one God has been described, but so that we can understand, not as he
18. The origin of the soul was a topic of contemporary debate, touched on in the Sentences of tbe school of Laon, O. Lottin, ed. cit.
ON CONSIDERATION
is in himself. The divisions are for our benefit. They are not in him.
There are different words, many paths, but they signify One; One is sought by many paths. In that quaternity no divisions of substance are expressed, no dimensions, such as we perceive by the senses, no distinction of persons, such as we adore in the Trinity, no counting of properties, such as those we attribute to the Persons individually, although they are not distinct from the Persons. To put it another way, these four are one in God and the one is four. But we cannot grasp the simplicity of God. While we strive to understand what he is as one, he appears to us as fourfold. This is because we see through a glass darkly
(1 Cor 13:12); that is the only way we can see in this life. But when we see him face to face we shall see him as he is (1 Cor 13:12; 1 Jn 3:2).
Then the uncertain vision of our souls will not falter, however hard we strain to see, or fragment into its own multiplicity. It will draw together, unite and conform itself to the unity of God, or rather to God who is unity, so they will be face to face with one another. Indeed, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3:2). This is the blessed vision for which he rightly longed who said, "My face has sought you, your face, Lord, do I seek" (Ps 26:8).
For now, the search is still going on. So let us climb into the fourhorse chariot. For we are still weak and feeble and we need a vehicle of that sort, in order to know him by whom we are known (Phil 3:12). He is the reason for the vehicle. For we have this instruction from the Charioteer himself, he who first showed us this chariot, so that we might desire "to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth" (Eph 3:18). He says "comprehend" not "know" so that we should not be content to be curious for knowledge, but seek with all our power to comprehend. The reward lies not in knowing but in comprehending. To put it another way, as someone says, it is a sin for someone to know what is good and not to do it (Jas 4:17). And Paul himself says in another place, "So run that you may comprehend" (1
Cor 9:24). (I shall explain in a moment what it means to "comprehend.") XIII.28. What, then, is God? He is "length," I say. What is that?
Eternity. Eternity is so long that it has no end of place or time. He is also breadth (Eph 3:18). And what is that? Love. And who shall draw boundaries to God's love, for he hates nothing that he has made (Wis
11:25)? Indeed, he causes his sun to rise upon the good and the wicked and rain falls upon the just and the unjust (Mt 5:45). Therefore his bosom enfolds even his enemies. And not satisfied with that, it stretches to infinity. He goes beyond every bound not only of love but
ON CONSIDERATION *
of knowledge, as the Apostle goes on to say, "And to know the love of Christ, which passes all understanding" (Eph 3:19). What more can I say? He is eternal, or perhaps even greater, eternity itself. Do you see that the width is as great as the length? Would that you could see not only what it is like but what it actually is! To be breadth is to be depth.
The one no less than two; the two no more than one. God is eternity; "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16). He is length without extension, breadth without distension. In both equally he exceeds local and temporal limits, but by the freedom of his nature, not by the vastness of his substance.
He who made everything according to measure (Wis 11:21) is immense in this way, and although he is immense, this is the measure of his immensity.
XII.29. Again, what is God? "The height and the depth." In one he is above all, in the other, he is within all. It is clear that nowhere in the Godhead is equality limited. It stands square on all sides and is utterly consistent. Consider his power as the height and his wisdom as the depth. They correspond to one another symmetrically, and while the height is beyond reach the depth is equally beyond seeing into. Paul wonders at it and exclaims, "O height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how inscrutable are his judgments, and his ways are beyond searching out" (Rom 11:33). Let us exclaim with Paul, gazing upon the most simple unity of those attributes with God and in God. O powerful wisdom, reaching everywhere in strength. O wise power, disposing all things sweetly! One reality, many effects, different acts (1 Cor 12:6). And this one reality is length because it is eternity, breadth because it is love, height because it is majesty, depth because it is wisdom.
XIV.30. We know this. But surely we do not think we have comprehended it? Argument does not comprehend these things but holiness, if that which is incomprehensible can be comprehended in any way.
But if it could not, the Apostle would not have said that we should comprehend with all the saints (Rom 11:33). So the saints comprehend it. Do you ask how? If you are holy", you have comprehended it and you know. If not, be holy and you will know from your own experience. Holy love makes a man holy, and it is twofold: holy fear (Ps 18:10)
19. Augustine discusses the memory and other powers of the soul in De Trinitate, X, ed. W. J. Mountain and Fr. Glorie, CCSL 50 (Turnholt, 1968).
ON CONSIDERATION
of the Lord and holy love. The soul moved entirely by these grasps as if with its two arms, embraces, hugs, holds, and says, "I have him and I will not let him go" (Sg 3:4). And fear responds to the height and depth, love to the breadth and length. For what is so to be feared as the power which cannot be resisted, the wisdom from which you cannot hide? If either of these were lacking, God could be feared less. But it is fitting that you should fear him whose eye is ceaselessly seeing everything, and in whose powerful hand all things lie.
Again, what is so lovable as love itself, by which you love and are loved? Eternity makes it more lovable by being joined to it, for since it does not cease (1 Cor 13:8) it casts out suspicion (1 Jn 4:18). Love, then, with perseverance and long-suffering, and you will have length. Extend your love to your enemies and you will have breadth. Be fearful with all care, and you have grasped the height and depth (Eph 3:18).
XIV.31. Butif you prefer, four attributes of your own correspond to the divine four: if you marvel, if you fear, if you burn, if you endure.
Marvel at the height of majesty. Fear the abyss of judgment. To burn you must love. Eternity requires perseverance in enduring.
Who will wonder but he who contemplates the glory of God (Acts 7:55)? Who will fear, but he who looks into the depths of wisdom (1
Cor 2:10)? Who will burn but he who meditates on the love of God?
Who will continue and persevere in love but he who emulates the eternity of love? Surely perseverance is an image of eternity? It is to perseverance alone that eternity is given—or rather it is perseverance alone that gives a man to eternity, as the Lord says, "He who perseveres to the end shall be saved" (Mt 10:22).
XIV.32. And now, notice that in these four are four kinds of contemplation. The first and greatest is to wonder at majesty. This demands a heart made pure, so that, freed from vices and released from sin, it can ascend easily to heavenly things. Sometimes this contemplation holds the watcher rapt in amazement and ecstasy, if only for a moment. A second kind of contemplation is necessary for this man. He needs to look on the judgments of God. While this contemplation strikes fear into the onlooker because it is indeed frightening, it drives out vices, strengthens virtues, initiates into wisdom, protects humility.
Humility is the true and solid foundation of the virtues. For if humility were to collapse, the building-up of the virtues will fall down. The third kind of contemplation is occupied (or rather at leisure) in remembering kindnesses and, so as to avoid ingratitude, it urges him who remembers to love his Benefactor. Of such says the prophet, speaking to the Lord,
ON CONSIDERATION:
"They shall declare the memory of the abundance of youth sweetness"
(Ps 144:7). The fourth contemplation, which forgets what is past, rests wholly in the expectation of what is promised (Phil 3:13), which nourishes patience and nerves the arm of perseverance, for what is promised is eternal. I think it is now easy to compare our four terms with those of the Apostle. For meditation on the promises covers length; remembrance of blessing, width; contemplation of majesty, height; examination of judgments, depth (Eph 3:18). He must still be sought who has not yet been found (Mt 7:7) fully, but he is perhaps sought more worthily and found more easily by prayer than discussion. So let this be the end of the book but not of the search.