Chapter XVII
St. Anselm The Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury that light as it is in the sun himself. My understanding cannot attain to that light unapproachable; it is too bright for it, it taketh it not in, nor can my soul's eye bear long to be directed toward it. It is dazzled by the brightness, vanquished by the vastness, overwhelmed by the immensity, confounded by the compass thereof.
O supreme and unapproachable Light! O entire and blessed Truth! how far off art Thou from me, who am so near to Thee! How far removed art Thou from my sight, who am wholly present to Thine? Thou art everywhere wholly present, yet I see Thee not. In Thee I move, in Thee I have my being;31 yet can I not approach unto Thee. Thou art within me and about me, yet I perceive
Thee not.
CHAPTER XVII
HITHERTO, O Lord, Thou art hid from my soul in Thine own light and bliss; and therefore she goeth up and down in her darkness and misery. For she looketh about her, and beholdeth not Thy beauty. She listeneth, and heareth not Thy harmony. She smelleth and perceiveth not Thy sweetness.
She tasteth, and hath no sense of Thy goodness. She toucheth, and feeleth not Thy smoothness. For Thou hast all these, beauty to the sight, harmony to the ear, sweetness to the smell, goodness to the taste, smoothness to the touch, all in Thee, O Lord God, in Thine own ineffable way, since it is
Thou who hast granted to sensible things to have them in their own way which our bodily senses perceive; but the senses of my soul are stiffened and dulled and obstructed by the long sickness of sin.
CHAPTER XVIII
AND once more behold, trouble!32 So once more cometh sorrow and grief to me that sought after joy and gladness.33 My soul hoped but now to be filled, and behold, once more is she bowed down
Acts xvii. 18.
Jer. xiv. 19.
Ps. li. 8.
St. Anselm The Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury by want. I sought to eat and be satisfied, and lo, I am more hungry than before. I strove to rise up into the light of God, and have fallen back into mine own darkness. Nay, not only have I fallen into the darkness, but I perceive myself encompassed about thereby. I fell into it before my mother conceived me.34 Surely I was conceived in darkness, and was born under the shadow thereof. Surely we all fell in him, in whom we all have sinned.35 We all lost in him who might easily have kept it and lost it to his own sorrow and ours, that which when we desire to seek, we know not: when we seek, we find not: when we find, is not that which we seek. Help me then, according to Thy goodness!
Lord, I have sought Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek; O hide not Thou Thy face from me.36
Raise me up out of myself unto Thee.37 Cleanse, heal, quicken, enlighten the eye of my mind that it may look upon Thee. Grant that my soul may collect her strength once more and with all the power of her understanding strive after Thee, O Lord. What art Thou, O Lord, what art Thou? How shall my heart understand what Thou art? Surely Thou art life and wisdom and truth and goodness and blessedness and eternity and everything that is truly good. These indeed are many; but my narrow understanding cannot see so many good things in one apprehension at one and the same time, so as to be delighted by the presence of all at once. How then, O Lord, art Thou all these?
Are they parts of Thee, or is rather everyone of these wholly what Thou art? For whatsoever is composed of parts is not in all respects one, but in a certain respect many and diverse from itself; and either actually or in thought can be dissolved: but to be many and not one, or to be capable of dissolution even in thought is far from Thy nature, since Thou art that than which no better can be conceived. Thus there are no parts in Thee, O Lord, nor art Thou many and not one: but Thou art one and the same with Thyself, so that in nothing art Thou unlike Thyself, nay, rather Thou art very Oneness, indivisible by any understanding. Therefore life and wisdom and Thine other attributes are not parts of Thee but are all one, and everyone of them is wholly what Thou art and what the other attributes are. And as Thou hast no parts, so neither is Thine eternity which is Thyself, at any place or time a part of Thee or of Thy whole eternity; but Thou art wholly everywhere and Thine eternity is wholly at all times.38
Ps. li. 5.
Rom. v. 12. The Vulgate (like A.V. marg.) renders the last words of this verse: in whom all have sinned.
Ps. xxvii. 9, 10.
Reading Releva.
St Anselm here explains that, as God's attributes cannot be distinguished from Himself, as our attributes can be distinguished from ourselves—see chap. xiii.—so they cannot be so distinguished from one another, as to be looked upon in the light of parts which added together make up the composite notion of God's nature. We may only be able to think first of one divine attribute, then of another; but we must not suppose God's nature to be divisible, even in thought: we can conceive of many things as