10. Purification of Heart (On the Beatitudes, sermon 6,: 44.1268B-1272C)10
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the soul begins its ascent to higher truth. The command that no beast come near the mountain (Exod. 19.13), signifies, I think, that the contemplation of truth is far superior to all sense perception. For it is characteristic of animals to be governed by sense alone apart from intelligence. They are lead by sight and sound to whatever excites their appetite; everything indeed which actuates the sense faculties plays an important role in their lives. But the contemplation of God cannot function in the realm of sight or hearing; it even escapes the ordinary exercise of our intellect. For eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor is it any of those ordinary things which enter into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2.9). Hence, the man who would approach the knowledge of the mysteries must first purify his conduct of all sensuous or animal be havior; he must wash from his mind any opinion based on sense perception; he must avoid the customary intercourse with his own spouse (Exod. 19.15), that is, his senses, which are, as it were, the wife and helpmeet of our human nature; and only when he is thus purified may he dare to attempt the mountain.
10. Purification of Heart (On the Beatitudes, sermon 6,
44.1268B-1272C)10
Now the divine nature, as it is in itself, according to its essence, transcends every act of comprehensive knowledge, and it cannot be approached or attained by our speculation.
Men have never discovered a faculty to comprehend the in comprehensible; nor have we ever been able to devise an intellectual technique for grasping the inconceivable. For
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this reason the great Apostle calls God's ways unsearchable (Rom. n.33), teaching us by this that the way that leads to the knowledge of the divine nature is inaccessible to our reason; and hence none of those who have lived before us has given us the slightest hint of comprehension suggesting that we might know that which in itself is above all knowledge.
Such then is He Whose essence is above every nature, in visible, incomprehensible. Yet He can be seen and appre hended in another way, and the ways of this apprehension are numerous. For we can see Him, Who has made all things in wisdom (Ps. 103.24), by the process of inference through the wisdom that is reflected in the universe. It is just as in human works of art, where the mind can in a sense see the author of the ordered structure that is before it, inasmuch as he has left his artistry in his work. But notice that what we see here is not the substance of the craftsman, but merely the artistic skill that he has impressed in his work. So too, when we consider the order of creation, we form an image not of the substance but of the wisdom of Him Who has done all things wisely. Again, when we consider the origin of human life, how God came to create man not out of any necessity but merely by the goodness of His free will, we say that we again contemplate God in this way, but it is His goodness and not His essence that is the object of our knowl edge. So it is with all the things which raise the mind towards the supreme Good; in all of these cases we may speak of a knowledge of God, since all of these sublime considerations bring God within our ken. For the concepts of power, purity, immutability, freedom from limitation by what is contrary, and the like, impress upon our minds the image of a sublime and, in a sense, divine idea.
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From what has been said, then, it is clear that the Lord does not deceive us when He promises that the pure of heart shall see God (Matth. 5.8); nor does Paul deceive us when he teaches us in his epistles that no one has seen God nor can see Him (1 Tim. 6.16). For being by nature invisible,
He becomes visible only in His operations, and only when He is contemplated in the things that are external to Him.
But the meaning of this Beatitude (Matth. 5.8) does not merely indicate that we can infer the nature of the cause from its operations; for in that case even the wise of this world might gain a knowledge of transcendent wisdom and power through the harmonic structure of the universe.
Rather, I think this magnificent Beatitude envisages another counsel for those who are able to receive and grasp what they desire. My meaning will become clear by examples.
In our human existence physical health is a good thing; and indeed it is a blessing not only to know the reasons for good health but actually to enjoy it. Now suppose a man should speak the praises of good health and then proceed to take food that was unwholesome and contained unhealthy juices. What good would his praise of health be, when he himself was afflicted with disease?
Analogously, then, we are to penetrate the meaning of our present text. The Lord does not say that it is blessed to know something about God, but rather to possess God in oneself:
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matth.
5.8). By this I do not think He means that the man who purifies the eye of his soul will enjoy an immediate vision of God; rather I think this marvelous saying teaches us the same lesson that the Word expressed more clearly to others when He said: The \ingdom of God is within you (Luke
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IOI 17.21). And this teaches us that the man who purifies his heart of every creature and of every passionate impulse will see the image of the divine nature in his own beauty. So too in this short sentence the Word, I think, is giving us the following advice: All you mortals who have within yourselves a desire to behold the supreme Good, when you are told that the majesty of God is exalted above the heavens, that the divine glory is inexpressible, its beauty indescribable, its nature in accessible, do not despair at never being able to behold what you desire. For you do have within your grasp the degree of the knowledge of God which you can attain. For, when God made you, He at once endowed your nature with this perfec tion: upon the structure of your nature He imprinted an imitation of the perfections of His own nature, just as one would impress upon wax the outline of an emblem. But the wickedness that has been poured all over this divine engrav ing has made your perfection useless and hidden it with a vicious coating. You must then wash away, by a life of virtue, the dirt that has come to cling to your heart like plaster, and then your divine beauty will once again shine forth.
The same thing is wont to happen with iron. Though it might once have been black, as soon as it has been cleaned of rust with a whetstone it begins to shine and glisten and give off rays in the sun. So it is with the interior man (for this is what our Lord refers to by the word "heart"). Once he has scraped off the rust-like dirt that has accumulated on his form because of evil degeneration, then will he become good once more and shine forth in the likeness of his arche type. For surely what resembles the Good is in itself good.
Thus if such a man will look at himself he will see within
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himself the object of his desire; and thus he will become blessed, for in gazing upon his own purity he will see the archetype within the image.
It is just like men who look at the sun in a mirror. Even though they do no look up directly at the heavens, they do see the sun in the mirror's reflection just as much as those who look directly at the sun. So is it, says our Lord, with you.
Even though you are not strong enough to see the light itself, yet you will find within yourselves what you are seeking, if you would but return to the grace of that image which was established within you from the beginning. For the Godhead is all purity, freedom from passion, the absence of all evil. And if you possess these qualities, God will surely be within you. When your mind is untainted by any evil, free of passion, purified of all stain, then will you be blessed be cause your eye is clear. Then because you have been purified you will perceive things that are invisible to the unpurified.
The dark cloud of matter will be removed from the eye of your soul, and then you will seen clearly that blessed vision within the pure brilliance of your own heart. And what is this vision? It is purity, holiness, simplicity, and other such brilliant reflections of the nature of God; for it is in these that God is seen. ii. Recollection (On Virginity 46.352A-D)11
I think that an illustration will make the doctrine on this point a little clearer. Let us imagine a stream flowing from a spring and branching out at random into different chan nels. Now so long as it flows this way it will be entirely use-
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less for the cultivation of the soil. Its waters are spread out too much; each single channel is small and meagre, and the water, because of this, hardly moves. But if we could collect these wandering and widely scattered channels into one single stream, we would have a full and compact waterflow which would be useful for the many needs of life.
So too, I think, it is with the human mind. If it spreads itself out in all directions, constantly flowing out and dis persing to whatever pleases the senses, it will never have any notable force in its progress towards the true Good. But now recall the mind from all sides, and make it collect itself, so that it may begin to operate in that function which is prefer ably connatural to it, without scattering and wasting itself: then the mind will find no obstacle in its rise to heaven and in its grasp of the true meaning of reality.
Often water contained in a pipe bursts upwards because of the force of the pressure, and it does this against its natural downward motion because it has nowhere else to flow. So too is it with the mind of man. If it is confined on all sides by the water-tight pipe of chastity, if it has no other outlet, it will be raised up by the very tendency of its motion towards a love of higher things. For it is impossible for our human nature ever to stop moving; it has been made by its Creator ever to keep changing. Hence when we prevent it from using up its energy on trifles, and keep it on all sides from doing what it should not, it must necessarily move in a straight path towards truth.
It is quite common for us to see travellers who do not miss the right path even though there may be many turnings; they avoid the other roads once they have been warned of them.
Insofar as a person keeps away from the wrong paths on his
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journey, so much the more will he keep himself on the right one. So too the mind will begin to be aware of the true mean ing of reality if it avoids trivial things. And indeed, this seems to be what we are taught in the writings of the great prophets, when we are told not to become involved in the things that the world strives for. And one of these things is marriage—rather it is the very root and principle of every vain effort.
12. The True Beauty (On Virginity, 46.360C-364A) How could anyone possibly express the great catastrophe involved in losing the possession of the true Good? What extraordinary powers of soul one would have to have! How could anyone express even in outline that which is inexpres sible and incomprehensible to the human mind?
Once a man has purified his heart, so that he may per chance see the Lord's beatitude fulfilled, he will then despise all human utterance as absolutely incapable of expressing what he has experienced. Again, if a man is immersed in carnal passions, so that these inclinations, like a rheum, put a glaze over the window of the soul, anything you might say, no matter how strong, would be wasted on him. When speak ing of miracles it does not matter whether you understate or exaggerate to those who have no sensibility whatever.
It is the same thing with the sunshine. If a man has not seen it from his earliest days, any effort to translate the ex perience into words is useless and meaningless. You cannot make the brilliance of the sunlight shine through his ears.
And so it is with the true light of the spirit. Each man
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needs his own eyes to see its beauty. And the soul that does see it by some divine gift and inspiration, retains his ecstasy unexpressed in the secret of his consciousness. But the man who has not seen it cannot even be made to realize his loss.
For how can you represent to him the supreme Good if it totally escapes him ? How can anyone make him see what is indescribable? For we have not learnt the proper words to express this beauty. Nor is there any example of what we are looking for in the created world; even to try to explain it by a comparison would be impossible. Who, for example, would compare the sun with a little spark, the endless ex panse of the sea with a tiny drop ? And that tiny drop, that little spark, bear the same relationship to the ocean and the sun as any beautiful thing which men admire bears to the beauty that we contemplate in that supreme Good which surpasses all things.
Hence when a man suffers the loss of that Good, how are we to represent the magnitude of that catastrophe ? The great
David rightly shows us how impossible this is. Lifted out of himself by the Spirit, he glimpsed in that blessed ecstasy
God's infinite and incomprehensible beauty. He saw as much as a mere mortal can see, leaving the covering of the flesh, and by thought alone entering into contemplation of that immaterial and spiritual realm. And though yearning to say something which would do justice to his vision, he can only cry out (in words that all can echo after him): Every man is a liar (Ps. 115.11). And this I take to mean that anyone who attempts to portray that ineffable Light in language is truly a liar—not because of any abhorrence of the truth, but merely because of the infirmity of his explanation.
Now that external beauty which we meet during our life
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on earth may appear in inanimate matter or in living bodies through a certain fine coloring. Here our senses are quite adequate in admiring and absorbing this beauty, and in com municating it to others by expressing it in language, using the descriptive power of words as a kind of picture. And yet the archetype of this beauty escapes our comprehension. For how can words possibly find any mode of description which could make it visible ? One may not appeal to color or shape or size, or the proportions of form, or any other trivial detail of that sort. Since this beauty is without form or shape, and is alien to any material quality or to anything that we ob serve in connection with bodies by sense perception, how could anyone come to know it by any of those qualities which can be perceived by the senses ?
At the same time we must not therefore despair of attain ing what we desire because it appears to transcend our com prehension. Rather, the more our reason shows us the magni tude of what we seek, the higher we must elevate our under standing and stimulate it with the grandeur of our objective, lest perhaps we should completely fall short of any partici pation in the Good. For seeing that we cannot base our com prehension of God on any attribute, there is no small danger that we might perhaps slip away from any knowledge of Him whatsoever on the plea that He is too lofty and in effable.
Because of that weakness, therefore, it is imperative that we take hold of our understanding and, as it were, lead it by the hand towards the invisible with the help of that which we can perceive by the senses. And our plan in this matter would be somewhat as follows.
13The Grace of the Spirit (On Virginity, 46.364A-369B) Those who take a very unreflecting view of reality per ceive merely surface appearances, as, for example, of a per son, or of anything else they may come in contact with. They do not go beyond what they see. What they have seen is ex ternal mass; and yet they feel that this is sufficient, that this is all there is to know about the person.
But the man with the trained, clear-sighted mind will not let his eyes have the complete say in his perception of reality.
He does not stop with the external phenomena; he does not think that what he cannot see does not exist. He penetrates into the nature of the soul and the qualities that are inherent in bodies. He scrutinizes these in themselves as well as in their context. First he abstracts each quality by itself; and then he considers all of them in their harmonious unity and their mutual relationship in the actual substance.
So it is with the study of beauty. The man of imperfect intelligence, when he sees an object marked by external beauty, draws the inference that the object is also beautiful within because it happens to exercise a pleasurable attraction on his senses. He does not penetrate any deeper into the matter. But another person, whose mind's eye has been puri fied, when he sees such phenomena, despises them: they are merely the material on which the archetype of beauty oper ates. And he uses what he sees merely as a step towards the vision of that spiritual beauty whose communication is the ultimate reason why all other things are rightly called beautiful.
The majority of men, who live their lives in such crass
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ways of thinking, find it hard, I think, to analyze things in this way, and to separate the material element from the beauty inherent in it and to contemplate beauty in itself. If you should wish to know the precise source of all man's false and erroneous ideas about the Good, you would find it in this, that the faculties of his soul have not been trained to that accuracy which would help him distinguish the true good from the false.
This is the reason why men have fallen off in their quest for the supreme Good. Some slip into the love of the flesh; others have let their desires run after dead material objects; others limit their horizons of beauty to office, honor, and power; others lose their heart to the sciences and the arts.
The most debased of all make their belly, their appetite, the criterion of the good. If only men would turn from these crude ideas, and turn from their passions which are im mersed in sense phenomena; if only they would seek the essential beauty, which does not have shape or extension, then they would not be mistaken in their choice of what is good. They would not then be led astray and deceived into thinking that the pleasure of these things is more than transitory; and they would then be led to despise them all.
This is the path that leads to the discovery of the Good.
And all the other things which attract men's love—no mat ter how much we may think them good and worthy of effort and possession—all these things we must transcend, for they are merely transitory and too insignificant to absorb our capacity for love.
Now I do not mean that we should keep this capacity locked up, as it were, useless and inactive; rather it should be purified of any attraction for things that are beneath us, and
thus led on to things that are beyond the senses. Thus we will not stop to admire the beauty of the heavens, or the brilliance of the heavenly lights, or anything else that seems beautiful; but the beauty that is reflected in all these things should lead us on to a yearning for that Beauty whose glory the heavens proclaim (Ps. 18.2), which the firmament and all of creation makes manifest. The soul that is rising up wards must leave all that it has already attained as falling far short of its desire; only then will it begin to grasp something of that magnificence which is beyond the stars.
But how is it possible for us to attain this if our desires are for earthly things ? How can we fly to heaven without celes tial wings, if we are not already light, and borne on air by a lofty way of life? No one could be so uninitiated in the mysteries of the Gospel as to be unaware that man has but one vehicle that can carry him to heaven; he must assume the wings of the descending Dove, such as even the prophet
David longed for (Ps. 54.7). In this way does the Scripture symbolically express the power of the Spirit. And it takes the dove, perhaps, because, as observers report, it has no gall, or else because the bird cannot endure any foul odor.
Thus the man who avoids all bitterness and all the odors of the flesh, will raise himself upon the wings of the Dove above all the lowly strivings of the world and, indeed, above the entire universe; he will discover that which alone is worthy of our desire; he will become beautiful because he has drawn near to Beauty; and there he will become as luminous as light because he is in communion with the true light.
Frequently in the heavens at night we see those illumina tions which some men call shooting stars; but according to
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the philosophers these are nothing more than the air itself rushing upwards towards the ether under the pressure of certain winds, and they explain that the fiery track that is traced in the heavens occurs when the wind catches fire in the ether. Now just as the air which surrounds the earth is forced upwards by the pressure of the wind and turns into light in the pure ether, so too the human mind, in leaving this world of dirt and filth by the force of the Spirit, becomes pure and luminous in communion with that true and exalted purity. Man's soul, then, will shine within that purity, filled with rays of light, and will itself become light according to the Lord's promise that the just will shine as the sun (Matth.
13-43)* We may notice the same thing here on earth in the case of water, or a mirror, or of any other smooth, reflecting sur face. Whenever they catch the sun's rays they produce an other ray within themselves; and they could not do this if the pure, brilliant surface were marred with dirt. We too, then, shall become luminous if we rise above this earthly darkness and draw near to the true Light which is Christ, and if the true Light that shineth in darkness descends upon us. Then shall we become light, as the Lord promised His disciples, unless, of course, the dirt of sin should be smeared over our souls and thus mar the beauty of the light.
These examples, then, may perhaps have brought us little by little to an awareness of our capacity for growth; and they have shown that our souls cannot be united with God in any other way than by purity and incorruptibility. For the soul in that state is truly like God; and she will be able to attain to Him Whom she resembles by placing herself, like a mirror, beneath His purity; then will she transform her
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own beauty by a participation and reflection of that arche typal Good.
A person, then, who can despise all human interests, whether persons or things, the pursuit of the arts and sciences, everything indeed that is thought to be right by law and custom—and in all of these there is always an error in the apprehension of what is good, for the senses are the only norm—such a man, I say, will experience a love and desire for God alone. For God is not dependent on anything for His beauty; His beauty is not limited to certain times or aspects; but He is beautiful by Himself, through Himself, and in Himself. He is eternal Beauty—not changing from one moment to the next—constantly the same beyond all change or alteration, increase or addition.
The man who has purified all the powers of his soul from every form of sin will be able to see that essential Beauty which is the source of everything else that is beautiful and good. The eye that has been cleansed of rheum is able to see heavenly phenomena that may be far distant. So too, the soul, by her incorruptibility, receives the power of seeing that Light; and true virginity and her longing for incorruptibility come to rest in her final goal; for by this she is enabled to see God. For no one could be so blind as not to realize that the God of all things is the first, supreme and unique Good ness, Beauty and Purity.
But everyone may perhaps already know this. It is none theless reasonable for some to question whether it is possible for us to find this goal, and by what method or process we can be guided to it. The books of the Bible are full of such instruction, and many of the saints have held up their lives as torches for those who walk in God. Hence everyone may
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richly gather from both Testaments the precepts which the inspired writings offer us for the attainment of our proposed goal. There is a wealth of material in the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and the writings of the apostolic tra dition. But here I shall present what I have discovered in my study of the inspired word.
14. Restoring God's Image (On Virginity, 46.369B-376B) Man is a creature endowed with reason and intelligence, and he has been made in the likeness of the undefiled nature of God. Thus is it said of him in the book of the creation of the world: to the image of God he created him (Gen. 1.27).
This creature man, then, did not possess as a property of his nature at the beginning any inclination to passion and mor tality. For the pattern of the image could not have been pre served if in its imitation it had in any respect contradicted its archetype.
But the element of passion was introduced later on, after he was created, and in the following way. Man was, as we have said, the image and likeness of the power that rules all creation; and this likeness to the ruler of all things also ex tended to man's power of self-determination: man could choose whatever pleased him and was not enslaved to any external necessity. But man was led astray by deception and deliberately drew upon himself that catastrophe which all mortals now share. Man himself invented evil: he did not find it in God. Nor did God make death; it was man him self who, as it were, was the creator of all that is evil.
All who have eyes can enjoy the sunshine, and anyone, if
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lie likes, may deny himself this pleasure simply by closing his eyes. In such a case it is not the sun that withdraws or produces the darkness; rather, man himself puts an obstacle between himself and the sun by closing his eyes. And yet, even when the eyes are closed, they cannot cease to function; hence it is the activity of the eyes which bring about the appearance of darkness in man because he deliberately shuts off his vision.
Again, it is like a man who builds a house and does not make any provision for the light to come in. Hence he will obviously be in darkness, since he has deliberately cut him self off from the light.
So too the first man who arose from the earth—he, in deed, who begot all the evil that is in man—had it in his power to choose all the good and beautiful things of nature that lay around him. And yet he deliberately instituted by himself things that were against nature; in rejecting virtue by his own free choice he fashioned the temptation to evil.
For sin does not exist in nature apart from free will; it is not a substance in its own right. All of God's creatures are good, and nothing He has made may be despised: He made all things very good (Gen. 1.31). But in the way I have described, the whole procession of sin entered into man's life for his undoing, and from a tiny source poured out upon mankind an infinite sea of evil. The soul's divine beauty, that had been an imitation of its archetype, was, like a blade, darkened with the rust of sin; it no longer kept the beauty of the image it once possessed by nature, and was transformed into the ugliness of evil.
Thus man, who was so great and precious, as the Scriptures call him,12 fell from the value he had by nature. It is like
people who slip and fall in the mud and get their faces so smeared that even their relatives cannot recognize them. So man fell into the mud of sin, and lost his likeness to the eternal Godhead. And in its stead he has, by his sin, clothed himself in an image that is of clay and mortal; and this is the image we earnestly counsel him to remove and wash away in the purifying waters of the Christian life. Once this earthly covering is removed, the soul's beauty will once again shine forth.
Now the removal of what is foreign is a return to what is connatural and fitting; and this we can only achieve by be coming what we once were in the beginning when we were created. Yet to achieve this likeness to God is not within our power nor within any human capacity. It is a gift of God's bounty, for He directly bestowed this divine likeness on our human nature at its creation. By our human efforts we can merely clear away the accumulated filth of sin and thus allow the hidden beauty of the soul to shine forth.
This lesson is taught, I think, in the Gospel, where our Lord speaks to those who have ears for the mysteries that Wisdom teaches us: The kingdom of God is within you
(Luke 17.21). I think that the text here points out that the gift of God is not separated from our nature nor is it far from those who choose to look for it. It dwells within every one of us, ignored and forgotten, choked with the cares and pleasures of life (Luke 8.14), but is rediscovered when we turn our minds to it.
But if we must confirm this doctrine in other ways, the same lesson is, I think, taught by our Lord in the search for the lost drachma (Luke 15.8-9). All the other virtues, which the text calls drachmas, are worthless if the widow,
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IT5 that is, the soul, is lacking one, even though all the others are present. And so we are first commanded to light a candle, and this doubtless refers to the mind, which throws light on what is hidden. Next we are to look for the lost drachma in our home, that is, in ourselves. And surely the hidden meaning of the coin is the image of our King, which has not yet been completely lost, but is simply hidden under dirt.
By the dirt I think we must understand the uncleanness of the flesh; for, when we cleanse and sweep this away by a fervent life, what we are looking for will be made manifest.
And then the soul that finds the coin rightly rejoices and calls in her neighbors to share in her joy. The soul's associ ates are, of course, the various faculties of the soul, which the text here calls neighbors. For when the great image of the King is discovered and shines forth again, just as it was stamped on our drachma in the beginning by the Creator, stamped on the hearts of everyone, then do all our faculties unite in that divine joy and gladness as they gaze upon the ineffable beauty of what they have found. For she says: Re joice with me because I have found the groat which I had lost (Luke 15.9). The neighbors, that is, the connatural facul ties of the soul that rejoice at the discovery of the divine drachma, are the reason, the appetite, the tendencies towards grief and anger, and all the other powers that are believed to exist in the soul. And rightly are they called her friends, and rightly do they then rejoice in the Lord: for all of them now look toward the beautiful and the good; they act in all things for God's glory and never again become the tools of sin.
Such then is the lesson we are taught in the finding of the lost drachma: we are to restore to its pristine state the image
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of God that is now concealed under the dirt of the flesh.13
And hence we are to become what the first man was at the dawn of human existence. And what was he ? He was naked of the covering of dead skins (Gen. 3.21) and looked on the face of God without fear; he did not judge the good by sight or taste, and he took his pleasure in God alone. It was for this alone that he used the helpmeet which God gave him; so the Scriptures suggest when they tell us that Adam did not know her till after they were expelled from Paradise
(Gen. 4.1), and then she was condemned to the pains of childbirth for the sin she was deceived into committing.
Such then was the sequence of events by which we were exiled from Paradise with our first parent; but now we are permitted to return to that primitive state of happiness by the very same path. And what was the path in their case?
Deception led to pleasure and pleasure brought about the Fall. Next the passion of pleasure was followed by shame and fear, and they lacked the courage to appear before their
Creator, and had to hide themselves in the shadows behind leaves. Next, they clothed themselves with dead skins, and thus they were sent into exile into this place of sickness and toil, wherein marriage is thought to be the only comfort against mortality.
If then we are to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Phil.
1.23), then we must start out again from the last stage which they reached in their dissolution. It is just like those who live separated from their near and dear ones: if they want to re turn to their place of origin, they begin by leaving the spot at which they last arrived.
Now marriage was the last stage in the process of separa tion from the life of Eden. Hence the Word teaches us that
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marriage should be the first thing we should leave; it is, as it were, the last resting place for those who are going to be dissolved to be with Christ. In the next stage we must with draw from the distressing labor of this world,14 in which man was established after his sin. Then we must remove the coverings of the flesh, those garments of skins (Gen. 3.21), by putting off the wisdom of the flesh and by renouncing all secret acts of shame. Next, we must no longer live in the shadow of the fig-tree of this bitter life, but we must cast away the coverings which are the transient leaves of life and come into the presence of our Creator. We must reject all the deception of taste and sight, and no longer follow the counsel of the venomous serpent, but hold fast only to God's com mandment. And that commandment ordered us to touch only what was good, and to reject the taste of evil. For this was the beginning of the entire sequence of sin, the unwill ingness to be ignorant of evil.
Our first parents were consequently forbidden to come to know evil along with the good; they were to restrain them selves from the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2.9); they were to enjoy the good in its purity, unmixed and unmiti gated by any evil. And this, I think, is surely to remain always with God alone; it is to enjoy the good without mingling with it anything which would separate them from it.
It would seem then, if one might be so bold as to express it, that this is the path by which man can be snatched up out of this world and restored to Paradise, to that place where
Paul saw those secret and invisible things which are given to man to utter.