Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine (continued)
Those who wish to do this before they are cleansed and healed recoil so in the presence of that light of truth that they may think there is in it not only no goodness but even great evil; indeed, they may decide it does not deserve the name of truth, and with an amount of zest and enthusiasm that is to be pitied, they curse the remedy offered and run back into the darkness engulfing them and which alone their diseased condition suffers them to face. Hence, the divinely inspired prophet says most appositely: Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels. |The spirit is "right," I believe, if it sees to it that the soul cannot lose its way and go astray in its quest for truth. This spirit is not really "renewed" in anyone unless his heart is first made clean, \that is to say, unless he first controls his thoughts and drains off from them all the dregs of attachment to corruptible things.
The Seventh Level of the Soul
76. Now at last we are in the very vision and contemplation of truth, which is the seventh and last level of the soul; and here we no longer have a level but in reality a home at which one arrives via those levels. What shall I say are the delights, what the enjoyment, of the supreme and true Goodness, what the everlasting peace it breathes upon us? Great and peerless souls—and we believe that they have actually seen and are still seeing these things—have told us this so far as they deemed it should be spoken of. This would I tell you now: if we hold most faithfully to the course which God enjoins on us and which we have undertaken to follow, we shall come by God's power and wisdom to that supreme Cause or that supreme Author or supreme Principle of all things or whatever other more appropriate appellative there may be for so great a reality. And when we understand that, we shall see truly how ail things under the sun are the vanity of the vain. For "vanity" is deceit; and "the vain" are to be understood as persons who are deceived, or persons who deceive, or both. Further, one may discern how great a difference there is between these and the things that truly exist; and yet since all the other things have also been created and have God as their Maker, they are wonderful and beautiful when considered by themselves, although in comparison with the things that truly exist, they are as nothing. Then shall we acknowledge how true are the things we have been commanded to believe, and how excellently we have been nurtured in perfect health by Mother Church, and how nourishing is that milk which the Apostle Paul declared he gave as drink to children. To take such food when one is fed by a mother is most proper; to do so when one is already grown would be shameful; to refuse it when needed would be regrettable; to find fault with it at any time or to dislike it would be wicked and impious; but to discuss it and communicate it in kindness betokens a wealth of goodness and charity.
We shall also see such great changes and transformations in this physical universe in observance of divine laws that we hold even the resurrection of the body, which some believe with too many reservations and some do not believe at all, to be so certain that the setting of the sun is no greater certainty to us. Then, indeed, shall we condemn those who ridicule the assumption of human nature by the almighty, eternal, immutable Son of God as a warranty and as first fruits of our salvation and His birth from a Virgin and the other marvels of that historic account. We shall condemn them for acting like boys who, when they see an artist painting with other pictures set up before him so that he can follow them closely, cannot believe it possible to draw a man unless the painter looks at another picture. | Furthermore, in the contemplation of truth, no matter what | degree of contemplation you reach, the delight is so great, there is such purity, such innocence, a conviction in all things that is so absolute, that one could think he really knew nothing when aforetime he fancied he had knowledge. And that the soul may not be impeded from giving full allegiance to the fullness of truth, death—meaning complete escape and acquittal from this body— which previously was feared, is now desired as the greatest boon.
HRISTIAN DOCTRINE *& Steps to Wisdom 9, First of all, then, it is necessary that we should be led by the fear of God to seek the knowledge of His will, what He commands us to desire and what to avoid. Now this fear will of necessity excite in us the thought of our mortality and of the death that is before us and crucify all the motions of pride as if our flesh were nailed to the tree. Next it is necessary to have our hearts subdued by piety and not to run in the face of Holy Scripture, whether when understood it strikes at some of our sins or when not understood, we feel as if we could be wiser and give better commands ourselves. We must rather think and believe that whatever is there written, even