where he said: But now, having come to know God, or rather being known by
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17. We are indeed quite right to understand it in this way, because for one thing it is true, and for another it does not call for great perspicacity to see that God is said to rest when he makes us rest, just as he is said to come to know when he ensures that we come to know something. God, after all, does not come to know in time something he did not know previously, and yet he says to Abraham: Now l have come to know that you fear God (Gn 22:12), where we cannot take it to mean anything else, can we, but "Now I have made you come to know"? It is by these manners of speech, when we speak of things that do not happen to God as though they did, that we acknowledge it is he who makes them happen to us, those things at least that are praiseworthy, and these only to the extent that scriptural usage allows it. I mean, we certainly ought not to say anything of the sort about God, which we do not read in his scriptures.20
18. The apostle, I consider, was employing this manner of speech when he said : Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealedon the day of redemption (Eph 4:30). It is impossible, after all, for the very substance of the Holy Spirit, by which he is whatever he is, to be grieved, since he is in possession of eternal and unalterable bliss, or rather is itself eternal and unalterable bliss. But because he dwells in the saints in such a way as to fill them with charity, by which as human beings they cannot but rejoice in time at the progress made by the faithful and at their good works, and by the same token cannot but be grieved at the lapsing and the sins ofthose over whose faith and piety they were rejoicing (such grief is praiseworthy, because it comes from the love which the Holy Spirit pours into them21), for this reason the Spirit himself is said to be grieved by those who act in such a way that the saints are grieved by their behavior, and this purely and simply because they have the Holy Spirit. lt is his gift which makes them so good that the wicked sadden them, especially those whom they either knew or believed to be good. Not only is no fault to be found with such sadness, it is on the contrary to be most highly praised and commended.
19. The same apostle again made admirable use of this way of speaking, where he said: But now, having come to know God, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9). lt was not only then, after all, that God had come to know them, foreknown as they were before thefoundation of the world ( 1 Pt 1 :20); but it was only then that they had come to know him by his munificence, not by their own merits or abilities. He therefore preferred to use a figure of speech, and to say that they would then be known by God when he granted them the benefit of his coming to be known by them, and apparently to correct himself, as though what
20. See The Trinity, 1, 1 1 ,23, where he also reverses the principle, so to say, and uses it to explain that difficult text of Mk 1 3:32, where Jesus says that not even the Son knows the hour and the day; this means that he "makes others not know; that he did not know this in such a way as to disclose it to the disciples." Also see The Trinity 111,11,25, in particular Augustine's own footnote there, where he enlarges a little on the point. 21. See Rom 5:5.