Chapter XX
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
Again: At the second corner evil persons are abandoned; at the third, good persons are defended.
Reprobates certainly are reproved by adversity; they are not reformed, however.
Indeed if they reformed themselves, they clearly would not be reprobates.
But by means of adversity good persons are reformed from their evils and are even advanced to better things. Again: By prosperity evil persons are released in themselves and are abandoned by God.
However, by prosperity good persons are both assisted with respect to good things and defended from evil things. The first corner is for reproving; the second, for abandoning; the third, for defending; the fourth, for reforming. Then it is clear that those walls which extend the length of the ark are called by Moses the sides of the ark. Just as in the arrangement of the ark the length of these two walls is greater than that of the other walls, so the dignity of these also is more sublime in the signification of things and the contemplation of truth. For who does not know how incomparably greater that separation is, which is between just and unjust, than that which is between proper and improper? The first pertains to the walls that extend the length of the ark. On the other hand, that which is proper and improper pertains to those walls which extend the width of the ark. And so the consideration of any things whatsoever, according to which they are done justly or even unjustly, pertains to two sides of the ark. Who does not know that those things are done justly that are done by the working of God; those things that are done unjustly are done by his permission only?
Chapter XX That the wisdom of God, since it is simple and one, is drawn into contemplation by means of different considerations, and it is called now knowledge, now foreknowledge, now disposition or predestination
Since we are already acquainted with those things which the sides of the ark represent and already comprehend by means of an exposition the four corners of it, let us now seek what those four rings of gold are that we are commanded to place individually at individual corners. Concerning gold, it is sufficiently evident that it
THE MYSTICAL ARK
surpasses all other metals by the greatness of its brilliance. But what is brighter, what more luminous than divine wisdom? We find nothing comparable to it. Concerning this gold, we use the material for diverse workings, as it were, when we consider by means of a different mode that which in itself is simple and one.
Although the wisdom of God certainly is simple and one, as has been said it is sometimes called foreknowledge, sometimes called knowledge; now we call it predestination, now we call it disposition. So one thing is separated by us into different modes, so that it is grasped in some sort of mode, or partially, because of our limitations.
It is knowledge by which it knows all things.
It is foreknowledge by which it sees all things beforehand from eternity.
It is predestination by which from all eternity it ordains all people beforehand either to life or to death.
It is disposition by which it leaves nothing disordered, by continually disposing all things everywhere. We bend these modes of our consideration in a circle, as it were, when we see that in every ordering of divine wisdom the beginning agrees with the end. Divine foreknowledge never errs in its foresight; nor is divine predestination deceived in its purpose; nowhere does its knowledge err in its judgment; nor does its disposition waver in its purpose. For when a circle is bent back upon itself in every part, without doubt just as a beginning is not found in it, so an end is not found. Nonetheless, both those considerations pertain to these circles, in that our mind is able to discover in every contemplation of divine comprehension neither beginning, nor end, nor middle. The circumference of these circles is drawn in every part equally distant from one middle point, since in one thing as well as in another every divine examination nowhere strays very far from a definition of the one and simple truth. These circles comprehend everything within themselves, and they enclose the universe within their embrace. These are,
I think, those four rings that were commanded to be arranged by Moses at the four corners of the ark.