Chapter XXVII
THE MYSTICAL ARK
Chapter XXVII That in every contemplation of mutable things it is necessary to cling to consideration of divine wisdom Now, it seems worthy to consider how suitably Moses adds something concerning the rings and poles immediately after he expounds by a mystical description the three kinds of contemplation that arise from visible things as has been shown above. For who does not know that so great a changing multiplicity and so great a manifold variety of this visible machine of the world are subject to such great confusion, since all things happen equally to the just and the wicked, the good and the evil, the clean and the unclean, those offering sacrificial victims and those condemning sacrifices; as the good person, so also the sinner; the liar and also the one who told the truth. What, I ask, does this order of things mean?
Nay rather how great a confusion is it that all things happen to all persons equally; that by an equal allotment both good and evil happen to good persons, and evil and good happen to evil persons?
For the fog of this confusion overclouds the sight of an inexperienced person so greatly that he doubts or thoroughly distrusts that God has a care for human things. Hence, in any case, who would deny that it is a fact that in ancient times people erected a shrine and consecrated an altar to Fortune? Certainly, if good things and evil things were perceived to strike only good persons and evil persons respectively, an inexperienced person would not deny that it happens rightly and justly. If good things happened only to good persons and evil things only to evil persons, they would perhaps labor less in assigning the reason for such a disposition. Perhaps it seems suitable to divine justice that except by many labors upright persons do not advance to eternal rewards. Now, however, when the common lot universally involves all, how much do you think human consideration fluctuates in so great an abyss of divine judgments? For if divine justice does not ignore so great a diversity of moral character, why, I ask, does it not regulate the differences in such diverse moral characters?
If God foresees the end of all evil persons and has preordained certain persons to life, why is it,
I ask, that He generously gives the gifts of wisdom and other spiritual
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
charisms even to some reprobate persons and, having deprived many of His elect of the riches of these virtues, allows them to lie for a long time in vices?
But if we tightly grasp the abovementioned rings of divine wisdom with the hand of faith in every fluctuation of such a sort, we shall quickly raise ourselves to a firm condition of certitude.
If we cling bravely to these rings, if we believe firmly that God not only knows all things and disposes all things but that He has foreknown and foreordained everything from eternity, then we will easily be able to foresee how He commends the skill of His wisdom in all these things—because in such a dark fog of so much confusion nothing is able to be hidden in the presence of the sight of His foreknowledge or knowledge; because at no time in so great a forest of so many disturbances does any obstacle of stumbling of any size whatever impede the course of His predestination and disposition; because in the midst of such a tortuous winding path of mutability He runs to the designated place by the narrow paths of equity and kindness without any turning aside in wandering.