arranged, or whether when they are being furnished, or whether when what had
SERMON 223A 213
(Jn 1:1); that, through which he made things, already was; that's how he made what as yet was not. We can understand it, and rightly understand it, in the sense that heaven and earth were made in the only-begotten Word itself. They were made in, you see, that through which they were made. This can be, and be understood as, the beginning in which God made heaven and earth. This Word, after all, is also the wisdom of God,5 about which it is said, You have made all things in wisdom (Ps 104:24). If God made all things in wisdom, and his only-begotten Son is without a shadow of doubt the wisdom of God,6 let us not doubt that whatever we have learned was made through the Son, was also made in the Son. The Son himself, after all, is certainly the beginning. When the Jews were questioning him and saying, Who are you ? he answered, The beginning (Jn 8:25). There you have, In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gn
1:1).
The Word was hidden with the Father.
In order to come to us he took flesh
2. As for all the rest, though, whether when they are being sorted out and arranged, or whether when they are being furnished, or whether when what had not been made in heaven and on earth is created7—God speaks, and they happen. And God said, Let there be. . . and there was. . . (Gn 1:3.6.9.11.14.20.24), and so on through every single work; he spoke and it happened. He spoke, and they were made (Ps 148:5). What language did he speak in? For what audience did he speak? Well, we mustn't always let ourselves be fed on milk. Lift up your minds with me to the solid food.8 None of you must think of God as a body, none of you must think of God as a human being, none of you must think of God as an angel; although he was prepared to appear in that sort of way to the Fathers, not in his own very substance, but by means of some created thing subject to his command. The invisible one could not otherwise, after all, have appeared to human eyes.
Let us inquire what is the better element in ourselves, and from there attempt to reach up to what is better than everything. What is the better element in us is the mind; what is better than everything is God. Why look for the better thing in the inferior thing? In you, the body is inferior to the mind; in things, there is nothing better than God. Lift up what is the better element in you to reach, if you can, the one who is better than everything.
I too, after all, as I speak, am speaking to minds. Yes, there are visible faces which I, also visible in body, can see; but through what I can see I am addressing what I cannot see. Inside me I am carrying a word conceived in my heart, and I wish to bring forth in your ears what I have conceived in my heart. I want to tell you what's inside me, to bring out into the open what's hidden; I look around for some means by which it can reach your mind. First of all, I accost your ears, as being the door of your mind; and since the word I have conceived in my heart is invisible, and I can't present it to you directly, I provide a kind of vehicle for it—sound. I place what's hidden on what's manifest, and I arrive at your hearing;