Book XII

Who Shall Make It Null?

My heart, O Lord, touched with the words of Your Holy Scripture, is much occupied, amid this poverty of my life. And therefore most of the time, the poverty of human understanding is abundant in words, because searching has more to say than finding, and asking takes longer than receiving, and the hand that knocks has more work to do than the hand that receives. We hold the promise — who shall make it null? "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8). These are Your own promises — and who need fear to be deceived, when the Truth Himself promises?

Out of Nothing

You therefore, Lord — who are not one thing in one place and another in another, but the Selfsame, and the Selfsame, and the Selfsame — Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty — did in the Beginning, which is of You, in Your Wisdom which was born of Your own substance, create something, and that out of nothing. For You created heaven and earth — not out of Yourself, for then they would have been equal to Your Only Begotten Son, and thereby to You also; and it would in no way be right that anything should be equal to You which was not of You. And there was nothing else besides You out of which You might create them, O God, One Trinity and Three-in-One Unity; and therefore out of nothing did You create heaven and earth — a great thing and a small thing. For You are Almighty and Good, to make all things good — even the great heaven and the small earth. You were, and nothing else was there, out of which You created heaven and earth.

The Soul Whose Pilgrimage Is Long

O blessed creature, if such there be, that clings to Your Blessedness — blessed in You, its eternal Inhabitant and its Light! I find no better name for the "heaven of heavens which is the Lord's" than Your house, which contemplates Your delights without any wandering away — one pure mind, most harmoniously one, by the settled peace of holy spirits, the citizens of Your city in heavenly places, far above the heavenly places that we see.

By this may the soul understand — the soul whose pilgrimage is made long and far away — if she now thirsts for You, if her tears have now become her bread, while they daily say to her, "Where is your God?" — if she now seeks of You one thing and desires it: that she may dwell in Your house all the days of her life. And what is her life, but You? And what are Your days, but Your eternity — as Your years which do not fail, because You are ever the same?

Wondrous Depth

Wondrous depth of Your words! Their surface, behold, is before us, inviting to little ones; yet they are a wondrous depth. It is awesome to look into them — an awesomeness of honor, and a trembling of love.

In the diversity of true opinions, let Truth herself produce harmony. And our God have mercy upon us, that we may use the law lawfully, with the aim of the commandment being pure love. By this, if anyone asks me, "Which of these was the meaning of Your servant Moses?" — this would not be the language of my Confessions if I did not confess to You: "I do not know." And yet I know that those meanings are true.

And all of us who, I confess, see and express the truth delivered in those words — let us love one another, and together love You, our God, the fountain of truth, if we are truly thirsty for it and not for vanities.

So when one says, "Moses meant as I do," and another, "No, as I do" — I think it more reverent to say: "Why not both, if both be true?" And if there be a third, or a fourth — yes, if anyone sees any other truth in those words — why may he not be believed to have seen all these, through whom the one God has shaped the Holy Scriptures to speak to the minds of many, who would see in them things true but different? For I certainly — and fearlessly I speak it from my heart — that were I to write anything intended to have the highest authority, I would prefer so to write that whatever truth anyone could find on those matters might be contained in my words, rather than set down my own single meaning so clearly as to exclude the rest.

Behold, O Lord my God, how much we have written upon a few words — how much! What strength of ours, what ages would suffice for all Your books in this manner?