Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis

If, then, we are able to drink of and to enjoy a gentle and moderate mixture of his powers, we might receive sufficient happiness therefrom, than which the race of man ought not to seek to receive any more complete enjoyment. We have now explained what the mixed and unmixed powers and what those really supreme faculties are which exist in the living God alone.

And similar to what has been previously said, is that passage which occurs in another place, "God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same." [*](Paalm lxi. 12. ) The expression "once" resembles the unmixed power, for the unmixed power is the unit, and the unit is the unmixed power; but the "twice" resembles the mixed power, for neither one nor the other is a simple thing, inasmuch as it admits of combination or of division.

God, therefore, utters unmixed units: for the word which he utters is not a beating of the air, being absolutely mingled with nothing else whatever, but it is incorporeal and naked, in no respect different from the unit. But we hear by the number two;

for the breath being sent from the dominant part of us through the artery called the trachea, is formed in the mouth by the tongue, as by a kind of workman, and being borne outward, and mingled with its kindred air, and having struck it thus harmoniously, completes the mixture of the two [*](Paalm lxi. 12. )

very beautifully, therefore, did he oppose one just reason to the multitude of unjust reasons, less indeed in number, but superior in power, in order that the worse of the two might not, like a weight put in a scale, weigh down the other; but that, by the power of the weight of the better one in the opposite scale it might have its lightness detected, and so be weakened.

But what is the meaning of the sentence, "Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God?" Let us now consider this: for those who find anything, some are finding what they formerly had and have lost; and some are discovering what they never had before, and now possess for the first time. Accordingly, those men who occupy themselves with the investigation of appropriate names, are accustomed to call the latter kind finding (εὕρεσις), and the former kind re-finding (ἀνεύρεσις).

Of the former species we have a conspicuous example afforded us in the injunctions given about the great vow. [*](Numbers vi. 2. ) Now a vow is a request for good things from God; and the spirit of the great vow is to believe that God himself is the cause of good things from himself, without anyone else ever co-operating with him, of the things which may appear to be beneficial, neither the earth as fruitful, nor the rain as helping to promote the growth of seeds and plants, nor the air as calculated to nourish man, nor agriculture as the cause of production, nor the skill of the physician as the cause of health, nor marriage as the cause of the procreation of children:

for all these things receive changes and alterations through the power of God, to such a degree and in such a way as often to have effects contrary to their usual ones. Moses, therefore says, that this man is "holy who nourishes the hair of his head;" the meaning of which is, that he is holy who promotes the growth in the principal portion of himself of the principal shoots of the doctrines of virtue, and who in a manner prides himself and takes delight in these doctrines:

but sometimes he loses them, a sort of whirlwind, as it were, suddenly darting down upon the soul, and carrying off everything that was good out of it; and this whirlwind is an involuntary change, which pollutes the mind in a moment, which Moses calls death. [*]( Numbers vi. 9. )

But nevertheless, when he has afterwards [*](Numbers vi. 2. ) [*]( Numbers vi. 9. )

And we have often met with such things as previously we had never seen even in a dream; like a husbandman whom some persons say while digging a hole for the purpose of planting some fruit-bearing tree, found a treasure, meeting with good fortune which he had never hoped for.

Therefore Jacob, the wrestler with God, when his father asked him the manner in which he had acquired this knowledge, saying, "How didst thou find this so quickly, my son?" answered and said, "Because the Lord my God brought it before me." [*](Genesis xxvii. 20. ) For when God bestows on any one the treasures of his own wisdom without any toil or labour, then we, without having expected such things, suddenly perceive that we have found a treasure of perfect happiness.

And it often happens to those who seek with great labour, that they miss that for which they are seeking; while others, who are seeking without any diligence, find with great ease even things that they never thought of finding. For those who are dull and slow in their souls, like men bereft of their eyesight, find the labour which they devote to the contemplation of objects of science useless and wasted; while others, through the richness of their natural endowments, find out immeasurable things without any investigation at all, by the help of felicitous and well directed conjectures; so that it would seem that they attain their objects not in consequence of any labour of their own, but because the things themselves do of their own accord come to meet them and hasten to present themselves to their view, and so give them the most accurate comprehension of them. [*](Alluding probably to Theocritus here, who says Αμμες δ’ οὕτε λόγου τίνος ἄξιοι οὐδ’, ἀρίθμητοι.—xiv.17. ) [*](Genesis xxvii. 20. )

To these men the law-giver says were given, "Great and beautiful cities, which they had not built; houses full of good things, which they had not filled; cisterns cut out of the solid rock, which they had not hewn; vineyards and olive gardens, which they had not planted." [*](Deuteronomy vi. 11. )

Now, by cities and houses, he here symbolically sketches out the generic and specific virtues; for genus resembles a city, because it is marked out in larger circumferences, and because it is common to many individuals; and species resembles a house, because it is more contracted and avoids community;

and cisterns prepared before-hand intimate the rewards which fall to the lot of some for their labour, while they are given spontaneously to others, being channels of heavenly and wholesome waters and well prepared treasures for the preservation of the virtues before mentioned, by means of which joy is shed over the perfect heart, irradiating it all over with the light of truth. Again, when Moses speaks of the vineyards, he means them as an emblem of cheerfulness, and the olive gardens as a symbol of light.

Happy, therefore, are they who, suffering something like those persons who awoke up out of deep sleep, on a sudden, without any labour or exertion on their part, behold the world before them; and miserable are they to whom it happens to be eagerly contentious for objects to which they are not fitted by nature, being full of a contentious spirit, which is the most grievous of diseases.

For, in addition to failing in the object which they are desirous of attaining, they do further incur great disgrace with no slight injury, like ships which are attempting to make their way by sea against opposing winds; for they, in addition to being unable to proceed in their course towards the point to which they are hastening, are very often upset with their crews and their cargoes, and so cause pain to their friends and pleasure to their enemies.

Therefore the law says that some persons, having made a violent effort, went up to the mountain, "And the Amorites came forth who dwell on that mountain, and wounded them, as bees might have done, and pursued them from Seir even to Hormah." [*](Deuteronomy i. 43. )

For it follows of necessity that those persons who, being by nature unfitted for the comprehension of arts, if by making violent efforts they do something in them, [*](Deuteronomy vi. 11. ) [*](Deuteronomy i. 43. )