quandoque. Nunc si non potestis comprehendere quid sit Deus, vel hoc comprehendite quid non sit Deus: multum profeceritis, si non aliud quam est, de Deo senseritis. Nondum potes pervenire ad quid sit, perveni ad quid non sit. Non est Deus corpus, non terra, non coelum, non luna, non sol, non stellae, non corporalia ista. Si enim non coelestia, quanto minus terrena? Tolle omne corpus. Adhuc audi aliud: non est Deus mutabilis spiritus. Nam fateor, et fatendum est, quia Evangelium loquitur, Deus spiritus est. Sed transi omnem mutabilem spiritum, transi spiritum qui modo scit, modo nescit, modo meminit, et obliviscitur; vult quod nolebat, non vult quod volebat; sive patiatur jam istas mutabilitates, sive pati possit: transi haec omnia. Non invenis in Deo aliquid mutabilitatis, non aliquid quod aliter nunc sit, aliter paulo ante fuerit. Nam ubi invenis aliter et aliter, facta est ibi quaedam mors: mors enim est, non esse quod fuit. Immortalis dicitur anima: est quidem, quia vivit semper anima, et est in illa quaedam vita permanens, sed mutabilis vita. Secundum mutabilitatem vitae hujus et mortalis dici potest: quia si vivebat sapienter, et desipit, mortua est in deterius; si vivebat insipienter, et sapit, mortua est in melius. Nam esse mortem in deterius, esse mortem in melius Scriptura nos docet. Utique in deterius mortui erant, de quibus dicitur, Sine mortuos, sepeliant mortuos suos (Matth. VIII, 22); et, Surge, qui dormis, et exsurge a mortuis, et illuminabit te Christus (Ephes. V, 14); et de hac lectione, Quando mortui audient, et qui audierint vivent. In deterius mortui erant, ideo reviviscunt. Reviviscendo moriuntur in melius, quia et reviviscendo non erunt quod erant: non esse autem quod erat, mors est. Sed forte, si in melius est, non appellatur mors? Appellavit illam mortem Apostolus: Si autem mortui estis cum Christo ab elementis hujus mundi, quid adhuc velut viventes de hoc mundo decernitis (Coloss. II, 20)? et iterum, Mortui enim estis, et vita vestra abscondita est cum Christo in Deo (Id. III, 3). Mori nos vult ut vivamus, quia viximus ut moreremur. Quidquid ergo et a meliore in deterius, et a deteriore in melius moritur, non est hoc Deus: quia neque in melius ire potest summa bonitas, neque in deterius vera aeternitas. Vera enim aeternitas est, ubi temporis nihil est. Erat autem modo hoc, et modo illud? jam tempus admissum est, aeternum non est. Nam ut noveritis quia non sic Deus quomodo anima: certe immortalis est anima; quid ergo est quod ait Apostolus de Deo, Qui solus habet immortalitatem (I Tim. VI, 16); nisi quia hoc aperte dixit, Solus habet incommutabilitatem, quia solus habet veram aeternitatem? Ergo ibi nulla mutabilitas.
sometime. Now if you cannot comprehend what God is, at least comprehend this, what God is not: you will have made great progress if you think nothing of God other than what He is. You cannot yet arrive at what He is; arrive at what He is not. God is not a body, not the earth, not the heaven, not the moon, not the sun, not the stars, not these bodily things. For if He is not the heavenly things, how much less the earthly? Take away every body. Hear something further: God is not a changeable spirit. For I confess, and it must be confessed, since the Gospel says, God is spirit. But pass beyond every changeable spirit, pass beyond the spirit which now knows, now does not know, now remembers, and forgets; wills what it did not will, does not will what it willed; whether it already undergoes these changes or is able to undergo them: pass beyond all these. You do not find in God anything of changeableness, nothing that is otherwise now and was otherwise a little before. For where you find otherwise and otherwise, there a kind of death has taken place: for death is not to be what one was. The soul is called immortal: it is indeed, because the soul always lives, and there is in it a certain abiding life, but a changeable life. According to the changeableness of this life it can also be called mortal: because if it was living wisely and becomes foolish, it has died into the worse; if it was living foolishly and becomes wise, it has died into the better. For that there is a death into the worse and a death into the better, Scripture teaches us. Certainly those were dead into the worse of whom it is said, Let the dead bury their dead (Matt. 8:22); and, Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph. 5:14); and, from this reading, When the dead shall hear, and those who have heard shall live. They were dead into the worse; therefore they come to life again. By coming to life again they die into the better, because by coming to life again they too will not be what they were: and not to be what one was is death. But perhaps, if it is into the better, it is not called death? The Apostle called it death: But if you are dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do you still, as though living, make decrees about this world (Col. 2:20)? and again, For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). He wills us to die that we may live, because we lived that we might die. Whatever therefore dies both from the better into the worse and from the worse into the better, this is not God: because neither can the highest goodness go into the better, nor true eternity into the worse. For true eternity is where there is nothing of time. Was it then now this and now that? Time has already been admitted; it is not eternal. For that you may know that God is not as the soul is: certainly the soul is immortal; what then is it that the Apostle says of God, Who alone has immortality (1 Tim. 6:16), unless that he plainly said this: He alone has unchangeableness, because He alone has true eternity? Therefore there is no changeableness there.
10. Agnosce in te aliquid, quod volo dicere, intus, intus in te; non in te quasi in corpore tuo, nam et ibi potest dici in te. In te est enim sanitas, in te quaelibet aetas, sed secundum corpus; in te est manus, pes tuus: sed aliud est in te intus, aliud in te tanquam in veste tua. Sed relinque foris et vestem tuam et carnem tuam, descende in te, adi secretarium tuum,
10. Recognize in yourself something, which I wish to speak of, within, within in yourself; not in yourself as in your body, for there too one can say "in you". For in you is health, in you any age, but according to the body; in you is your hand, your foot: but one thing is in you within, another in you as in your garment. But leave outside both your garment and your flesh, descend into yourself, go to your inner chamber,