Ubi et ex quo aedificata domus Dei.
The Humble Builder and the Divine Craftsman
The speaker humbly proposes to build a spiritual house for God in the human heart, using pure thoughts as material, and dismisses excuses of poverty or exile.
We want to speak about building the house of the Lord—if only we, who are unworthy to speak of so great a thing, are sufficient to say anything worthy of it. But even if we are not sufficient in ourselves, he is powerful enough to grant us sufficiency, without whom we are found capable not only of speaking worthily about him but not even of thinking anything fit. First, the place where the house of the Lord should be built must be marked out. Then the material must be written down. The place is the human heart; the material is pure thoughts. Let no one make excuses. Let no one say, 'I cannot build a house for the Lord; my slight poverty is not enough for such great outlay, and even a place is lacking for one exiled, a foreigner, living in a strange land.' This is the work of kings; this is the work of many peoples.
Enlarging the Heart for God
God does not demand worldly wealth or grand construction, but asks only that the heart be expanded to receive him as an eternal guest.
How am I supposed to build a house for the Lord? Why do you think this way, O person? This is not what God demands from you. He doesn't tell you to buy someone else's estate to enlarge his halls. He wants to dwell in your heart — so enlarge it, expand it. Expand it, I say, because the Lord is great and won't fit in a cramped space. So expand your heart, so that you can receive one whom the world can't hold. Expand your heart so that you deserve to host God as a guest — and not, as is the custom among people, a guest for a single night, but an eternal dweller. So expand your heart.
God as the True Craftsman
No costly materials or hired laborers are needed, for God himself is the skilled craftsman who teaches and forms the human heart and its thoughts.
But if you fail in enlarging it, he himself will enlarge it for you, to whom the one once enlarged by him said: 'I ran the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart.' And what shall I say about the expense? There's no need to cross seas, track down unknown regions to procure precious stones and fine marbles, or haul carved cedars of Lebanon across the deep waters on hired ships, or gather I don't know how many thousands of craftsmen — who could exhaust the treasures of kings. None of this is demanded of you in yourself, and from yourself you will build a house for the Lord your God. You yourself will be the craftsman, your heart the workshop, your thoughts the material. And don't let your inexperience frighten you, since the one who requires this from you is a skilled craftsman, and he makes others into whatever craftsmen he wishes. We have learned from him, through the testimony of the divine Scriptures, that many have been instructed. He himself taught Noah to build the ark.
A Cloud of Witnesses Taught by God
Scripture shows that Moses, Bezalel, Solomon, Paul, and all craftsmen were taught by God, who also created all visible things out of nothing.
He himself showed Moses the pattern, according to whose likeness he was to fashion the ark. He himself instructed Bezalel. He himself enlightened Solomon so that he might build a temple to his name with wisdom. He made the apostle Paul an architect too, and many others whom it would take too long to list. And finally, no one learned who didn't learn from him, and whoever deserved to learn from him—not one remained unskilled. But if it delights you to hear something about his works—all these things that are before your eyes—he himself created them out of nothing. He himself fashioned the wondrous structure of this world. He himself devised how each and every thing was to be brought into its own forms and appearances, and he himself established the beauty of all things.
Loving Invitation and Divine Indwelling
The builder must call upon and love God, who promises to come and make his dwelling with those who love him, as wisdom builds her house in the soul through well-ordered thoughts.
So consider how much power the one who arranged these visible things with such a wondrous design must have in the things we cannot see. So call on him, pray to him, plead with him, that he may also deign to teach you. Call on him, love him; for to call on him is to love him. Love him, and he will come to you and teach you, as he promised those who love him. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.✦ He did not say, 'Once a dwelling is made, we will come,' but, he says, 'We will come and make our dwelling with him.'✦ I understand it this way: the lover of the worldly heart cannot stay with us unless he first makes a dwelling for himself within us. For he is the wisdom of which it is said: Wisdom has built herself a house; and in another place, wisdom herself makes known where and from which place her house was built, saying: I, wisdom, dwell in counsel, and I am present among wise thoughts.✦✦
The Workshop of the Heart
Wisdom builds her house in the just soul from ordered thoughts, and the building requires both God and the human person working together, with God supplying both the desire and the power to do good.
And elsewhere the seat of wisdom is called the soul of the just person. So it's clear that in a person's heart, wisdom has crafted itself a home from well-ordered thoughts. So there are three things: the place, the material, and the craftsman. And as we've said, the place is the person's heart, the material is the heart's thoughts, but the craftsmanship belongs to both — to God and the person — these two working together. For God, who graciously chooses to dwell with humankind, does not disdain to prepare a dwelling place with a person. So a person shouldn't give up in despair when they consider their own weakness or frailty, but should instead pay attention to the one who graciously chooses to work with them. For God is power and wisdom, and no one can fail through power or be ignorant through wisdom — especially since this same God is the one who both cooperates with us when we do good, and when we fail, he grants us the desire and the ability to do good. God's work in us is with us, and our work in us comes from him.
Order, Measure, and the Infinite Guest
Having recognized where we stand and with whom we work, we must now consider the order, arrangement, and fixed measure of thoughts by which God's house is built, even though God himself is infinite.
God's work in us is ours as well, and our help, and our work in us comes from him, and it is his gift. With these things said, let us turn to what we set out to examine: that is, once you have recognized where you stand, and where you come from, and with whom you must work, you may now come to understand how you should work. In every building, three things especially must be kept in mind: order, arrangement, and a fixed measure with a set beginning and a determined end. So now we need to ask what the order and arrangement of our thoughts ought to be, so that the house of God may be built from them. Next, then, we must also carefully consider how this house—which we're building for God to dwell in—can receive a fixed measure, since God himself, its dweller, is infinite and immeasurable. Let us first pursue what we first set out to investigate.
Read the original Latin
De aedificatione domus Domini loqui volumus, si tamen nos, qui indigni sumus de tanta re loqui, aliquid digne sufficimus. Sed et si ex nobis sufficientes non sumus, potens est ille sufficientiam nobis praestare, sine quo digne de eo non dicam loqui, sed nec cogitare quidquam idonei invenimur. Primum designandus est locus, in quo aedificari oporteat domum Domini. Deinde scribenda materia. Locus est cor hominis, materia cogitationes mundae. Nemo se excuset. Nemo dicat, non possum aedificare domum Domino, non sufficit tantis impendiis tenuis paupertas mea, cui et ipse locus deest exsuli, et peregrino, et in terra aliena degenti. Hoc opus est regum, hoc multorum est opus populorum.
Ego vero quomodo aedificabo domum Domino? Cur sic cogites homo? Non hoc exigit a te Deus tuus. Non dicit tibi, ut fundum emas alienum ad amplificanda atria sua. Cor tuum inhabitare vult, hoc amplifica, dilata; dilata inquam, quia magnus est Dominus, et nescit in loco angusto habitare. Dilata ergo cor tuum, ut capere possis, quem capere non potest mundus. Dilata cor tuum, ut habere merearis hospitem Deum, et non (sicut consuetudo est inter homines) unius noctis hospitem, sed aeternum habitatorem. Dilata ergo cor tuum.
Quod si tu in dilatando deficis, ipse tibi dilatabit, cui ille aliquando dilatus ab eo dixit: Viam mandatorum tuorum cucurri, cum dilatasti cor meum. Et de impensa quid dicam? Non necesse est maria transire, et ignotas exquirere regiones ad comparandos lapides pretiosos, et marmora electa, nec cedros excelsas incisas de Libano per alta maria navibus conductis advehere, aut nescio quot numerosa artificum millia congregare, qui et thesauros regum attenuare possent. Nihil horum a te postulatur in te, et de te fabricabis domum Domino Deo tuo. Ipse artifex eris, cor tuum locus, cogitationes tuae materia. Nec timeas imperitiam tuam, qui hoc a te requirit peritus est artifex, et alios quos vult artifices facit. Multos ab eo eruditos testimonio divinarum Scripturarum didicimus. Ipse Noe arcam fabricare docuit.
Ipse Moysi, ad cujus similitudinem arcam fabricaret, exemplar ostendit. Ipse Beseleel erudivit. Ipse Salomonem, ut aedificaret templum nomini ejus, sapientia illustravit. Paulum quoque Apostolum architectum fecit; et multos alios quos enumerare longum est. Et postremo nullus doctus fuit, qui ab eo non didicit, et quisquis ab eo discere meruit, nemo imperitus remansit. Sed, si te de operibus ejus aliquid audire delectat, omnia haec quae vides, ipse de nihilo creavit. Ipse admirabilem mundi hujus machinam fabricavit. Ipse singula quaeque qualiter in formas et species suas producenda fuerant, excogitavit, et universorum pulchritudinem ipse condidit.
Perpende ergo quantum in rebus invisibilibus possit, qui haec visibilia tam mira ratione disposuit. Hunc ergo invoca, hunc ora, hunc obsecra, ut te quoque docere dignetur. Invoca eum, dilige eum; hoc est enim invocare eum, diligere eum. Dilige ergo eum, et ipse ad te veniet, et docebit te sicut promisit diligentibus se. Si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit, et Pater meus diliget eum, et ad eum veniemus, et mansionem apud eum faciemus. Non dixit, facta mansione veniemus, sed veniemus, inquit, et mansionem apud eum faciemus. Ego sic intelligo, quod mundi cordis amator apud nos manere non possit, nisi prius ipse sibi in nobis mansionem fecerit. Ipse quippe est sapientia, de qua dicitur: Sapientia aedificavit sibi domum; et in alio loco, ipsa sapientia ubi et unde domus ejus constructa sit manifestat, dicens: Ego sapientia in consilio habito, et sensatis intersum cogitationibus.
Et alibi sedes sapientiae appellatur animae justi. Constat ergo, quod in corde hominis de cogitationibus sensatis sapientia sibi domum fabrefecit. Tria ergo sunt, locus, materia, artifex. Et, sicut diximus, locus est cor hominis, materia cogitationes cordis, artificium autem duorum est, Dei videlicet et hominis, simul operantur haec duo. Deus enim, qui dignatur cum hominibus habitare, non dedignatur cum homine habitaculum sibi praeparare. Proinde non debet homo suam imperitiam aut infirmitatem considerans desperare, sed eum potius, qui secum operari dignatur, attendere. Deus enim est virtus et sapientia, et non potest aliquis aut cum virtute deficere, aut cum sapientia ignorare, maxime cum idem ipse sit, qui et nobis operantibus bonum cooperatur, et non operantibus ut velimus, et possimus bonum operari, largitur. Dei quippe opus in nobis nobiscum est, et nostrum opus in nobis ab ipso est.
Ejus opus in nobis nobiscum est, nostrum adjutorium, et nostrum opus in nobis ab ipso est, et ipsius donum. His dictis ad ea, quae proposuimus veniamus, id est ut postquam agnoveris ubi, et unde, et cum quo operari debeas, nunc qualiter opereris agnoscas. In omni aedificatione tria sunt praecipue consideranda, ordo, dispositio et definita dimensio, habens principium et finem determinatum. Superest nunc igitur inquiramus qualem esse oportet ordinem, et dispositionem cogitationum nostrarum, ut ex eis construatur domus Dei. Deinde etiam diligenter considerandum est, qua ratione domus haec, quam ad inhabitandum Deo aedificamus, definitam dimensionem recipere possit, cum ipse ejus inhabitator Deus infinitus sit et immensus. Quod primum investigandum proposuimus primum prosequamur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩John.14.23 — Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'
- ↩John.14.23 — Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'
- ↩Prov.9.1 — Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars.
- ↩Prov.8.12 — I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I obtain knowledge of discretion.
De Arca Noe Morali et Mystica (On the Moral and Mystical Ark of Noah) companion
Keep the ark under construction
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