Quare cum paucis, et raro loquatur, et locutus sit Deus.
The First Human's Ordered Love
In original integrity, the soul governed the body outwardly through the senses while inwardly keeping God continually present through love, contemplation, and intention.
The nature of the first human being was so ordered and established by God that the soul, which governed the body, would outwardly carry out the body's services through the senses, yet inwardly, through reason, would always direct its gaze toward its Creator. That is, it would outwardly move the body's members through the senses for the sake of action, yet inwardly direct its intention and desire toward the Creator alone, and would do nothing outward that did not flow from the Creator's love and tend back toward that love, so that love would govern every act, reason would order it, the senses would carry it out, and bring it to completion. Therefore, as long as the first human being held to this order of its nature, even though outward activity varied, inwardly it remained steady through intention and love, because it directed itself to the one God, did all things for the sake of the one, loved the one, and referred the aim of all its desires and actions back to the one, and with the tireless keenness of its mind continually looked back to its Creator. So the first human being could not doubt its Creator, to whom it was always present inwardly through contemplation. The vision of this God, and the knowledge it brought, illumined the human heart, and through love enabled it to stand firm and to rest in God.
The Fall and Its Wound
After transgression, the human being was cast out from God's presence, becoming blind through ignorance and unstable through concupiscence, transmitting corruption to all posterity.
But after the human being was cast out from the Lord's presence on account of its own transgression, it became blind and unstable. Blind through ignorance of mind, unstable through the concupiscence of the flesh. When these were poured out from that first human being into all later generations, every kind of evil arose.
Humanity's Descent into Vanity
Through ignorance, people failed to recognize their Creator, and through disordered desire they were scattered into infinite errors and dissolved into earthly attachments.
Through ignorance, then, men have sunk so low that they didn't recognize their Creator, and either supposed that God didn't exist at all, or attributed divinity to those who weren't gods. Through desire, indeed, they were torn apart and scattered into infinite errors. For it was necessary that those who, weighed down by the darkness of ignorance, did not know other goods to be invisible should, through desire for the earthly things that could be seen, immoderately dissolve away.
God Calls the Heart Back Within
God speaks outwardly and works visible miracles to call the distracted heart back inward, revealing his love and drawing the mind from worldly variety toward contemplative unity.
Wishing, therefore, to gather our hearts back from this distraction and call them home to contemplate the inner joys, God speaks outwardly so that he may admonish us to return within. But because a mind accustomed to visible things doesn't know how to rise so quickly to invisible ones, for this reason he himself chose also to show certain miracles visibly, in which he might nourish our devotion and commend his own love to us. These, however, are especially the things that pertain to the reparation of man; for the things that were made for man's condition point more to us the power of the Maker, while the things that were made for man's redemption look especially toward love. God worked these things, therefore, so that he might show what kind of love he had toward us, and call us back from the love of this world to the love of himself. He wished, therefore, to moderate these works so that they wouldn't be infinite, lest they distract our mind—which was to be gathered—in its own occupation; yet he wished them to be many, so that the same mind, still impatient with perfect stability, might be delighted by the variety of things.
One Nation, One Place, One Salvation
God chose one nation and one place to begin the sacraments, so that from this visible unity all souls might be called back to inward and outward unity in the one Savior.
For this reason he chose one nation and one place, where the Sacraments — belonging not to one nation alone but to the salvation of the whole world — would be begun, so that unity might be commended everywhere, and the human soul might be called back, inwardly and outwardly, to unity: just as from one Savior comes the salvation of all, so also from one place and from one people might flow the beginning of salvation.
Gradual Ascent Through Mediators
God accomplished his works through humans, angels, and himself, so that the soul might gradually rise from human deeds to angelic deeds and finally to the simplicity of God.
For he who did all things for us certainly did them just as he knew to be more profitable for us. God accomplished these things in part through human beings, in part through angels, and in part through himself. Very many things through human beings, many through angels, few through himself. For this reason, so that while the human soul makes progress in meditation — rising from human deeds to the deeds of angels, and from the deeds of angels to the deeds of God — it might gradually grow accustomed to gather itself into one, and when it escapes multiplicity more and more, it might then begin to draw near to true simplicity.
The Ark of God's Hidden Speech
When God speaks rarely and obscurely, he gathers the mind into unity and draws it upward, fashioning in the heart the form of an invisible ark.
While God, therefore — when he speaks with few words and rarely, he gathers our minds into one; but when he speaks obscurely and in secret, he draws them upward to himself — what is this if not, so to speak, fashioning in our hearts the form of a certain invisible ark?
Works for the Healthy and the Weak
God willed that some works serve the healthy in obedience while others bring healing remedy to the weak.
Therefore, although he made all his works for the sake of human beings, he nevertheless willed that some works be those that show obedience to the healthy, and others that bring remedy to the weak.
Foundation and Restoration in Six
The first creation was made in six days to serve those who stand, but the restoration of fallen humanity, far more necessary and worthy, unfolds across six ages.
For the world could serve the healthy, but it couldn't restore the sick. So after that first foundation of things, which was made to support those who stand, it was necessary to make other things to raise up those who have fallen.1 These things are worthier than the first by as much as they are more necessary, and they span a longer stretch of time by as much as they surpass them in dignity. For those things were made in six days; these are made in six ages. For the foundation of things was made in six days, and the restoration of humankind is brought to completion in six ages.
Read the original Latin
Primi hominis natura ita a Deo, ordinata, et instituta fuerat, ut anima, quae corpori praeerat, per sensus quidem ministeria corporis foris impleret, sed intus per rationem semper ad Creatorem suum intenderet. Hoc est membra corporis sensificando foris ad agendum quidem moveret, sed intentionem, et desiderium intus ad solum Creatorem dirigeret, et nihil foris ageret, quod ex ejus dilectione non procederet, et ad ejus dilectionem non pertineret, ita ut omnem actum et charitas imperaret, et ratio disponeret, et sensus impleret atque perficeret. Quandiu ergo hunc ordinem naturae suae tenuit, quamvis foris per actionem variaretur, intus tamen per intentionem et amorem stabilis permansit, quia unum intendebat, et propter unum omnia faciebat, unum diligebat, et omnium voluntatum, atque actionum suarum finem ad unum referebat, et indeffessa mentis acie ad unum jugiter respiciebat Creatorem suum. Unde nec dubitare de Creatore suo poterat, cui semper intus per contemplationem praesens erat. Cujus visio, et per cognitionem cor ejus illuminavit, et per amorem stare et requiescere fecit. Sed postquam merito praevaricationis suae ejectus est a facie Domini, factus est caecus et instabilis. Caecus per ignorantiam mentis, instabilis per concupiscentiam carnis. Quibus ab illo in omnem posteritatem transfusis, universa mala exorta sunt.
Per ignorantiam enim ad hoc tandem devoluti sunt homines, ut Creatorem suum non agnoscerent, et aut omnino Deum non esse existimarent, aut divinitatem iis, qui dii non erant, attribuerent. Per concupiscentiam vero infinitis erroribus distracti, et dissipati sunt. Necesse enim fuerat, ut per concupiscentiam terrenarum rerum, quae videbantur, immoderate diffluerent, qui tenebris ignorantiae pressi alia invisibilia bona esse nescirent. Volens ergo Deus ab hac distractione corda nostra colligere, et ad interna gaudia contemplanda revocare, foris loquitur, ut nos intus redire admoneat. Sed quia mens visibilibus assueta nescit tam cito ad invisibilia consurgere, idcirco voluit ipse quaedam etiam visibiliter exhibere miracula, in quibus nostrum affectum enutriret, et suam nobis charitatem commendaret. Haec autem sunt specialiter illa, quae ad reparationem hominis pertinent; nam ea, quae ad conditionem hominis facta sunt, magis nobis potentiam opificis indicant; ea vero, quae ad redemptionem hominis facta sunt, praecipue ad charitatem spectant. Haec igitur operatus est Deus, ut qualem erga nos haberet dilectionem ostenderet, et nos ab amore hujus mundi ad amorem sui revocaret. Haec igitur opera ita moderari voluit ne infinita essent, ne animum nostrum, qui colligendus erat, in occupatione sua distraherent; tamen multa essent, ut eumdem animum perfectae adhuc stabilitatis impatientem rerum varietate delectarent.
Propterea elegit unam gentem, et unum locum, ubi sacramenta non ad unius gentis tantum, sed ad salutem totius mundi pertinentia initiaret, ut unitas ubique commendaretur, et humanus animus intus et foris ad unitatem revocaretur, ut sicut ab uno Salvatore est salus omnium, ita etiam ab uno loco, et ab uno populo manaret salutis initium. Qui enim propter nos omnia fecit, sic utique fecit, sicut magis nobis expedire cognovit. Haec autem partim per homines, partim per angelos, partim per semetipsum operatus est Deus. Plurima per homines, per angelos multa, per semetipsum pauca. Propterea ut dum in meditatione eorum humanus animus de factis hominum ad facta angelorum, et de factis angelorum ad facta Dei ascendendo proficit, paulatim sese in unum colligere assuescat, et quando magis multiplicitatem evadit, tanto amplius ad veram simplicitatem appropinquare incipiat. Dum ergo Deus. cum paucis et raro loquendo mentes nostra in unum colligit, obscure autem et in abscondito loquendo sursum ad se trahit, quid aliud quam, ut ita dicam, invisibilis cujusdam arcae in cordibus nostris formam fingit? Quamvis ergo omnia opera sua propter hominem fecerit, alia tamen voluit esse opera illa, quae sanis exhiberent obsequium, atque alia quae infirmis conferrent remedium.
Poterat enim mundus sano servire, sed non poterat aegrotum reparare. Proinde post illam primam rerum conditionem, quae facta fuerunt, ut stantibus subessent, necesse erat alia facere, quae jacentes erigerent. Quae tanto primis digniora sunt, quanto magis necessaria, et quanto dignitate praecedunt, tanto prolixiori tempore currunt. Illa enim sex diebus facta sunt, ista sex aetatibus fiunt. Sex enim diebus facta est rerum conditio, et sex aetatibus perficitur hominum reparatio.
Notes
- 1 ↩The ut clause is rendered as purpose ('made to underlie'); a result reading ('so that they might underlie') is also possible.
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