LXV. Psalmista de eodem.

LXV. Psalmista de eodem.

Our God is in heaven; He has done whatever He wanted. Images of silver and gold, the work of human hands. The sense of this is such. God is that life which is never obscured by any beginning, and which is also never ended by any defect. And He is our God, who is life itself, granting an unending life to His own. He is also in heaven, in that clarity which mortal man cannot comprehend, but which is the life that becomes the dwelling place of life. And who can do this, except God? Whatever God has arranged in His order, He also brings to completion, which are not vain, just as the thoughts of men are vain; for men begin many things in their thoughts that they cannot bring to completion. 3i S. God Himself also created all creatures with a rationality suited to humanity, which do not come to life in any other way except through that which is given to them by God. But the unfaithful, through their idols, despair of life, which God has not given to them. For in images, the work of man is not vital; rather, it is only a mere representation and depiction in silver and gold, because people have contaminated their rationality like silver and their knowledge like gold, through the work of their own hands. In these things, the Devil sends forth his breath, for he has denied God from the beginning; and in them, he claims to be God, thus without the vision of sight, without the wisdom of hearing, without the understanding of smell, without the vital air, and without the breath of the spirit of life, he makes a sound. But in all these things, the Devil has no power, and he leads himself into great confusion, because he prepares his mockeries in them, since he has no possibility in them, just as neither does man, but he only rejoices in the seduction of man. For if the Devil had the power to act in human affairs according to his own will, he would change them into another nature, just as God transformed the clay of the earth into another nature when He formed man from the clay. When a person counts their works as for God, as if they didn't know God exists, they become like idols; because they trust in them, and this estimation of a person is death without any grace from God's work, so that even those who place their hope in them will remain with the Devil in external darkness.