BOOK ONE.

6. The fourth mode is that which, according to the Philosophers likely referring to the Platonists, not improbably asserts that only those things which are grasped by the intellect alone truly exist. However, those things which vary through generation, through the expansion or contraction of matter, and through the spaces of places and the movements of time—which are gathered together or dissolved—are truly said not to exist. Such are all bodies that are subject to birth and decay.

7. The fifth mode is that which reason perceives in human nature alone. When human nature, through sinning, abandoned the dignity of the divine image in which it properly subsists, it deservedly lost its "being." But while it is restored by the grace of the only-begotten Son of God and led back to the former state of its substance (in which it was created according to the image of God), it begins to be; it begins to live in Him who was created according to the image of God. To this mode seems to pertain what the Apostle St. Paul, in Romans 4:17 says: And he calls those things which are not, as though they were. This means that those who were lost in the first man and fell into a kind of non-subsistence, God calls through faith in His Son so that they may be, just like those who are already reborn in Christ. Although this can also be understood regarding those whom God calls daily from the secret boundaries of Nature—where in the eyes of men they are judged not to be—so that they may appear visibly in form and matter, and in other ways through which hidden things can become manifest. If searching reason can find anything beyond these modes, let it be; but for the present, I think enough has been said of these, unless it seems otherwise to you.

Student. It is clear enough, except that I am slightly troubled by what was said by St. Augustine in his Hexaemeron original: "examero"; his commentary on the six days of Creation; namely, that the angelic nature was created before every other creature in dignity, though not in time. And because of this, he considered that the Angel first saw all other things in God on account of their primordial causes—that is, the principal examples, which the Greeks call Paradigms original: Παραδείγματα; the eternal blueprints of things in the mind of God—then in itself, and then the creatures themselves in their effects. For the Angel was not able to know its own cause before it proceeded into its own specific form.

Teacher. You should not be moved by that, but consider more intently what has been said. For if we say that the angels knew the principal causes of things established in God, we will seem to resist the Apostle, who affirms that God himself, and the causes of all things in him, are above everything that is spoken or understood—whether or not those causes are anything other than what He himself is. Because of this, it is necessary to hold a straight and middle path, lest we seem to resist the Apostle or fail to uphold the opinion of a Master of the highest and holy authority. Therefore, it is not to be doubted—indeed, it must be firmly held—that both spoke the truth. Reason concludes that the Cause of all things, which surpasses all understanding, is made known to no created nature, according to the Apostle. For who, he says, has known the mind of the Lord? Romans 11:34 and elsewhere, The peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding Philippians 4:7. But if the Cause of all things is removed from all things created by it, then without any doubt the "reasons" the rational principles or ideas of all things, which are eternally and unchangeably in that Cause, are utterly removed from all those things of which they are the reasons.

However, if anyone should say that in the angelic intellects there are certain "theophanies" of those reasons—that is, certain divine appearances of the intellectual nature that can be grasped, namely, the principal examples—he will not, I think, stray from the truth. We believe that St. Augustine said, not incongruously, that these theophanies were seen in the Angelic creature before the generation of all lower things. Therefore, let it not move us that he said the Angels see the causes of the lower creature first in God, and then in themselves. For not only is the divine essence called "God," but "God" is also frequently called by Holy Scripture the mode by which He shows Himself in some way to the intellectual and rational creature, according to the capacity of each. This mode is usually called by the Greeks a theophany original: theophania; a "divine showing" or manifestation. An example of this is: I saw the Lord sitting Isaiah 6:1, and other such things; for he did not see His essence itself, but something made by Him.

It is not surprising, then, if a certain threefold knowledge is understood in an angel: one indeed superior, which is first expressed in him concerning the eternal reasons of things according to the aforementioned mode; then that which he receives from the higher things and commits to himself as if in a certain wonderful and ineffable memory, like a certain expressed image of an image. And because of this, if he can know things superior to himself in such a way, who would dare to say he does not have a certain knowledge of lower things in himself? Rightly, therefore, are those things said to be which can be grasped by reason and intellect. But those things which surpass all reason and intellect are similarly rightly said not to be.

8. Student. What then shall we say of that future happiness promised to the Saints, which we think is nothing other than the pure and immediate contemplation of the divine essence itself, as the Holy Evangelist John says: We know that we are the sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; but when he appears, we shall be like him; for we shall see

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