(95) This now was a great contrary will in the divine Salitter, a great battle and strife, and an eternal enmity. But now thou wilt say, Objection. God should have withstood him, that it might not have come so far. Answer.

(10) As long as this difference in the perceptive faculty of observers exists, disputes must necessarily go on. It is as if some blind men, hearing that an elephant had come to their town, should go and examine it. The only knowledge of it which they can obtain comes through the sense of touch; so one handles the animal's leg, another his tusk, another his ear, and, according to their several perceptions, pronounce it to be a column, a thick pole, or a quilt, each taking a part for the whole. So the physicist and astronomer confound the laws they perceive with the Lawgiver. A similar mistake is attributed to Abraham in the Koran, where it is related that he turned successively to stars, moon, and sun as the objects of his worship, till grown aware of Him who made all these, he exclaimed, "I love not them that set."

(1) But the most ancient of the philosophers were not carried away to disputing and doubting, much less are we, who are attached to the really true philosophy, on whom the Scripture enjoins examination and investigation. For it is the more recent of the Hellenic philosophers who, by empty and futile love of fame, are led into useless babbling in refuting and wrangling. But, on the contrary, the Barbarian philosophy, expelling all contention, said, "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; ask, and it shall be given you."

(110) Inasmuch as thou art acquainted with the Master of all; Be a man, and not another man's beast of burden! Follow thine own way and lose not thy head!" In one 'twas said, "All we see is One. Whoever says 'tis two is suffering from double vision." In one 'twas said, "A hundred are even as one." Each scroll had its contrary piece of rhetoric, In form and substance utterly opposed to it; This contrary to that, from first to last,

(34) 'Twas red, and it went towards this pasture." Another says, "Its ear was cropped." Another says, "Its cloth was embroidered." Another that it had only one eye, To gain the reward every base fellow Just so every one in matters of doctrine A philosopher expounds it in one way, A third censures both of them; Every one mentions indications of this road, This truth and that truth cannot be all true,

(1) For it was ludicrous. It is I who bear witness that it was ludicrous, since the rulers do not know that this is an ineffable union of undefiled truth, as exists among the children of light, of which they made an imitation, having proclaimed a doctrine of a dead man and lies so as to resemble the freedom and purity of the perfect assembly, and having joined themselves in their doctrine to fear and slavery, worldly cares, and abandoned worship, being small and ignorant, since they do not contain the nobility of the truth. For they hate the one in whom they are and love the one in whom they are not. For they did not know the knowledge of the greatness that it is from above and from a fountain of truth and not from slavery and jealousy, fear, and love of worldly matter. For that which is not theirs and that which is theirs they use fearlessly and freely. They do not desire because they have authority, and they have a law from themselves over whatever they will wish.

(3) The wrong assertions that I have uttered, and the wrong resistance which I have offered: let them not be imputed to me

(42) Now which was the Champion in the Battle? Behold, when Christ had finished, he said; Father, I commend my Spirit into thy Hands, and he inclined his Head, and departed. Behold, his Father is the Kingdom, Power, and Glory, and in him is All; and All is his; the Love is his Heart; and the Anger is his eternal Strength; the Love is his Light; and the Anger is the eternal Darkness, and makes another Principle, wherein the Devils are.

(4) But since I see thee in thine intellect Converted into stone and stained with sin, So that the light of my discourse doth daze thee, I will too, if not written, at least painted, Thou bear it back within thee, for the reason That cinct with palm the pilgrim's staff is borne." And I: "As by a signet is the wax Which does not change the figure stamped upon it, My brain is now imprinted by yourself. But wherefore so beyond my power of sight Soars your desirable discourse, that aye The more I strive, so much the more I lose it?" "That thou mayst recognize," she said, "the school Which thou hast followed, and mayst see how far Its doctrine follows after my discourse, And mayst behold your path from the divine Distant as far as separated is From earth the heaven that highest hastens on." Whence her I answered: "I do not remember That ever I estranged myself from you, Nor have I conscience of it that reproves me." "And if thou art not able to remember," Smiling she answered, "recollect thee now That thou this very day hast drunk of Lethe;

(1) I, at any rate, am not conscious, when speaking in reply to Greeks or others, of fancying to assist good men, in case they should be able to know and speak the very truth, as it really is in itself. For, when this is correctly demonstrated in its essential nature, according to a law of truth, and has been established without flaw, every thing which is otherwise, and simulates the truth, will be convicted of being other than the reality, and dissimilar, and that which is seeming rather than real. It is superfluous then, that the expounder of truth should contend with these or those. For each affirms himself to have the royal coin, and perchance has some deceptive image of a certain portion of the true. And, if you refute this, first the one, and then the other, will contend concerning the same. But, when the true statement itself has been correctly laid down, and has remained unrefuted by all the rest, every thing which is not so in every respect is cast down of itself, by the impregnable stability of the really true. Having then as I think well understood this, I have not been over zealous to speak in reply to Greeks or to others; but it is sufficient for me (and may God grant this), first to know about truth, then, having known, to speak as it is fitting to speak.

(5) And then I heard: "The ancient and the new Postulates, that to thee are so conclusive, Why dost thou take them for the word divine?" And I: "The proofs, which show the truth to me, Are the works subsequent, whereunto Nature Ne'er heated iron yet, nor anvil beat." 'Twas answered me: "Say, who assureth thee That those works ever were? the thing itself That must be proved, nought else to thee affirms it." "Were the world to Christianity converted," I said, "withouten miracles, this one Is such, the rest are not its hundredth part; Because that poor and fasting thou didst enter Into the field to sow there the good plant, Which was a vine and has become a thorn!" This being finished, the high, holy Court Resounded through the spheres, "One God we praise!" In melody that there above is chanted. And then that Baron, who from branch to branch, Examining, had thus conducted me, Till the extremest leaves we were approaching, Again began: "The Grace that dallying Plays with thine intellect thy mouth has opened, Up to this point, as it should opened be,

(453) I suppose so, he said. Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged—did we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men’s and women’s natures are different. And now what are we saying?—that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,—this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us. Precisely. Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction! Why do you say so? Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument? A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition. In what way? Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures. Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us.

(4) Neither of these, therefore, at all pertains to the Gods; neither our being filled with material bodies; (for there is nothing, in short, of this kind with them, nor are they defiled by our stains, since they are entirely pure and incorruptible), nor if there are certain material vapours of bodies which are emitted about the earth; for these vapours are most remote from the essence and power of the Gods. Hence the whole hypothesis of contrariety is subverted if no part of it pertains to the Gods. For how, in short, can that which is not possess in itself a certain contest [with any thing]? You in vain, therefore, suspect things of this kind to be absurd, and you adduce doubts unworthy of the Gods, since they cannot be reasonably applied even to good men. For no man who possesses intellect, and is free from passion, would ever permit himself to be allured by the exhalation of vapours, and much less would any one of the beings more excellent than man suffer himself to be thus allured. These things, however, will be discussed shortly after. But now, since this contrariety is, through many solutions, subverted, we shall here finish what we have to say about the first doubt.

(9) For it is plain that, from the very reason that truth is difficult and arduous of attainment, questions arise from which spring the heresies, savouring of self-love and vanity, of those who have not learned or apprehended truly, but only caught up a mere conceit of knowledge. With the greater care, therefore, are we to examine the real truth, which alone has for its object the true God.

(4) A scene of strife arose among the gods when I gave the command

(2) Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many, On one side and the other, with great howls, Rolling weights forward by main force of chest. They clashed together, and then at that point Each one turned backward, rolling retrograde, Crying, "Why keepest?" and, "Why squanderest thou?" Thus they returned along the lurid circle On either hand unto the opposite point, Shouting their shameful metre evermore. Then each, when he arrived there, wheeled about Through his half-circle to another joust; And I, who had my heart pierced as it were, Exclaimed: "My Master, now declare to me What people these are, and if all were clerks, These shaven crowns upon the left of us." And he to me: "All of them were asquint In intellect in the first life, so much That there with measure they no spending made. Clearly enough their voices bark it forth, Whene'er they reach the two points of the circle, Where sunders them the opposite defect. Clerks those were who no hairy covering Have on the head, and Popes and Cardinals, In whom doth Avarice practise its excess."

(111) They are a proof of the beauty and grace of my beloved.' The other said, "I take not these for a proof, Though they may be a proof to common people." The Sunni said, "When genuine and base coin boast, Saying, 'Thou art false, I am good and genuine,' Fire is the test ultimately, When the two rivals are cast into the furnace." Accordingly both of them entered the furnace, Both leapt into the fiery flame; And the philosopher was burnt to ashes,

(38) I do not say that I cannot err at all. For there are some things which are not sufficiently explained, but are described, as it were, from a glimpse of the great God, when the wheel of nature whirled about too swiftly, so that man, with his half-dead and dull capacity or apprehension, cannot sufficiently comprehend it; though what thou findest not sufficiently explained in one place thou wilt find it done in another; if not in this book, then in the others. Now thou wilt say, It does not become me to ask such questions; for the Deity is a Mystery, which no man can search into. Answer.

(4) Whence life is full of tribunals and councils; and, in fine, of selection in what is said to be good and bad; which are the signs of a mind in doubt, and halting through feebleness on account of conflicting matters. And there are libraries full of books,' and compilations and treatises of those who differ in dogmas, and are confident that they themselves know the truth that there is in things.

(1) The "knowledge of certainty" and the "eye of certainty". Our body and substance are snow, doomed to perish, God is He who buys them, for "God hath bought them." You prefer this perishing snow to God's price Because you are in doubt and have not certainty; And, strange to say, opinion abides in you, O weak one, Every opinion is aiming at certainty, O son, When it reaches knowledge it stands erect, And its knowledge again hastes on towards certainty, Because in the approved road of the faith Knowledge is lower than certainty, but above opinion.