confessions and enchiridion [181]
in the darkness. . . . To dispel the darkness and thus come to knowledge of its inner content, it must thrust toward the light." Compare the notions of the initiative of such movements in the soul in Plotinus and Augustine. [508] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:21. [509] Cf. Ps. 36:6 and see also Augustine's Exposition on the Psalms, XXXVI, 8, where he says that "the great preachers [receivers of God's illumination] are the mountains of God," for they first catch the light on their summits. The abyss he called "the depth of sin" into which the evil and unfaithful fall. [510] Cf. Timaeus, 29D-30A, "He [the Demiurge-Creator] was good: and in the good no jealousy . . . can ever arise. So, being without jealousy, he desired that all things should come as near as possible to being like himself. . . . He took over all that is visible . . . and brought it from order to order, since he judged that order was in every way better" (F. M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, New York, 1937, p. 33). Cf. Enneads, V, 4:1, and Athanasius, On the Incarnation, III, 3. [511] Cf. Gen. 1:2. [512] Cf. Ps. 36:9. [513] In this passage in Genesis on the creation. [514] Cf. Gen. 1:6. [515] Rom. 5:5. [516] 1 Cor. 12:1. [517] Cf. Eph. 3:14, 19. [518] Cf. the Old Latin version of Ps. 123:5. [519] Cf. Eph. 5:8. [520] Cf. Ps. 31:20. [521] Cf. Ps. 9:13. [522] The Holy Spirit. [523] Canticum graduum. Psalms 119 to 133 as numbered in the Vulgate were regarded as a single series of ascending steps by which the soul moves up toward heaven; cf. The Exposition on the Psalms, loc. cit. [524] Tongues of fire, symbol of the descent of the Holy Spirit; cf. Acts 2:3, 4. [525] Cf. Ps. 122:6. [526] Ps. 122:1. [527] Cf. Ps. 23:6. [528] Gen. 1:3. [529] John 1:9. [530] Cf. the detailed analogy from self to Trinity in De Trinitate, IX-XII. [531] I.e., the Church. [532] Cf. Ps. 39:11. [533] Ps. 36:6. [534] Gen. 1:3 and Matt. 4:17; 3:2. [535] Cf. Ps. 42:5, 6. [536] Cf. Eph. 5:8. [537] Ps. 42:7. [538] Cf. 1 Cor. 3:1. [539] Cf. Phil. 3:13. [540] Cf. Ps. 42:1. [541] Ps. 42:2. [542] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:1-4. [543] Rom. 12:2. [544] 1 Cor. 14:20. [545] Gal. 3:1. [546] Eph. 4:8, 9. [547] Cf. Ps. 46:4. [548] Cf. John 3:29. [549] Cf. Rom. 8:23. [550] I.e., the Body of Christ. [551] 1 John 3:2. [552] Ps. 42:3. [553] Cf. Ps. 42:4. [554] Ps. 43:5. [555] Cf. Ps. 119:105. [556] Cf. Rom. 8:10. [557] Cf. S. of Sol. 2:17. [558] Cf. Ps. 5:3. [559] Ps. 43:5. [560] Cf. Rom. 8:11. [561] 1 Thess. 5:5. [562] Cf. Gen. 1:5. [563] Cf. Rom. 9:21. [564] Isa. 34:4. [565] Cf. Gen. 3:21. [566] Ps. 8:3. [567] "The heavens," i.e. the Scriptures. [568] Cf. Ps. 8:2. [569] Legunt, eligunt, diligunt. [570] Ps. 36:5. [571] Cf. Matt. 24:35. [572] Cf. Isa. 40:6-8. [573] Cf. 1 John 3:2. [574] Retia, literally "a net"; such as those used by retiarii, the gladiators who used nets to entangle their opponents. [575] Cf. S. of Sol. 1:3, 4. [576] 1 John 3:2. [577] Cf. Ps. 63:1. [578] Ps. 36:9. [579] Amaricantes, a figure which Augustine develops both in the Exposition of the Psalms and The City of God. Commenting on Ps. 65, Augustine says: "For the sea, by a figure, is used to indicate this world, with its bitter saltiness and troubled storms, where men with perverse and depraved appetites have become like fishes devouring one another." In The City of God, he speaks of the bitterness of life in the civitas terrena; cf. XIX, 5. [580] Cf. Ps. 95:5. [581] Cf. Gen. 1:10f. [582] In this way, Augustine sees an analogy between the good earth bearing its fruits and the ethical "fruit-bearing" of the Christian love of neighbor. [583] Cf. Ps. 85:11. [584] Cf. Gen. 1:14. [585] Cf. Isa. 58:7. [586] Cf. Phil. 2:15. [587] Cf. Gen. 1:19. [588] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:17. [589] Cf. Rom. 13:11, 12. [590] Ps. 65:11. [591] For this whole passage, cf. the parallel developed here with 1 Cor. 12:7-11. [592] In principio diei, an obvious echo to the Vulgate ut praesset diei of Gen. 1:16. Cf. Gibb and Montgomery, p. 424 (see Bibl.), for a comment on in principio diei and in principio noctis, below. [593] Sacramenta; but cf. Augustine's discussion