CHAPTER XVIII.

God is life, wisdom, eternity, and every true good. --Whatever is composed of parts is not wholly one; it is capable, either in fact or in concept, of dissolution. In God wisdom, eternity, etc., are not parts, but one, and the very whole which God is, or unity itself, not even in concept divisible.

AND lo, again confusion; lo, again grief and mourning meet him who seeks for joy and gladness. My soul now hoped for satisfaction; and lo, again it is overwhelmed with need. I desired now to feast, and lo, I hunger more. I tried to rise to the light of God, and I have fallen back into my darkness. Nay, not only have I fallen into it, but I feel that I am enveloped in it. I fell before my mother conceived me. Truly, in darkness I was conceived, and in the cover of darkness I was born. Truly, in him we all fell, in whom we all sinned. In him we all lost, who kept easily, and wickedly lost to himself and to us that which when we wish to seek it, we do not know; when we seek it, we do not find; when we find, it is not that which we seek.

Do you help me for your goodness' sake! Lord, I sought your face; your face, Lord, will I seek; hide not your face far from me (Psalms xxvii. 8). Free me from myself toward you. Cleanse, heal, sharpen, enlighten the eye of my mind, that it may behold you. Let my soul recover its strength, and with all its understanding let it strive toward you, O Lord. What are you, Lord, what are you? What shall my heart conceive you to be?

Assuredly you are life, you are wisdom, you are truth, you are goodness, you are blessedness, you are eternity, and you are every true good. Many are these attributes: my straitened understanding cannot see so many at one view, that it may be gladdened by all at once. How, then, O Lord, are you all these things? Are they parts of you, or is each one of these rather the whole, which you are? For, whatever is composed of parts is not altogether one, but is: in some sort plural, and diverse from itself; and either in fact or in concept is capable of dissolution. But these things are alien to you, than whom nothing better can be conceived of. Hence, there are no parts in you, Lord, nor are you more than one. But you are so truly a unitary being, and so identical with yourself, that in no respect are you unlike yourself; rather you are unity itself, indivisible by any conception. Therefore, life and wisdom and the rest are not parts of you, but all are one; and each of these is the whole, which you are, and which all the rest are.

In this way, then, it appears that you have no parts, and that your eternity, which you are, is nowhere and never a part of you or of your eternity. But everywhere you are as a whole, and your eternity exists as a whole forever.