Chapter XIV.—Being Displeased
with Some Part Of God’s Creation, He Conceives of Two Original
Substances.
20. There is no wholeness in them whom aught
of Thy creation displeased no more than there was in me, when many
things which Thou madest displeased me. And, because my soul dared
not be displeased at my God, it would not suffer aught to be Thine
which displeased it. Hence it had gone into the opinion of two
substances, and resisted not, but talked foolishly. And, returning
thence, it had made to itself a god, through infinite measures of
all space; and imagined it to be Thee, and placed it in its heart, and again had become the temple of its own idol, which was to Thee an abomination. But after Thou hadst fomented the head of me unconscious of it, and closed mine eyes lest they should “behold vanity,” I ceased from myself a little, and my madness was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in Thee, and saw Thee to be infinite, though in another way; and this sight was not derived from the flesh.