Chapter III.—Genesis I. 3,—Of
“Light,”—He Understands as It is Seen in the Spiritual
Creature.
4. But what Thou saidst in the beginning of
the creation, “Let there be light, and there was light,” I do not
unfitly understand of the spiritual creature; because there was
even then a kind of life, which Thou mightest illuminate. But as it
had not deserved of Thee that it should be such a life as could be
enlightened, so neither, when it already was, hath it deserved of
Thee that it should be enlightened. For neither could its
formlessness be pleasing unto Thee, unless it became light,—not
by merely existing, but by beholding the illuminating light, and
cleaving unto it; so also, that it lives, and lives happily, it owes to
nothing whatsoever but to Thy grace; being converted by means of a
better change unto that which can be changed neither into better
nor into worse; the which Thou only art because Thou only simply
art, to whom it is not one thing to live, another to live
blessedly, since Thou art Thyself Thine own
Blessedness.