The Kingdom of the Lovers of God

IN WHAT WAY THE NAME OF THE LORD APPLIES RIGHTLY TO GOD, AND OF THE CREATION OF ALL THINGS.

WHEN we are beginning to speak of the Lord, which is the first matter, rightly so is God called: since it is He Who is the Beginning, the Origin, the Life and Keeper of all creatures. For four things belong to the Lord: — Power, Wisdom, Bounty or Affection and Justice. God is that very Power to which all things yield; also that boundless Wisdom to which there is no thing that is not manifest, clear and open; also that Affection or Generosity which bestows all things; and finally that Justice which grants rewards and also avenges all things. ^Furthermore, in order that He might manifest His own Power, Wisdom and Goodness, He formed Heaven and Earth. Heaven He adorned with Himself and the angelic spirits, and Earth with men, and a manifold variety of creatures. Therefore by creating them He shows His Power: by placing and arranging them, His Wisdom: and His Goodness and Bounty by pouring them forth through numberless gifts and blessings. Angelic nature — that is, those lofty and intellectual spirits He formed, so as to bestow upon them the power and grace of turning themselves to Him with humility, with reverence, with praise, with love, and finally with a worthy veneration; so that being thus disposed by this means, that ‘very power might possess the Kingdom of eternal changelessness, the Intellect might be enlightened and transformed by boundless wisdom, and that Love might reach forth and arrive unwearied at God, Who converts the will freely so far as they are concerned: and finally that the unity of all powers might sink and be engulfed in eternal and illimitable enjoyment. Whosoever they are who turn themselves to God rejoice in eternal bliss, seeing that individual powers have their conversion in the light of glory, and their own enjoyment in the unity of Divinity, and also receive essential clearness. But those who turn themselves away — thrown back upon themselves in satisfaction with their own innate and natural greatness — are all of them unhappy persons, since that faculty of theirs, rendered so weak and powerless, and distracted by so many matters, is so far deprived and devoid of all grace that they can never turn themselves to God; the intellect is beclouded and stained by the shadows of vices which shut it out from the Divine clearness, and the will finally is filled with bitterness and the pain of eternal condemnation. For all have fallen from the highest place to the lowest, and are the enemies of God, of the angels and of holy men.