78 It is curious to note here Fichte's strange idea (Anweisung sum seligen Leben, Werke, v. 479), that St. John, at the commencement of his Gospel, in his teaching as to the "Word," intended to confute the Mosaic statement, which Fichte-since it ran counter to that idea of "the absolute" which he made the point of departure in his philosophy-antagonizes as a heathen and Jewish error. On "In the Beginning," See p. 166, note 2, above.
79 See p. 48, note, and p. 164, note 2, above.
82 As to all truth being God's, See vii. sec. 16, and note 3, above; and compare x. sec. 65, above.
86 "Ex familiaritate carnis," literally, "from familiarity with the flesh."
88 In allusion, perhaps, to Prov. xxvii. 8: "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place."
91 See a similar argument in his Con. adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 9; and sec. 29, and note, above.
92 See xi. sec. 29, above, and Gillies' note thereon; and compare with it Augustine's De. Gen. ad Lit. v. 5: "In vain we inquire after time before the creation as though we could find time before time, for if there were no motion of the spiritual or corporeal creatures whereby through the present the future might succeed the past, there would be no time at all. But the creature could not have motion unless it were. Time, therefore, begins rather from the creation, than creation from time, but both are from God."
95 See p. 183, note, above; and on the supremacy of this law of love, may be compared Jeremy Taylor's curious story (Works, iv. 477, Eden's ed.): "St. Lewis, the king, having sent Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, on an embassy, the bishop met a woman on the way, grave, sad, fantastic, and melancholy, with fire in one hand, and water in the other. He asked what those symbols meant. She answered, `My purpose is with fire to burn Paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God.0' "
96 See end of note 17, p. 197, below.
98 Augustine, as we have seen (See notes, pp. 65 and 92), was frequently addicted to allegorical interpretation, but he, none the less, laid stress on the necessity of avoiding obscure and allegorical passages when it was necessary to convince the opponent of Christianity (De Unit. Eccl. ch. 5). It should also be noted that, however varied the meaning deduced from a doubtful Scripture, he ever maintained that such meaning must be sacrae fidei congruam. Compare De Gen. ad Lit. end of book i.; and ibid. viii. 4 and 7. See also notes, pp. 164 and 178, above.
2 Similar views as to God's not having need of us, though He created us, and as to our service being for our and not His advantage, will be found in his De Gen. ad Lit. viii. 11; and Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 4.
4 In his De Gen. ad Lit. i. 5, he maintains that the spiritual creature may have a formless life, since it has its form-its wisdom and happiness-by being turned to the Word of God, the Immutable Light of Wisdom.
6 Similarly, in his De Civ. Dei, xii. 1, he argues that true blessedness is to be attained "by adhering to the Immutable Good, the Supreme God." This, indeed, imparts the only true life (See note, p. 133, above); for, as Origen says (in S. Joh. ii. 7), "the good man is he who truly exists," and "to be evil and to be wicked are the same as not to be." See notes, pp. 75 and 151, above.
8 Ps. xxxvi. 6, as in the Vulgate, which renders the Hebrew more correctly than the Authorized Version. This passage has been variously interpreted. Augustine makes "the mountains of God" to mean the saints, prophets, and apostles, while "the great deep" he interprets of the wicked and sinful. Compare In Ev. Joh. Tract. i. 2; and in Ps. xxxv. 7, sec. 10.
10 Compare the end of chap. 24 of book xi of the De Civ. Dei, where he says that the life and light and joy of the holy city which is above is in God.
14 See also xi. sec. 10, and note, above.
18 "Neque enim loca sunt quibus mergimur et emergimus."
19 Watts remarks here: "This sentence was generally in the Church service and communion. Nor is there scarce any one old liturgy but hath it, Sursum corda, Habemus ad Dominum." Palmer, speaking of the Lord's Supper, says, in his Origines Liturgicae., iv. 14, that "Cyprian, in the third century, attested the use of the form, `Lift up your hearts,0' and its response, in the liturgy of Africa (Cyprian, De Orat. Dom. p. 152, Opera, ed. Fell). Augustine, at the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of these words as being used in all churches" (Aug. De Vera Relig. iii. ). We find from the same writer, ibid. v. 5, that in several churches this sentence was used in the office of baptism.
20 "Sine substantia," the Old Ver. rendering of Ps. cxxiv. 5. The Vulgate gives "aquam intolerabilem." The Authorized Version, however, correctly renders the Hebrew by "proud waters," that is, swollen. Augustine, in in Ps. cxxiii. 5, sec. 9, explains the "aqua sine substantia," as the water of sins; "for," he says, "sins have not substance; they have weakness, not substance; want, not substance."