Confessions

¹⁰ Why is this, I beseech You, O Lord my God? I see it, however; but how I shall express it, I know not, unless that everything which begins to be and ceases to be, then begins and ceases when in Your eternal Reason it is known that it ought to begin or cease where nothing begins or ceases. The same is Your Word, which is also “the Beginning,” because also It speaks unto us. Thus, in the gospel He speaks through the flesh; and this sounded outwardly in the ears of men, that it might be believed and sought inwardly, and that it might be found in the eternal Truth, where the good and only Master teaches all His disciples.

There, O Lord, I hear Your voice, the voice of one speaking unto me, since He speaks unto us who teaches us. But He that teaches us not, although He speaks, speaks not to us. Moreover, who teaches us, unless it be the immutable Truth? For even when we are admonished through a changeable creature, we are led to the Truth immutable. There we learn truly while we stand and hear Him, and rejoice greatly “because of the Bridegroom's voice,” restoring us to that whence we are. And, therefore, the Beginning, because unless It remained, there would not, where we strayed, be whither to return. But when we return from error, it is by knowing that we return. But that we may know, He teaches us, because He is the Beginning and speaks unto us.