Confessions

^33. But that he judges all things answers to his having dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over all cattle and wild beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. For this he does by the discernment of his mind, whereby he perceives the things “of the Spirit of God;” whereas, otherwise, man being placed in honour, had no understanding, and is compared unto the brute beasts, and has become like them. In Your Church, therefore, O our God, according to Your grace which You have accorded unto it, since we are Your workmanship created in good works, there are not only those who are spiritually set over, but those also who are spiritually subjected to those placed over them; for in this manner have You made man, male and female, in Your grace spiritual, where, according to the sex of body, there is not male and female, because neither Jew nor Greek, nor bond nor free. Spiritual persons, therefore, whether those that are set over, or those who obey, judge spiritually; not of that spiritual knowledge which shines in the firmament, for they ought not to judge as to an authority so sublime, nor does it behoove them to judge of Your Book itself, although there be something that is not clear therein; because we submit our understanding unto it, and esteem as certain that even that which is shut up from our sight is rightly and truly spoken. For thus man, although now spiritual and renewed in the knowledge of God after His image that created him, ought yet to be the “doer of the law, not the judge.” Neither does he judge of that distinction of spiritual and carnal men, who are known to Your eyes, O our God, and have not as yet made themselves manifest unto us by works, that by their fruits we may know them; but Thou, O Lord, dost already know them, and You have divided and hast called them in secret, before the firmament was made. Nor does that man, though spiritual, judge the restless people of this world; for what has he to do to judge them that are without, knowing not which of them may afterwards come into the sweetness of Your grace, and which continue in the perpetual bitterness of impiety?

34. Man, therefore, whom You have made after Your own image, received not dominion over the lights of heaven, nor over the hidden heaven itself, nor over the day and the night, which You called before the foundation of the heaven, nor over the gathering together of the waters, which is the sea; but he received dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and over all cattle, and over all the earth, and over all creeping things which creep upon the earth. For He judges and approves what He finds right, but disapproves what He finds amiss, whether in the celebration of those sacraments by which are initiated those whom Your mercy searches out in many waters; or in that in which the Fish Itself is exhibited, which, being raised from the deep, the devout earth feeds upon; or in the signs and expressions of words, subject to the authority of Your Book,— such signs as burst forth and sound from the mouth, as it were flying under the firmament, by interpreting, expounding, discoursing, disputing, blessing, calling upon You, so that the people may answer, Amen. The vocal pronunciation of all which words is caused by the deep of this world, and the blindness of the flesh, by which thoughts cannot be seen, so that it is necessary to speak aloud in the ears; thus, although flying fowls be multiplied upon the earth, yet they derive their beginning from the waters. The spiritual man judges also by approving what is right and reproving what he finds amiss in the works and morals of the faithful, in their alms, as if in “the earth bringing forth fruit;” and he judges of the “living soul,” rendered living by softened affections, in chastity, in fastings, in pious thoughts; and of those things which are perceived through the senses of the body. For it is now said, that he should judge concerning those things in which he has also the power of correction.