Letters

³ But this the bodily eye neither now is, nor shall then be, able to see. For everything which can be seen by the bodily eye must be in some place, nor can be everywhere in its totality, but with a smaller part of itself occupies a smaller space, and with a larger part a larger space. It is not so with God, who is invisible and incorruptible, “who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen nor can see.” For He cannot be seen by men through the bodily organ by which men see corporeal things.

For if He were inaccessible to the minds also of the saints, it would not be said, “They looked unto Him, and were lightened” [translated by Aug., “Draw near unto Him, and be enlightened”]; and if He was invisible to the minds of the saints, it would not be said, “We shall see Him as He is:” for consider the whole context there in that Epistle of John: “Beloved,” he says, “now are we the sons of God; and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” We shall therefore see Him according to the measure in which we shall be like Him; because now the measure in which we do not see Him is according to the measure of our unlikeness to Him.

We shall therefore see Him by means of that in which we shall be like Him. But who would be so infatuated as to assert that we either are or shall be in our bodies like God? The likeness spoken of is therefore in the inner man, “which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” And we shall become the more like Him, the more we advance in knowledge of Him and in love; because “though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed day by day,” yet so as that, however far one may have become advanced in this life, he is far short of that perfection of likeness which is fitted for seeing God, as the apostle says, “face to face.” If by these words we were to understand the bodily face, it would follow that God has a face such as ours, and that between our face and His there must be a space intervening when we shall see Him face to face.

And if a space intervene, this presupposes a limitation and a definite conformation of members and other things, absurd to utter, and impious even to think of, by which most empty delusions the natural man, which “receives not the things of the Spirit of God,” is deceived.