Chapter XIII. On the Length and Breadth and Height and Depth of God

What is God ? Length and Breadth and Height and Depth. " What is this ? " thou wilt say, " Am I to regard thee now as a defender of the quaternity which awhile ago thou didst seem to repudiate ? " By no means. I have repudiated and do still repudiate that quaternity. It is true, I have here employed many words, yet the Object to Which they refer is but one. I have designated the one God according to our mode of conceiving Him, not as He is in Himself. For such distinctions or divisions belong to Him, not as He exists in His own Nature, but only as He is the Object of human thought. Therefore although the words are many and the ways of seeking many, one is the Object expressed by the words and one is the Object sought. Hence the quaternity of names given above does not signify any divisions of the Divine Substance, or any physical dimensions such as we see in bodies, or personal distinctions such as we adore in the Trinity, or number of properties such as we acknowledge to belong to the Persons, although not really distinct from the Persons. For of these four, namely, Length and Breadth and Height and Depth, each separately is in God what all taken together are, and all taken together are no more than what each is separately. But with regard to us, because our manner of intellection cannot perfectly represent the divine simplicity, whilst we endeavour to conceive God as one, He manifests Himself to our mind as fourfold. This multiplicity is due to the intervention of that glass through which alone we are allowed to see Him "in a dark manner " (1 Cor. xiii. 12) so long as we live here below. But when it shall be given us to see Him face to face, we shall then see Him as He is. Nor need we be afraid that the gaze of the soul, now so delicate, shall be in any degree dazzled by the brightness and dissolved, so to speak, into its former multiplicity, no matter how forcibly applied. On the contrary, it will collect .and conceni ON CONSIDERATION trate all its energies, and thus conform itself to the unity of its Object, or rather to the Unity Which is its Object ; so that the face gazing shall be as single as the Face gazed upon. In this way shall be verified the words of the Evangelist, " We shall be like to Him because we shall see Him as He is " (i John iii, 2). Happy vision, for which he sighed — and with good reason — who said, " My face hath sought Thee : Thy Face, O Lord, will I still seek " (Ps. xxvi. 8). In the meantime, as the seeking is not yet ended, let us make use of our four-horse chariot (for we are weak and frail and in want of such a vehicle) if haply we may even so apprehend that in which we have been apprehended, that, namely, which is signified by the chariot itself. For to this we have been exhorted by the driver of the chariot — I mean him by whom this chariot was first exhibited — namely, that we should endeavour "to comprehend * with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth " (Ephes. iii. 18). Notice how he tells us not simply to know but to comprehend, so that we should not rest content with the knowledge which gratifies curiosity, but should strive with all diligence to render our knowledge fruitful. The fruit of knowledge consists in the comprehension of its object, not in the mere knowing. For " to him who knoweth to do good and doth it not, that is, comprehends not the good he knoweth, to him it is sin " (James iv. 17). And St. Paul himself says in another place, " So run that you may comprehend " (1 Cor.

ix. 24). But what is it to comprehend ? This I shall try to explain in the following chapter.

What, therefore, is God ? I answer : He is Length. And what is that ? It is Eternity. So long is eternity that it has no limits at all, either in space or in time. God is likewise Breadth. Askest thou me what Breadth is ? It is Charity. This also is confined by no limits in God Who loveth all things that are, and hateth none of the things which He hath made (Wisd. xi. 25). For " He maketh His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust " (Matt. v. 45). Therefore even His enemies are enclosed within the bosom of His charity. Nor is it satisfied even with this, for it extends itself to infinity, transcending not alone every finite power of affection, but also every created faculty of thought. Hence the Apostle, after bidding us " to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth," tells us "to know also the charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge " (Ephes. iii. 18 19). WTiat more shall I say concerning this charity ? It is eternal : or rather — what perhaps is something still greater — it is eternity itself. Seest thou not that the Breadth of God is as great as His Length ? I wish thou couldst also understand this : that the Breadth of God is not only equal to, but is identical with His Length : that the one is absolutely the same as the other, and that either of the two is not less than both together or both together greater than either. God is Eternity, God is also Charity : He is Length and He is Breadth, but in both is independent of all spatial relations, in both transcends the narrow limits of place and time, not, however, by magnitude of bulk but by the liberty of His spiritual Nature. In this way He Who has made all things in measure (Wisd. xi. 21) is Himself without measure ; and although He is unmeasured in Himself, we have here, nevertheless, the mode or measure (so to speak) even of His immensity. Once more : What is God ? He is Height and He is Depth. As Height, He is above all things ; as Depth, He is beneath all. It is evident that amongst the divine attributes there exists the most perfect equality, firmly established on all sides, and persevering immutably the same. By Height, we are to understand the divine power ; by Depth, the divine wisdom. Between these two also, there is a relation of correspondence similar to that between Length and Breadth ; for we know that the Height is as inaccessible as the Depth is unfathomable, St. Paul bearing witness to this where he utters that cry of wonder and admiration, " O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God ! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways ! " (Rom. xi. 33). And we ourselves also, seeing, although but dimly, the most absolute unity of these perfections in God and with God, may cry out like the Apostle, and say, " O Wisdom all-powerful, ' reaching from end to end ' mightily I O Power all- wise, ' disposing all things sweetly ' " ! (Wisdom viii. 1). The Thing is one in Itself, but It is manifold in Its effects, multiform in Its operations. And this one Thing is Length because of Its eternity, Breadth because of Its charity, Height because of Its majesty, Depth because of Its wisdom.