For we also are called Thy righteousness; for
so saith a certain servant of Thine, That we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. Therefore since a certain created
wisdom was created before all things, the rational and intellectual
mind of that chaste city of Thine, our mother which is above, and is
free and eternal in the heavens (in what heavens, if not in those that
praise Thee, the Heaven of heavens? Because this is also the Heaven of
heavens for the Lord); -though we find no time before it (because that
which hath been created before all things, precedeth also the creature
of time), yet is the Eternity of the Creator Himself before it, from
Whom, being created, it took the beginning, not indeed of time (for
time itself was not yet), but of its creation.
Hence it is so of Thee, our God, as to be altogether other than
Thou, and not the Self-same: because though we find time neither
before it, nor even in it (it being meet ever to behold Thy face,
nor is ever drawn away from it, wherefore it is not varied by any
change), yet is there in it a liability to change, whence it would wax
dark, and chill, but that by a strong affection cleaving unto Thee,
like perpetual noon, it shineth and gloweth from Thee.
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