Or how could the inchoate spiritual creature deserve of Thee,
even to ebb and flow darksomely like the deep, -unlike Thee, unless it
had been by the same Word turned to that, by Whom it was created,
and by Him so enlightened, become light; though not equally, yet
conformably to that Form which is equal unto Thee? For as in a body,
to be, is not one with being beautiful, else could it not be deformed;
so likewise to a created spirit to live, is not one with living
wisely; else should it be wise unchangeably. But good it is for it
always to hold fast to Thee; lest what light it hath obtained by
turning to Thee, it lose by turning from Thee, and relapse into life
resembling the darksome deep. For we ourselves also, who as to the
soul are a spiritual creature, turned away from Thee our light, were
in that life sometimes darkness; and still labour amidst the relics of
our darkness, until in Thy Only One we become Thy righteousness,
like the mountains of God. For we have been Thy judgments, which are
like the great deep.
That which Thou saidst in the beginning of the creation, Let there
be light, and there was light; I do, not unsuitably, understand of the
spiritual creature: because there was already a sort of life, which
Thou mightest illuminate.
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