The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric, in the Original Anglo-Saxon, with an English Version. Volume I.Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham
Religion
The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric, in the Original Anglo-Saxon, with an English Version. Volume I.
Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham
Sermons, English (Old)
Now some shallow-thinking man will inquire, how God can be everywhere at
once, and nowhere divided. Behold this sun, how high he ascends, and how he
sends his beams over all the world, and how he enlightens all this earth
which mankind inhabit. As soon as he rises up at early morn, he shines on
Jerusalem, and on Rome, and on this country, and on all countries at once;
and yet he is a creature, and goes {289} by God's direction. How much
ampler then is God's presence, and his might, and his visitation
everywhere! Him nothing withstands, neither stone wall nor broad barrier,
as they withstand the sun. To him nothing is hidden or unknown. Thou seest
a man's face, but God seeth his heart. The spirit of God tries the hearts
of all men; and those who believe in him and love him he purifies and
gladdens with his visitation, and the hearts of unbelieving men he passes
by and shuns.
Let everyone also know that every man has three things in himself
indivisible and working together, as God said when he first created man. He
said, "Let us make man in our own likeness." And he then made Adam in his
own likeness. In which part has man the likeness of God in him? In the
soul, not in the body. The soul of man has in its nature a likeness to the
Holy Trinity; for it has in it three things, these are memory, and
understanding, and will. By the memory a man thinks on the things which he
has heard, or seen, or learned. By the understanding he comprehends all the
things which he hears or sees. Of the will come thoughts, and words, and
works, both evil and good. There is one soul, and one life, and one
substance, which has these three things in it working together inseparably;
for where memory is there is understanding and will, and they are ever
together. Yet is none of these three the soul, but the soul through the
memory reminds, through the understanding comprehends, through the will it
wills whatsoever it likes; and it is, nevertheless, one soul and one life.
It has therefore God's likeness in itself, because it has three things in
it inseparably working. Yet is the man one man, and not a trinity: but God,
Father and Son and Holy Ghost, exists in a trinity of persons and in the
unity of one Godhead. Man exists not {291} in trinity as God, but he has,
nevertheless, the likeness of God in his soul, by reason of the three
things of which we have before spoken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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