28. And as all the gifts of God are vastly greater than the mortal substance, so also the true word of wisdom concerning all these, being with God Who caused all these things to be written, for the Father of the Word so willed, would be found in the soul which with all earnestness and with full consent has been thoroughly purified from human weakness in the apprehension of that wisdom. But if a man rashly enters on the subject, and is not aware of the mystery of the wisdom of God and of the Word Who was in the beginning with God and was Himself God, and that if we are to seek and find these things we must follow the instructions of the Word Who was also God, and conform to His wisdom, he must of necessity fall into fables and frivolous conceits and inventions of his own, for he exposes himself to danger for his impiety. We must therefore remember the admonition in Ecclesiastes to such readers: "Let not thine heart |28 be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few." And it is fitting to believe that not a single tittle of the sacred Scriptures is without something of the wisdom of God; for He Who gave me a mere man the command, "Thou shalt not appear before me empty," how much more will He not speak anything "empty." When the Prophets speak, it is after receiving of His fulness; and so everything breathes what comes of His fulness; and there is nothing in Prophecy, or Law, or Gospel, or Apostle, which is not of His fulness. And just because it is of His fulness, it breathes His fulness to those who have eyes to see the things of that fulness, and ears to hear the things of that fulness, and a faculty to perceive the sweet odour of the things of that fulness. But if in reading the Scripture thou shouldest sometime stumble at a meaning which is a fair stone of stumbling and rock of offence,blame thyself. Do not despair of finding meanings in the stone of stumbling and rock of offence, so that the saying may be fulfilled, "He that believeth shall not be ashamed." First believe, and thou shalt find beneath what is counted a stumbling-block much gain in godliness.