essence, and by which they see the causes of His works in the
art of the worker, before they see them in the works of the
artist._
Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by audible words,
but by the presence to their souls of immutable truth, _i.e._, of
the only-begotten Word of God; and they know this Word Himself,
and the Father, and their Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is
indivisible, and that the three persons of it are one substance,
and that there are not three Gods but one God; and this they so
know, that it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves.
Thus, too, they know the creature also, not in itself, but by this
better way, in the wisdom of God, as if in the art by which it was
created; and, consequently, they know themselves better in God than
in themselves, though they have also this latter knowledge. For
they were created, and are different from their Creator. In Him,
therefore, they have, as it were, a noonday knowledge; in themselves,
a twilight knowledge, according to our former explanations.[495] For
there is a great difference between knowing a thing in the design in
conformity to which it was made, and knowing it in itself,--_e.g._,
the straightness of lines and correctness of figures is known in one
way when mentally conceived, in another when described on paper; and
justice is known in one way in the unchangeable truth, in another in
the spirit of a just man. So is it with all other things,--as, the
firmament between the water above and below, which was called the
heaven; the gathering of the waters beneath, and the laying bare of
the dry land, and the production of plants and trees; the creation
of sun, moon, and stars; and of the animals out of the waters,
fowls, and fish, and monsters of the deep; and of everything that
walks or creeps on the earth, and of man himself, who excels all
that is on the earth,--all these things are known in one way by the
angels in the Word of God, in which they see the eternally abiding
causes and reasons according to which they were made, and in another
way in themselves: in the former, with a clearer knowledge; in the
latter, with a knowledge dimmer, and rather of the bare works than
of the design. Yet, when these works are referred to the praise and
adoration of the Creator Himself, it is as if morning dawned in the
minds of those who contemplate them.