The Pearl, Hymn 4: Faith Is Not to Be Probed

The thief gained the faith, and the faith gained him; it brought him up and placed him in paradise. He saw in the cross a tree of life. That was the fruit, and he was the eater in Adam’s place. The fool who goes astray scratches at the faith with every kind of question, as if it were an eye. The probing of a finger blinds the eye, and that prying blinds the faith far more. For even the diver does not pry into his pearl. All merchants rejoice in it without prying into where it came from; even the king who is crowned with it does not explore it. [a]

Because Balaam was foolish, a foolish beast, the donkey, spoke with him, because he despised God, who spoke with him. Let the pearl rebuke you too, in place of the donkey. The people that had a heart of stone he brought to nothing by a Stone, for look, a stone hears words. Its work is a witness, for it has rebuked them; and you deaf ones, let the pearl rebuke you today. With the swallow and the crow he put people to shame; with the ox, yes, with the donkey, he put them to shame. Now let the pearl do the rebuking, O you birds, and things on earth, and things below! [c]

Your light does not wax and wane like the moon’s. Look, it is of the Sun, whose light is greater than all, that a type is foreshadowed in your little compass. O type of the Son, one spark of whom is greater than the sun! The pearl itself is full, for its light is full; and there is no cunning workman who can steal from it, for its wall is its own beauty, yes, and its guard too! It lacks nothing, since it is entirely perfect. And if anyone would break you to take a piece from you, you are like the faith, which perishes among the heretics, since they have broken it in pieces and spoiled it. For is having the faith scrutinized any better than this? The faith is a whole nature that may not be corrupted. The spoiler brings harm on himself by it; the heretic brings ruin on himself by it. Whoever drives the light from his own pupils blinds himself. Fire and air are divided when they are separated. Light alone of all creatures, like its Creator, is not divided. It is not barren, for it too begets without losing anything by it.

And if anyone thinks that you are made by art, he is badly mistaken. Your nature proclaims that you, like all stones, are not the work of art; and so you are a type of the birth that no making fashioned. Your stone shrinks from being compared with the Stone who is the Son. For your own birth is from the middle of the deep, while that of the Son of your Creator is from the highest height. He is not like you, for he is like his Father. And, as people say, two wombs bore you too. You came down from on high as a liquid nature; you came up from the sea as a solid body. By your second birth you showed your loveliness to human beings. When you had taken bodily form, hands fixed you in your settings. For you are in the crown as on a cross, and in a coronet as in a victory; you are on the ears, as if to fill up what was lacking; you stretch out over all. [f]