A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 38
38 The Re-Formation Which is Now Being Effected, Compared with the Perfection of the Life to Come PL 44, 223
But what is this change, and how great, in comparison with the perfect eminence which is then to be realized? The apostle applies some sort of illustration, derived from well-known things, to these indescribable things, comparing the period of childhood with the age of manhood. “When I was a child,” says he, “I used to speak as a child, to understand as a child, to think as a child; but when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” He then immediately explains why he said this in these words: “For now we see by means of a mirror, darkly but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Reformatio quae nunc agitur, collata cum perfectione futurae vitae. Sed ad illius eminentiae perfectionem quae tunc futura est, quid hoc, aut quantum est? Siquidem Apostolus ad illa ineffabilia qualecumque adhibens de notis rebus exemplum, parvulam aetatem virili comparavit aetati. Cum essem, inquit, parvulus, quasi parvulus loquebar, quasi parvulus sapiebam, quasi parvulus cogitabam: cum autem factus sum vir, deposui ea quae parvuli erant. Cur autem hoc dixerit, consequenter ostendens, Videmus, inquit, nunc per speculum in aenigmate, tunc autem facie ad faciem: nunc scio ex parte, tunc autem cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum .