[77] We have a very clear proof of the mind’s migration from astrology and the Chaldean creed in the words which follow at once the story of the departure of the Sage. “God,” it says, “was seen by Abraham.” This shews that God was not manifested to him before, when in his Chaldean way he was fixing his thoughts on the choric movement of the stars with no apprehension at all of an harmonious and intelligible order of things outside the world and the sphere of sense.
[78] But when he had departed and changed his habitation he could not help but know that the world is not sovereign but dependent, not governing but governed by its Maker and First Cause. And this his mind then saw for the first time with its recovered sight.
[79] For before a great mist had been shed upon it by the things of sense, and only with difficulty could it dispel this mist under the warmth and fervour of higher verities and so be able as in clear open sky to receive the vision of Him Who so long lay hidden and invisible. He in His love for mankind, when the soul came into His presence, did not turn away His face, but came forward to meet him and revealed His nature, so far as the beholder’s power of sight allowed.
[80] That is why we are told not that the Sage saw God, but that God was seen by him. For it were impossible that anyone should by himself apprehend the truly Existent, did not He reveal and manifest Himself.