290. No one who is ignorant of the nature of the Word can have the slightest idea that infinity is contained in its details, that is to say, that its contents are countless, so that not even the angels can exhaust them. Anything found there can be compared to a seed, which planted in the ground can grow into a great tree, and produce an abundance of seeds; these again produce similar trees to form a garden, and their seeds in turn form other gardens, and so on to infinity. The Word of the Lord is like this in its details, and such above all are the Ten Commandments. For since they teach love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, they are a short summary of the whole Word. The Lord also shows that the Word is like this by a comparison:
The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his land. This seed is smaller than all other seeds; but when it has grown up, it is larger than any plant, and it becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches. Matt. 13:31, 32; Mark 4:31, 32; Luke 13:18, 19; cf. also Ezek. 17:2-8.
The fact that such an infinity of spiritual seeds or truths lies in the Word, can be established from the wisdom of the angels, the whole of which is derived from the Word, In their case wisdom goes on growing for ever. The wiser they become, the more clearly do they see that wisdom has no end; and they perceive that they are merely at its entrance, and they cannot reach even the minutest part of the Lord's Divine wisdom. They call this bottomless. Now since this is the source of the Word, coming as it does from the Lord, it is plain that all its details contain a sort of infinity.
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