The Heart's Secrets

Nonne Deus requiret ista? Ipse enim novit occulta cordis. Nonne, cum pondere pronuntiandum est: quoniam gravissumum est apud Dominum, si in ejus religione peccetur. Requirere autem solemus, quando illa desideramus agnoscere, quae nostram novimus conscientiam non tenere. Deus autem sciens requirit, non ut ipse aliquid novum discat, sed ut nos faciat quae sunt oblivione sepulta cognoscere. Sic et Abrahae dictum est: Nunc cognovi, quoniam times Deum tuum; quasi ille aliquid ex tempore didicerit, qui ante saecula cuncta praescivit. Sequitur: Ista, id est quae superius dixerat: Si obliti sumus nomen Dei nostri: et si expandimus manus nostras ad Deum alienum. Et quoniam agebatur de religionis affectu, qui non solum devotione corporis, sed magis geritur cordis arcano, ad Divinitatis notitiam, ubi omnis festinat integritas, cucurrerunt dicentes: Ipse enim novit occulta cordis. Cassiodorus, Expositio In Psalterium, Psalmus XLIII Source: Migne PG 70.316b-c

Would He not discover this? For He knows the secrets of the heart. 1 'Would He not' must be said with all gravity, because it is a most weighty matter with the Lord, if one errs in His religion. We are accustomed to use 'discover' when we desire to learn something which we know our mind does not yet grasp. But God, who knows, discovers not that He learn something new, but that He make us know what we have buried in forgetfulness. So he said to Abraham: 'Now I know that you revere your God,' 2 as if He learnt something at that time, He who has foreseen all things before the ages. Then comes 'this' which pertains to that which is said before: 'If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have stretched out our hands to a foreign god.' 3 And because this is a product of the feeling of religion, it is not only the devotion of the body, but more what is carried in the secret places of the heart, that pertains to Divine knowledge, where every uprightness hurries, and having run says, 'For He knows the secrets of the heart.' Cassiodorus, Commentary On The Psalms, Psalm 25 1 Ps 43.22 2 Gen 22.12 3 Ps 44.21