No
mind other than God’s can “hold God,” so what this phrase really means
is “Keeping conscious of God,” or “keeping one’s mind on and in God.” I
have borrowed the phrase from St. Paul’s Letter to the Christians in
Rome, ch 1:28, which reads: “Since they did not hold God in
consciousness, God gave them up to a base mind....” I am translating
literally from the Greek.Using the mind in the movement to
God was well developed in the Greek-speaking world long before the
epiphany of Christ. Below I will quote from two Greek philosophers who
lived roughly around 500 B.C., about a century before the death of
Socrates, 500 years before Christ. These verses may give you some idea
of the mental culture which the gospel of Christ encountered in the
ancient world:
From Xenophanes (c. 530 B.C.)
“There is one God, among gods and men the greatest, not at all like mortals in body or in mind. He sees as a whole, thinks as whole, and hears as a whole. Without toil he sets everything in motion, by the thought of his mind.”
From Heracleitus of Ephesus (c. 500 B.C.)
“One must follow the Logos [reason], which is common to all. But although the Logos is universal, the many lives as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves.
“The sun is new every day.” “Asses prefer straw to gold.”
“How could anyone hide from that which never sets?”
“That which alone is wise is One; it is willing and unwilling to be called Zeus".
“You could not in your journey find the ends of the soul, though you travelled the whole way; so deep is its Logos.”
“I explored my soul.”
“Human nature has no power of understanding; but the divine nature has it"
“Without faith the divine escapes being known.”
“It is hard to fight against impulse; whatever it wants, it buys at the expense of soul.”
“To those who are awake, there is one ordered universe common to all, whereas in sleep each man turns away from this world into one of his own". “The Lord whose oracle is that at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign.”
"The thinking faculty is common to all.”
“All human beings have the capacity to know themselves and to act in moderation.”
Finally, one from Socrates, killed by the Athenians in 399 B.C.
“The unexamined life is not worthy of a human being.”
