Edition
Masquer
Confessiones
Caput 11
Et inspexi cetera infra te, et vidi nec omnino esse nec omnino non esse: esse quidem, quoniam abs te sunt, non esse autem, quoniam id quod es non sunt. id enim vere est, quod incommutabiliter manet. mihi autem inhaerere deo bonum est, quia, si non manebo in illo, nec in me potero. ille autem in se manens innovat omnia; et dominus meus es, quoniam bonorum meorum non eges.
Traduction
Masquer
The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books
Chapter XI.--That Creatures are Mutable and God Alone Immutable.
17. And I viewed the other things below Thee, and perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not. They are, indeed, because they are from Thee; but are not, because they are not what Thou art. For that truly is which remains immutably. 1 It is good, then, for me to cleave unto God, 2 for if I remain not in Him, neither shall I in myself; but He, remaining in Himself, reneweth all things. 3 And Thou art the Lord my God, since Thou standest not in need of my goodness. 4
Therefore, he argues, is God called the I AM (De Nat. Boni, 19): for omnis mutatio facit non esse quod erat. Similarly, we find him speaking in his De Mor. Manich. (c. I.): "For that exists in the highest sense of the word which continues always the same, which is throughout like itself, which cannot in any part be corrupted or changed, which is not subject to time, which admits of no variation in its present as compared with its former condition. This is existence in its true sense." See also note 3, p. 158. ↩
Ps. lxxiii. 28. ↩
Wisd. vii. 27. ↩
Ps. xvi. 2. ↩