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Confessiones

Caput 5

Quomodo autem fecisti caelum et terram et quae machina tam grandis operationis tuae? non enim sicut homo artifex, formans corpus de corpore arbitratu animae, valentis imponere utcumque speciem, quam cernit in semet ipsa interno oculo -- et unde hoc valeret, nisi quia tu fecisti eam? -- et imponit speciem iam exsistenti et habenti, ut esset, veluti terrae aut lapidi aut ligno aut auro aut id genus rerum cuilibet. et unde ista essent, nisi tu instituisses ea? tu fabro corpus, tu animam membris imperitantem fecisti, tu materiam, unde facit aliquid, tu ingenium, quo artem capiat et videat intus quid faciat foris, tu sensum corporis, quo interprete traiciat ab animo ad materiam id quod facit, et renuntiet animo quid factum sit, ut ille intus consulat praesidentem sibi veritatem, an bene factum sit. te laudant haec omnia creatorem omnium. sed tu quomodo facis ea? quomodo fecisti, deus, caelum et terram? non tuique in caelo neque in terra fecisti caelum et terram neque in aere aut in aguis, quoniam et haec pertinent ad caelum et terram, neque in universo mundo fecisti universum mundum, quia non erat, ubi fieret, antequam fieret, ut esset. nec manu tenebas aliquid, unde faceres caelum et terram: nam unde tibi hoc, quod tu non feceras, unde aliquid faceres? quid enim est, nisi quia tu es? ergo dixisti et facta sunt, atque in verbo tuo fecisti ea.

Traduction Masquer
The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter V.--God Created the World Not from Any Certain Matter, But in His Own Word.

7. But how didst Thou make the heaven and the earth, and what was the instrument of Thy so mighty work? For it was not as a human worker fashioning body from body, according to the fancy of his mind, in somewise able to assign a form which it perceives in itself by its inner eye. ¹ And whence should he be able to do this, hadst not Thou made that mind? And he assigns to it already existing, and as it were having a being, a form, as clay, or stone, or wood, or gold, or such like. And whence should these things be, hadst not Thou appointed them? Thou didst make for the workman his body,--Thou the mind commanding the limbs,--Thou the matter whereof he makes anything, ² --Thou the capacity whereby he may apprehend his art, and see within what he may do without,--Thou the sense of his body, by which, as by an interpreter, he may from mind unto matter convey that which he doeth, and report to his mind what may have been done, that it within may consult the truth, presiding over itself, whether it be well done. All these things praise Thee, the Creator of all. But how dost Thou make them? How, O God, didst Thou make heaven and earth? Truly, neither in the heaven nor in the earth didst Thou make heaven and earth; nor in the air, nor in the waters, since these also belong to the heaven and the earth; nor in the whole world didst Thou make the whole world; because there was no place wherein it could be made before it was made, that it might be; nor didst Thou hold anything in Thy hand wherewith to make heaven and earth. For whence couldest Thou have what Thou hadst not made, whereof to make anything? For what is, save because Thou art? Therefore Thou didst speak and they were made, ³ and in Thy Word Thou madest these things. ⁴