Traduction
Masquer
Les confessions de Saint Augustin
CHAPITRE II. IL ENSEIGNE LA RHÉTORIQUE. — SON COMMERCE ILLÉGITIME AVEC UNE FEMME. — IL REJETTE LES OFFRES D’UN DEVIN.
2. J’enseignais alors la rhétorique, l’escrime de la faconde, maître vénal blessé par l’intérêt; je préférais pourtant, vous le savez, Seigneur, avoir ce qu’on appelle de bons disciples, et en toute simplicité, je leur apprenais l’artifice, non pour s’élever jamais contre la vie de l’innocent, mais pour sauver parfois une tête coupable. Et vous, mon Dieu, vous m’avez vu de loin chanceler sur la voie glissante, vous avez distingué, dans une épaisse fumée, les étincelles de cette probité qui me dévouait à l’instruction de ces amateurs de vanité, de ces chercheurs de mensonge dont j’étais le compagnon.
En ces mêmes années, j’avais une femme qui ne m’était pas unie par la sainteté du mariage, mais que l’imprudence d’un vague désir m’avait fait trouver. Seule femme toutefois que je connusse; je lui gardais la foi; mais je ne laissais pas de mesurer par ma propre expérience tout l’intervalle qui sépare les convenances d’une légitime union, dont la fin est de transmettre la vie, et cette liaison de voluptueuses amours, dont les fruits naissent contre nos voeux, quoique leur naissance force notre tendresse.
3. Je me souviens encore qu’ayant voulu disputer au concours le prix d’un chant scénique, un devin me fit demander ce que je lui donnerais pour remporter la victoire; mais, plein d’horreur de ces abominables sacrilèges, je (387) répondis que, s’agît-il d’une couronne d’or impérissable, je ne souffrirais pas que ma victoire coûtât la vie à une mouche. Je savais qu’il immolerait un odieux sacrifice d’animaux, pour me gagner par cette offrande les suffrages des démons. Mais ce ne fut pas au regard de votre chaste amour que je répudiai ce crime, ô Dieu de mon coeur! je ne savais pas vous aimer, ne pouvant concevoir que des splendeurs corporelles. Et l’âme qui soupire après de telles chimères ne vous est-elle pas infidèle, courtisane du mensonge, pâture des vents? Et je ne voulais pas que pour moi l’on sacrifiât aux démons, à qui ma superstitieuse créance me sacrifiait chaque jour. Mais n’est-ce pas repaître les vents (Osée, XII, 1) que d’alimenter ces esprits qui font de nos erreurs leurs malignes délices?
Traduction
Masquer
The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books
Chapter II.--He Teaches Rhetoric, the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, Who Promised Him Victory.
2. In those years I taught the art of rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, put to sale a loquacity by which to overcome. Yet I preferred--Lord, Thou knowest--to have honest scholars (as they are esteemed); and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not to be put in practise against the life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar sawest me stumbling in that slippery path, and amid much smoke 1 sending out some flashes of fidelity, which I exhibited in that my guidance of such as loved vanity and sought after leasing, 2 I being their companion. In those years I had one (whom I knew not in what is called lawful wedlock, but whom my wayward passion, void of understanding, had discovered), yet one only, remaining faithful even to her; in whom I found out truly by my own experience what difference there is between the restraints of the marriage bonds, contracted for the sake of issue, and the compact of a lustful love, where children are born against the parents will, although, being born, they compel love.
3. I remember, too, that when I decided to compete for a theatrical prize, a soothsayer demanded of me what I would give him to win; but I, detesting and abominating such foul mysteries, answered, "That if the garland were of imperishable gold, I would not suffer a fly to be destroyed to secure it for me." For he was to slay certain living creatures in his sacrifices, and by those honours to invite the devils to give me their support. But this ill thing I also refused, not out of a pure love 3 for Thee, O God of my heart; for I knew not how to love Thee, knowing not how to conceive aught beyond corporeal brightness. 4 And doth not a soul, sighing after such-like fictions, commit fornication against Thee, trust in false things, 5 and nourish the wind? 6 But I would not, forsooth, have sacrifices offered to devils on my behalf, though I myself was offering sacrifices to them by that superstition. For what else is nourishing the wind but nourishing them, that is, by our wanderings to become their enjoyment and derision?
-
Isa. xlii. 3, and Matt. xii. 20. ↩
-
Ps. iv. 2. ↩
-
"He alone is truly pure who waiteth on God, and keepeth himself to Him alone " (Aug. De Vita Beata, sec. 18). "Whoso seeketh God is pure, because the soul hath in God her legitimate husband. Whosoever seeketh of God anything besides God, doth not love God purely. If a wife loved her husband because he is rich, she is not pure, for she loveth not her husband but the gold of her husband" (Aug. Serm. 137). "Whoso seeks from God any other reward but God, and for it would serve God, esteems what he wishes to receive more than Him from whom he would receive it. What, then? hath God no reward? None, save Himself. The reward of God is God Himself. This it loveth; if it love aught beside, it is no pure love. You depart from the immortal flame, you will be chilled, corrupted. Do not depart; it will be thy corruption, will be fornication in thee" (Aug. in Ps. lxxii. sec. 32). "The pure fear of the Lord (Ps. xix. 9) is that wherewith the Church, the more ardently she loveth her husband, the more diligently she avoids offending Him, and therefore love, when perfected, casteth not out this fear, but it remaineth for ever and ever" (Aug. in loc.). "Under the name of pure fear is signified that will whereby we must needs be averse from sin, and avoid sin, not through the constant anxiety of infirmity, but through the tranquillity of affection" (De Civ. Dei, xiv. sec. 65).--E. B. P. ↩
-
See note on sec. 9, below. ↩
-
"Indisputably we must take care, lest the mind, believing that which it does not see, feign to itself something which is not, and hope for and love that which is false. For in that case it will not be charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment" (De Trin. viii. sec. 6). And again (Confessions, i. 1): "For who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not may call on Thee as other than Thou art." ↩
-
Hosea xii. 1. ↩