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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XXVI.--What He Might Have Asked of God Had He Been Enjoined to Write the Book of Genesis.

36. And yet, O my God, Thou exaltation of my humility, and rest of my labour, who hearest my confessions, and forgivest my sins, since Thou commandest me that I should love my neighbour as myself, I cannot believe that Thou gavest to Moses, Thy most faithful servant, a less gift than I should wish and desire for myself from Thee, had I been born in his time, and hadst Thou placed me in that position that through the service of my heart and of my tongue those books might be distributed, which so long after were to profit all nations, and through the whole world, from so great a pinnacle of authority, were to surmount the words of all false and proud teachings. I should have wished truly had I then been Moses (for we all come from the same mass; and what is man, saving that Thou art mindful of him? ¹ ). I should then, had I been at that time what he was, and enjoined by Thee to write the book of Genesis, have wished that such a power of expression and such a method of arrangement should be given me, that they who cannot as yet understand how God creates might not reject the words as surpassing their powers; and they who are already able to do this, would find, in what true opinion soever they had by thought arrived at, that it was not passed over in the few words of Thy servant; and should another man by the light of truth have discovered another, neither should that fail to be found in those same words.

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Confessiones (PL)

CAPUT XXVI. Qui sermo deceat Scripturam.

36. Et tamen ego, Deus meus celsitudo humilitatis meae, et requies laboris mei, qui audis confessiones meas, et dimittis peccata mea; quoniam tu mihi praecipis ut diligam proximum meum sicut meipsum, non possum minus credere de Moyse fidelissimo famulo tuo, quam mihi optarem ac desiderarem abs te dari muneris, si tempore illo natus essem quo ille, eoque loco me constituisses, ut per servitutem cordis ac linguae meae, Litterae illae dispensarentur, quae tauto [Col. 0841] post essent omnibus gentibus profuturae, et per universum orbem tanto auctoritatis culmine omnium falsarum superbarumque doctrinarum verba superaturae Vellem quippe, si tunc ego essem Moyses ¹, vellem ergo, si tunc ego essem quod ille, et mihi abs te Geneseos liber scribendus injungeretur, talem mihi eloquendi facultatem dari, et eum texendi sermonis modum, ut neque illi qui nondum queunt intelligere quemadmodum Deus creat, tanquam excedentia vires suas dicta recusarent; et illi qui hoc jam possunt, in quamlibet veram sententiam cogitando venissent, eam non praetermissam in paucis verbis tui famuli reperirent; et si alius aliam vidisset in luce veritatis, nec ipsa in eisdem verbis intelligenda deesset.