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Confessiones (CSEL)
Caput 10
O veritas, lumen cordis mei, non tenebrae meae loquantur mihi! defluxi ad ista et obscuratus sum, sed hinc, etiam hinc adamavi te. erravi et recordatus sum tui. audivi vocem tuam post me, ut redirem, et vix audivi propter tumultus impacatorum. et nunc ecce redeo aestuans et anhelans ad fontem tuum. nemo me prohibeat: hunc bibam et hunc vivam. non ego vita mea sim: male vixi ex me, mors mihi fui: in te revivesco. tu me alloquere, tu mihi sermocinare. credidi libris tuis, et verba eorum arcana valde.
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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books
Chapter X.--He Begs of God that He May Live in the True Light, and May Be Instructed as to the Mysteries of the Sacred Books.
10. Oh, let Truth, the light of my heart, 1 not my own darkness, speak unto me! I have descended to that, and am darkened. But thence, even thence, did I love Thee. I went astray, and remembered Thee. I heard Thy voice behind me bidding me return, and scarcely did I hear it for the tumults of the unquiet ones. And now, behold, I return burning and panting after Thy fountain. Let no one prohibit me; of this will I drink, and so have life. Let me not be my own life; from myself have I badly lived,--death was I unto myself; in Thee do I revive. Do Thou speak unto me; do Thou discourse unto me. In Thy books have I believed, and their words are very deep. 2
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See note 2, p. 76, above. ↩
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As Gregory the Great has it, Revelation is a river broad and deep, "In quo et agnus ambulet, et elephas natet." And these deep things of God are to be learned only by patient searching. We must, says St. Chrysostom (De Prec. serm. ii.), dive down into the sea as those who would fetch up pearls from its depths. The very mysteriousness of Scripture is, doubtless, intended by God to stimulate us to search the Scriptures, and to strengthen our spiritual insight (Enar. in Ps. cxlvi. 6). See also, p. 48, note 5; p. 164, note 2, above; and the notes on pp. 370, 371, below. ↩