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Les confessions de Saint Augustin
CHAPITRE X. INVOCATION.
10. O vérité, lumière de mon coeur! ne laissez pas la parole à mes ténèbres. Entraîné au courant de l’instabilité, la nuit m’a pénétré; mais c’est du fond de ma chute que je me suis senti renaître à votre amour. Egaré, j’ai retrouvé votre souvenir; j’ai entendu votre voix me rappeler; et le bruit des passions rebelles, me permettait à peine de l’entendre. Et me voici, maintenant, tout en nage, hors d’haleine, revenu à votre fontaine sainte. Oh! ne souffrez pas qu’on m’en repousse. Que je m’y désaltère, que j’y puise la vie, que je ne sois pas ma vie à moi-même. De ma propre vie j’ai mal vécu, j’ai été ma mort; en vous je (489) revis. Parlez-moi, instruisez-moi ! Je crois au témoignage de vos livres saints; mais quels profonds mystères sous leurs paroles!
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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. ↩