Chapter 18
355 | Text and Translation Chapter 18 That neither in God nor in his eternity, which he himself is, are there any parts
And once more confusion, once again sorrow and grief stand in my way as I seek Joy and gladness!
Even now my soul hoped for fulfillment, and once again it is overcome with need.
Even now I have sought my fill, and yet I hunger all the more.
I strove to ascend to the light of God, and instead descended into my own darkness.
Indeed, not only have I fallen back into it but feel myself engulfed by it.
I fell before my mother conceived me.
Surely in darkness was I conceived, and wrapped in it was I born.
For long ago all of us fell in him in whom we have all sinned.
In him— who easily possessed what he evilly lost for himself and for us— all lost that which when we desire, we do not know how to seek; when we seek, we do not find; when we find, is not what we were seeking.
Help me, in accord with your goodness, lord.
I sought your face, For your face, lord, will I search.
Do not turn your face away from me.
Lift me from my self to you.
Cleanse, heal, focus, illuminate the eye of my mind so that it may behold you.
Let my soul regather its strength, O lord, and with the whole of its understanding strive once more unto you.
What are you, lord, what are you; what shall my heart understand you to be? You are life, you are wisdom, you are truth, you are goodness, you are blessedness, you are eternity, and you are every true good.
But these are many, and my narrow understanding cannot behold them all in one single simultaneous intuition so as to delight in them all at once. How, then, lord, are you all these? Are they parts of
356 | PROSLOGION
sunt partes tui, aut potius unumquodque horum est totum quod es? Nam quidquid partibus est iunctum, non est omnino unum, sed quodam modo plura et diversum a seipso, et vel actu vel intellectu dissolvi potest; quae aliena sunt a te, quo nihil melius cogitari potest.
Nullae igitur partes sunt in te, Domine, nec es plura, sed sic es unum quiddam et idem tibi ipsi, ut in nullo tibi ipsi sis dissimilis; immo tu es ipsa unitas, nullo intellectu divisibilis.
Ergo vita et sapientia et reliqua non sunt partes tui, sed omnia sunt unum, et unumquodque horum est totum quod es, et quod sunt reliqua omnia. Quoniam ergo nec tu habes partes nec tua aeternitas, quae tu es: nusquam et numquam est pars tua aut aeternitatis tuae, sed ubique totus es, et aeternitas tua tota est semper.
CAPITULUM XIX
Quod non sit in loco aut tempore, sed omnia sint in illo Sed si per aeternitatem tuam fuisti et es et eris, et fuisse non est futurum esse et esse non est fuisse vel futurum esse: quomodo aeternitas tua tota est semper?
An de aeternitate tua nihil praeterit, ut iam non sit, nec aliquid futurum est, quasi nondum sit? Non ergo fuisti heri aut eris cras, sed heri et hodie et cras es.
Immo nec heri nec hodie nec cras es, sed simpliciter es extra omne tempus. Nam nihil aliud est heri et hodie et cras quam in tempore; tu autem, licet nihil sit sine te, non es tamen in loco aut tempore, sed omnia sunt in te.
Nihil enim te continet, sed tu contines omnia.