Spes salutis nititur bonitate quae creavit.
Hope in the Goodness That Created Me
The soul confesses its creaturely dependence on God, pleading that the same goodness which brought it into being would not allow it to perish in its own corruption, and acknowledging that without God's ongoing governance it will fall back into nothing.
I am your creature; under the shadow of your wings I will place my hope in your goodness—the same goodness by which you created me.✦ Help your creature, whom your kindness brought into being: don't let what your goodness has wrought perish in my wickedness; don't let what your highest mercy has made perish in my misery. What good is there in your creating me, if I sink into my own corruption? Surely you didn't establish all the children of men in vain?✦ You created me, Lord; rule what you have created. Don't despise the work of your hands, O God.✦ You made me from nothing; if you don't rule me, Lord, I'll fall back into nothing once more. For just as, Lord, I once didn't exist, and you made me from nothing into something, so too, if you don't still govern me, I'll be reduced to nothing once again in myself.
The Love That Created Must Also Guide
The soul argues that since God's unmerited love and mercy alone compelled creation, that same love must now compel God to guide and save what was made, for God's power to save remains undiminished.
Help me, Lord my life, lest I perish in my wickedness. If you had not created me, Lord, I would not exist; because you created me, I am now alive. If you do not guide me now, I am nothing. It was not my merits, not my own favor, that compelled you to create me, but your most tender goodness and mercy.1 That love, Lord my God, which compelled you to create me — let it, I pray, also now compel you to guide me. For what good is it that your love compelled you to create me, if I perish in my misery and your right hand does not guide me? Let this move you, Lord my God — your mercy to save what has been created, the same mercy that compelled you to create when nothing yet existed. Let that same love conquer you to save, which conquered you to create; for it is no less now, because that love is who you are — you who are always the same. Your hand is not too short to save, nor is your ear too heavy to hear (Isaiah).✦2
The Wedge of Sin Between Soul and God
The chapter closes with a stark confession that sin has driven a wedge between the soul and God, setting darkness against light, death against life, vanity against truth, and the soul's fleeting existence against God's eternity.
But my sins have driven a wedge between me and you, between darkness and light, between the image of death and life, between vanity and truth, between this fickle life of mine and your everlasting life.✦✦3
Read the original Latin
Ego autem creatura tua, sub umbra alarum tuarum sperabo in bonitate tua, qua creasti me. Adjuva creaturam tuam, quam creavit benignitas tua: non pereat in malitia mea, quod operata est bonitas tua; non pereat in miseria mea, quod fecit summa clementia tua. Quae est enim utilitas in creatione tua, si descendam in corruptionem meam? Numquid enim vane constituisti omnes filios hominum? Creasti me, Domine, rege quod creasti. Opera manuum tuarum ne despicias, Deus. Me fecisti de nihilo; si me non regis, Domine, iterum revertar ad nihilum. Sicut enim, Domine, non eram, et de nihilo aliquid me fecisti; sic si me non regis, adhuc in nihilum redigar in me.
Adjuva me, Domine vita mea, ne peream in malitia mea. Si non creares me, Domine, non essem: quia creasti me, jam sum; si non regis, jam non sum. Non mea merita, non mea gratia, te coegerunt ut creares me, sed benignissima bonitas tua et clementia. Illa charitas, Domine Deus meus, quae te ad creationem coegit, ipsa, quaeso, et modo cogat te ad regendum. Quid enim prodest quod compulit charitas tua, si peream in miseria mea, et non me regat dextera tua? Haec te cogat, Domine Deus meus, clementia ad salvandum, quod creatum est, quae te compulit creare, quando creatum non est. Ipsa te vincat charitas ad salvandum quae te vicit ad creandum; quia nec nunc minor est, quia ipsa charitas tu ipse es, qui semper idem es. Non est abbreviata manus tua, ut salvare nequeat; neque aggravata est auris tua, ut non audiat (Isai.
LIX, 1); sed peccata mea diviserunt inter me et te, inter tenebras et lucem, inter imaginem mortis et vitam, inter vanitatem et veritatem, inter lunaticam hanc vitam meam et sempiternam tuam.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.56.1;Ps.58.1 — To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Tamarisks. A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath. Ps.58.1 — To the choirmaster: Do Not Destroy. Of David. A Miktam.
- ↩Ps.8.5;Ps.8.4 — What is man that you remember him, and the son of Adam that you visit him? Ps.8.4 — When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have set in place—
- ↩Ps.137.8;Ps.139.8 — Daughter Babylon, the one who is destroyed — blessed is the one who repays you with the same treatment you gave us. Ps.139.8 — If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.
- ↩Isa.59.1 — Look, the LORD's hand is not too short to save, and his ear is not too heavy to hear.
- ↩John.3.19-John.3.20 — And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. John.3.20 — For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds may not be exposed.
- ↩Rom.6.23 — For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Notes
- 1 ↩gratia rendered as 'favor' here to distinguish from divine grace as a theological term; the context is the speaker's own claim to favor, not God's grace.
- 2 ↩The parenthetical 'Isai' is an abbreviated reference to Isaiah, likely Isa 59:1 (Vulg. LIX,1). Final resolution deferred to tx-08 Moses stage.
- 3 ↩lunaticam: rare adjective meaning 'moon-like, changeable, fickle' — rendered as 'fickle' to capture the sense of inconstancy.
Pseudo-Augustine Soliloquia animae ad Deum (Meditations of the Soul to God) companion
A meditation like this, every morning
Chosen Portion serves the full 37-chapter work — and dozens like it — as free daily devotionals.
These soliloquies were written for daily private devotion, and the Chosen Portion app restores exactly that rhythm with one portion each morning.
- 30 ready-to-pray meditations, each readable in about 5 minutes
- A one-line response prompt per day so you pray it, not just read it
- The full 37 chapters unlocked in the app when the month ends