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Chapter 18PsAugSoliloquia.1.18

Caput 18. Ingratitudinis mala. Beneficiorum Dei descriptio. De iisdem gratiarum actio. Deum semper diligere tenemur, nec valemus nisi dederit.

The Root of Ingratitude

The soul confesses its ingratitude, recognizing that ingratitude is the root of all spiritual evil, and recalls how God repeatedly defended it from the dragon of hell.

But I am the son of your handmaid, who entrusted me to your hand; and now, with these poor little confessions of mine, I will confess to you, my deliverer, with my whole heart, and remember the good things you have done for me from my youth throughout my entire life. For I know that ingratitude displeases you: it is the root of every spiritual evil, and a kind of wind that dries out and scorches every good thing, blocking the spring of divine mercy over a human being—through which evils already dead spring up again, living works already die, and nothing further is gained.1 And I, Lord, will give you thanks so that I won't be ungrateful to you, my deliverer, because you have set me free. How many times had that dragon already swallowed me, and you, Lord, pulled me out of his mouth? When, or how often, did I sin, and he stood ready to gulp me down—but you defended me? When I was acting wickedly against you, when I was breaking your commandments, he stood ready to snatch me off to hell; but you held him back. I was offending you, and you were defending me; I didn't fear you, and you were keeping watch over me. I was turning away from you and offering myself to my enemy; you were holding him back so that he wouldn't take me.

Unrecognized Deliverances

The soul acknowledges that God granted countless favors it did not recognize, snatching it from the jaws of the devil, the gates of hell and death, and from bodily dangers, by prevenient grace.

You were granting me these favors, my God, and I didn't recognize them. So many times you freed me from the devil's jaws, snatched me from the lion's mouth, and brought me back from hell again and again, though I didn't know it. For I went down as far as the gates of hell, and so that I wouldn't enter there, you held me; I drew near as far as the gates of death, and so that death itself wouldn't seize me, you prevented it.2 You also snatched me many times from the death of the body, my Savior, when severe illnesses held me, when I was in many dangers on sea and on land; freeing me from fire and sword, from every danger, always standing by me, and mercifully saving me. You knew, Lord, that if death had overtaken me then, hell would have received my soul, and I would have been damned forever; but your mercy and your grace went before me, snatching me from the death of the body and from the death of the soul, Lord my God.3 These and many other favors of yours you showed me, and I was blind, and I didn't know, until you enlightened me.

Offering a Whole Life in Thanksgiving

Now enlightened, the soul offers thanks and its whole self to God, who as a loving Creator has repeatedly saved it from hell, to live entirely for God.

So now, light of my soul, Lord my God, my life by which I live, light of my eyes by which I see: look, you have enlightened me, and I know you, because I live through you; and I give you thanks — though they are cheap and meager and unequal to your gifts — I offer such thanks as my frailty has. For you alone are my God, my kind Creator, who love souls, and you have hated nothing of what you have made (Wis. 11:25). Look: I am the first among the sinners you have saved, so that I may give others an example of your most tender kindness and confess your great gifts, because you snatched me from hell once and twice and a third time and a hundred times and a thousand times, and I was always heading for hell, and you were always bringing me back; and though you could justly have damned me a thousand times if you had wanted to, you would not, because you love souls, and you overlook my sins for the sake of repentance, Lord my God, because there is abundant mercy in all your ways.✦✦4 So now I see these things, Lord my God, and I know them by your light, and my soul fails in your great mercy over me; because you snatched my soul out of the lower hell, and brought me back to life.✦5 I was wholly in death; you raised me wholly; so let everything I live be yours. Wholly I offer my whole self to you: let my whole spirit, my whole heart, my whole body, my whole life live for you, my Life; because you freed me entirely so that you might possess me entirely; you restored me entirely so that you might have me back entirely.6 So I will love you. Lord my strength, I will love you, my unspeakable joy; and let my whole life live no longer for me, but for you — the life that had perished in my misery, that has been raised again in your mercy — you who are a merciful and compassionate God, and whose mercies reach to thousands for those who love your name.✦✦✦

Love Commanded and Given

The soul reflects on the command to love God with all one's heart and strength, acknowledges that this love is impossible without God's gift, and prays that God would give what He commands.

Therefore, Lord my God, my Sanctifier, you've commanded me by your law to love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37)—and with all my powers, and even from the deepest marrow of my heart, at every hour and every moment I enjoy the goods of your mercy; for I would always perish unless you always rule me; I would always die unless you always give me life; and at every moment you bind me to yourself, and at every moment you grant me your great benefits.7 So then, just as there is no hour or instant in all my life when I'm not making use of your gift, so there should be no moment when I don't keep you before my eyes in my memory and love you with all my strength. But I can't even do this unless you give it to me—you to whom belongs every good gift and every perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of variation (James 1:17). For it's not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of you who shows mercy (Rom. 9:16), that we may love you. This gift is yours, Lord—yours, to whom all good belongs. You command that you be loved: give what you command, and command what you will.8

Read the original Latin

Ego autem filius ancillae tuae, quae me commendavit manui tuae, jam his pauperculis confessionibus meis confitear tibi, liberator meus, toto corde meo; et recolam ad mentem meam bona quae fecisti mihi a juventute mea, in omni vita mea. Scio namque quod ingratitudo tibi displiceat, quae radix est totius mali spiritualis, et ventus quidam desiccans et urens omne bonum, obstruens fontem divinae misericordiae super hominem: qua et mala mortua jam oriuntur, et viva jam opera moriuntur, et ultra non adipiscuntur. Et ego, Domine, gratias tibi agam, ne sim ingratus tibi, liberator meus, quoniam liberasti me. Quoties me jam absorbuerat ille draco, et tu, Domine, ab ore ejus extraxisti me? Quando vel quoties peccavi, et ipse paratus fuit deglutire me; sed tu defendisti me? Cum contra te inique agebam, cum tua mandata frangebam, stabat paratus ipse ut me raperet ad infernum; sed tu prohibebas. Ego te offendebam, et tu me defendebas; ego te non timebam, et tu me custodiebas. A te recedebam, et inimico meo me exhibebam; tu ipsum ne me acciperet, deterrebas.

Haec mihi tu, Deus meus, beneficia conferebas, et ego non cognoscebam. Sic me multoties a faucibus diaboli liberasti, de ore leonis eripuisti, et ab inferno licet me nescientem multis vicibus reduxisti. Descendi enim usque ad portas inferni, et ne illuc intrarem, tu me tenuisti; appropinquavi usque ad portas mortis, et ne me ipsa caperet, tu fecisti. De morte etiam corporis me saepius eripuisti, salvator meus, cum me graves morbi tenerent, cum fui in periculis multis, per mare, per terras; ab igne et gladio, et ab omni periculo liberans, semper mihi astans, et misericorditer salvans. Sciebas quidem, Domine, quia si tunc mors me praeoccupasset, infernus animam meam suscepisset, et perpetuo damnatus fuissem: sed tua misericordia et tua gratia praevenerunt me, eripiens me de morte corporis et de morte animae, Domine Deus meus. Haec et multa alia mihi tua beneficia exhibuisti, et ego eram caecus, et non cognovi, donec illuminasti me.

Nunc igitur, lux animae meae, Domine Deus meus, vita mea per quam vivo, lumen oculorum meorum per quod video, en illuminasti me, et cognosco te, quia vivo per te, et gratias ago tibi, licet viles et exiles et impares beneficiis tuis, quales habet mea fragilitas offero. Quoniam tu es solus Deus meus, creator meus benignus, qui amas animas, et nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti (Sap. XI, 25). En ego primus inter peccatores quos salvasti, ut exemplum aliis tribuam benignissimae pietatis tuae, confitear beneficia tua magna, quoniam eripuisti me de inferno semel et secundo et tertio et centies et millies, et ego semper ad infernum tendebam, et tu me semper reducebas: et cum me juste millies damnasses, si voluisses; noluisti, quia amas animas, et dissimulas peccata mea propter poenitentiam, Domine Deus meus, quia multae misericordiae in omnibus viis tuis. Nunc ergo video haec, Domine Deus meus, et cognosco per lumen tuum, et deficit anima mea in misericordia tua magna super me; quoniam eripuisti animam meam ex inferno inferiori, et me reduxisti ad vitam. Totus eram in morte, totum me resuscitasti; et tuum igitur sit totum id quod vivo. Totus totum me tibi offero: totus spiritus, totum cor, totum corpus, tota vita mea vivat tibi, vita mea; quoniam totum me liberasti, ut totum me possideres; totum me refecisti, ut totum me rehaberes. Diligam te igitur; Domine virtus mea, diligam te, ineffabilis exsultatio mea, et vivat jam non mihi, sed tibi tota vita mea, quae perierat in miseria mea, quae resuscitata est in misericordia tua, qui es Deus misericors et miserator et multae misericordiae in millia his qui diligunt nomen tuum.

Idcirco, Domine Deus meus, sanctificator meus, jussisti mihi lege tua, ut diligam te toto corde meo, tota anima mea, tota mente mea, tota fortitudine mea (Deut. VI, 5; Matth. XXII, 37), et ex omnibus viribus meis, et etiam ex intimis medullis cordis mei, omnibus horis et momentis quibus fruor bonis misericordiae tuae; quoniam semper perirem, nisi quia semper me regis; semper morerer, nisi quia semper me vivificas, et omni momento me tibi obligas, dum omni momento mihi tua magna beneficia praestas. Sicut ergo nulla est hora vel punctum in omni vita mea, quo tuo beneficio non utar; sic nullum debet esse momentum, quo te non habeam ante oculos in mea memoria, et te non diligam ex omni fortitudine mea. Sed nec hoc valeo, nisi tu dederis mihi, cujus est omne donum bonum, et omne datum optimum descendens a Patre luminum; apud quem non est transmutatio, nec vicissitudinis obumbratio (Jacobi I, 17). Non enim est volentis neque currentis, sed tui miserentis (Rom, IX, 16), ut diligamus te. Tuum est, Domine, hoc donum, cujus est omne bonum. Jubes te diligi, da quod jubes, et jube quod vis.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩1Tim.1.15 — The saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
  2. ↩Ps.24.10;Ps.25.10 — Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts — he is the King of glory. Selah. Ps.25.10 — All the ways of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
  3. ↩Ps.85.13;Ps.86.13 — The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Ps.86.13 — For your steadfast love is great toward me, and you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
  4. ↩Ps.17.2;Ps.18.1 — “Let my vindication come from your presence; let your eyes see what is right.” Ps.18.1 — To the choirmaster. Of David the servant of the LORD, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.
  5. ↩Gal.2.20 — I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
  6. ↩Exod.20.6;Deut.5.10 — and showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments Deut.5.10 — and showing steadfast love to thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." This completes the phrase aloud and strengthens the contrast with third and fourth generations in v.9.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩et ultra non adipiscuntur is compressed: rendered as 'nothing further is gained,' covering both works that no longer attain their fruit and the person who no longer obtains further good.
  2. 2 ↩'tu fecisti' is elliptical; rendered as 'you prevented it' from the governing ne-clause, without inventing an explicit object beyond what the purpose clause supplies.
  3. 3 ↩'praevenerunt me' rendered as 'went before me' to keep the anticipatory force of mercy and grace without importing later technical jargon such as 'prevenient grace'.
  4. 4 ↩dissimulas peccata: rendered 'overlook' for God's forbearing concealment of sins with a view to repentance, not indifference to guilt.
  5. 5 ↩deficit anima mea in misericordia: rendered as the soul failing/fainting under the weight of mercy (psalm idiom), not as moral deficiency.
  6. 6 ↩vita mea at the close taken as vocative address to God as 'my Life,' matching the earlier address in s1.
  7. 7 ↩nisi quia rendered as 'except that' (counterfactual rescue), not bare 'unless'.
  8. 8 ↩Echoes Augustine, Confessions 10.29 / 10.37 ('da quod jubes et jube quod vis'); not treated here as Scripture.

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