SR
← Pseudo-Augustine Soliloquia animae ad Deum (Meditations of the Soul to God)/Book 1 · Soliloquia animae ad Deum
Chapter 28PsAugSoliloquia.1.28

Caput 28. De praedestinationis ac praescientiae Dei mysterio.

The Ancient Truth and Human Frailty

The soul marvels that God, the ancient Truth, delights in humanity despite its rottenness and vanity, and prays to the creating Wisdom to lift the burden of the body toward contemplation.

For you have said, ancient Truth, my Delight, that you are with the children of men (Prov.✦1 8:31).✦ Isn't a human being rottenness, and a son of man a worm (Job 25:6)?✦ Isn't every living person utter vanity (Ps.✦ 38:6)?✦ And you think it fitting to open your eyes on such a one, and to bring him with you into judgment!✦ Teach me, deepest abyss, creating Wisdom. You who weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills on a scale, and hung the mass of the earth on three fingers—lift the mass of this bodily frame that I carry with your three unseen fingers toward yourself, so that I may see and know how wonderful you are throughout all the earth.✦✦

The Clean Heart as God's Dwelling

The soul asks what delight the pure and spotless Light can take in man, and where in the soul a clean sanctuary can be prepared for God's indwelling.

O most ancient Light, who shone before every light on the holy mountains of ancient eternity, to whom all things were naked and open (Heb. 4:13) before they came to be; Light, you who hate every stain, being most pure and most spotless—what delight do you take in man?2 What fellowship does light have with darkness (2 Cor. 6:14)? Where in man are your delights?✦ Where have you prepared for yourself in me a sanctuary worthy of your majesty, into which you may enter and take the delights of your love? For a clean upper room befits you, cleansing Power—you who can be seen only by clean hearts (Matt.3 5:8)—much less possessed.4

The Stain of Human Uncleanness

The soul laments that no one can be clean from unclean seed, citing the law and the prophets to show that all humanity is defiled like a menstrual cloth.

But in a human being, where is there a temple so clean that it can receive you, who rule the world? Who can make clean someone conceived from unclean seed?✦ Is it not you alone who are clean (Job 14:4)?✦ For who will be cleansed from what is unclean (Ecclesiasticus 34:4)? For even according to the law you gave our fathers in the fire that burned the mountain, and in the cloud that covered the dark water, whatever an unclean person touches will be unclean (Numbers5 19:22). But we are all like a menstrual cloth (Isaiah6

The Unsearchable Judgments of Predestination

The soul confesses that God alone cleanses those he predestined from the same clay, making some vessels of honor and others of disgrace, and concludes with the contrasting fates of the elect and the reprobate.

64:6)—coming from a corrupted and unclean mass, we carry on our foreheads the stain of our uncleanness, which we can't even hide from you who see everything; so we can't be clean unless you cleanse us, who alone are clean.7 But from among us children of men you cleanse those in whom it has pleased you to dwell—whom, out of the inaccessible deep secrets of the incomprehensible judgments of your wisdom, always just though hidden, you predestined before the world without any merits of theirs, called out of the world, justified in the world, and magnify after the world.8 But you don't do this for everyone—which all the wise of the earth marvel at as they waste away.9 And I, Lord, considering this, tremble with fear and stand stunned at the depth of the riches of your wisdom and knowledge, which I cannot reach, and at the incomprehensible judgments of your justice (Rom. 11:33)—since from the same clay you make some vessels for honor and others for everlasting disgrace (Id.✦10 9:21). Those, then, whom you chose for yourself from among many to be a temple—those you cleanse, pouring clean water over them, whose names and number you know, you who alone count the multitude of the stars and call them all by name (Psal. 146:4); who are also written in the book of life, who can never perish, for whom all things work together for good—even their very sins.11 For when they fall, they are not dashed to pieces, because you put your hand under them (Ps.✦ 36:24); guarding all their bones, so that not one of them is broken.✦✦ Yet the death of sinners is the worst (Ps.✦ 33:22)—I mean those whom, before you made heaven and earth, according to the great deep of your hidden judgments, judgments that are always just, you foreknew for eternal death; the full count of whose names and wicked deserts is with you, who have numbered the sand of the sea and measured the depth of the abyss; whom you have left in their uncleanness, for whom everything works together for evil, and even prayer itself is turned into sin; so that even if they should climb all the way to the heavens, and their head should touch the clouds, and they should set their nest among the stars of heaven, they may in the end be destroyed like a dunghill (Obadiah 4).✦✦✦✦1213

Read the original Latin

Dixisti enim, Veritas antiqua, Deliciae meae, esse cum filiis hominum (Prov. VIII, 31). Nonne homo putredo, et filius hominis vermis (Job XXV, 6)? Nonne universa vanitas omnis homo vivens (Psal. XXXVIII, 6)? Et dignum ducis super hujuscemodi aperire oculos tuos, et adducere eum tecum in judicium! Doce me, abyssus profundissima, creatrix sapientia. Qui librasti in pondere montes, et colles in statera, et appendisti molem terrae tribus digitis, suspende molem corporalitatis hujus, quam gero, tribus invisis digitis tuis ad te, ut videam et cognoscam, quam admirabilis es in universa terra.

Lux antiquissima, quae lucebas ante omnem lucem in montibus sanctis aeternitatis antiquae, cui nuda et aperta erant omnia (Hebr. IV, 13) antequam fierent; lux, quae odio habes omnem maculam, utpote mundissima et immaculatissima, quae tibi deliciae cum homine? quae conventio lucis ad tenebras (II Cor. VI, 14)? Ubi sunt in homine deliciae tuae? ubi praeparasti tibi in me dignum sanctuarium majestatis tuae, in quod introiens habeas delicias dilectionis tuae? Mundum enim coenaculum decet te, mundans virtus, quae nonnisi a mundis cordibus videri potes (Matth. V, 8), multo magis nec haberi.

In homine autem ubi templum tam mundum, ut te suscipiat, qui regis mundum? Quis potest facere mundum de immundo conceptum semine? nonne tu qui solus es mundus (Job XIV, 4)? ab immundo enim quis mundabitur (Eccli. XXXIV, 4)? Nam et secundum legem, quam dedisti patribus nostris in igne comburente montem, et in nube tegente aquam tenebrosam, quidquid tetigerit immundus, immundum erit (Num. XIX, 22). Omnes autem nos quasi pannus menstruatae (Isai.

LXIV, 6) de massa corrupta et immunda venientes, maculam immunditiae nostrae, quam celare saltem tibi qui omnia vides, non possumus, in frontibus portamus; quare mundi esse non possumus, nisi tu mundaveris, qui solus es mundus. Mundas autem de nobis filiis hominum eos in quibus tibi complacuit habitare; quos ab inaccessibilibus profundis secretis judiciorum incomprehensibilium sapientiae tuae, semper justorum, licet occultorum, sine eorum meritis praedestinasti ante mundum, vocasti de mundo, justificasti in mundo, et magnificas eos post mundum. Non autem omnibus hoc facis, quod admirantur tabescentes omnes sapientes terrae. Et ego, Domine, hoc considerans expavesco, et obstupesco de altitudine divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae tuae, ad quam ego non pertingo, et incomprehensibilia judicia justitiae tuae (Rom. XI, 33): quoniam ex eodem luto alia quidem facis vasa in honorem, alia in contumeliam sempiternam (Id. IX, 21). Quos igitur tibi elegisti de multis in templum, ipsos mundas, effundens super eos aquam mundam, quorum nomina numerumque tu nosti, qui solus numeras multitudinem stellarum, et omnibus eis nomina vocas (Psal. CXLVI, 4); qui etiam scripti sunt in libro vitae, qui nequaquam perire possunt, quibus omnia cooperantur in bonum, etiam ipsa peccata.

Cum enim cadunt, non colliduntur, quia tu supponis manum tuam (Psal. XXXVI, 24); custodiens omnia ossa eorum, ut unum ex eis non conteratur. Attamen mors peccatorum pessima (Psal. XXXIII, 22); illorum, inquam, quos antequam faceres coelum et terram, secundum abyssum multam judiciorum tuorum occultorum, semper autem justorum, praescivisti ad mortem aeternam; quorum dinumeratio nominum et meritorum pravorum apud te est, qui numerum arenae maris dinumerasti, et dimensus es profundum abyssi, quos reliquisti in immunditiis suis, quibus omnia cooperatur in malum, et ipsa etiam oratio vertitur in peccatum; ut si etiam usque ad coelos ascenderint, et caput eorum nubes tetigerit, et inter sidera coeli collocaverint nidum suum, quasi sterquilinium in fine perdantur (Abdiae 4).

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Prov.8.31 — rejoicing in his inhabited earth, and my delight is with the children of man
  2. ↩Prov.8.31 — rejoicing in his inhabited earth, and my delight is with the children of man
  3. ↩Job.25.6 — how much less, then, is man—a maggot—and the son of man—a worm!
  4. ↩Ps.38.6 — My wounds are foul and festering because of my folly.
  5. ↩Ps.38.6 — My wounds are foul and festering because of my folly.
  6. ↩Job.14.3 — And yet on one like this You open Your eyes, and You bring me into judgment with You?
  7. ↩Isa.40.12 — Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
  8. ↩Ps.8.2 — O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
  9. ↩Prov.8.31 — rejoicing in his inhabited earth, and my delight is with the children of man
  10. ↩Job.14.4 — Who can bring what is clean out of what is unclean? Not one.
  11. ↩Job.14.4 — Who can bring what is clean out of what is unclean? Not one.
  12. ↩Rom.11.33 — Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways!
  13. ↩Ps.37.24 — Though he falls, he shall not be cast down, for the LORD upholds his hand.
  14. ↩Ps.37.24 — Though he falls, he shall not be cast down, for the LORD upholds his hand.
  15. ↩Ps.34.21 — He keeps all their bones; not one of them is broken.
  16. ↩Ps.34.22 — Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be held guilty.
  17. ↩Ps.34.22 — Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be held guilty.
  18. ↩Ps.36.7 — Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are a great deep. You save both man and beast, O LORD.
  19. ↩Rom.8.28 — And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good — for those who are called according to his purpose.
  20. ↩Ps.109.7 — When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his prayer become sin.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Deliciae meae is read as a vocative address to God in parallel with Veritas antiqua; the line also echoes Prov 8:31, where Wisdom says her delight is to be with the children of men.
  2. 2 ↩quae tibi deliciae cum homine is read as a rhetorical question parallel to quae conventio in s3, and in tension with Prov 8:31 from the previous section; less likely as a mere relative clause.
  3. 3 ↩coenaculum rendered as upper room for the prepared-chamber biblical resonance; mundans virtus taken as vocative address to God as cleansing Power.
  4. 4 ↩Ellipsis supplied from s7: nonnisi a mundis cordibus videri potes, multo magis nec haberi [potes]—if only clean hearts can see you, still less can unclean hearts possess you.
  5. 5 ↩"in nube tegente aquam tenebrosam" evokes Sinai theophany language (darkness/cloud/fire); rendered literally as "the cloud covering the dark water."
  6. 6 ↩Kept Isaiah's blunt image (pannus menstruatae) rather than softening to generic "filthy rag," since the Latin is specific and the citation continues into the next section at Isa 64:6.
  7. 7 ↩massa corrupta et immunda: Augustinian language for the fallen lump of humanity; rendered here as 'corrupted and unclean mass'.
  8. 8 ↩semper justorum, licet occultorum modifies judiciorum: the judgments are always just, though hidden.
  9. 9 ↩tabescentes: wasting away / languishing; could suggest envy, chagrin, or sheer exhaustion of mind before the mystery.
  10. 10 ↩contumeliam sempiternam: rendered 'everlasting disgrace' (dishonor); Pauline vessel-for-dishonor language intensified by sempiternam.
  11. 11 ↩etiam ipsa peccata: 'even their very sins' work together for the elect's good — strong Augustinian claim; kept literal.
  12. 12 ↩Source uses praescivisti (foreknew), not praedestinasti; kept as foreknowledge, not collapsed into predestination language used of the elect in the previous section.
  13. 13 ↩Obadiah 4 supplies the nest-among-the-stars ascent; quasi sterquilinium appears to be the author's added image, not the wording of that verse.

Pseudo-Augustine Soliloquia animae ad Deum (Meditations of the Soul to God) companion

A prayer for every moment, already on your phone

Chosen Portion puts a curated historic prayer in front of you each day — so the words are there before the moment arrives.

Chosen Portion is the digital descendant of the carried prayer book: the short daily prayers this collection preserves, delivered one a day to your pocket.

  • One short, memorable prayer delivered daily — build your repertoire a card at a time
  • Prayers matched to real situations: fear, gratitude, decisions, grief, sleep
  • Save favourites into your personal pocket collection you can open anywhere
Chosen Portion — Daily Prayer (free iOS app) →