懺悔錄

St. Augustine, "Confessions" (Gutenberg US edition)
聖奧古斯丁，《懺悔錄》，徐玉芹譯，志文出版，1998
　

●上帝

⊙whither can God come
into me, God who made heaven and earth? is there, indeed, O Lord my
God, aught in me that can contain Thee? do then heaven and earth,
which Thou hast made, and wherein Thou hast made me, contain Thee? or,
because nothing which exists could exist without Thee, doth
therefore whatever exists contain Thee? Since, then, I too exist,
why do I seek that Thou shouldest enter into me, who were not, wert
Thou not in me? (p.22)

⊙And I knew not God to be a
Spirit, not one who hath parts extended in length and breadth, or
whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the
whole: and if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is
defined by a certain space, than in its infinitude; and so is not
wholly every where, as Spirit, as God. And what that should be in
us, by which we were like to God, and might be rightly said to be
after the image of God, I was altogether ignorant.(p.68)（無形象）

⊙When that my father saw me at the baths, now growing towards
manhood, and endued with a restless youthfulness, he, as already hence
anticipating his descendants, gladly told it to my mother; rejoicing
in that tumult of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its
Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself,
through the fumes of that invisible wine of its self-will, turning
aside and bowing down to the very basest things.(p.50)
（不愛創造者而愛受造物）

⊙If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back
thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee,
thou displease.(p.90)（由愛受造物而愛創造者）

⊙Man himself is a great deep, whose very hairs Thou numberest, O
Lord, and they fall not to the ground without Thee. And yet are the
hairs of his head easier to be numbered than his feelings, and the
beatings of his heart.(p.94)（連頭髮有幾根上帝都知道）

⊙我背著光明，卻面向受光明照耀之物，看見其物光明，自身卻無光明照耀。(Confessions, v.4-16)

⊙For as he
is better off who knows how to possess a tree, and return thanks to
Thee for the use thereof, although he know not how many cubits high it
is, or how wide it spreads, than he that can measure it, and count all
its boughs, and neither owns it, nor knows or loves its Creator: so
a believer, whose all this world of wealth is, and who having nothing,
yet possesseth all things, by cleaving unto Thee, whom all things
serve, though he know not even the circles of the Great Bear, yet is
it folly to doubt but he is in a better state than one who can measure
the heavens, and number the stars, and poise the elements, yet
neglecteth Thee who hast made all things in number, weight, and
measure.(p.106)（認識創造者也才能真正擁有創造物）

⊙上帝是你生命的生命(Confessions, v.10-6)

⊙But what do I love, when I love Thee? not beauty of bodies,
nor the fair harmony of time, nor the brightness of the light, so
gladsome to our eyes, nor sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the
fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and
honey, not limbs acceptable to embracements of flesh. None of these
I love, when I love my God; and yet I love a kind of light, and
melody, and fragrance, and meat, and embracement when I love my God,
the light, melody, fragrance, meat, embracement of my inner man: where
there shineth unto my soul what space cannot contain, and there
soundeth what time beareth not away, and there smelleth what breathing
disperseth not, and there tasteth what eating diminisheth not, and
there clingeth what satiety divorceth not. This is it which I love
when I love my God.(p.235)

⊙絕不存有以任何快樂為幸福的觀念.....幸福就是來自真理的快樂，也就是以祢為快樂(p.253)

⊙Oh how high art Thou, and yet the humble in heart are Thy
dwelling-place; for Thou raisest up those that are bowed down, and
they fall not, whose elevation Thou art.(p.313)

●時間

⊙But how is that future diminished or consumed, which as yet is
not? or how that past increased, which is now no longer, save that
in the mind which enacteth this, there be three things done? For it
expects, it considers, it remembers; that so that which it
expecteth, through that which it considereth, passeth into that
which it remembereth. Who therefore denieth, that things to come are
not as yet? and yet, there is in the mind an expectation of things
to come. And who denies past things to be now no longer? and yet is
there still in the mind a memory of things past. And who denieth the
present time hath no space, because it passeth away in a moment? and
yet our consideration continueth, through which that which shall be
present proceedeth to become absent. It is not then future time,
that is long, for as yet it is not: but a long future, is "a long
expectation of the future," nor is it time past, which now is not,
that is long; but a long past, is "a long memory of the past."(p.310)

⊙But now
are my years spent in mourning. And Thou, O Lord, art my comfort, my
Father everlasting, but I have been severed amid times, whose order
I know not; and my thoughts, even the inmost bowels of my soul, are
rent and mangled with tumultuous varieties, until I flow together into
Thee, purified and molten by the fire of Thy love.(p.311)

●本心

⊙Our good ever lives
with Thee; from which when we turn away, we are turned aside. Let us
now, O Lord, return, that we may not be overturned, because with
Thee our good lives without any decay, which good art Thou; nor need
we fear, lest there be no place whither to return, because we fell
from it: for through our absence, our mansion fell not- Thy eternity.
(p.99)（我們的歸宿恆在）

⊙And Thou wert before me, but I had gone
away from Thee; nor did I find myself, how much less Thee!(p.102)

⊙★★他們能預測日蝕，卻看不到自身的晦蝕。(Confessions, v.5-3)(p.104)

⊙她把「一瓣心香」清靜地供奉於殉教者的墓前，更勝盈筐人間美饌。(v.6-2)(p.125)

⊙這光明在我心內，而我則散逸於身外；這光明不在空間，而我則注視空間的事物。(v.7-7)(p.156)

⊙你從來不離開我們，可是我們要回到你身邊是多麼困難！(Confessions, v.8-3)(p.181)

⊙我並不為別人的意志所束縛，但我自己的意志卻如鐵鍊般束縛我。(Confessions, v.8-5)

●善惡

⊙"That the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable";
whence also it knew That Unchangeable, which, unless it had in some
way known, it had had no sure ground to prefer it to the changeable.
And thus with the flash of one trembling glance it arrived at THAT
WHICH IS. And then I saw Thy invisible things understood by the things
which are made. (p.165)（一切皆善）

⊙And I perceived and found it nothing strange, that bread which is
pleasant to a healthy palate is loathsome to one distempered: and to
sore eyes light is offensive, which to the sound is delightful. And
Thy righteousness displeaseth the wicked; much more the viper and
reptiles, which Thou hast created good, fitting in with the inferior
portions of Thy Creation, with which the very wicked also fit in;
and that the more, by how much they be unlike Thee; but with the
superior creatures, by how much they become more like to Thee. And I
enquired what iniquity was, and found it to be substance, but the
perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme,
towards these lower things, and casting out its bowels, and puffed
up outwardly.(p.166)（善惡在於意志而非世界）

●生死

⊙O Lord my God, but that I
know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or
living death. Then immediately did the comforts of Thy compassion take
me up(p.26)

●反智

⊙and be content rather by not
discovering to discover Thee, than by discovering not to discover
Thee.(p.29)

⊙Just as the gales of tongues
blow from the breast of the opinionative, so is it carried this way
and that, driven forward and backward, and the light is overclouded to
it, and the truth unseen. And to, it is before us.(p.94)
（愈精彩的演說愈遮蔽了真理）

⊙if the reasonable soul
itself be corrupted; as it was then in me, who knew not that it must
be enlightened by another light, that it may be partaker of truth,
seeing itself is not that nature of truth. For Thou shalt light my
candle, O Lord my God, Thou shalt enlighten my darkness: and of Thy
fulness have we all received, for Thou art the true light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world; for in Thee there is no
variableness, neither shadow of change.(p.95)

●辯證

⊙Other things of this life are the less to be sorrowed
for, the more they are sorrowed for; and the more to be sorrowed
for, the less men sorrow for them.(p.229)

●論學

⊙For they were regardless
how I should employ what they forced me to learn, except to satiate
the insatiate desires of a wealthy beggary, and a shameful glory.(p.35)

⊙I joyed also that the old Scriptures of the law and the Prophets
were laid before me, not now to be perused with that eye to which
before they seemed absurd, when I reviled Thy holy ones for so
thinking, whereas indeed they thought not so: and with joy I heard
Ambrose in his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently
recommend this text for a rule, The letter killeth, but the Spirit
giveth life(p.128)（文字使人死，精神使人生）

⊙摩西下筆時，一定已想到我們在這些文字中所能發現的、所不能發現的，以及尚未發現而可能發現的真理。(p.346)

⊙我看不到有什麼能阻止我領略聖經文字的象徵意義。因為思想構成一個概念，而具體事體能用無數方式表達出來，反之，具體事物的一個概念，思想能用這種方式加以領會。(p.380)

●醫學

⊙There was in those days a wise man, very skilful in physic, and
renowned therein, who had with his own proconsular hand put the
Agonistic garland upon my distempered head, but not as a physician:
for this disease Thou only curest, who resistest the proud, and givest
grace to the humble. (p.80)

⊙But as it happens that one who
has tried a bad physician, fears to trust himself with a good one,
so was it with the health of my soul, which could not be healed but by
believing, and lest it should believe falsehoods, refused to be cured;
resisting Thy hands, Who hast prepared the medicines of faith, and
hast applied them to the diseases of the whole world, and given unto
them so great authority.(p.129)

●親情

⊙The wind blew and swelled our sails, and
withdrew the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there,
frantic with sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears,
Who didst then disregard them; whilst through my desires, Thou wert
hurrying me to end all desire, and the earthly part of her affection
to me was chastened by the allotted scourge of sorrows. For she
loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many; and
she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her out of my
absence. She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail, and by this
agony there appeared in her the inheritance of Eve, with sorrow
seeking what in sorrow she had brought forth. And yet, after
accusing my treachery and hardheartedness, she betook herself again to
intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted place, and I to Rome.(p.113)

●情慾

⊙And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved?
but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship's
bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh,
and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and
overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of
love from the fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me,
and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires,
and sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousnesses.(p.47)

⊙But while in that my sixteenth year I lived with my parents, leaving
all school for a while (a season of idleness being interposed
through the narrowness of my parents' fortunes), the briers of unclean
desires grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to root them
out. When that my father saw me at the baths, now growing towards
manhood, and endued with a restless youthfulness, he, as already hence
anticipating his descendants, gladly told it to my mother; rejoicing
in that tumult of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its
Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself,
through the fumes of that invisible wine of its self-will, turning
aside and bowing down to the very basest things.(p.50)
（不愛創造者而愛受造物）

⊙To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a
cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and
out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought
what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a
way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food,
Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but
was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because
filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For
this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast
itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense.
Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love.(p.59)

⊙But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, impatient
of delay, inasmuch as not till after two years was I to obtain her I
sought not being so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust,
procured another, though no wife, that so by the servitude of an
enduring custom, the disease of my soul might be kept up and carried
on in its vigour, or even augmented, into the dominion of marriage.(p.145)

⊙But I wretched, most wretched, in the very commencement of my
early youth, had begged chastity of Thee, and said, "Give me
chastity and continency, only not yet." For I feared lest Thou
shouldest hear me soon, and soon cure me of the disease of
concupiscence, which I wished to have satisfied, rather than
extinguished.(p.189)（寧可好色）

⊙But there yet live in my memory (whereof I have much
spoken) the images of such things as my ill custom there fixed;
which haunt me, strengthless when I am awake: but in sleep, not only
so as to give pleasure, but even to obtain assent, and what is very
like reality. Yea, so far prevails the illusion of the image, in my
soul and in my flesh, that, when asleep, false visions persuade to
that which when waking, the true cannot. Am I not then myself, O
Lord my God? And yet there is so much difference betwixt myself and
myself, within that moment wherein I pass from waking to sleeping,
or return from sleeping to waking! Where is reason then, which, awake,
resisteth such suggestions? And should the things themselves be
urged on it, it remaineth unshaken. Is it clasped up with the eyes? is
it lulled asleep with the senses of the body? And whence is it that
often even in sleep we resist, and mindful of our purpose, and abiding
most chastely in it, yield no assent to such enticements? And yet so
much difference there is, that when it happeneth otherwise, upon
waking we return to peace of conscience: and by this very difference
discover that we did not, what yet we be sorry that in some way it was
done in us.(p.259)（無法擺脫夢中的情慾）

●靈肉

⊙Which thing I was sighing for, bound as I was, not with
another's irons, but by my own iron will. My will the enemy held,
and thence had made a chain for me, and bound me. For of a forward
will, was a lust made; and a lust served, became custom; and custom
not resisted, became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined
together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me
enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to
serve Thee, and to wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only assured
pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former wilfulness,
strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the other
old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their
discord, undid my soul.

Thus, I understood, by my own experience, what I had read, how the
flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.(p.184)

⊙For I had heard of Antony, that coming in
during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if
what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come
and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto
Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was
sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose
thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my
eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No
further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this
sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all
the darkness of doubt vanished away.(p.198)（頓悟）

●三種誘惑：各種感官、好奇心、傲慢(p.270)

●音樂

⊙Yet when it
befalls me to be more moved with the voice than the words sung, I
confess to have sinned penally, and then had rather not hear music.(p.265)

●視覺

⊙The eyes love
fair and varied forms, and bright and soft colours. Let not these
occupy my soul; let God rather occupy it, who made these things,
very good indeed, yet is He my good, not they.....

O Thou Light, which Tobias saw, when, these eyes closed, he taught
his son the way of life; and himself went before with the feet of
charity, never swerving. Or which Isaac saw, when his fleshly eyes
being heavy and closed by old age, it was vouchsafed him, not
knowingly, to bless his sons, but by blessing to know them. Or which
Jacob saw, when he also, blind through great age, with illumined
heart, in the persons of his sons shed light on the different races of
the future people, in them foresignified; and laid his hands,
mystically crossed, upon his grandchildren by Joseph, not as their
father by his outward eye corrected them, but as himself inwardly
discerned. This is the light, it is one, and all are one, who see
and love it. (p.266)（失明者所見才是真正的光）

●罪惡

⊙For I stole that, of which I had enough, and
much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft
and sin itself. (p.52)

⊙When, then, we ask why a crime was done, we believe it not, unless
it appear that there might have been some desire of obtaining some
of those which we called lower goods, or a fear of losing them. For
they are beautiful and comely; although compared with those higher and
beatific goods, they be abject and low. (p.53)（不知道有更好的：天上的世界）

⊙Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns from Thee,
seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure and untainted, till
she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly imitate Thee, who remove far
from Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by thus
imitating Thee, they imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature;
whence there is no place whither altogether to retire from Thee.(p.55)
（人類罪行只是為了模仿上帝）

⊙Who am I,
and what am I? What evil have not been either my deeds, or if not my
deeds, my words, or if not my words, my will? But Thou, O Lord, are
good and merciful, and Thy right hand had respect unto the depth of my
death, and from the bottom of my heart emptied that abyss of
corruption. (p.201)

●悲劇

⊙Now, why does a man like to be made sad by viewing doleful and tragic scenes, which he himself could not by any means endure? Yet, as a spectator, he wishes to experience from them a sense of grief, and in this very sense of grief his pleasure consists. What is this but wretched madness? (confessions.Bk.3-2)(p.60)

⊙Tears and sorrow, then, are loved. (confessions.Bk.3-2)

⊙我從此起愛好痛苦，但又並不愛深入我內心的痛苦...這是我的生活。唉！我的上帝，這可稱為生活嗎？(p.62)

●憂患

⊙在我童年之後，險惡的風波脅迫我，考驗我，母親早已料到，她寧願讓泥土遭受風波，以後再加摶塑，也不
願已呈形的雕像遭到蹂躪。(Confessions, p.35)

⊙眼淚對不幸的人是幸福的。(Confesisonsv.4-5)

⊙對於一個罪人悔改，比對九十九個不用悔改的義人更歡喜......人們對於所愛的東西失而復得，比保持不失感到更大的快樂....人不感到飢餓，便享受不到飲食的樂趣....事前憂患越重，則所得快樂也越大。(Confessions, v.8-3)(p.181)

⊙What then takes place in the soul, when it is more delighted at
finding or recovering the things it loves, than if it had ever had
them? yea, and other things witness hereunto; and all things are
full of witnesses, crying out, "So is it." The conquering commander
triumpheth; yet had he not conquered unless he had fought; and the
more peril there was in the battle, so much the more joy is there in
the triumph. The storm tosses the sailors, threatens shipwreck; all
wax pale at approaching death; sky and sea are calmed, and they are
exceeding joyed, as having been exceeding afraid. A friend is sick,
and his pulse threatens danger; all who long for his recovery are sick
in mind with him. He is restored, though as yet he walks not with
his former strength; yet there is such joy, as was not, when before he
walked sound and strong. Yea, the very pleasures of human life men
acquire by difficulties, not those only which fall upon us unlooked
for, and against our wills, but even by self-chosen, and
pleasure-seeking trouble. Eating and drinking have no pleasure, unless
there precede the pinching of hunger and thirst. Men, given to
drink, eat certain salt meats, to procure a troublesome heat, which
the drink allaying, causes pleasure. It is also ordered that the
affianced bride should not at once be given, lest as a husband he
should hold cheap whom, as betrothed, he sighed not after.

This law holds in foul and accursed joy; this in permitted and
lawful joy; this in the very purest perfection of friendship; this, in
him who was dead, and lived again; had been lost and was found.
Every where the greater joy is ushered in by the greater pain.(p.181)

●朋友

⊙朋友間投其所好，往往足以害人；而敵人的凌侮，卻常讓人猛省。.......你用一個人的憤怒治療了另一人的積習。(Confessions, v.9-8)(p.217)

1999.5.8
立人祕密書齋