Confessions

⁵ Let me hear and understand how in the beginning Thou made the heaven and the earth. Moses wrote this; he wrote and departed—passed hence from You to You. Nor now is he before me; for if he were I would hold him, and ask him, and would adjure him by You that he would open unto me these things, and I would lend the ears of my body to the sounds bursting forth from his mouth. And should he speak in the Hebrew tongue, in vain would it beat on my senses, nor would anything touch my mind; but if in Latin, I should know what he said.

But whence should I know whether he said what was true? But if I knew this even, should I know it from him? Verily within me, within in the chamber of my thought, Truth, neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor barbarian, without the organs of voice and tongue, without the sound of syllables, would say, “He speaks the truth,” and I, immediately assured of it, confidently would say unto that man of Yours, “You speak the truth.” As, then, I cannot inquire of him, I beseech You—You, O Truth, full of whom he spoke truth—You, my God, I beseech, forgive my sins; and do Thou, who gave to that Your servant to speak these things, grant to me also to understand them.