忏悔录 Confessions | Book VI Chapter 3 奥古斯丁的怯畏

BookVI Chapter3

奥古斯丁的怯畏

Nor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou wouldest help me; but my spirit was wholly intent on learning, and restless to dispute. And Ambrose himself, as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom personages so great held in such honour; only his celibacy seemed to me a painful course. But what hope he bore within him, what struggles he had against the temptations which beset his very excellencies, or what comfort in adversities, and what sweet joys Thy Bread had for the hidden mouth of his spirit, when chewing the cud there of, I neither could conjecture, nor had experienced.

在我祈祷时，我还不知道呻吟，向你乞援，我却专心致志地探求，我的思想为辩论而辗转反侧。我眼中的安布罗西乌斯不过是一个世俗场中得到许多大人先生们尊敬的幸运人物。惟有他的独身不娶，我认为我是办不到。至于他所抱的希望，他由声望高而遭受的考验，所作的奋斗，他在困难中所享到的安慰，他心灵的口舌咀嚼你的“饼”时所尝到的滋味，对于这一切，我是毫无概念，也一无经验。

Nor did he know the tides of my feelings, or the abyss of my danger. For I could not ask of him, what I would as I would, being shut out both from his ear and speech by multitudes of busy people, whose weaknesses he served. With whom when he was not taken up (which was but a little time), he was either refreshing his body with the sustenance absolutely necessary, or his mind with reading.

同样，他也不知道我内心的动荡，我所面临的危险深渊，我不可能照我的愿望向他请教我所愿请教的事情。他门庭若市，都是有要事有困难请他帮助的人，不容许我和他细谈，向他请益。至于没有人找他的一些余暇，他为了维持身体，进必要的饮食，或为维持精神而从事阅读。

But when he was reading, his eye glided over the pages, and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were at rest. Off times when we had come (for no man was forbidden to enter, nor was it his wont that any who came should be announced to him), we saw him thus reading to himself, and never otherwise; and having long sat silent (for who durst intrude on one so intent?) we were fain to depart, conjecturing that in the small interval which he obtained, free from the din of others' business, for the recruiting of his mind, he was loth to be taken off; and perchance he dreaded lest if the author he read should deliver any thing obscurely, some attentive or perplexed hearer should desire him to expound it, or to discuss some of the harder questions; so that his time being thus spent, he could not turn over so many volumes as he desired; although the preserving of his voice (which a very little speaking would weaken) might be the truer reason for his reading to himself. But with what intent soever he did it, certainly in such a man it was good.

在阅读的时候，他的眼睛一页一页浏览下去，他的心体味意义，他的口舌不出声而休息。往往我们到他那里——因为他从不禁止任何人入内，也没有事先传达的习惯——见他在凝神阅读，我们在静默中坐了片刻，便退出了（因为看见他如此全神贯注于书中，谁敢打扰他？）。我们猜想他仅仅得到这片刻的空暇，摆脱事务的纷扰，不作它用，专用之于调养精神，便不应该冒昧打扰他。可能他的不出声，是为了避免听者注意，遇到晦涩的文字要求他解释，或讨论疑难的问题，因而耽误了时间，不能读完他所预定要读的书。另一方面，他的声音很容易嘶哑，为了调养声息，也更有理由默读了。总之，不论他如此做有什么用意，像他这样的人，用意一定是好的。

I however certainly had no opportunity of enquiring what I wished of that so holy oracle of Thine, his breast, unless the thing might be answered briefly. But those tides in me, to be poured out to him, required his full leisure, and never found it. I heard him indeed every Lord's day, rightly expounding the Word of truth among the people; and I was more and more convinced that all the knots of those crafty calumnies, which those our deceivers had knit against the Divine Books, could be unravelled.

除了和他作简短的谈话外，我确实没有机会请教驻在他胸中的神圣指导者。我想找寻他空暇的时间，向他倾吐我的郁结，可是找不到。每逢星期日，我去听他对群众正确地讨论真理之言，我日益相信过去那些欺骗我的骗子用狡狯污蔑的方法，对圣经造成一系列的症结，都是可以消解的。

But when I understood withal, that "man created by Thee, after Thine own image," was not so understood by Thy spiritual sons, whom of the Catholic Mother Thou hast born again through grace, as though they believed and conceived of Thee as bounded by human shape (although what a spiritual substance should be I had not even a faint or shadowy notion); yet, with joy I blushed at having so many years barked not against the Catholic faith, but against the fictions of carnal imaginations. For so rash and impious had I been, that what I ought by enquiring to have learned, I had pronounced on, condemning. For Thou, Most High, and most near; most secret, and most present; Who hast not limbs some larger, some smaller, but art wholly every where, and no where in space, art not of such corporeal shape, yet hast Thou made man after Thine own image; and behold, from head to foot is he contained in space.

我一朝发现你通过慈母公教会赋予恩赐而使之再生的精神子女们，对于《创世纪》上“人是依照你的形象而创造的”[5]一节的解释，并不教人相信或想像你具有人的肉体的形状，虽则我对于精神体的性质还是丝毫捉摸不到，但我已很高兴地感到惭愧，我多年来的狂吠，不是反对公教信仰，而是反对肉体想像出来的幻影。一个本该研究学习的问题，我却先予肯定而加以攻击，在这一点上，我过去真是太鲁莽、太放肆了！你是高高在上而又不违咫尺，深奥莫测而又鉴临一切，你并无大小不等的肢体，你到处充盈却没有一处可以占有你的全体，你不具我们肉体的形状，你依照你的形象造了人，但人的一切都受限于空间。

Ignorant then how this Thy image should subsist, I should have knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was to be believed, not insultingly opposed it, as if believed. Doubt, then, what to hold for certain, the more sharply gnawed my heart, the more ashamed I was, that so long deluded and deceived by the promise of certainties, I had with childish error and vehemence, prated of so many uncertainties. For that they were falsehoods became clear to me later. However I was certain that they were uncertain, and that I had formerly accounted them certain, when with a blind contentiousness, I accused Thy Catholic Church, whom I now discovered, not indeed as yet to teach truly, but at least not to teach that for which I had grievously censured her. So I was confounded, and converted: and I joyed, O my God, that the One Only Church, the body of Thine Only Son (where in the name of Christ had been put upon me as an infant), had no taste for infantine conceits; nor in her sound doctrine maintained any tenet which should confine Thee, the Creator of all, in space, however great and large, yet bounded every where by the limits of a human form.

我既然不懂“你的形象”所指何物，应该推究、探索这一端信仰的意义，不应悍然加以抨击，似乎信仰仅是我所猜想的。我的心越被尖锐的疑虑消蚀，催促我接受真理，我也越悔恨自己如此长期被一个真理的诺言所玩弄欺骗，犯了幼稚的错误和盲从，把许多谬论说成是真理。至于这些谬论，我以后才明白看出。我从此也确切知道，在我盲目地攻击你的公教会时，是以不可靠的见解视为确实可靠。我虽尚未认识公教会所教导的都是真理，但至少认识到我过去竭力攻击的并非公教会的道理。为此，我的上帝，我感到惭愧，思想有了转变，我高兴看到你的唯一的教会，你唯一圣子的妙身，那个把基督的名字刻于我心版上的的教会，并不使人意味到幼稚的废话，它的纯正的教义并没有把你万有的创造者约束在空间——虽则是广大无边的空间——之中，限制在人的肉体的形状之中。

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, where as 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; whilst he drew aside the mystic veil, laying open spiritually what, according to the letter, seemed to teach something unsound; teaching here in nothing that offended me, though he taught what I knew not as yet, whether it were true. For I kept my heart from assenting to any thing, fearing to fall head long; but by hanging in suspense I was the worse killed. For I wished to be as assured of the things I saw not, as I was that seven and three are ten. For I was not so mad as to think that even this could not be comprehended; but I desired to have other things as clear as this, whether things corporeal, which were not present to my senses, or spiritual, where of I knew not how to conceive, except corporeally.

还使我高兴的，是我不再用过去的眼光读《旧约》的律法和先知书了，过去看到许多矛盾荒谬之处，指责你的圣贤们有这样的思想，而其实他们并无这种思想。我很高兴听到安布罗西乌斯在对群众布道时一再提出要我们谨守的金科玉律：“文字使人死，精神使人生”[6]；对有些记载，单从字面看，好像错误，他移去神秘的帷幕，揭出其精神意义，虽则我对于他的见解还不能辨别真伪，但听后并不感到抵触。我执持着我的心，不敢轻易相信，害怕堕入深渊，可是我的趑趄真害死我。我希望对于我所不了解的问题，能像“三加七等于十”一样的明确起来。当然我不会如此狂妄说这一点也不能理解，但我要求其他一切，凡我耳目所接触不到的物质，或我思想只能悬拟为物质的精神体，也都能同样地明确起来。

And by believing might I have been cured, that so the eyesight of my soul being cleared, might in some way be directed to Thy truth, which abideth always, and in no part faileth. 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.

我本来能够用信仰来治疗我的疾病，洗雪我的思想，使之趋向你永久存在而没有丝毫欠缺的真理；可是犹如一人受了庸医的害，往往对良医也不敢信任，同样我灵魂的病，本来只能靠信仰来治疗的，但由于害怕信仰错误，便不愿治疗，拒绝你亲手配制的、施送世界各地的病人的、具有神效的信仰良医。

Being led, however, from this to prefer the Catholic doctrine, I felt that her proceeding was more unassuming and honest, in that she required to be believed things not demonstrated (whether it was that they could in themselves be demonstrated but not to certain persons, or could not at all be), where as among the Manichees our credulity was mocked by a promise of certain knowledge, and then so many most fabulous and absurd things were imposed to be believed, because they could not be demonstrated.

从这时起，我已经认为公教教义是比较可取、比较审慎、而且绝不用欺骗手段命令人相信未经证明的——或是可能证明而不是任何人都能领会的，或是不可能证明的——道理，不像那些摩尼教人冒失地标榜科学，讪笑信仰，却以无法证明为借口，强令人相信一大批的荒唐神话。

Then Thou, O Lord, little by little with most tender and most merciful hand, touching and composing my heart, didst persuade me- considering what innumerable things I believed, which I saw not, nor was present while they were done, as so many things in secular history, so many reports of places and of cities, which I had not seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so many continually of other men, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which I could not know, had I not believed upon hearsay -considering all this, Thou didst persuade me, that not they who believed Thy Books (which Thou hast established in so great authority among almost all nations), but they who believed them not, were to be blamed; and that they were not to be heard, who should say to me, "How knowest thou those Scriptures to have been imparted unto mankind by the Spirit of the one true and most true God?" For this very thing was of all most to be believed, since no contentiousness of blasphemous questionings, of all that multitude which I had read in the self-contradicting philosophers, could wring this belief from me, "That Thou art" what so ever Thou wert (what I knew not), and "That the government of human things belongs to Thee."

主啊，你用非常温柔非常慈祥的手逐渐抟塑我的心，我注意到有无数事物，我既未目睹，又未亲历，而我相信了：比如各国历史上的许多事迹，有关某地某城的许多事件，我并未看见，我听信朋友们，医生们，以及许多人的话，因为不如此，我们生活于此世便不能有所作为。最后，对于父母生我，我不是毫无疑义吗？而这一点，我只能凭耳闻而相信，否则我不能知道。你又使我认识到应受谴责的不是那些相信你在世界上树立了无上权威的圣经的人们，而是那些不信圣经的人们，如果他们对我说：“你怎样知道这些书是唯一上帝的真实而绝不虚言的圣神传授人类的？”我决不能听信他们，因为正是这一点特别属于信仰的范围；因为各式污蔑性的责难论战，我所读过的许多哲学家的辩论都不能拔除我对你的存在，——虽则我不懂你的存在的性质——对你的统摄世界的信仰。

This I believed, sometimes more strongly, more weakly otherwhiles; yet I ever believed both that Thou wert, and hadst a care of us; though I was ignorant, both what was to be thought of Thy substance, and what way led or led back to Thee.

对于这方面，我的信仰有时比较坚强，有时比较薄弱，但我始终相信你存在并照顾我们，虽则我还不知道对于你的本体应有什么看法，也不知道哪一条道路通向你或重返到你身边。

Since then we were too weak by abstract reasonings to find out truth: and for this very cause needed the authority of Holy Writ; I had now begun to believe that Thou wouldest never have given such excellency of authority to that Writ in all lands, hadst Thou not willed thereby to be believed in, thereby sought.

由于我们的能力薄弱，不能单靠理智来寻获真理，便需要圣经的权力，从此我也开始看出如果你不是要人们通过圣经而相信你、寻获你，你决不会使圣经在全世界享有如此崇高的威权。

For now what things, sounding strangely in the Scripture, were wont to offend me, having heard divers of them expounded satisfactorily, I referred to the depth of the mysteries, and its authority appeared to me the more venerable, and more worthy of religious credence, in that, while it lay open to all to read, it reserved the majesty of its mysteries within its profounder meaning, stooping to all in the great plainness of its words and lowliness of its style, yet calling forth the intensest application of such as are not light of heart; so that it might receive all in its open bosom, and through narrow passages waft over towards Thee some few, yet many more than if it stood not aloft on such a height of authority, nor drew multitudes within its bosom by its holy lowliness.

至于圣经中往往和我的见解抵触矛盾，在我听了许多正确的解释后，我以为这是由于其含义的奥妙高深。为此，圣经的威权更显得崇高，更配合神圣的信仰，一方面为一般读者是明白晓畅，而同时又保留着深奥的内蕴，使人能作更深刻的研究；一面文字浅近通俗，使人人可解，而同时使不是“心地轻浮”[7]的人能致力研究；一面怀抱群众，而同时又让少数人通过狭窄的口子到达你身边；但如果圣经没有如此崇高的威权，如果不吸收群众到它谦虚神圣的怀抱中，进入的人将更为稀少。

These things I thought on, and Thou wert with me; I sighed, and Thou heardest me; I wavered, and Thou didst guide me; I wandered through the broad way of the world, and Thou didst not forsake me.

我在如此思索时，你就在我身边；我叹息时，你倾听着；我在飘荡时，你掌握我；我走在世俗的大道上，你并不放弃我。