affectionibus, credendi [grasping trustingly, somehow fixing an end] sperandi [awaiting, keeping oneself open for] amandi [loving devotion, appreciating]” [However, no one, in any walk of life, lives without his soul experiencing these three things—believing (grasping trustingly, somehow fixing an end), hoping (awaiting, keeping oneself open for), loving (loving devotion, appreciating)].114) “Et in ista formosa quae fecisti, deformis irruebam” [and in my deformed state, I rushed into those beautiful things which You made],115 although I plunged headlong into the world and things as formosa, beautifully formed, impressive and announcing something significant, so that they captured me; and my desire to know made an effort at it—but deformis irruebam, I myself was not in the form, I did not have the Being, which is the genuine Being of a self. “Tetigisti me, et exarsi in pacem tuam” [You touched me, and I am burning for Your peace].116
§ 12. The curare (Being Concerned) as the Basic Character of Factical Life Chapters 28 and 29
a) The Dispersion of Life
My life is “deformis” [deformed].—Not in order to excuse himself, but indeed to push himself away from himself recklessly, and to gain himself from this severe distance, Augustine now makes it clear to himself, that “life” is no cakewalk [Spaziergang] and is precisely the most inopportune moment to assume an air of importance. “Oneri mihi sum” [I am a burden to myself].117 It is such that the (constitutively existential) sense of enactment of the awaiting setting-out, the keeping-oneself-open-for, can only be “tota spes [ . . . ] non nisi in magna valde misericordia [Dei]” [all hope . . . is nowhere but in (God’s) very great mercy].118 (Hope from despair!) And this mercy [Erbarmen] precisely corresponds to the misery [Erbärmlichkeit] of this life: it is a iubere—iubes continentiam [commanding—You command continence]. (iubere: “directio” cordis, cogitationes, delectationis—finis curae! [commanding: the “direction” of the heart, of thoughts, of delight—end of concern!] Cf.: “Et diriges justum, scrutans corda et renes Deus” [And You direct the just, the searcher of hearts and guts is God].119
For “in multa defluximus” [we are scattered into the many],120 we are dissolving
114. Sermones CXCVIII 2; PL 38, p. 1024.
115. Confessiones X, 27, 38; PL 32, p. 795.
116. Ibid.
117. Confessiones X, 28, 39; PL 32, p. 795.
118. Confessiones X, 29, 40; PL 32, p. 796.
119. Enarrationes in Psalmos VII 9 (V.10); PL 36, p. 103.
120. Confessiones X, 29, 40; PL 32, p. 796.