1. And from there I was admonished to return within myself. I entered in my inmost being with you as my guide. I was able to do so because you became my helper. I entered in and saw an unchangeable light with a kind of eye of my soul there to see an unchangeable light above the same eye of my soul, above my mind. It was not that common light, obvious to everyone. Nor was it simply a greater version of the same kind, as if it were that [light] shining more and more clearly that it would fill everything with [its] magnitude. This is not that kind of light, but another, something far different from all those. Nor was it above my mind as oil is above water nor as heaven is above earth. Rather, this was superior because it made me and I was inferior because I was made by it.
2. Whoever knows truth knows it, and whoever knows it knows eternity. Love knows it. O eternal truth, and true love, and loving eternity! You are my God. For you I sigh day and night. When I first recognized you, you lifted me up to see that there is something that I see and that I was not yet one who sees. And you broke through the weakness of my vision, radiating out in me powerfully and I trembled with love and awe, and I discovered that I was far from you in a region of dissimilitude.
3. It is as if I heard your voice from on high, “I am food for the strong. Grow and you will consume me. Nor will you change into you as food for your flesh, but you will be changed into me. I knew that you instructed man because of his iniquity. And you made my soul dissolve like a spider’s web. I said, Truth cannot be nothing, can it, just because it is not diffused through finite or infinite physical spaces. You cried to me from far away, “No indeed, I am who I am” and I heard as one hears in the heart. There was in fact no reason why I should doubt. I would more easily doubt that I was living than that there is no truth. This truth is seen, when it is understood, through the things that are made.
1. Et inde admonitus redire ad memet ipsum intravi in intima mea duce te et potui, quoniam factus es adiutor meus. Intravi et vidi qualicumque oculo animae meae supra eumdem oculum animae meae, supra mentem meam lucem incommutabilem, non hanc vulgarem et conspicuam omni carni nec quasi ex eodem genere grandior erat, tamquam si ista multo multoque clarius claresceret totumque occuparet magnitudine. Non hoc illa erat, sed aliud, aliud valde ab istis omnibus. Nec ita erat supra mentem meam, sicut oleum super aquam nec sicut caelum super terram, sed superior, quia ipsa fecit me, et ego inferior, quia factus ab ea.
2. Qui novit veritatem, novit eam, et qui novit eam, novit aeternitatem. Caritas novit eam. O aeterna veritas et vera caritas et cara aeternitas! Tu es Deus meus, tibi suspiro die ac nocte. Et cum te primum cognovi, tu assumpsisti me, ut viderem esse, quod viderem, et nondum me esse, qui viderem. Et reverberasti infirmitatem aspectus mei radians in me vehementer, et contremui amore et horrore; et inveni longe me esse a te in regione dissimilitudinis.
3. Tamquam audirem vocem tuam de excelso: “Cibus sum grandium: cresce et manducabis me. Nec tu me in te mutabis sicut cibum carnis tuae, sed tu mutaberis in me”. Et cognovi, quoniam pro iniquitate erudisti hominem et tabescere fecisti sicut araneam animam meam, et dixi: “Numquid nihil est veritas, quoniam neque per finita neque per infinita locorum spatia diffusa est?”. Et clamasti de longinquo: “Immo vero ego sum qui sum “. Et audivi, sicut auditur in corde, et non erat prorsus, unde dubitarem faciliusque dubitarem vivere me quam non esse veritatem, quae per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspicitur.