Sermons of Columbanus Hibernus
Sancti Columbani Instructiones Variae (Vulgo Dictae Sermones)
Instructio V
1. O tu vita humana, fragilis et mortalis, quantos decepisti, quantos seduxisti, quantos excaecasti! Quae dum fugis nihil es, dum videris umbra es, dum exaltaris fumus es; quae cottidie fugis et cottidie venis, veniendo fugis quae fugiendo venis, dissimilis eventu, similis ortu, dissimilis luxu, similis fluxu, dulcis stultis, amara sapientibus. Qui te amant non te sciunt, et qui te contemnunt ipsi te intellegunt. Ergo non es verax sed fallax; te ostendis tamquam veracem, te reducis quasi fallacem. Quid ergo es, humana vita? Via es mortalium et non vita, a peccato incipiens usque ad mortem perseverans; vera enim esses si te peccatum primae transgressionis humanae non interrupisset, et tunc cassabunda et mortalis devenisti, cum omnes tuos viatores morti assignasti. Via ergo es ad vitam, non vita; vera enim es via, sed non plana, aliis longa, aliis brevis, aliis lata, aliis angusta, aliis laeta, aliis tristis, omnibus similiter festinans et irrevocabilis. Via es, via, sed non omnibus manifesta es; multi enim te vident, et pauci te viam esse intellegunt. Sic enim subtilis es et sic seductrix, ut paucorum sit te scire viam. Interroganda ergo es et non credenda nec vindicanda, transeunda, non habitanda, misera humana vita; nullus enim in via habitat sed ambulat, ut qui ambulent in via, habitent in patria.
2. Quare ergo tu, mortalis vita, habitaris, diligeris, vindicaris a stultis et a perditis, contemneris a sensatis, caveris a salvandis. Timenda itaque es, humana vita, et multum cavenda, quae sic fugitiva es, sic lubrica, sic periculosa, sic brevis, sic incerta, ut quasi umbra aut imago aut nubs aut nihil aut inane dissolveris. Dum ergo nihil es, o mortalis vita, nisi via, imago fugitiva aut inanis aut nubs, incerta et fragilis et umbra, ut somnium, sic per te iter agendum est tam sollicite, tam caute, tam expedite, ut viatorum more ad veram patriam omnibus intellegentibus festinandum sit, de transacto sccuris, de eo quod restat sollicitis. Nihil enim tibi prodest ascendere quod ascenderis, nisi quod restat evaseris; via enim et ascensus quidam putanda est vita haec. Non quaeramus in via quod in patria futurum est; labor enim et fatigatio in itinere versatur, in patria requies et securitas paratur. Cavendum est itaque nobis, ne forte per viam securi simus, et ad veram nostram patriam non perveniamus. Sunt enim revera nonnulli in hoc itinere ita securi ut non tam in via quam in patria esse videantur; et non tam voluntarii quam inviti eunt ad patriam nimirum iam perditam. Hic enim in via perusi sunt patria, et de brevi vita aeternam mortem mercati sunt. Infelices de frustrato commercio laeti sunt; aliena caduca dilexerunt, et propria aeterna neglexerunt. Quapropter quamvis sint laeta, quamvis blanda, quamvis sint speciosa, aliena terrena devitemus, ut propria aeterna non perdamus; fideles in alienis inveniamur, ut in propriis ac nostris heredes efficiamur, donante Domino nostro Iesu Christo, qui vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Migne Patrologia Latina / Sancti Columbani Instructiones Variae (Vulgo Dictae Sermones) / Sermons of Columbanus
1. Oh human life, feeble and mortal, how many have you deceived, beguiled, and blinded! While you fly, you are nothing, while you are seen, you are a shadow, while you arise, you are but smoke; daily you fly and daily you return, you fly in returning and return in flying, unequal in outcome, identical in origin, unequal in pleasure, identical in passage, sweet to the stupid, bitter to the wise. Those who love you do not know you, and those who scorn you really scan you. Thus you are not true but false; you show yourself as true, render yourself in falsehood. What then are you, human life? You are the roadway of mortals, not their life, beginning from sin, enduring up till death; for you would be true, if you had not been cut short by the sin of man's first transgression, and then you became ready to fall and mortal, in that you have allotted all your travellers to death. So you are the way to life, not life; for you are a real way, but not an open one, long for some, short for others, broad for some, narrow for others, joyful for some, sad for others, for all alike hasting and irrevocable. A way is what you are, a way, but you are not manifest to all; for many see you, and few understand you to be a way. For you are so wily and so winsome that it is granted to few to know you as a way. Thus you are to be questioned and not believed or warranted, traversed, not occupied, wretched human life; for on a roadway none dwells but walks, that those who walk upon the way may dwell in their homeland.
2. Thus then, mortal life, you are dwelt in, loved and warranted by the stupid and the lost, disdained by men with sense, avoided by those that shall be saved. Therefore you must be feared and much avoided, human life, for you are so fleeting, shifting, dangerous, short, and uncertain, that you shall be dissolved like a shadow, a mirage, a cloud, or something null and void. Thus while you are nothing, mortal life, except a way, a mirage fleeting and void or a cloud, uncertain and feeble and a shadow, like a dream, we must thus make our journey through you so anxiously, so carefully, so hastily, that all men of understanding should hurry like pilgrims to their true homeland, confident of the past, troubled for that which remains. For it is no gain to you to reach the height that you have reached, unless you escape that which remains; for this life is to be considered as a way and an ascent. Let us not seek upon the way what shall be in our homeland; for toil and weariness are appointed on the journey, rest and peace are made ready in the homeland. Therefore we must beware, lest perhaps we be careless on the way, and fail to reach our true home, For indeed there are not a few so careless on this journey, that they seem to be not so much on the way as in their home; and they travel unwillingly rather than freely towards a homeland that is certainly already lost. For these have exhausted their home upon the roadway, and for a brief life have bought eternal death. Unhappy men, they joy in their disappointed trading; they have loved the transitory goods of others, and neglected their own eternal good. Hence, however joyful they be, however enticing, however splendid, let us avoid the earthly goods of others, that we lose not our own eternal good; let us be found faithful in the things of others, that in our private and peculiar things we may be made inheritors, by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns unto ages of ages. Amen.
