Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 119.3 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 674; tr. Edmund Hill):

Stretch your minds, please, help my poverty of language. Whatever I am able to say, listen to it; whatever I am not able to say, think it. Who can grasp a Word that abides? All our words make a noise, and are gone. Who can grasp a Word that abides, except someone who abides in it? Do you want to grasp the Word that abides? Don't follow the river of the flesh.

This flesh is indeed a stream, because it does not abide. Human beings are born, as from some hidden spring of nature, they live, they die; we do not know where they come from, and we do not know where they are going. The water is hidden until it issues from the spring; it flows openly in the river; but again it hides itself in the sea. Let us not think highly of this stream that bubbles up, flows, ceases; let us not think very highly of it.

Extendite corda vestra, adiuvate paupertatem sermonis nostri. Quod dicere potuero, audite; quod non potuero, cogitate. Quis comprehendat Verbum manens? Omnia verba nostra sonant et transeunt. Quis comprehendat Verbum manens, nisi qui in ipso manet? Vis comprehendere Verbum manens? Noli sequi flumen carnis.

Caro quippe ista fluvius est; non enim manet. Tamquam de fonte quodam secreto naturae nascuntur homines, vivunt homines, moriuntur homines; nec unde veniant novimus, nec quo eant novimus. Latet aqua, donec progrediatur ex fonte; currit et apparet in flumine; sed rursus latet in mari. Contemnamus fluvium istum manantem, currentem, desinentem, contemnamus.