Remember this, and show yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O you transgressors.
Read Chapter 46
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
“Return, you transgressors, to the heart.” Return to the heart! Why do you go away from yourselves and perish from yourselves?… You go astray by wandering about. Return. Where? To the Lord. It is quickly done! First, return to your heart. You are wandering away. You are an exile from yourself. You do not know yourself. You ask by whom you were made!… Just return to your heart! See there what perhaps you perceive about God, because the image of God is there. In the inner person Christ dwells. In the inner person you are renewed according to the image of God. - "Tractates on the Gospel of John 18.10.1–2"
“Go back, therefore, to the heart,” and if you are believers, you will find Christ there. He himself is speaking to you there. Yes, here am I, shouting my head off—but he, in silence, is doing more teaching. I am speaking by the sound of these words; he is speaking inwardly by the awe you feel in your thoughts. - "Sermon 102.2"
Behold, there he is, wherever truth is known. He is within the inmost heart, yet the heart has wandered from him. Return to your heart, O you sinners, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him, and you shall stand firmly. Rest in him, and you shall be at rest. - "Confessions 4.12.18"
“Return, you transgressors, to the heart.” As I have already said, what the Lord repeatedly asks of us is not found in distant lands. He sends us within, into our own hearts. For he has placed within us that which he wants, in which consists the perfection of charity in the will and goodness of the soul. - "Sermon 37.1"
