et illic discere ex ipso: This seemed clear. The only problem I had was the antecedent of ipso. After much thought, I concluded that the antecedent was a phrase in the sentence, which accounted for the neuter gender.
Trying to figure this out for myself, before consulting a translation, I wasn't sure whether
ipso referred to the general thought preceding it (neuter), as you conjectured, or to God (masculine). I gravitated to the latter as an educated guess about Augustine and because I thought
illic supplied the reference to the previous thought. It's clear from the translation that it refers to God, which seems obvious to me in hindsight!
quod cunctam naturam: I had trouble finding a meaning for quod, perhaps "insofar as"?
If I recall correctly from your or someone else's previous posts, I think you may still be a bit confused about the distinction between
quod as a conjunction and
quod as a relative pronoun. Here it's a conjunction:
discedere, quod. This becomes the que, che, etc. of Romance languages. Dyson translation: "there to learn from God himself that ...".
I recommend really scouring the article on
quod (as conjunction) in a professional level Latin dictionary.
Not that it isn't easy to be confused by this. According to an article I just found, "Syntactically, these usages of
quod [relative pronoun and conjunction] seem far different from one another, but the evidence within the Latin language itself proves that
quod's conjunction usage is a development of its usage as a relative pronoun." I'm going to send you a PM with my email address, and if you're interest, email me and I'll send you a copy of article.
quae: clear enough, antecedent must be cunctam naturam.
Yes.
non est: translates "is not". But what is it that cuncta natura is not? What does non negate?
quod ipse: this pair of words stumped me. What is quod doing here? Who is ipse? ipse is nominative singular, so what is its verb? i now think this phrase assumes est, quod ipse est, what he is. Thus I translate that phrase: "that whole nature which is not the-being-that (quod) God (ipse) is". (est is verb of both quae and ipse, as I now think).
"Who is ipse?" Sorry, I have to laugh
. I didn't get this either before looking at the translation. First, if you (and I) didn't get that the preceding
ipso was God, then we were less likely to see that this
ipse is God too, which of course it is!
Second, I think here again you're getting confused with
quod, and maybe in this case because Augustine puts it in the neuter. In this case
quod is a relative prounoun, "that every nature which is not what God is,". ", quae non est quod ipse [sc. est],"
non fecit nisi ipse: what is non negating? I now think that it negates nisi, producing a separated form of nonnisi, which can be translated only.
non negates
fecit. The object of non
fecit is
cunctam naturam. '[sc. 'nobody'] made [any nature that is not what God is] except God himself.
Non ... nisi is just a nice little rhetorical touch. There may even be a name for the rhetorical device, though I don't know what that is.
My guess is that Augustine writes colloquially here
I wouldn't say so, especially, though by now you're more the expert on Augustine's than I. In my case, it is more his unique theological train of thought that can still throw me.