part varied; although in varying times it prescribed not every

‘thing at once, but apportioned and enjoined what was fit for each. And I in my blindness, censured the holy Fathers, not _ only wherein they made use of things present as God com- -manded and inspired them, but also wherein they were fore- telling things to come, as God was revealing in them. _ Can it at any time or place be unjust to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; and his neigh- -bour as himself? Therefore are those foul offences which be against nature, to be every where and at all times detested and punished; such as were those of the men of Sodom: which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the me crime, by the law of God, which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another. For even that inter-
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44 / Saint Augustine nena course which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature, of which He is Author, is polluted by per- | versity of lust. But those actions which are offences against — the customs of men, are to be avoided according to the cus- © toms severally prevailing; so that a thing agreed upon, and confirmed, by custom or law of any city or nation, may not be violated at the lawless pleasure of any, whether native or — foreigner. For any part which harmoniseth not with its whole, is offensive. But when God commands a thing to be done, against the customs or compact of any people, though it were never by them done heretofore, it is to be done; and if inter- mitted, it is to be restored; and if never ordained, is now to be — ordained. For lawful if it be for a king, in the state which he reigns over, to command that which no one before him, nor he himself heretofore, had commanded, and to obey him can- | not be against the common weal of the state (nay, it were against it if he were not obeyed, for to obey princes is a gen- — eral compact of human society); how much more unhesitating- — ly ought we to obey God, in all which He commands, the — Ruler of all His creatures! For as among the powers in man’s society, the greater authority is obeyed in preference to the lesser, so must God above all.
So in acts of violence, where there is a wish to hurt, whether by reproach or injury; and these either for revenge, as one enemy against another; or for some profit belonging to an- other, as the robber to the traveller; or to avoid some evil, as towards one who is feared; or through envy, as one less fortu- — nate to one more so, or one well thriven in any thing, to him whose being on a par with himself he fears, or grieves at, or for the mere pleasure at another’s pain, as spectators of gladi- ators, or deriders and mockers of others. These be the heads — of iniquity which spring from the lust of the flesh, of the eye, or of rule, either singly, or two combined, or all together; and — so do men live ill against the three, and seven, that psaltery of ten strings, Thy Ten Commandments, O God, most high, — and most sweet. But what foul offences can there be against — Thee, who canst not be defiled? or-what acts of violence against Thee, who canst not be harmed? But Thou avengest what men commit against themselves, seeing also when they | sin against Thee, they do wickedly against their own souls, — and iniquity gives itself the lie, by corrupting and perverting — their nature, which Thou hast created and ordained, or by an | immoderate use of things allowed, or in burning in things un- —
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Gries with heart and tongue is Thee, Se against the pricks; or when, bursting the pale of human so- ciety, they boldly joy in self-willed combinations or divisions, according as they have any object to gain or subject of offence. And these things are done when Thou art forsaken, O Foun- tain of Life, who art the only and true Creator and Governor _ of the Universe, and by a self-willed pride, any one false thing _ is selected therefrom and loved. So then by a humble devout- _ mess we return to Thee; and Thou cleansest us from our evil habits, and art merciful to their sins who confess, and hearest he groaning of the prisoner, and loosest us from the chains which we made for ourselves, if we lift not up against Thee he horns of an unreal liberty, suffering the loss of all, through _covetousness of more, by loving more our own private good than Thee, the Good of all. _ Amidst these offences of foulness and violence, and so many _ iniquities, are sins of men, who are on the whole making pro- | ficiency; which by those that judge rightly, are, after the rule of perfection, discommended, yet the persons commended, upon hope of future fruit, as in the green blade of growing corn. And there are some, resembling offences of foulness or iolence, which yet are no sins; because they offend neither ‘Thee, our Lord God, nor human society; when, namely, things fitting for a given period are obtained for the service of life, and we know not whether out of a lust of having; or when things are, for the sake of correction, by constituted authority ‘punished, and we know not whether out of a lust of hurting. _ Many an action then which in men’s sight is disapproved, is by Thy testimony approved; and many, by men praised, are (Thou being witness) condemned: because the show of the action, and the mind of the doer, and the unknown exigency of the period, severally vary. But when Thou on a sudden ommandest an unwonted and unthought of thing, yea, al- _ though Thou hast sometime forbidden it, and still for the time hidest the reason of Thy command, and it be against the or- _dinance of some society of men, who doubts but it is to be done, seeing that society of men is just which serves Thee? But blessed are they who know Thy commands! For all things _were done by Thy servants; either to show forth something needful for the present, or to foreshow things to come. _ These things I being ignorant of, scoffed at those Thy holy 3 ‘servants and prophets. And what gained I aby scoffing at them,
7 :
46 / Saint hearatibe ee rate
but to be scoffed at by Thee, being insensibly aad step ee step drawn on to those follies, as to believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked, and the tree, its mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding (plucked by some other’s, not his own, guilt) had some Manichzan saint eaten, and min- gled with his bowels, he should breathe out of it angels, yea, there shall burst forth particles of divinity, at every moan or groan in his prayer, which particles of the most high and true © God had remained bound in that fig, unless they had been set at liberty by the teeth or belly of some “Elect” saint! And I, miserable, believed that more mercy was to be shown to the fruits of the earth than men, for whom they were created. For if any one an hungered, not a Manichzan, should ask for any, that morsel would seem as it were condemned to capital pun- — ishment, which should be given him.
And Thou sentest Thine hand from above, and drewest my soul out of that profound darkness, my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee for me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children. For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the death wherein I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her, and _ despisedst not her tears, when streaming down, they watered the ground under her eyes in every place where she prayed; yea Thou heardest her. For whence was that dream whereby ~ Thou comfortedst her; so that she allowed me to live with her, and to eat at the same table in the house, which she had be- gun to shrink from, abhorring and detesting the blasphemies of my error? For she saw herself standing on a certain wooden rule, and a shining youth coming towards her, cheerful and smiling upon her, herself grieving, and overwhelmed with grief. But he having (in order to instruct, as is their wont not to be instructed) enquired of her the causes of her grief and daily tears, and she answering that she was bewailing my per- dition, he bade her rest contented, and told her to look and observe, “That where she was, there was I also.” And when she looked, she saw me standing by her in the same rule. Whence was this, but that Thine ears were towards her heart? O Thou Good omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, — as if Thou caredst for him only; and so for all, as if they were © but one!
Whence was this also, that when she had told me this vision, and I would fain bend it to mean, “That she rather should not despair of being one day what I was”; she presently, without
any hesitation, replies: “No; for it was not told me that, ‘where — he, there thou also’; but ‘where thou, there he also’?” I confess _ to Thee, O Lord, that to the best of my remembrance (and I have oft spoken of this), that Thy answer, through my waking mother,—that she was not perplexed by the plausibility of my _ false interpretation, and so quickly saw what was to be seen, and which I certainly had not perceived before she spake,— even then moved me more than the dream itself, by which a _ joy to the holy woman, to be fulfilled so long after, was, for the consolation of her present anguish, so long before fore- signified. For almost nine years passed, in which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit, and the darkness of falsehood, - often assaying to rise, but dashed down the more grievously. All which time that chaste, godly, and sober widow (such as Thou lovest), now more cheered with hope, yet no whit relax- ing in her weeping and mourning, ceased not at all hours of _her devotions to bewail my case unto Thee. And her prayers entered into Thy presence; and yet Thou sufferedst me to be _ yet involved and reinvolved in that darkness.
Thou gavest her meantime another answer, which I call to mind; for much I pass by, hasting to those things which more press me to confess unto Thee, and much I do not remember. Thou gavest her then another answer, by a Priest of Thine, a certain Bishop brought up in Thy Church, and well studied in _ Thy books. Whom when this woman had entreated to vouch-
safe to converse with me, refute my errors, unteach me ill things, and:teach me good things (for this he was wont to do, when he found persons fitted to receive it), he refused, wisely, as I afterwards perceived. For he answered, that I was yet un- teachable, being puffed up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already perplexed divers unskilful persons with cap-
tious questions, as she had told him: “but let him alone a while” (saith he), “only pray God for him, he will of himself by reading find what that error is, and how great its impiety.” At the same time he told her, how himself, when a little one, had by his seduced mother been consigned over to the Man- ichees, and had not only read, but frequently copied out al- most all, their books, and had (without any argument or proof from any one) seen how much that sect was to be avoided; and had avoided it. Which when he had said, and she would not be satisfied, but urged him more, with entreaties and many tears, that he would see me and discourse with me; he, a lit- tle displeased at her importunity, saith, “Go thy ways and God
Augustine’s life from nineteen to eight and twenty; himself a Manichean, and seducing others to the same heresy; partial obedience amidst vanity and sin; consulting astrologers, only partially shaken herein: loss of an early friend, who is converted by being baptised r when in a swoon; reflections on grief, on real and unreal friendship, and love of fame; writes on “the fair and fit,” yet cannot rightly, since he entertained wrong notions of God; and so even his knowledge he applied ill.
- there superstitious, every where vain. Here, hunting after the
emptiness of popular praise, down even to theatrical applauses,
__ and poetic prizes, and strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies
_ of shows, and the intemperance of desires. There, desiring to be cleansed from these defilements, by carrying food to those
who were called “elect” and “holy,” out of which, in the work- house of their stomachs, they should forge for us Angels and
_ Gods, by whom we might be cleansed. These things did I fol-
_ low, and practise with my friends, deceived by me, and with
_ me. Let the arrogant mock me, and such as have not been, to
their soul’s health, stricken and cast down by Thee, O my God; but I would still confess to Thee mine own shame in Thy praise. Suffer me, I beseech Thee, and give me grace to go over in my present remembrance the wanderings of my forepassed time, and to offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what am I to myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own down-
_ fall? or what am I even at the best, but an infant sucking the
milk Thou givest, and feeding upon Thee, the food that perish- eth not? But what sort of man is any man, seeing he is but a
man? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh at us, but let
us poor and needy confess unto Thee. : In those years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, made sale of a loquacity to overcome by. Yet I preferred
49
pee
For THIs space of nine years (from my nineteenth year to my eight-and-twentieth) we lived seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in divers lusts; openly, by sciences which they. call liberal; secretly, with a false-named religion; here proud,
50 / Saint Augustine .
(Lord, Thou knowest) honest scholars (as they are ac- counted), and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not to —
be practised against the life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar per- ceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and amid much smoke sending out some sparks of faithfulness, which I showed in that my guidance of such as loved vanity, and sought after leasing, myself their companion. In those years I had one,—
not in that which is called lawful marriage, but whom I had
found out in a wayward passion, void of understanding; yet but one, remaining faithful even to her; in whom I in my own case experienced what difference there is betwixt the self- restraint of the marriage-covenant, for the sake of issue, and the bargain of a lustful love, where children are born against
their parents’ will, although, once born, they constrain love. -
I remember also, that when I had settled to enter the lists for a theatrical prize, some wizard asked me what I would give him to win; but I, detesting and abhorring such foul mys- teries, answered, “Though the garland were of imperishable gold, I would not suffer a fly to be killed to gain me it.” For he was to kill some living creatures in his sacrifices, and by those honours to invite the devils to favour me. But this ill also I rejected, not out of a pure love for Thee, O God of my heart; for I knew not how to love Thee, who knew not how to con- ceive aught beyond a material brightness. And doth not a soul, sighing after such fictions, commit fornication against Thee, trust in things unreal, and feed the wind? Still I would not forsooth have sacrifices offered to devils for me, to whom I was sacrificing myself by that superstition. For what else is it to feed the wind, but to feed them, that is by going astray to be- come their pleasure and derision?
Those impostors then, whom they style Mathematicians, I
consulted without scruple; because they seemed to use no sac- |
rifice, nor to pray to any spirit for their divinations: which art, however, Christian and true piety consistently rejects and condemns. For, it is a good thing to confess unto Thee, and to say, Have mercy upon me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee; and not to abuse Thy mercy for a licence to
«
sin, but to remember the Lord’s words, Behold, thou art made —
whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. All which wholesome advice they labour to destroy, saying, “The cause of thy sin is inevitably determined in heaven”; and “This did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars”: that man, forsooth, flesh and blood, and proud corruption, might be blameless;
ey ee
ty the blame, And who is He but our God? the very sweet- ness and well-spring of righteousness, who renderest to every man according to his works: and a broken and contrite heart wilt Thou not despise.
There was in those days a wise man, very skilful in physic, and renowned therein, who had with his own proconsular hand put the Agonistic garland upon my distempered head,
_ but not as a physician: for this disease Thou only curest, who _ resistest the proud, and givest grace to the humble. But didst | Thou fail me even by that old man, or forbear to heal my _ soul? For having become more acquainted with him, and hanging assiduously and fixedly on his speech (for though in simple terms, it was vivid, lively, and earnest), when he had gathered by my discourse that I was given to the books _ of nativity-casters, he kindly and fatherly advised me to cast _ them away, and not fruitlessly bestow a care and diligence, necessary for useful things, upon these vanities; saying, that : he had in his earliest years studied that art, so as to make it the profession whereby he should live, and that, understand- _ ing Hippocrates, he could soon have understood such a study as this; and yet he had given it over, and taken to physic, for no other reason but that he found it utterly false; and he, a grave man, would not get his living by deluding people. “But thou,” saith he, “hast rhetoric to maintain thyself by, so that thou followest this of free choice, not of necessity: the more then oughtest thou to give me credit herein, who laboured to acquire it so perfectly as to get my living by it alone.” Of whom when I had demanded, how then could many true things be foretold by it, he answered me (as he could) “that the force of chance, diffused throughout the whole order of things, brought this about. For if when a man by haphazard opens the pages of some poet, who sang and thought of some- _ thing wholly different, a verse oftentimes fell out, wondrously agreeable to the present business: it were not to be wondered _at, if out of the soul of man unconscious what takes place in it, by some higher instinct an answer should be given, by hap, not by art, corresponding to the business and actions of the demander.” : And thus much, either from or through him, Thou convey- -edst to me, and tracedst in my memory, what I might here- after examine for myself. But at that time neither he, nor my dearest Nebridius, a youth singularly good and of a holy fear, who derided the whole body of divination, could persuade me
52 / Saint Augustine $= was
to cast it aside, the authority of the authors swaying me yet — more, and as yet I had found no certain proof (such asI sought) whereby it might without all doubt appear, that what _ had been truly foretold by those consulted was the result of haphazard, not of the art of the star-gazers.
In those years when I first began to teach rhetoric in my native town, I had made one my friend, but too dear to me, from a community of pursuits, of mine own age, and, as my- self, in the first opening flower of youth. He had grown up of a child with me, and we had been both school-fellows and play-fellows. But he was not yet my friend as afterwards, nor even then, as true friendship is; for true it cannot be, unless in such as Thou cementest together, cleaving unto Theé, by that love which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Yet was it but too sweet, ripened by the warmth of kindred studies: for, from the true faith (which he as a youth had not soundly and thoroughly imbibed), I had warped him also to those superstitious and pernicious fables, for which my mother bewailed me. With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be without him. But behold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy fugitives, at once God of vengeance, and Fountain of mercies, turning us to Thyself by wonderful means; Thou tookest that man out of this life, when he had scarce filled up one whole year of my friendship, sweet to me above all sweetness of that my life.
Who can recount all Thy praises, which he hath felt in his one self? What diddest Thou then, my God, and how un- searchable is the abyss of Thy judgments? For long, sore sick of a fever, he lay senseless in a death-sweat; and his recov- ery being despaired of, he was baptised, unknowing; myself meanwhile little regarding, and presuming that his soul would retain rather what it had received of me, not what was wrought on his unconscious body. But it proved far other- wise: for he was refreshed, and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak with him (and I could, so soon as he was able, for I never left him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I essayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with me at that baptism which he had received, when utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood that he had received. But he so shrunk from me, as from an enemy; and with a wonderful and sudden freedom bade me, as I would continue his friend, forbear such language to him. I, all astonished and amazed, suppressed all my emotions till
to deal with ine as I would. But he was taken away Gent
_ my frenzy, that with Thee he might be preserved for my com-
_ fort; a few days after in my absence, he was attacked again by the fever, and so departed.
i At this grief my heart was utterly darkened; and whatever
I beheld was death. My native country was a torment to me,
d my father’s house a strange unhappiness; and whatever I ad shared with him, wanting him, became a distracting tor-
Bice. Mine eyes sought him every where, but he was not granted them; and I hated all places, for that they had not him; nor could they now tell me, “he is coming,” as when he
__ was alive and absent. I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul, why she was so sad, and why she disquieted
ne sorely: but she knew not what to answer me. And if I Said, Trust in God, she very rightly obeyed me not; because that most dear friend, whom she had lost, was, being man, both truer and better than that phantasm she was bid to trust
_in. Only tears were sweet to me, for they succeeded my friend,
= the dearest of my affections.
And now, Lord, these things are passed by, and time hath assuaged my wound. May I learn from Thee, who art Truth, and approach the ear of my heart unto Thy mouth, that Thou
ayest tell me why weeping is sweet to the miserable? Hast Thou, although present every where, cast away our misery
Bar from Thee? And Thou abidest in Thyself, but we are tossed about in divers trials. And yet unless we mourned in Thine ears, we should have no hope left. Whence then is sweet fruit
_ gathered from the bitterness of life, from groaning, tears, sighs,
i complaints? Doth this sweeten it, that we hope Thou hearest? This is true of prayer, for therein is a longing to ap-
eae unto Thee. But is it also in grief for a thing lost, and
pthe sorrow wherewith I was then overwhelmed? For I neither hoped’ he should return to life nor did I desire this with my tears; but I wept only and grieved. For I was miserable, and
had lost my joy. Or is weeping indeed a bitter thing, and for ~ loathing of the things which we before enjoyed, does it en, when we shrink from them, please us?
But what speak I of these things? for now is no time to ques-
tion, but to confess unto Thee. Wretched I was; and wretched
‘is every soul bound by the friendship of perishable things; he
is torn asunder when he loses them, and then he feels the
‘etchedness which he had ere yet he lost them. So was it
then with me; I wept most bitterly, and found my repose in
(54 / Saint Augustine
pitiemiess, Thus was I wretched, and that wretched life E held :
dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have :
changed it, yet was I more unwilling to part with it than with him; yea, I know not whether I would have parted with it even for him, as is related (if not feigned) of Pylades and Orestes, that they would gladly have died for each other or together, not to live together being to them worse than death. But in me there had arisen some unexplained feeling, too con-
trary to this, for at once I loathed exceedingly to live and
feared to die. I suppose, the. more I loved him, the more did
I hate, and fear (as a most cruel enemy) death, which had —
bereaved me of him: and I imagined it would speedily: make an end of all men, since it had power over him. Thus was it with me, I remember. Behold my heart, O my God, behold and see into me; for well I remember it, O my Hope, who cleansest me from the impurity of such affections, directing mine eyes towards Thee, and plucking my feet out of the snare. For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered yet more that myself, who was to him a sec- ond self, could live, he being dead. Well said one of his friend, “Thou half of my soul”; for I felt that my soul and his soul were “one soul in two bodies”: and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved should die wholly.
O madness, which knowest not how to love men, like men! O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently the lot of man! I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to
repose it, I found not. Not in calm groves, not in games and
music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor in the pleasures of the bed and the couch; nor (finally) in books or poesy, found it repose. All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light; whatsoever was not what he was, was re-
volting and hateful, except groaning and tears. For in those —
alone found I a little refreshment. But when my soul was withdrawn from them a huge load of misery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee to lighten; I knew it; but neither could nor would; the more, since, when I thought of Thee, Thou wert not to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God. If I offered to discharge
ae
j load thereon, that it might rest, i d through the void, —
t glide came rushing down again on me; and I had remained to nyself a hapless spot, where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For whither should my heart flee from my heart? Whither should I flee from myself? Whither not follow my- self? And yet I fled out of my country; for so should mine eyes less look for him, where they were not wont to see him. And thus from Thagaste, I came to Carthage. _ Times lose no time; nor do they roll idly by; through our senses they work strange operations on the mind. Behold, they went and came day by day, and by coming and going, intro- duced into my mind other imaginations and other remem- rances; and little by little patched me up again with my old sind of delights, unto which that my sorrow gave way. And yet there succeeded, not indeed other griefs, yet the causes of other griefs. For whence had that former grief so easily reached my very inmost soul, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust, in loving one that must die, as if he would never die? For what restored and refreshed me chiefly was the ‘solaces of other friends, with whom I did love, what instead f Thee I loved; and this was a great fable, and protracted ie, by whose adulterous stimulus, our soul, which lay itching in our ears, was being defiled. But that fable would not die to me, so oft as any of my friends died. There were other ings which in them did more take my mind; to talk and jest gether, to do kind offices by turns; to read together honied 900ks; to play the fool or be earnest together; to dissent at times without discontent, as a man might with his own self; and even with the seldomness of these dissentings, to season our more frequent consentings; sometimes to teach, and some- times learn; long for the absent with impatience; and wel- come the coming with joy. These and the like expressions, sroceeding out of the hearts of those that loved and were loved again, by the countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, were so much fuel to melt our jouls together, and out of many make but one. _ This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a man’s onscience condemns itself, if he love not him that loves him again, or love not again him that loves him, looking for noth- ing from his person but indications of his love. Hence that mourning, if one die, and darkenings of sorrows, that steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness; and upon the loss of life of the dying, the death of the living. Blessed whoso loveth Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his
Le ere eo 7 . i . aa 56 / Saint Augustine : ooh
enemy for Thee. For he alone loses none dear to him, to whom
all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but —
our God, the God that made heaven and earth, and filleth them, because by filling them He created them? Thee none loseth, but who leaveth. And who leaveth Thee, whither goeth or whither fleeth he, but from Thee well-pleased, to Thee dis- pleased? For where doth he not find Thy law in his own pun- ishment? And Thy law is truth, and truth Thou.
Turn us, O God of Hosts, show us Thy countenance, and we shall be whole. For whithersoever the soul of man turns itself, unless toward Thee, it is riveted upon sorrows, yea though it is riveted on things beautiful. And yet they, out of Thee, and out of the soul, were not, unless they were from Thee. They rise, and set; and by rising, they begin as it were to be; they grow, that they may be perfected; and perfected, they wax old and wither; and all grow not old, but all wither. So then when they rise and tend to be, the more quickly they grow that they may be, so much the more they haste not to be. This is the law of them. Thus much hast Thou allotted them, because they are portions of things, which exist not all
at once, but by passing away and succeeding, they together ©
complete that universe, whereof they are portions. And even
thus is our speech completed by signs giving forth a sound:
but this again is not perfected unless one word pass away when it hath sounded its part, that another may succeed. Out of all these things let my soul praise Thee, O God, Creator
of all; yet let not my soul be riveted unto these things with
the glue of love, through the senses of the body. For they go whither they were to go, that they might not be; and they rend her with pestilent longings, because she longs to be, yet
loves to repose in what she loves. But in these things is no ~
place of repose; they abide not, they flee; and who can follow
them with the senses of the flesh? yea, who can grasp them, —
when they are hard by? For the sense of the flesh is slow, be- cause it is the sense of the flesh; and thereby is it bounded. It sufficeth for that it was made for; but it sufficeth not to stay things running their course from their appointed starting-place to the end appointed. For in Thy Word, by which they are created, they hear their decree, “hence and hitherto.”
Be not foolish, O my soul, nor become deaf in the ear of thine heart with the tumult of thy folly. Hearken thou too.
The Word itself calleth thee to return: and there is the place of rest imperturbable, where love is not forsaken, if itself for- saketh not. Behold, these things pass away, that others may
replace them, and so this lower universe bz completed by all his parts. But do I depart any whither? saith the Word of God. There fix thy dwelling, trust there whatsoever thou hast _ thence, O my soul, at least now thou art tired out with vanities. Entrust Truth, whatsoever thou hast from the Truth, and thou shalt lose nothing; and thy decay shall bloom again, and all: _thy diseases be healed, and thy mortal parts be reformed and peeved, and bound around thee: nor shall they lay thee whither themselves descend; but they shall stand fast with thee, and abide for ever before God, Who abideth and stand- eth fast for ever. _ Why then be perverted and follow thy flesh? Be it con- “verted and follow thee. Whatever by her thou hast sense of, is in part; and the whole, whereof these are parts, thou knowest not; and yet they delight thee. But had the sense of thy flesh _ @ capacity for comprehending the whole, and not itself also, for thy punishment, been justly restricted to a part of the whole, thou wouldest, that whatsoever existeth at this present, should Pass away, that so the whole might better please thee. For what we speak also, by the same sense of the flesh thou hear- . yet wouldest not thou have the syllables stay, but fly away, that others may come, and thou hear the whole. And so ever, when any one thing is made up of many, all of which do * exist together, all collectively would please more than they do severally, could all be perceived collectively. But far better an these is He who made all; and He is our God, nor doth He pass away, for neither doth aught succeed Him.
If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls please thee, be they
oved in God: for they too are mutable, but in Him are they 3 y stablished; else would they pass, and pass away. In Him then be they beloved; and carry unto Him along with thee what souls thou canst, and say to them, “Him let us love, Him let us love: He made these, nor is He far off. For He did not ‘make them, and so depart, but they are of Him, and in Him. See there He is, where truth is loved. He is within the very heart, yet hath the heart strayed from Him. Go back into your heart, ye transgressors, and cleave fast to Him that made you. Stand with Him, and ye shall stand fast. Rest in Him, and ye a be at rest. Whither go ye in rough ways? Whither go ye? The good that you love is from Him; but it is good and pleas- int through reference to Him, and justly shall it be embit- ered, because unjustly is any thing loved which is from Him,
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58 / Saint Augustine SoA is Cased | eee if He be forsaken for it. To what end then would ye still and still walk these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest, 3 where ye seek it. Seek what ye seek; but it is not there where — ye seek. Ye seek a blessed life in the land of death; it is not © there. For how should there be a blessed life where life itself is not?
“But our true Life came down hither, and bore our death, and slew him, out of the abundance of His own life: and He thundered, calling aloud to us to return hence to Him into that secret place, whence He came forth to us, first into the Virgin’s womb, wherein He espoused the human creation, our mortal flesh, that it might not be for ever mortal, and thence like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a giant to run his course. For He lingered not, but ran, calling aloud by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension; crying aloud to us to return unto Him. And He departed from our eyes, that we might return into our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and lo, He is here. He would not be long with us, yet left us not; for He departed thither, whence He never parted, because the world was made by Him. And in this world He was, and into this world He came to save sin- ners, unto whom my soul confesseth, and He healeth it, for it hath sinned against Him. O ye sons of men, how long so slow of heart? Even now, after the descent of Life to you, will ye not ascend and live? But whither ascend ye, when ye are on high, and set your mouth against the heavens? Descend, that ye may ascend, and ascend to God. For ye have fallen, by ascending against Him.” Tell them this, that they may weep in the valley of tears, and so carry them up with thee unto God; because out of His spirit thou speakest thus unto them, if thou speakest, burning with the fire of charity.
These things I then knew not, and I loved these lower beau- ties, and I was sinking to the very depths, and to my friends I © said, “Do we love any thing but the beautiful? What then is the beautiful? and what is beauty? What is it that attracts and wins us to the things we love? for:unless there were in them a grace and beauty, they could by no means draw us unto them.” And I marked and perceived that in bodies them- | selves, there was a beauty, from their forming a sort of whole, and again, another from apt and mutual correspondence, as of a part of the body with its whole, or a shoe with a foot, and the like. And this consideration sprang up in my mind, out of © my inmost heart, and I wrote “on the fair and fit,” I think, two or three books. Thou knowest, O Lord, for it is gone from me;
i
But what moved me, O Lord my God, to dedicate these books unto Hierius, an orator of Rome, whom I knew not by face, but loved for the fame of his learning which was eminent ‘in him, and some words of his I had heard, which pleased me? But more did he please me, for that he pleased others, who highly extolled him, amazed that out of a Syrian, first in- structed in Greek eloquence, should afterwards be formed a ‘wonderful Latin orator, and one most learned in things per- taining unto philosophy. One is commended, and, unseen, he is loved: doth this love enter the heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commender? Not so. But by one who loveth is another kindled. For hence he is loved who is commended, when the commender is believed to extol him with an unfeigned heart; that is, when one that loves him, praises him. _ For so did I then love men, upon the judgment of men, not ‘Thine, O my God, in Whom no man is deceived. But yet why ‘not for qualities, like those of a famous charioteer, or fighter ‘with beasts in the theatre, known far and wide by a vulgar popularity, but far otherwise, and earnestly, and so as I would be myself commended? For I would not be commended or loved, as actors are (though I myself did commend and love them), but had rather be unknown, than so known; and even ated, than so loved. Where now are the impulses to such various and divers kinds of loves laid up in one soul? Why, ‘since we are equally men, do I love in another what, if I did not hate, I should not spurn and cast from myself? For it holds not, that as a good horse is loved by him, who would not, though he might, be that horse, therefore the same may be said of an actor, who shares our nature. Do I then love in a man, what I hate to be, who am a man? Man himself is a great ‘deep, whose very hairs Thou numberest, O Lord, and they fall not to the ground without Thee. And yet are the hairs of his ead easier to be numbered than his feelings, and the beat- ings of his heart. _ But that orator was of that sort whom I loved, as wishing to be myself such; and I erred through a swelling pride, and was tossed about with every wind, but yet was steered by Thee, though very secretly. And whence do I know, and whence do I confidently confess unto Thee, that I had loved him more for the love of his commenders, than for the very things for which he was commended? Because, had he been unpraised, and these self-same men had dispraised him, and with dis-
60 / Saint Augustine. ; a er Pee praise and contempt told the very same things of him, I had never been so kindled and excited to love him. And yet the things had not been other, nor he himself other; but only the feelings of the relators. See where the impotent soul lies along, that is not yet stayed up by the solidity of truth! Just as the gales of tongues blow from the breast of the opinionative, so is - it carried this way and that, driven forward and backward, and the light is overclouded to it, and the truth unseen. And lo, it is before us. And it was to me a great matter, that my discourse and labours should be known to that man: which should he approve, I were the more kindled; but if he disap- proved, my empty heart, void of Thy solidity, had been wounded. And yet the “fair and fit,” whereon I wrote to him, I dwelt on with pleasure, and surveyed it, and admired it, though none joined therein.
But I saw not yet, whereon this weighty matter turned in Thy wisdom, O Thou Omnipotent, who only doest wonders; - and my mind ranged through corporeal forms; and “fair,” I defined and distinguished what is so in itself, and “fit,” whose -beauty is in correspondence to some other thing: and this I supported by corporeal examples. And I turned to the nature of the mind, but the false notion which I had of spiritual things, let me not see the truth. Yet the force of truth did of itself flash into mine eyes, and I turned away my panting soul from incorporeal substance to lineaments, and colours, and bulky magnitudes. And not being able to see these in the mind, I thought I could not see my mind. And whereas in virtue I loved peace, and in viciousness I abhorred discord; in the first I observed a unity, but in the other, a sort of divi- sion. And in that unity I conceived the rational soul, and the nature of truth and of the chief good to consist; but in this division I miserably imagined there to be some unknown sub- stance of irrational life, and the nature of the chief evil, which should not only be a substance, but real life also, and yet not derived from Thee, O my God, of whom are all things. And yet that first I called a Monad, as it had been a soul without sex; but the latter a Duad;—anger, in deeds of violence, and in flagitiousness, lust; not knowing whereof I spake. For I had not known or learned that neither was evil a substance, nor our soul that chief and unchangeable good.
For as deeds of violence arise, if that emotion of the soul be corrupted, whence vehement action springs, stirring itself in- solently and unrulily; and lusts, when that affection of the soul is ungoverned, whereby carnal pleasures are drunk in, so
knew not that it must be enlightened by another light, that
t may be partaker of truth, seeing itself is not that nature of
ruth. For Thou shalt light my candle, O Lord my God, Thou shalt enlighten my darkness: and of Thy fulness have we all received, for Thou art the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world; for in Thee there is no variable- ness, neither shadow of change.
_ But I pressed towards Thee, and was thrust from Thee, that I might taste of death: for thou resistest the proud. But what prouder, than for me with a strange madness to maintain my- - self to be that by nature which Thou art? For whereas I was subject to change (so much being manifest to me, my very desire to become wise, being the wish, of worse to become better), yet chose I rather to imagine Thee subject to change, and myself not to be that which Thou art. Therefore I was repelled by Thee, and Thou resistedst my vain stiff-necked- ness, and I imagined corporeal forms, and, myself flesh, I ac- cused flesh; and, a wind that passeth away, I returned not to Thee, but I passed on and on to things which have no being, neither in Thee, nor in me, nor in the body. Neither were they created for me by Thy truth, but by my vanity devised out of things corporeal. And I was wont to ask Thy faithful little ones, my fellow-citizens (from whom, unknown to myself, I stood exiled), I was wont, prating and foolishly, to ask them, “Why then doth the soul err which God created?” But I would not be asked, “Why then doth God err?” And I maintained - that Thy unchangeable substance did err upon constraint, rather than confess that my changeable substance had gone astray voluntarily, and now, in punishment, lay in error.
_I was then some six or seven and twenty years old when I wrote those volumes; revolving within me corporeal fictions, buzzing in the ears of my heart, which I turned, O sweet truth, to thy inward melody, meditating on the “fair and fit,” and longing to stand and hearken to Thee, and to rejoice greatly at the Bridegroom’s voice, but could not; for by the voices of mine own errors, I was hurried abroad, and through the weight of my own pride, I was sinking into the lowest pit. For Thou didst not make me to hear joy and gladness, nor did the bones et which were not yet humbled.
_ And what did it profit me, that scarce twenty years old, a 900k of Aristotle, which they call the ten Predicaments, falling nto my hands (on whose very name I hung, as on something
62 / Saint Augustine great and divine, so often as my rhetoric master of Carthage, and others, accounted learned, mouthed it with cheeks burst- — ing with pride), I read and understood it unaided? And on my © conferring with others, who said that they scarcely understood it with very able tutors, not only orally explaining it, but drawing many things in sand, they could tell me no more of it than I had learned, reading it by myself. And the book ap- peared to me to speak very clearly of substances, such as “man,” and of their qualities, as the figure of a man, of what sort it is; and stature, how many feet high; and his relation- ship, whose brother he is; or where placed; or when born; or . whether he stands or sits; or be shod or armed; or.does, or suffers anything; and all the innumerable things which might be ranged under these nine Predicaments, of which I have given some specimens, or under that chief Predicament of Substance.
What did all this further me, seeing it even hindered me? when, imagining whatever was, was comprehended under those ten Predicaments, I essayed in such wise to understand, O my God, Thy wonderful and unchangeable Unity also, as if Thou also hadst been subjected to Thine own greatness or beauty; so that (as in bodies) they should exist in Thee, as their subject: whereas Thou Thyself art Thy greatness and beauty; but a body is not great or fair in that it is a body, see- ing that, though it were less great or fair, it should notwith- standing be a body. But it was falsehood which of Thee I con- ceived, not truth, fictions of my misery, not the realities of Thy blessedness. For Thou hadst commanded, and it was done in me, that the earth should bring forth briars and thorns to me, and that in the sweat of my brows I should eat my bread.
And what did it profit me, that all the books I could procure — of the so-called liberal arts, I, the vile slave of vile affections, read by myself, and understood? And I delighted in them, but» knew not whence came all, that therein was true or certain. For I had my back to the light, and my face to the things en- lightened; whence my face, with which I discerned the things enlightened, itself was not enlightened. Whatever was written, either on rhetoric, or logic, geometry, music, and arithmetic, by myself without much difficulty or any instructor, I under- stood, Thy knowest, O Lord my God; because both quick- ness of understanding, and acuteness in discerning, is Thy gift: yet did I not thence sacrifice to Thee. So then it served not to my use, but rather to my perdition, since I went about to get so good a portion of my substance into my own keeping; and I
e
ony ' Fe 7 me “e e ae ~ aoe vy eh pt not my strength for Thee, but | far country, to spend it upon harlotries. For what profited ne good abilities, not employed to good uses? For I felt not _that those arts were attained with great difficulty, even by the ‘studious and talented, until I attempted to explain them to ‘such; when he most excelled in them who followed me not al- together slowly.
But what did this further me, imagining that Thou, O Lord God, the Truth, wert a vast and bright body, and I a fragment of that body? Perverseness too great! But such was I. Nor do I blush, O my God, to confess to Thee Thy mercies towards me, and to call upon Thee, who blushed not then to profess to men my blasphemies, and to bark against Thee. What profited me then my nimble wit in those sciences and all those most knotty ‘volumes, unravelled by me, without aid from human instruc- tion; seeing I erred so foully, and with such sacrilegious shamefulness, in the doctrine of piety? Or what hindrance was from slower wit to Thy little ones, since they departed not far
from Thee, that in the nest of Thy Church they might securely be fledged, and nourish the wings of charity, by the food of a ‘sound faith. O Lord our God, under the shadow of Thy wings Jet us hope; protect us, and carry us. Thou wilt carry us both when little, and even to hoar hairs wilt Thou carry us; for our firmness, when it is Thou, then is it firmness; but when our own, it is infirmity. Our good ever lives with Thee; from which when we turn away, we are turned aside. Let us now, O Lord, Teturn, that we may not be overturned, because with Thee our good lives without any decay, which good art Thou; nor need we fear, lest there be no place whither to return, because we fell from it: for through our absence, our mansion fell not— Thy eternity.
wandered from Thee into :
BOOK FIVE
St. Augustine’s twenty-ninth year. Faustus, a snare of Satan to many, made an instrument of deliverance to St. Augustine, by showing the ignorance of the Manichees on those things, wherein they professed to have divine knowl- edge. Augustine gives up all thought of going further among the Manichees: is guided to Rome and Milan, where he hears St. Ambrose, leaves the Manichees, and becomes again a catechumen in the Church Catholic.
ACCEPT THE sacrifice of my confessions from the ministry of my tongue, which Thou hast formed and stirred up to con- fess unto Thy name. Heal Thou all my bones, and let them say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee? For he who confesses to Thee doth not teach Thee what takes place within him; seeing a closed heart closes not out Thy eye, nor can man’s hard- heartedness thrust back Thy hand: for Thou dissolvest it at Thy will in pity or in vengeance, and nothing can hide itself from Thy heat. But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess Thy own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee. Thy whole creation ceaseth not, nor is silent in Thy praises; neither the spirit of man with voice directed unto Thee, nor creation animate or inanimate, by the voice of those who meditate thereon: that so our souls may from their weari- ness arise towards Thee, leaning on those things which Thou hast created, and passing on to Thyself, who madest them won- derfully; and there is refreshment and true strength. Let the restless, the godless, depart and flee from Thee; yet Thou seest them, and dividest the darkness. And behold, the universe with them is fair, though they are foul. And how have they injured Thee? or how have they disgraced Thy gov- ernment, which, from the heaven to this lowest earth, is just and perfect? For whither fled they, when they fied from Thy presence? or where dost not Thou find them? But they fled, that they might not see Thee seeing them, and, blinded, might stumble against Thee (because Thou forsakest nothing Thou hast made); that the unjust, I say, might stumble upon Thee, and justly be hurt; withdrawing themselves from thy gentle- 64 .
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eee “ness, and stumbling at Thy upri
ghtness, and falling upon their =
, own ruggedness. Ignorant, in truth, that Thou art every where, _ Whom no place encompasseth! and Thou alone art near, even
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to those that remove far from Thee. Let them’then be turned, — and seek Thee; because not as they have forsaken their Cre- ator, hast Thou forsaken Thy creation. Let them be turned and > seek Thee; and behold, Thou art there in their heart, in the heart of those that confess to Thee, and cast themselves upon Thee, and weep in Thy bosom, after all their rugged ways. Then dost Thou gently wipe away their tears, and they weep the more, and joy in weeping; even for that Thou, Lord,—not man of flesh and blood, but—Thou, Lord, who madest them, re-makest and comfortest them. But where was I, when I was seeking Thee? And Thou wert before me, but I had gone away from Thee; nor did I find myself, how much less Thee! I would lay open before my God that nine-and-twentieth year of mine age. There had then come to Carthage a certain
_ Bishop of the Manichees, Faustus by name, a great snare of
the Devil, and many were entangled by him through that lure of his smooth language: which though I did commend, yet could I separate from the truth of the things which I was ear- nest to learn: nor did I so much regard the service of oratory as the science which this Faustus, so praised among them, set before me to feed upon. Fame had before bespoken him most knowing in all valuable learning, and exquisitely skilled in the liberal sciences. And since I had read and well remembered much of the philosophers, I compared some things of theirs
_ with those long fables of the Manichees, and found the former
the more probable; even although they could only prevail so far as to make judgment of this lower world, the Lord of it they could by no means find out. For Thou art great, O Lord, and hast respect unto the humble, but the proud Thou behold- est afar off. Nor dost Thou draw near, but to the contrite in heart, nor art found by the proud, no, not though by curious skill they could number the stars and the sand, and measure the starry heavens, and track the courses of the planets.
For with their understanding and wit, which Thou bestow- edst on them, they search out these things; and much have they found out; and foretold, many years before, eclipses of those luminaries, the sun and moon,—what day and hour, and how many digits,—nor did their calculation fail; and it
came to pass as they foretold; and they wrote down the rules —
they had found out, and these are read at this day, and out of _them do others foretell in what year and month of the year,
.
66 / Saint Augustine
and what day of the month, and what hour of the day, and what part of its light, moon or sun is to be eclipsed, and so it ©
shall be, as it is foreshowed. At these things men, that know —
not this art, marvel and are astonished, and they that know it, exult, and are puffed up; and by an ungodly pride departing from Thee, and failing of Thy light, they foresee a failure of the sun’s light, which shall be, so long before, but see not their own, which is. For they search not religiously whence they have the wit, wherewith they search out this. And finding that Thou madest them, they give not themselves up to Thee, to preserve what Thou madest, nor sacrifice to Thee what they have made themselves; nor slay their own soaring imagina- tions, as fowls of the air, nor their own diving curiosities (wherewith, like the fishes of the sea, they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss), nor their own luxuriousness, as beasts of the field, that Thou, Lord, a consuming fire, mayest
burn up those dead cares of theirs, and re-create themselves
immortally.
But they knew not the way, Thy Word, by Whom Thou madest these things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense whereby they perceive what they num-
ber, and the understanding, out of which they number; or that
of Thy wisdom there is no number. But the Only Begotten is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti- fication, and was numbered among us, and paid tribute unto Cesar. They knew not this way whereby to descend to Him from themselves, and by Him ascend unto Him. They knew not this way, and deemed themselves exalted amongst the stars and shining; and behold, they fell upon the earth, and their foolish heart was darkened. They discourse many things
truly concerning the. creature; but Truth, Artificer of the crea- -
ture, they seek not piously, and therefore find Him not; or if
they find Him, knowing Him to be God, they glorify Him not —
as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their imagi- nations, and profess themselves to be wise, attributing to them- selves what is Thine; and thereby with most perverse blind- ness, study to impute to Thee what is their own, forging lies of Thee who art the Truth, and changing the glory of uncor- ruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to
birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, changing —
Thy truth into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.
Yet many truths concerning the creature retained I from
these men, and saw the reason thereof from calculations, the -
‘ an
‘The Confessions / 67
Dat ‘ er zt 7 Th
SEE Ov ye ee eee re d the visible testimonies of the stars; _
‘
ve Dey» , & ie _ succession of times,
and compared them with the saying of Manichzus, which in
his frenzy he had written most largely on these subjects; but
v _ discovered not any account of the solstices, or equinoxes, or —
the eclipses of the greater lights, nor whatever of this sort I
had learned in the books of secular philosophy. But I was com- _ manded to believe; and yet it corresponded not with what had __ been established by calculations and my own sight, but was
quite contrary. Doth then, O Lord God of truth, whoso knoweth these things, therefore please Thee? Surely unhappy is he who
_ knoweth all these, and knoweth not Thee: but happy whoso
knoweth Thee, though he know not these. And whoso knoweth both Thee and them is not the happier for them, but for Thee only, if, knowing Thee, he glorifies Thee as God, and is thank- ful, and becomes not vain in his imaginations. For as he is better off who knows how to possess a tree, and return thanks to Thee for the use thereof, although he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads, than he that can meas- ure it, and count all its boughs, and neither owns it, nor knows
or loves its Creator: so a believer, whose all this world of wealth is, and who having nothing, yet possesseth all things,
by cleaving unto Thee, whom all things serve, though he know not even the circles of the Great Bear, yet is it folly to doubt but he is in a better state than one who can measure the
_ heavens, and number the stars, and poise the elements, yet
neglecteth Thee who hast made all things in number, weight, and measure.
But yet who bade that Manichzus write on these things also, skill in which was no element of piety? For Thou hast said
- to man, Behold piety and wisdom; of which he might be igno-
— % eee
rant, though he had perfect knowledge of these things; but these things, since, knowing not, he most impudently dared to teach, he plainly could have no knowledge of piety. For it is vanity to make profession of these worldly things even when known; but confession to Thee is piety. Wherefore this wan-
_ derer to this end spake much of these things, that convicted
by those who had truly learned them, it might be manifest what understanding he had in the other abstruser things. For he would not have himself meanly thought of, but went about to persuade men, “That the Holy Ghost, the Comforter and Enricher of Thy faithful ones, was with plenary authority per-
sonally within him.” When then he was found out to have — taught falsely of the heaven and stars, and of the motions of
Se ee ee ve *. Paha
68 / Saint Augustine
_ the sun and moon (although these things pertain not to the doctrine of religion), yet his sacrilegious presumption would — become evident enough, seeing he delivered things which not only he knew not, but which were falsified, with so mad a vanity of pride, that he sought to ascribe them to himself, as to a divine person.
For when I hear any Christian brother ignorant of these things, and mistaken on them, I can patiently behold such a
man holding his opinion; nor do I see that any ignorance as to the position or character of the corporeal creation can injure him, so long as he doth not believe any thing unworthy of Thee, O Lord, the Creator of all. But it doth injure him, if he imagine it to pertain to the form of the doctrine of piety, and will yet affirm that too stiffly whereof he is ignorant. And yet is even such an infirmity, in the infancy of faith, borne by our mother Charity, till the new-born may grow up unto a perfect man, so as not to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. But in him who in such wise presumed to be the teacher, source, guide, chief of all whom he could so persuade, that whoso followed him thought that he followed, not a mere man, but Thy Holy Spirit; who would not judge that so great madness, when once convicted of having taught any thing false, were to be detested and utterly rejected? But I had not as yet clearly ascertained whether the vicissitudes of longer and shorter days and nights, and of day and night itself, with the eclipses of the greater lights, and whatever else of the kind I had read of in other books, might be explained consistently with his sayings; so that, if they by any means might, it should still remain a question to me whether it were so or no; but I might, on account of his reputed sanctity, rest my cre- dence upon his authority.
And for almost all those nine years, wherein with unsettled mind I had been their disciple, I had longed but too intensely — for the coming of this Faustus. For the rest of the sect, whom by chance I had lighted upon, when unable to solve my objec- tions about these things, still held out to me the coming of this Faustus, by conference with whom these and greater difficul- ties, if I had them, were to be most readily and abundantly cleared. When then he came, I found him a man of pleasing discourse, and who could speak fluently and in better terms, yet still but the self-same things which they were wont to say. But what availed the utmost neatness of the cup-bearer to my thirst for a more precious draught? Mine ears were already cloyed with the like, nor did they seem to me therefore better,
the soul therefore wise, because the face was comely, and the ~ language graceful. But they who held him out to me were no good judges of things; and therefore to them he appeared “understanding and wise, because in words pleasing. I felt how- _ ever that another sort of people were suspicious even of truth, and refused to assent to it, if delivered in a smooth and copi- _ ous discourse. But Thou, O my God, hadst already taught me _by wonderful and secret ways, and therefore I believe that Thou taughtest me, because it is truth, nor is there besides Thee any teacher of truth, where or whencesoever it may shine upon us. Of Thyself therefore had I now learned, that neither ought any thing to seem to be spoken truly, because eloquently; nor therefore falsely, because the utterance of the , lips is inharmonious; nor, again, therefore true, because rudely _ delivered; nor therefore false, because the language is rich; but that wisdom and folly are as wholesome and unwholesome _ food; and adorned or unadorned phrases as courtly or country " vessels; either kind of meats may be served up in either kind _ of dishes. | That greediness then, wherewith I had of so long time ex- “pected that man, was delighted verily with his action and feeling when disputing, and his choice and readiness of words to clothe his ideas. I was then delighted, and, with many _ others and more than they, did I praise and extol him. It trou- bled me, however, that in the assembly of his auditors, I was “not allowed’ to put in and communicate those questions that troubled me, in familiar converse with him. Which when I might, and with my friends began to engage his ears at such times as it was not unbecoming for him to discuss with me, and had brought forward such things as moved me; I found him first utterly ignorant of liberal sciences, save grammar, and that but in an ordinary way. But because he had read some of Tully’s Orations, a very few books of Seneca, some things _ of the poets, and such few volumes of his own sect as were _ written in Latin and neatly, and was daily practised in speak- _ ing, he acquired a certain eloquence, which proved the more _ pleasing and seductive because under the guidance of a good _ wit, and with a kind of natural gracefulness. Is it not thus, as I recall it, O Lord my God, Thou Judge of my conscience? be- fore Thee is my heart, and my remembrance, Who didst at _ that time direct me by the hidden mystery of Thy providence, and didst set those shameful errors of mine before my face, _ that I might see and hate them.
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For after it was clear that he was ignorant of those arts in which I thought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the difficulties which perplexed me (of which in- deed however ignorant, he might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For their books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars, sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with the calculations I had elsewhere read, the account given in the books of Manichzus were preferable, or at least as good. Which when I proposed to be considered and discussed, he, so far modestly, shrunk from the burthen. For he knew’ that he knew not these things, and was not ashamed to confess it. For he was not one of those talking persons, many of whom I had endured, who undertook to teach me these things, and said nothing. But this man had a heart, though not right to- wards Thee, yet neither altogether treacherous to himself. For he was not altogether ignorant of his own ignorance, nor would he rashly be entangled in a dispute, whence he couid neither retreat nor extricate himself fairly. Even for this I liked him the better. For fairer is the modesty of a candid mind, than the knowledge of those things which I desired; and such I found him, in all the more difficult and subtile questions.
My zeal for the writings of Manichzus being thus blunted, and despairing yet more of their other teachers, seeing that in divers things which perplexed me, he, so renowned among them, had so turned out; I began to engage with him in the study of that literature, on which he also was much set (and which as rhetoric-reader I was at that time teaching young students at Carthage), and to read with him, either what him- self desired to hear, or such as I judged fit for his genius. But | all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that sect, upon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that ~ I detached myself from them altogether, but as one finding - nothing better, I had settled to be content meanwhile with what I had in whatever way fallen upon, unless by chance — something more eligible should dawn upon me. Thus, that Faustus, to so many a snare of death, had now neither willing nor witting it, begun to loosen that wherein I was taken. For Thy hands, O my God, in the secret purpose of Thy provi- dence, did not forsake my soul; and out of my mother’s heart’s blood, through her tears night and day poured out, was a sac- rifice offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst deal with me by wondrous ways. Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps of
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a man are ordered by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how shall we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re-mak- ing what it made? ar _ Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome, and to teach there rather, what I was teaching at ‘Carthage. And how I was persuaded to this, I will not neglect to confess to Thee; because herein also the deepest recesses of Thy wisdom, and Thy most present mercy to us, must be considered and confessed. I did not wish therefore to go to Rome, because higher gains and higher dignities were war- ‘ranted.me by my friends who persuaded me to this (though even these things had at that time an influence over my mind), but my chief and almost only reason was, that I heard that young men studied there more peacefully, and were kept quiet under a restraint of more regular discipline; so that they did ‘not, at their pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of one whose pupils they were not, nor were even admitted without his permission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among the scholars a most disgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in _audaciously, and with gestures almost frantic, disturb all or- der which any one hath established for the good of his scholars.. Divers outrages they commit, with a wonderful stolidity, pun- ishable by law, did not custom uphold them; that custom -evincing them to be the more miserable, in that they now do as lawful what by Thy eternal law shall never be lawful; and they think they do it unpunished, whereas they are punished ‘with the very blindness whereby they do it, and suffer in- comparably worse than what they do. The manners then which, when a student, I would not make my own, I was fain -as a teacher to endure in others: and so I was well pleased to go where, all that knew it, assured me that the like was not done. But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of the living; that I might change my earthly dwelling for the salva- tion of my soul, at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn from it; and at Rome didst proffer me allure- ‘ments, whereby I might be drawn thither, by men in love with a dying life, the one doing frantic, the other promising vain, things; and, to correct my steps, didst secretly use their and “my own perverseness. For both they who disturbed my quiet were blinded with a disgraceful frenzy, and they who invited me elsewhere savoured of earth. And I, who here detested real misery, was there seeking unreal happiness. But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, -O God, yet showedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, who
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grievously bewailed my journey, and followed me as far as the — sea. But I deceived her, holding me by force, that either she might keep me back or go with me, and I feigned that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he had a fair wind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped: for this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me, preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, for the water of Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother’s eyes should be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under her face. And yet refusing to return without me, I scarcely persuaded her to stay that night in a place hard by our ship, where was ‘an Ora- tory in memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I privily departed, but she was not behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so many tears asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldest not suffer me to sail? But Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her de- sire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me what she ever asked. The wind blew and swelled our sails, and withdrew the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there, frantic with sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears, Who didst then disregard them; whilst through my desires, Thou wert hurrying me to end all desire, and the earthly part of her affection to me was chas- tened by the allotted scourge of sorrows. For she loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many; and she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her out of my absence. She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail, and by this agony there appeared in her the inheritance of Eve, with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she had brought forth. And yet, after accusing my treachery and hardhearted- ness, she betook herself again to intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted place, and I to Rome. And lo, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sick- ness, and I was going down to hell, carrying all the sins which I had committed, both against Thee, and myself, and others, many and grievous, over and above that bond of original sin, whereby we all die in Adam. For Thou hadst not forgiven me any of these things in Christ, nor had He abolished by His Cross the enmity which by my sins I had incurred with Thee. For how should He, by the crucifixion of a phantasm, which I believed Him to be? So true, then, was the death of my soul, as that of His flesh seemed to me false; and how true the death of His body, so false was the life of my soul, which did
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be ever heightening, I was parting nd departing for ever. For had I then parted hence, whither had I departed, but into fire and torments, such as my mis- deeds deserved in the truth of Thy appointment? And this she knew not, yet in absence prayed for me, But Thou, every- where present, heardest her where she was, and, where I was, hadst compassion upon me; that I should recover the health of my body, though frenzied as yet in my sacrilegious heart. For I did not in all that danger desire Thy baptism; and I was better as a boy, when I begged it of my mother’s piety, as I have before recited and confessed. But I had grown up to my own shame, and I madly scoffed at the prescripts of Thy medi- cine, who wouldest not suffer me, being such, to die a double death. With which wound had my mother’s heart been pierced, it could never be healed. For I cannot express the af- fection she bore to me, and with how much more vehement anguish she was now in labour of me in the spirit, than at her childbearing in the flesh. ~ I see not then how she should have been healed, had such a death of mine stricken through the bowels of her love. And where would have been those her so strong and unceasing prayers, unintermitting to Thee alone? But wouldest Thou, — God of mercies, despise the contrite and humbled heart of that chaste and sober widow, so frequent in almsdeeds, so full of duty and service to Thy saints, no day intermitting the obla- tion at Thine altar, twice a day, morning and evening, without any intermission, coming to Thy church, not for idle tattlings and old wives’ fables; but that she might hear Thee in Thy discourses, and Thou her in her prayers. Couldest Thou de- spise and reject from Thy aid the tears of such an one, where- with she begged of Thee not gold or silver, nor any mutable or passing good, but the salvation of her son’s soul? Thou, by whose gift she was such? Never, Lord. Yea, Thou wert at hand, and wert hearing and doing, in that order wherein Thou hadst determined before that it should be done. Far be it that Thou shouldest deceive her in Thy visions and answers, some whereof I have, some I have not mentioned, which she laid up in her faithful heart, and ever praying, urged upon Thee, as Thine own handwriting. For Thou, because Thy mercy en- dureth for ever, vouchsafest to those to whom Thou forgivest all of their debts, to become also a debtor by Thy promises. _ Thou recoveredst me then of that sickness, and healedst the son of Thy handmaid, for the time in body, that he might live, or Thee to bestow upon him a better and more abiding health.
PTE Ne 0 coe Pee pr ook ea, nd ee ee 74 +/ Saint Augustine : en ra And even then, at Rome, I joined myself to those deceiving — and deceived “holy ones”; not with their disciples only (of © which number was he, in whose house I had fallen sick and recovered); but also with those whom they call “The Elect.” For I still thought “that it was not we that sin, but that I know not what other nature sinned in us”; and it delighted my pride, to be free from blame; and when I had done any evil, not to confess I had done any, that Thou mightest heal my soul be- cause it had sinned against Thee: but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse I know not what other thing, which was with me, but which I was not. But in truth it was wholly I, and mine > impiety had divided me against myself: and that sin was the more incurable, whereby I did not judge myself a sinner; and execrable iniquity it was, that I had rather have Thee, Thee, O God Almighty, to be overcome in me to my destruction, than myself of Thee to salvation. Not as yet then hadst Thou set a watch before my mouth, and a door of safe keeping around my lips, that my heart might not turn aside to wicked speeches, to make excuses of sins, with men that work in- iquity; and, therefore, was I still united with their Elect.
But now despairing to make proficiency in that false doc- trine, even those things (with which if I should find no better, I had resolved to rest contented) I now held more laxly and carelessly. For there half arose a thought in me that those philosophers, whom they call Academics, were wiser than the rest, for that they held men ought to doubt everything, and laid down that no truth can be comprehended by man: for so, not then understanding even their meaning, I also was clearly convinced that they thought, as they are commonly reported. Yet did I freely and openly discourage that host of mine from that over-confidence which I perceived him to have in those. fables, which the books of Manichzus are full of. Yet I lived in more familiar friendship with them, than with others who were not of this heresy. Nor did I maintain it with my ancient eagerness; still my intimacy with that sect (Rome secretly harbouring many of them) made me slower to seek any other way: especially since I despaired of finding the truth, from which they had turned me aside, in Thy Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and invisible: and it seemed to me very unseemly to believe Thee to have the shape of human flesh, and to be bounded by the bodily lineaments of our members. And because, when I wished to think on my God, I knew not what to think of, but a mass of bodies (for what was not such did not seem to me to be
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ythi was the greatest, and almost only Inevitable error. _ For hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of sub- stance, and to have its own foul and hideous bulk; whether gross, which they called earth, or thin and subtile (like the body of the air), which they imagine to be some malignant mind, creeping through that earth. And because a piety, such as it was, constrained me to believe that the good God never created any evil nature, I conceived two masses, contrary to one another, both unbounded, but the evil narrower, the good ‘More expansive. And from this pestilent beginning, the other sacrilegious conceits followed on me. For when my mind endeavoured to recur to the Catholic faith, I was driven back, since that was not the Catholic faith which I thought to be so. And I seemed to myself more reverential, if I believed of Thee, my God (to whom Thy mercies confess out of my mouth), as unbounded, at least on other sides, although on that one where the mass of evil was opposed to Thee, I was constrained to confess Thee bounded; than if on all sides I should imagine ‘Thee to be bounded by the form of a human body. And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have created no evil ‘(which to me ignorant seemed not some only, but a bodily substance, because I could not conceive of mind unless as a subtile body, and that diffused in definite spaces), than to be- lieve the nature of evil, such as I conceived it, could come from Thee. Yea, and our Saviour Himself, Thy Only Begotten, I believed to have been reached forth (as it were) for our sal- vation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid substance, so as to believe nothing of Him, but what I could imagine in my van- ity. His Nature then, being such, I thought could not be born of the Virgin Mary, without being mingled with the flesh: and how that which I had so figured to myself could be min- gled, and not defiled, I saw not. I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest I should be forced to believe Him defiled by the flesh. Now will Thy spiritual ones mildly and lovingly smile upon me, if they shall read these my confes- sions. Yet such was I.
_ Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to confer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in those books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the words of one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face against the said Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he had pro-
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76 / Saint Augustine a 2 ae duced things out of the Scriptures, not easily withstood, the Manichees’ answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this an- swer they liked not to give publicly, but only to us in private. It was, that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by I know not whom, who wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith: yet themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies. But I, conceiving of things corporeal only, was mainly held down, vehemently op- pressed and in a manner suffocated by those “masses”; pant- ing under which after the breath of Thy truth, I could not breathe it pure and untainted.
I began then diligently to practise that for which I came to Rome, to teach rhetoric; and first, to gather some to my house, to whom, and through whom, I had begun to be known; when lo, I found other offences committed in Rome, to which I was not exposed in Africa. True, those “subvertings” by profligate young men were not here practised, as was told me: but on a sudden, said they, to avoid paying their master’s stipend, a number of youths plot together, and remove to another;— breakers of faith, who for love of money hold justice cheap. These also my heart hated, though not with a perfect hatred: for perchance I hated them more because I was to suffer by them, than because they did things utterly unlawful. Of a truth such are base persons, and they go a whoring from Thee, loving these fleeting mockeries of things temporal, and filthy lucre, which fouls the hand that grasps it; hugging the fleet- ing world, and despising Thee, Who abidest, and recallest, and forgivest the adulteress soul of man, when she returns to Thee. And now I hate such depraved and crooked persons, though I love them if corrigible, so as to prefer to money the learning which they acquire, and to learning, Thee, O God, the truth and fulness of assured good, and most pure peace, But then I rather for my own sake misliked them evil, than liked and wished them good for Thine.
When therefore they of Milan had sent to Rome to the prefect of the city, to furnish them with a rhetoric reader for their city, and sent him at the public expense, I made appli- cation (through those very persons, intoxicated with Mani- chan vanities, to be freed wherefrom I was to go, neither of us however knowing it) that Symmachus, then prefect of the city, would try me by setting me some subject, and so send me. To Milan I came, to Ambrose the Bishop, known to the whole world as among the best of men, Thy devout servant; Whose eloquent discourse did then plentifully dispense unto
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‘ople o fbr of. Thy het the aaee of ty oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy wine. To him was I unknow- ing led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be led to Thee. That man of God received me as a father, and showed me an Episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at first indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which I utterly despaired of in Thy Church), but as a person kind towards myself. And I listened diligently to him preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, try- ing his eloquence, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful looker-on; and I was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse, more recondite, yet in manner less winning and harmonious, than that of Faustus. Of the matter, however, there was no comparison; for the one was wandering amid Manichean delusions, the other teaching salvation most soundly. But salvation is far from sinners, such as J then stood before him; and yet was I drawing nearer by little and little, and unconsciously.
_ For though I took no pains to learn what he spake, but only to hear how he spake (for that empty care alone was left me, despairing of a way, open for man, to Thee), yet together with the words which I would choose, came also into my mind the things which I would refuse; for I could not separate them. And while I opened my heart to admit “how eloquently he spake,” there also entered “how truly he spake;” but this by degrees. For first, these things also had now begun to appear to me capable of defence; and the Catholic faith, for which I had thought nothing could be said against the Manichees’ objections, I now thought might be maintained without shame- lessness; especially after I had heard one or two places of the Old Testament resolved, and ofttimes “in a figure,” which when I understood literally, I was slain spiritually. Very many places then of those books having been explained, I now blamed my despair, in believing that no answer could be given to such as hated and scoffed at the Law and the Prophets. Yet did I not therefore then see that the Catholic way was to be held, because it also could find learned maintainers, who could at large and with some show of reason answer objec- tions; nor that what I held was therefore to be condemned, be- cause both sides could be maintained. For the Catholic cause seemed to me in such sort not vanquished, as still not as yet to 9€ victorious.
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. = “ By teow Hereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I
could by any certain proof convict the Manichees of false- hood. Could I once have conceived a spiritual substance, al their strongholds had been beaten down, and cast utterly out of my mind; but I could not, Notwithstanding, concerning the frame of this world, and the whole of nature, which the senses of the flesh can reach to, as I more and more considered and compared things, I judged the tenets of most of the phi- losophers to have been much more probable. So then after the manner of the Academics (as they are supposed) doubting of every thing, and wavering between all, I settled so far, that the Manichees were to be abandoned; judging that, even while doubting, I might not continue in that sect, to which I already preferred some of the philosophers; to which philoso- phers notwithstanding, for that they were without the saving Name of Christ, I utterly refused to commit the cure of my sick soul. I determined therefore so long to be a Catechumen in the Catholic Church, to which I had been commended by my parents, till something certain should dawn upon me, . whither I might steer my course.
BOOK SIX
-* Arrival of Monnica at Milan; her obedience to St. Ambrose, and his value for her; St. Am- brose’s habits; Augustine’s gradual abandon- ment of error; finds that he has blamed the Church Catholic wrongly; desire of absolute certainty, but struck with the contrary analogy of God’s natural providence; how shaken in his worldly pursuits; God’s guidance of his friend Alypius; Augustine debates with himself and his friends about their mode of life; his in- veterate sins, and dread of judgment.
O Tuxou, my hope from my youth, where wert Thou to me, and whither wert Thou gone? Hadst not Thou created me, and separated me from the beasts of the field, and fowls of ‘the air? Thou hadst made me wiser, yet did I walk in dark- ness, and in slippery places, and sought Thee abroad out of myself, and found not the God of my heart; and had come into the depths of the sea, and distrusted and despaired of ever finding truth. My mother had now come to me, resolute through piety, following me over sea and land, in all perils confiding in Thee. For in perils of the sea, she comforted the very mariners (by whom passengers unacquainted with the deep, use rather to be comforted when troubled), assuring them of a safe arrival, because Thou hadst by a vision assured her thereof. She found me in grievous peril, through despair of ever finding truth. But when I had discovered to her that I was now no longer a Manichee, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she was not overjoyed, as at something unexpected; although she was now assured concerning that part of my misery, for which she bewailed me as one dead, though to be reawakened by Thee, carrying me forth upon the bier of her thoughts, that Thou mightest say to the son of the widow, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise; and he should revive, and begin to speak, and Thou shouldest deliver him to his mother. Her heart then was shaken with no tumultuous exultation, when she heard that what she daily with tears desired of Thee. was already in so great part realised; in that, though I had not yet attained the truth, I was rescued from falsehood; but, as 79
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being assured, that Thou, Who hadst ental the = whol wouldest one day give the rest, most calmly, and with a heart full of confidence, she replied to me, “She believed in Christ, that before she departed this life, she should see me a Catholic believer.” Thus much to me. But to Thee, Fountain of mercies, poured she forth more copious prayers and tears, that Thou wouldest hasten Thy help, and enlighten my darkness; and she hastened the more eagerly to the Church, and hung upon the lips of Ambrose, praying for the fountain of that water, which springeth up unto life everlasting. But that man she loved as an angel of God, because she knew that by him I had been brought for the present to that doubtful state of faith I now was in, through which she anticipated most confidently that I should pass from sickness unto health, after the access, as it were, of a sharper fit, which physicians call “the crisis.”
When then my mother had once, as she was wont in Afric, brought to the Churches built in memory of the Saints, certain cakes, and bread and wine, and was forbidden by the door- keeper; so soon as she knew that the Bishop had forbidden _ this, she so piously and obediently embraced his wishes, that I myself wondered how readily she censured her own practice, rather than discuss his prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not lay siege to her spirit, nor did love of wine provoke her to hatred of the truth, as it doth too many (both men and women), who revolt at a lesson of sobriety, as men well-drunk at a draught mingled with water. But she, when she had brought her basket with the accustomed festival-food, to be but tasted by herself, and then given away, never joined there- with more than one small cup of wine, diluted according to her own abstemious habits, which for courtesy she would taste. And if there were many churches of the departed saints that were to be honoured in that manner, she still carried round that same one cup, to be used every where; and this, though not only made very watery, but unpleasantly heated with car- rying about, she would distribute to those about her by small sips; for she sought there devotion, not pleasure. So soon, then, as she found this custom to be forbidden by that famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those that would use it soberly, lest so an occasion of excess might be given to the drunken; and for these, as it were, anniversary funera solemnities did much resemble the superstition of the Gentiles she most willingly forbare it: and for a basket filled with fruit: of the earth, she had learned to bring to the Churches of the martyrs a breast filled with more purified petitions, and to give
4
_ what she could to the poor; that so the communication of th _ Lord’s Body might be there rightly celebrated, where, afte: _ the example of His Passion, the martyrs had been sacrificec and crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God, anc thus thinks my heart of it in Thy sight, that perhaps she woulc not so readily have yielded to the cutting off of this custom had it been forbidden by another, whom she loved not a: _ Ambrose, whom, for my salvation, she loved most entirely | and he her again, for her most religious conversation, whereby} _ in good works, so fervent in spirit, she was constant at church so that, when he saw me, he often burst forth into her praises congratulating me that I had such a mother; not knowing what a son she had in me, who doubted of all these things and imagined the way to life could not be found out.
Nor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou wouldest helf me; but my spirit was wholly intent on learning, and restles: to dispute. And Ambrose himself, as the world counts happy. I esteemed a happy man, whom personages so great held ir such honour; only his celibacy seemed to me a painful course. But what hope he bore within him, what struggles he had against the temptations which beset his very excellencies, 01 what comfort in adversities, and what sweet joys Thy Bread had for the hidden mouth of his spirit, when chewing the cud thereof, I neither could conjecture, nor had experienced. Nor did he know the tides of my feelings, or the abyss of my danger. For I could not ask of him, what I would as I would, being shut out both from his ear and speech by multitudes of busy people, whose weaknesses he served. With whom when he was not taken up (which was but a little time), he was either refreshing his body with the sustenance absolutely necessary, or his mind with reading. But when he was reading, his eye _. glided over the pages, and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were at rest. Ofttimes when we had come : (for no man was forbidden to enter, nor was it his wont that 4 any who came should be announced to him), we saw him thus _ reading to himself, and never otherwise; and having long sat silent (for who durst intrude on one so intent?) we were fain
to depart, conjecturing that in the small interval which he ob-
tained, free from the din of others’ business, for the recruiting of his mind, he was loth to be taken off; and perchance he dreaded lest if the author he read should deliver any thing ob- scurely, some attentive or perplexed hearer should desire him __ to expound it, or to discuss some of the harder questions; so that his time being thus spent, he could not turn over so many
oR ON
TCI Berea. came ete
_
ee
eh Oa gm Y.
.- ? >» . = 7 , = vin em See Ogi yey we ee ae 82 / Saint Augustine out
volumes as he desired; although the preserving of his voice (which a very little speaking would weaken) might be the truer reason for his reading to himself. But with what intent soever he did it, certainly in such a man it was good.
I however certainly had no opportunity of enquiring what I wished of that so holy oracle of Thine, his breast, unless the thing might be answered briefly. But those tides in me, to be poured out to him, required his full leisure, and never found it. I heard him indeed every Lord’s day, rightly expounding the Word of truth among the people; and I was more and more convinced that all the knots of those crafty calumnies, which those our deceivers had knit against the Divine Books, could be unravelled. But when I understood withal, that “man cre- ated by Thee, after Thine own image,” was not so understood by Thy spiritual sons, whom of the Catholic Mother Thou hast born again through grace, as though they believed and con- ceived of Thee as bounded by human shape (although what a spiritual substance should be I had not even a faint or shadowy notion) ; yet, with joy I blushed at having so many years barked not against the Catholic faith, but against the fictions of carnal imaginations. For so rash and impious had I been, that what I ought by enquiring to have learned, I had pronounced on, con- demning. For Thou, Most High, and most near; most secret, and most present; Who hast not limbs some larger, some smaller, but art wholly every where, and no where in space, art not of such corporeal shape, yet hast Thou made man after Thine own image; and behold, from head to foot is he con- tained in space.
Ignorant then how this Thy image should subsist, I should have knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was to be be- lieved, not insultingly opposed it, as if believed. Doubt, then, what to hold for certain, the more sharply gnawed my heart, the more ashamed I was, that so long deluded and deceived by — the promise of certainties, I had with childish error and vehem- ence, prated of so many uncertainties. For that they were false- hoods became clear to me later. However I was certain that they were uncertain, and that I had formerly accounted them certain, when with a blind contentiousness, I accused Thy Catholic Church, whom I now discovered, not indeed as yet to teach truly, but at least not to teach that for which I had grievously censured her. So I was confounded, and converted: and I joyed, O my God, that the One Only Church, the body of Thine Only Son (wherein the name of Christ had been put upon me as an infant), had no taste for infantine conceits; nor
ot roe «e
_ fine Thee, the Creator of all, in space, however great and large,
‘ t Me g ce Ae maintained any tenet which should co .
m-
yet bounded every where by the limits of a human form.
I joyed also that the old Scriptures of the law and the Prophets were laid before me, not now to be perused with that eye to which before they seemed absurd, when I reviled Thy holy ones for so thinking, whereas indeed they thought not so: and with joy I heard Ambrose in his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently recommend this text for a rule, The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life; whilst he drew aside the mystic veil, laying open spiritually what, according to the letter, seemed to teach something unsound; teaching herein nothing that offended me, though he taught what I knew not as yet, whether it were true. For I kept my heart from assent- ing to any thing, fearing to fall headlong; but by hanging in suspense I was the worse killed. For I wished to be as assured of the things I saw not, as I was that seven and three are ten. For I was not so mad as to think that even this could not be comprehended; but I desired to have other things as clear as this, whether things corporeal, which were not present to my senses, or spiritual, whereof I knew not how to conceive, ex- cept corporeally. And by believing might I have been cured, that so the eyesight of my soul being cleared, might in some way be directed to Thy truth, which abideth always, and in no part faileth. But as it happens that one who has tried a bad physician, fears to trust himself with a good one, so was it with the health of my soul, which could not be healed but by be- lieving, and lest it should believe falsehoods, refused to be cured; resisting Thy hands, Who hast prepared the medicines of faith, and hast applied them to the diseases of the whole world, and given unto them so great authority.
Being led, however, from this to prefer the Catholic doc- trine, I felt that her proceeding was more unassuming and honest, in that she required to be believed things not demon- strated (whether it was that they could in themselves be dem- onstrated but not to certain persons, or could not at all be), whereas among the Manichees our credulity was mocked by a promise of certain knowledge, and then so many most fabu- lous and absurd things were imposed to be believed, because they could not be demonstrated. Then Thou, O Lord, little by little with most tender and most merciful hand, touching and composing my heart, didst persuade me—considering what innumerable things I believed, which I saw not, nor was present while they were done, as so many things in secular history, so
a gr ‘ — = 7 es See es RNS T} 84 / Saint Augustine .
many reports of places and of cities, which I had not seen; so
_many of friends, so many of physicians, so many continually of other men, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an assur- ance I believed of what parents I was born, which I could not know, had I not believed upon hearsay—considering all this, Thou didst persuade me, that not they who believed Thy Books (which Thou hast established in so great authority among al- most all nations), but they who believed them not, were to be blamed; and that they were not to be heard, who should say to me, “How knowest thou those Scriptures to have been im- parted unto mankind by the Spirit of the one true and most true God?” For this very thing was of all most to be believed, since no contentiousness of blasphemous questionings, of all that multitude which I had read in the self-contradicting philos- ophers, could wring this belief from me, “That Thou art” what- soever Thou wert (what I knew not), and “That the govern- ment of human things belongs to Thee.”
This I believed, sometimes more strongly, more weakly other-whiles; yet I ever believed both that Thou wert, and hadst a care of us; though I was ignorant, both what was to be thought of Thy substance, and what way led or led back to Thee. Since then we were too weak by abstract reasonings to find out truth: and for this very cause needed the authority of Holy Writ; I had now begun to believe that Thou wouldest never have given such excellency of authority to that Writ in all lands, hadst Thou not willed thereby to be believed in, thereby sought. For now what things, sounding strangely in the Scripture, were wont to offend me, having heard divers of them expounded satisfactorily, I referred to the depth of the mysteries, and its authority appeared to me the more venerable, and more worthy of religious credence, in that, while it lay open to all to read, it reserved the majesty of its mysteries within its profounder meaning, stooping to all in the great plainness of its words and lowliness of its style, yet calling forth the intensest application of such as are not light of heart; that so it might receive all in its open bosom, and through narrow passages waft over towards Thee some few, yet many more than if it stood not aloft on such a height of authority, nor drew multitudes within its bosom by its holy lowliness. These things I thought on, and ‘Thou wert with me; I sighed, and Thou heardest me; I wavered, and Thou didst guide me; I wandered through the broad way of the world, and Thou didst not forsake me.
I panted after honours, gains, marriage; and Thou deridedst
Se Se Tee) ee emma °
In these desires I underwent most bitter crosses, Thou being
‘the more gracious, the less Thou sutferedst aught to grow sweet — _ to me, which was not Thou. Behold my heart, O Lord, who
wouldest I should remember all this, and confess to Thee. Let my soul cleave unto Thee, now that Thou hast freed it from that fast-holding birdlime of death. How wretched was it! and Thou didst irritate the feeling of its wound, that forsaking all else, it might be converted unto Thee, who art above all, and without whom all things would be nothing; be converted, and
7 be healed. How miserable was I then, and how didst Thou deal
with me, to make me feel my misery on that day, when I was preparing to recite a panegyric of the Emperor, wherein I was to utter many a lie, and lying, was to be applauded by those who knew I lied, and my heart was panting with these anxie- ties, and boiling with the feverishness of consuming thoughts. For, passing through one of the streets of Milan, I observed a poor beggar, then, I suppose, with a full belly, joking and joy- ous: and I sighed, and spoke to the friends around me, of the many sorrows of our frenzies; for that by all such efforts of ours, as those wherein I then toiled dragging along, under the goading of desire, the burthen of my own wretchedness, and, by dragging, augmenting it, we yet looked to arrive only at that © very joyousness whither that beggar-man had arrived before us, who should never perchance attain it. For what he had ob- tained by means of a few begged pence, the same was I plot- ting for by many a toilsome turning and winding; the joy of a temporary felicity. For he verily had not the true joy; but yet I
_ with those my ambitious designs was seeking one much less
true. And certainly he was joyous, I anxious; he void of care, I full of fears. But should any ask me, had I rather be merry or fearful? I would answer merry. Again, if he asked had I rather be such as he was, or what I then was? I should choose to be myself, though worn with cares and fears; but out of wrong judgment; for, was it the truth? For I ought not to prefer my- self to him, because more learned than he, seeing I had no joy therein, but sought to please men by it; and that not to instruct, but simply to please. Wherefore also Thou didst break my bones with the staff of Thy correction.
Away with those then from my soul who say to her, “It makes a difference whence a man’s joy is. That beggar-man
, joyed in drunkenness; Thou desiredst to joy in glory.” What
glory, Lord? That which is not in Thee. For even as his was no
true joy, so was that no true glory: and it overthrew my soul
;
4
more, He that very night should digest his drunkenness; but I
Oey Lae ee eee ee 5 -
86 / Saint Augustine
had slept and risen again with mine, and was to sleep again, — and again to rise with it, how many days, Thou, God, knowest. But “it doth make a difference whence a man’s joy is.” I know it, and the joy of a faithful hope lieth incomparably beyond such vanity. Yea, and so was he then beyond me: for he verily was the happier; not only for that he was thoroughly drenched in mirth, I disembowelled with cares: but he, by fair wishes, had gotten wine; I, by lying, was seeking for empty, swelling praise. Much to this purpose said I then to my friends: and I often marked in them how it fared with me; and I found it went ill with me, and grieved, and doubled that very ill; and if any prosperity smiled on me, I was loth to catch at it, for al- most before I could grasp it, it flew away.
These things we, who were living as friends together, be- moaned together, but chiefly and most familiarly did I speak thereof with Alypius and Nebridius, of whom Alypius was born in the same town with me, of persons of chief rank there, but younger than I. For he had studied under me, both when I first lectured in our town, and afterwards at Carthage, and he loved me much, because I seemed to him kind, and learned; and I him, for his great towardliness to virtue, which was eminent enough in one of no greater years. Yet the whirlpool of Car- thaginian habits (amongst whom those idle spectacles are hotly followed) had drawn him into the madness of the Circus. But while he was miserably tossed therein, and I, professing rhet- oric there, had a public school, as yet he used not my teaching, by reason of some unkindness risen betwixt his father and me. I had found then how deadly he doted upon the Circus, and was deeply grieved that he seemed likely, nay, or had thrown away so great promise: yet had I no means of advising or with a sort of constraint reclaiming him, either by the kindness of a friend, or the authority of a master. For I supposed that he thought of me as did his father; but he was not such; laying aside then his father’s mind in that matter, he began to greet me, come sometimes into my lecture-room, hear a little, and be gone.
I however had forgotten to deal with him, that he should not, through a blind and headlong desire of vain pastimes, undo so good a wit. But Thou, O Lord, who guidest the course of all Thou hast created, hadst not forgotten him, who was one day to be among Thy children, Priest and Dispenser of Thy Sacra- ment; and that his amendment might plainly be attributed to Thyself, Thou effectedst it through me, but unknowingly. For as one day I sat in my accustomed place, with my scholars be-
oe
fore me, he entered, ie me, sat in and vaplled, his —
“mind to what I then handled. I had by chance a passage in
mes
hand, which while I was explaining, a likeness from the Cir-
_ censian races occurred to me, as likely to make what I would |
* +
convey pleasanter and plainer, seasoned with biting mockery of those whom that madness had enthralled; God, Thou know- est that I then thought not of curing Alypius of that infection. But he took it wholly to himself, and thought that I said it simply for his sake. And whence another would have taken occasion of offence with me, that right-minded youth took as a ground of being offended at himself, and loving me more fer-
_vently. For Thou hadst said it long ago, and put it into Thy
book, Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. But I had not rebuked him, but Thou, who employest all, knowing or not knowing, in that order which Thyself knowest (and that order is just), didst of my heart and tongue make burning coals, by which to set on fire the hopeful mind, thus languishing, and so cure it. Let him be silent in Thy praises, who considers not Thy mercies, which confess unto Thee out of my inmost soul. For he upon that speech burst out of that pit so deep, wherein he
_ was wilfully plunged, and was blinded with its wretched pas- _ times; and he shook his mind with a strong self-command;
whereupon all the filths of the Circensian pastimes flew off from him, nor came he again thither. Upon this, he prevailed with his unwilling father that he might be my scholar. He gave
_ Way, and gave in. And Alypius beginning to be my hearer
.,
again, was involved in the same superstition with me, loving in
_ the Manichees that show of continency which he supposed true
and unfeigned. Whereas it was a senseless and seducing con- tinency, ensnaring precious souls, unable as yet to reach the depth of virtue, yet readily beguiled with the surface of what was but a shadowy and counterfeit virtue.
He, not forsaking that secular course which his parents had charmed him to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study law, and there he was carried away incredibly with an incred- ible eagerness after the shows of gladiators. For being utterly averse to and detesting such spectacles, he was one day by chance met by divers of his acquaintance and fellow-students coming from dinner, and they with a familiar violence haled him, vehemently refusing and resisting, into the Amphithea- tre, during these cruel and deadly shows, he thus protesting: “Though you hale my body to that place, and there set me, can you force me also to turn my mind or my eyes to those _ shows? I shall then be absent while present, and so shall over-
88 / Saint Augustine
come both you and them.” They hearing this, led him on nevertheless, desirous perchance to try that very thing, whether he could do as he said. When they were come thither, and had taken their places as they could, the whole place kindled with that savage pastime. But he, closing the passage of his eyes, forbade his mind to range abroad after such evil; and would he had stopped his ears also! For in the fight, when one fell, a mighty cry of the whole people striking him strongly, over- come by curiosity, and as if prepared to despise and be superior to it whatsoever it were, even when seen, he opened his eyes, and was stricken with a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he desired to behold, was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he upon whose fall that mighty noise was raised, which entered through his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and beating down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker, in that it had presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on Thee. For so soon as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down savageness; nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drinking in frenzy, unawares, and was delighted with that guilty fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. Nor was he now the man he came, but one of the throng he came unto, yea, a true associate of theirs that brought him thither. Why say more? He beheld, shouted, kin- dled, carried thence with him the madness which should goad him to return not only with them who first drew him thither, but also before them, yea and to draw in others. Yet thence didst Thou with a most strong and most merciful hand pluck him, and taughtest him to have confidence not in himself, but in Thee. But this was after.
But this was already being laid up in his memory to be a medicine hereafter. So was that also, that when he was yet studying under me at Carthage, and was thinking over at mid- day in the market-place what he was to say by heart (as schol- ars use to practise), Thou sufferedst him to be apprehended by the officers of the market-place for a thief. For no other cause, I deem, didst Thou, our God, suffer it, but that he who was hereafter to prove so great a man, should already begin to learn that in judging of causes, man was not readily to be con- demned by man out of a rash credulity. For as he was walking up and down by himself before the judgment-seat, with his note-book and pen, lo, a young man, a lawyer, the real thief, privily bringing a hatchet, got in, unperceived by Alypius, as far as the leaden gratings which fence in the silversmiths’ shops, and began to cut away the lead. But the noise of the
, Peete tS hatchet being heard, the silversmiths ‘stir, and sent to apprehend whomever they should find. But he hearing their voices, ran away, leaving his hatchet, fearing to be taken with it. Alypius now, who had not seen him enter, was aware of his going, and saw with what speed he made away. And being desirous to know the matter, entered the place; where finding the hatchet, he was standing, wondering and considering it, when behold, those that had been sent, find him alone with the hatchet in his hand, the noise whereof had startled and brought them thither. They seize him, hale him away, and gathering the dwellers in the market-place together, boast of having taken a notorious thief, and so he was being led away to be taken before the judge.
But thus far was Alypius to be instructed. For forthwith, O Lord, Thou succouredst his innocency, whereof Thou alone wert witness. For as he was being led either to prison or to punishment, a certain architect met them, who had the chief charge of the public buildings. Glad they were to meet him _ especially, by whom they were wont to be suspected of steal- ing the goods lost out of the market-place, as though to show _him at last by whom these thefts were committed. He, how-
ever, had divers times seen Alypius at a certain senator’s house, to whom he often went to pay his respects; and recog- -nising him immediately, took him aside by the hand, and en- quiring the occasion of so great a calamity, heard the whole matter, and bade all present, amid much uproar and threats, to go with him. So they came to the house of the young man who had done the deed. There, before the door, was a boy so young as to be likely, not apprehending any harm to his mas- ter, to disclose the whole. For he had attended his master to the market-place. Whom so soon as Alypius remembered, he told the architect: and he showing the hatchet to the boy, asked him “Whose that was?” “Ours,” quoth he presently: and being further questioned, he discovered every thing. Thus the crime being transferred to that house, and the multitude ashamed, which had begun to insult over Alypius, he who was to be a dispenser of Thy Word, and an examiner of many causes in Thy Church, went away better experienced and _ instructed. Him then I had found at Rome, and he clave to me by a most strong tie, and went with me to Milan, both that he might not leave me, and might practise something of the law he had studied, more to please his parents than himself. There he had thrice sat as Assessor, with an uncorruptness much
43
ie MeN a er id ee a 90 / Saint Augustine San ae
wondered at by others, he wondering at others rather who © could prefer gold to honesty. His character was tried besides, not only with the bait of covetousness, but with the goad of fear. At Rome he was Assessor to the count of the Italian Treasury. inere was at that time a very powerful senator, to whose favours many stood indebted, many much feared. He would needs, by his usual power, have a thing allowed him which by the laws was unallowed. Alypius resisted it: a bribe was promised; with all his heart he scorned it: threats were held out; he trampled upon them: all wondering at so un- wonted a spirit, which neither desired the friendship, nor feared the enmity of one so great and so mightily renowned for innumerable means of doing good or evil. And the very Judge, whose councillor Alypius was, although also unwilling it should be, yet did not openly refuse, but put the matter off upon Alypius, alleging that he would not allow him to do it: for in truth had the Judge done it, Alypius would have de- cided otherwise. With this one thing in the way of learning was he well-nigh seduced, that he might have books copied for him at Pretorian prices, but consulting justice, he altered his deliberation for the better; esteeming equity whereby he was hindered more gainful than the power whereby he were allowed. These are slight things, but he that is faithful in little, is faithful also in much. Nor can that any how be void, which proceeded out of the mouth of Thy Truth: If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous Mammon, who will commit to your trust true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? He being such, did at that time cleave to me, and with me wavered in purpose, what course of life was to be taken. Nebridius also, who having left his native country near Carthage, yea and Carthage itself, where he had much lived, leaving his excellent family-estate and house, and a mother © behind, who was not to follow him, had come to Milan, for no other reason but that with me he might live in a most ardent search after truth and wisdom. Like me he sighed, like me he wavered, an ardent searcher after true life, and a most acute examiner of the most difficult questions. Thus were there the mouths of three indigent persons, sighing out their wants one to another, and waiting upon Thee that Thou mightest give them their meat in due season. And in all the bitterness which by Thy mercy followed our worldly affairs, as we looked towards the end, why we should suffer all this, darkness met us; and we turned away groaning, and saying, How long shall
these | them n _ forsaken, we might embrace.
Ber Cor fessioris 91 3
4
gs be? This too we often said; and so saying forsook — t, for as yet there dawned nothing certain, which these
_) ee
a Oo
And I, viewing and reviewing things, most wondered at the
length of time from that my nineteenth year, wherein I had _ begun to kindle with the desire of wisdom, settling when I _had found her, to abandon all the empty hopes and lying _ frenzies of vain desires. And lo, I was now in my thirtieth year,
+
sticking in the same mire, greedy of enjoying things present, which passed away and wasted my soul; while I said to my- self, “Tomorrow I shall find it; it will appear manifestly and I shall grasp it; lo, Faustus the Manichee will come, and clear every thing! O you great men, ye Academicians, it is true then, that no certainty can be attained for the ordering of life! Nay, let us search the more diligently, and despair not. Lo, things in
_ the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which some-
ne to" ©
times seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken, and ina good sense. I will take my stand, where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be found out. But where shall it be sought or when? Ambrose has no leisure; we have no leisure to read; where shall we find even the books? Whence, or when procure them? from whom borrow them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be ordered for the
health of our soul. Great hope has dawned; the Catholic Faith
teaches not what we thought, and vainly accused it of; her
_ instructed members hold it profane to believe God to be - bounded by the figure of a human body: and do we doubt to
ly
‘knock,’ that the rest ‘may be opened’? The forenoons our scholars take up; what do we during the rest? Why not this? But when then pay we court to our great friends, whose fa-
_ your we need? When compose what we may sell to scholars?
When refresh ourselves, unbending our minds from this in-
tenseness of care? “Perish every thing, dismiss we these empty vanities, and
betake ourselves to the one search for truth! Life is vain, death _ uncertain; if it steals upon us on a sudden, in what state shall _ we depart hence? and where shall we learn what here we have
neglected? and shall we not rather suffer the punishment of this negligence? What, if death itself cut off and end all care
and feeling? Then must this be ascertained. But God forbid this! It is no vain and empty thing, that the excellent dignity
of the authority of the Christian Faith hath overspread the whole world. Never would such and so great things be by God | wrought for us, if with the death of the body the life of the
a
al is EF er >) ap.” Heer. _ lev} 7 eer nero
92 / Saint Augustine
soul came to an end. Wherefore delay then to abandon worldly hopes, and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the blessed life? But wait! Even those things are pleasant; they have some, and no small sweetness. We must not lightly aban- don them, for it were a shame to return again to them. See, it is no great matter now to obtain some station, and then what should we more wish for? We have store of powerful friends; if nothing else offer, and we be in much haste, at least a presidentship may be given us: and a wife with some money, that she increase not our charges: and this shall be the bound of desire. Many great men, and most worthy of imita- tion, have given themselves to the study of wisdom in the state of marriage.”
While I went over these things, and these winds shifted and drove my heart this way and that, time passed on, but I de- layed to turn to the Lord; and from day to day deferred to live in Thee, and deferred not daily to die in myself. Loving a happy life, I feared it in its own abode, and sought it, by flee- ing from it. I thought I should be too miserable, unless folded in female arms; and of the medicine of Thy mercy to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it. As for continency, I supposed it to be in our own power (though in myself I did not find that power), being so foolish as not to know what is written, None can be continent unless Thou give it; and that Thou wouldest give it, if with inward groanings I did knock at Thine ears, and with a settled faith did cast my care on Thee.
Alypius indeed kept me from marrying; alleging that so could we by no means with undistracted leisure live together in the love of wisdom, as we had long desired. For himself was even then most pure in this point, so that it was wonder- — ful; and that the more, since in the outset of his youth he had entered into that course, but had not stuck fast therein; rather — had he felt remorse and revolting at it, living thenceforth until now most continently. But I opposed him with the examples of those who as married men had cherished wisdom, and served God acceptably, and retained their friends, and loved them. faithfully. Of whose greatness of spirit I was far short; and bound with the disease of the flesh, and its deadly sweetness, drew along my chain, dreading to be loosed, and as if my wound had been fretted, put back his good persuasions, as it were the hand of one that would unchain me. Moreover, by me did the serpent speak unto Alypius himself, by my tongue weaving and laying in his path pleasurable snares, wherein
® For tats he ‘veniiored that fH Pim Ee esteemed es r slightly, should stick so fast in the birdlime of that pleasure, as _ to protest (so oft as we discussed it) that I could never lead a _ single life; and urged in my defence when I saw him wonder, that there was great difference between his momentary and scarce-remembered knowledge of that life, which so he might easily despise, and my continued acquaintance whereto if but the honourable name of marriage were added, he ought not to wonder why I could not contemn that course; he began also to desire to be married; not as overcome with desire of such pleasure, but out of curiosity. For he would fain know, he said, what that should be, without which my life, to him so pleasing, would to me seem not life but a punishment. For his mind, free from that chain, was amazed at my thraldom; and through that amazement was going on to a desire of trying it, _ thence to the trial itself, and thence perhaps to sink into that bondage whereat he wondered, seeing he was willing to make _ acovenant with death; and he that loves danger, shall fall into _ it. For whatever honour there be in the office of well-ordering _ a married life, and a family, moved us but slightly. But me for the most part the habit of satisfying an insatiable appetite tor- _ mented, while it held me captive; him, an admiring wonder _ was leading captive. So were we, until Thou, O Most High, not forsaking our dust, commiserating us miserable, didst come to our help, by wondrous and secret ways. _ Continual effort was made to have me married. I wooed, I _ was promised, chiefly through my mother’s pains, that so once _ married, the health-giving baptism might cleanse me, towards _which she rejoiced that I was being daily fitted, and observed _ that her prayers, and Thy promises, were being fulfilled in my faith. At which time verily, both at my request and her own longing, with strong cries of heart she daily begged of Thee, that Thou wouldest by a vision discover unto her something concerning my future marriage; Thou never wouldest. She saw indeed certain vain and fantastic things, such as the _ energy of the human spirit, busied thereon, brought together; _and these she told me of, not with that confidence she was - wont, when Thou showedst her any thing, but slighting them. For she could, she said, through a certain feeling, which in _ words she could not express, discern betwixt Thy revelations, ' and the dreams of her own soul. Yet the matter was pressed on, and a maiden asked in marriage, two years under the fit _ age; and, as pleasing, was waited for.
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And many of us friends conferring about, and detesting the - turbulent turmoils of human life, had debated and now almost — resolved on living apart from business and the bustle of men; and this was to be thus obtained; we were to bring whatever we might severally procure, and make one household of all; so that through the truth of our friendship nothing should be-— long especially to any; but the whole thus derived from all, should as a whole belong to each, and all to all. We thought there might be some ten persons in this society; some of whom were very rich, especially Romanianus our townsman, from childhood a very familiar friend of mine, whom the grevious perplexities of his affairs had brought up to court; who was the most earnest for this project; and therein was his voice of great weight, because his ample estate far exceeded any of the rest. We had settled also that two annual officers, as it were should provide all things necessary, the rest being undisturbed. But when we began to consider whether the wives, which some of us already had, others hoped to have, would allow this, all that plan, which was being so well moulded, fell to pieces in our hands, was utterly dashed and cast aside. Thence we betook us to sighs, and groans, and our steps to follow the broad and beaten ways of the world; for many thoughts were in our heart, but Thy counsel standeth for ever. Out of which counsel Thou didst deride ours, and preparedst Thine own; purposing to give us meat in due season, and to fill our souls with blessing.
Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my concu- bine being torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Afric, vowing unto Thee never to know any other man, leaving with me my son by her. But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, impatient of delay, inasmuch as not till after two years was I to obtain her I sought not being so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust, procured another, though no wife, that so by the servi- tude of an enduring custom, the disease of my soul might be kept up and carried on in its vigour, or even augmented, into the dominion of marriage. Nor was that my wound cured, which had been made by the cutting away of the former, but after inflammation and most acute pain, it mortified, and my pains became less acute, but more desperate.
To Thee be praise, glory to Thee, Fountain of mercies. I was becoming more miserable, and Thou nearer. Thy right hand was continually ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to wash me thoroughly, and I knew it not; nor did anything
_—
e bac “from a yet eee gulf of ian pectin but the | of death, and of Thy judgment to come; which amid all © my changes, never departed from my breast. And in my dis-
putes with my friends Alypius and Nebridius of the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus had in my mind won the
palm, had I not believed that after death there remained a life for the soul, and places of requital according to men’s deserts,
_ which Epicurus would not believe. And I asked, “were we im-
mortal, and to live in perpetual bodily pleasure, without fear of
_ losing it, why should we not be happy, or what else should we
seek?” not knowing that great misery was involved in this very
_ thing, that, being thus sunk and blinded, I could not discern
that light of excellence.and beauty, to be embraced for its own
_ sake, which the eye of flesh cannot see, and is seen by the in- _ner man. Nor did I, unhappy, consider from what source it _ sprung, that even on these things, foul as they were I with _ pleasure discoursed with my friends, nor could I, even accord- _ ing to the notions I then had of happiness, be happy without
a ae ee
friends, amid what abundance soever of carnal pleasures. And yet these friends I loved for themselves only, and I felt that I was beloved of them again for myself only.
O crooked paths! Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped,
_ by forsaking Thee, to gain some better thing! Turned it hath,
and turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, yet all was painful; and Thou alone rest. And behold, Thou art at hand, ©
_and deliverest us from our wretched wanderings, and placest
_ us in Thy way, and dost comfort us, and say, “Run; I will carry
_ you; yea I will bring you through; there also will I carry you.”
me 7 ae -s
BOOK SEVEN
Augustine’s thirty-first year; gradually extri- cated from his errors, but still with material con- ceptions of God; much aided by an argument of Nebridius; sees that the cause of sin lies in free- will, rejects the Manichean heresy, but cannot altogether embrace the doctrine of the Church; recovered from the belief in Astrology, but per- plexed about the origin of evil; is led to’ find in the Platonists the seeds of the Doctrine of the Divinity of the Worv, but not of His humilia- tion; but, not knowing Christ to be the Mediator, remains estranged from Him; all his doubts re- moved by the study of Holy Scripture, especially Si. Paul.
DECEASED was now that my evil and abominable youth, and I was passing into early manhood; the more defiled by vain things as I grew in years, who could not imagine any substance, but such as is wont to be seen with these eyes. I thought not of Thee, O God, under the figure of a human body; since I began to hear aught of wisdom, I always avoided this; and rejoiced to have found the same in the faith of our spiritual mother, Thy Catholic Church. But what else to conceive Thee I knew not. And I, a man, and such a man, sought to conceive of Thee the sovereign, only, true God; and I did in my inmost soul believe that Thou wert incorruptible, and uninjurable, and unchange- able; because though not knowing whence or how, yet I saw plainly, and was sure, that that which may be corrupted must be inferior to that which cannot; what could not be injured I preferred unhesitatingly to what could receive injury; the unchangeable to things subject to change. My heart passion- ately cried out against all my phantoms, and with this one blow I sought to beat away from the eye of my mind all that unclean troop which buzzed around it. And lo, being scarce put off, in the twinkling of an eye they gathered again thick about me, flew against my face, and beclouded it; so that though not under the form of the human body, yet was I constrained to
conceive of Thee (that incorruptible, uninjurable, and un- 96
esr ce Sl pele ve 4 ci J able, which I preferred before the corruptible, ms jurable, and changeable) as being in space, whether infused _into the world, or diffused infinitely without it. Because what- _soever I conceived, deprived of this space, seemed to me nothing, yea altogether nothing, not even a void, as if a body _were taken out of its place, and the place should remain empty of any body at all, of earth and water, air and heaven, yet would it remain a void place, as it were a spacious nothing. I then being thus gross-hearted, nor clear even to myself, _ whatsoever was not extended over certain spaces, nor diffused, nor condensed, nor swelled out, or did not or could not re- ceive some of these dimensions, I thought to be altogether nothing. For over such forms as my eyes are wont to range, did my heart then range: nor yet did I see that this same no- tion of the mind, whereby I formed those very images, was not of this sort, and yet it could not have formed them, had ‘not itself been some great thing. So also did I endeavour to conceive of Thee, Life of my life, as vast, through infinite " spaces on every side penetrating the whole mass of the uni- _ verse, and beyond it, every way, through unmeasurable bound- less spaces; so that the earth should have Thee, the heaven have Thee, all things have Thee, and they be bounded in Thee, “and Thou bounded nowhere. For that as the body of this air _ which is above the earth, hindereth not the light of the sun from passing through it, penetrating it, not by bursting or by cutting, but by filling it wholly: so I thought the body not of heaven, air, and sea only, but of the earth too, pervious to Thee, so that in all its parts, the greatest as the smallest, it should admit Thy presence, by a secret inspiration, within and without, directing all things which Thou hast created. So I guessed, only as unable to conceive aught else, for it was false. For thus should a greater part of the earth contain a greater _ portion of Thee, and a less, a lesser: and all things should in ~ such sort be full of Thee, that the body of an elephant should _ contain more of Thee, than that of a sparrow, by how much larger it is, and takes up more room; and thus shouldest Thou _ make the several portions of Thyself present unto the several portions of the world, in fragments, large to the large, petty to the petty. But such art not Thou. But not as yet hadst Thou enlightened my darkness. It was enough for me, Lord, to oppose to those deceived - deceivers, and dumb praters, since Thy word sounded not out
_ of them;—that was enough which long ago, while we were yet . r.
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ee PEGE,
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at Carthage, Nebridius used to propound, at which all we that — heard it were staggered: “That said nation of darkness, which © the Manichees are wont to set as an opposing mass over against Thee, what could it have done unto Thee, hadst Thou refused to fight with it? For, if they answered, ‘it would have done Thee some hurt,’ then shouldest Thou be subject to in- jury and corruption: but if ‘it could do Thee no hurt,’ then was no reason brought for Thy fighting with it; and fighting in such wise, as that a certain portion or member of Thee, or offspring of Thy very Substance, should be mingled with opposed pow- ers, and natures not created by Thee, and be by them so far corrupted and changed to the worse, as to be turned from hap- piness into misery, and need assistance, whereby it might be extricated and purified; and that this offspring of Thy Sub- stance was the soul, which being enthralled, defiled, corrupted, Thy Word, free, pure, and whole, might relieve; that Word itself being still corruptible because it was of one and the same Substance. So then, should they affirm Thee, whatsoever Thou art, that is, Thy Substance whereby Thou art, to be incorrupt- ible, then were all these sayings false and execrable; but if corruptible, the very statement showed it to be false and re- volting.” This argument then of Nebridius sufficed against those who deserved wholly to be vomited out of the over- charged stomach; for they had no escape, without horrible blasphemy of heart and tongue, thus thinking and speaking of Thee.
But I also as yet, although I held and was firmly persuaded that Thou our Lord the true God, who madest not only our souls, but our bodies, and not only our souls and bodies, but all beings, and all things, wert undefilable and unalterable, and in no degree mutable; yet understood I not, clearly and ~ without difficulty, the cause of evil. And yet whatever it were, I perceived it was in such wise to be sought out, as should not constrain me to believe the immutable God to be mutable, lest I should become that evil I was seeking out. I sought it out then, thus far free from anxiety, certain of the untruth of what these held, from whom I shrunk with my whole heart: for I saw, that through enquiring the origin of evil, they were filled with evil, in that they preferred to think that Thy substance did suffer ill than their own did commit it.
And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free-will was the cause of our doing ill, and Thy just judgment of our suffering ill. But I was not able clearly to discern it. So then
tabs Gr ai Seas TP ha Sei. a fi AR: deavoring to draw my soul’s vi deep pit, I was again plunged therein, and endeavouring often, 1 was plunged back as often. But this raised me a little into Thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will, as that I lived: when then I did will or nill any thing, I was most sure that no other than myself did will and nill: and I all but saw that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will, I saw that I suffered rather than did, and I judged not to be my fault, but my punishment; whereby however, holding Thee to be just, I speedily confessed myself to be not unjustly pun- ished. But again I said, Who made me? Did not my God, Who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence then came I to will evil and nili good, so that I am thus justly punished? who set this in me, and ingrafted into me this plant of bitter- ness, seeing I was wholly formed by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, whence is that same devil? And if he also by his own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence, again, came in him that evil will whereby he became a devil, seeing the whole nature of angels was made by that most good Creator? By these thoughts I was again sunk down and choked; yet not brought down to that hell of error (where no man confesseth unto Thee), to think rather that Thou dost suffer ill, than that man doth it. _ For I was in such wise striving to find out the rest, as one who had already found that the incorruptible must needs be better than the corruptible: and Thee therefore, whatsoever Thou wert, I confessed to be incorruptible. For never soul was, nor shall be, able to conceive any thing which may be better than Thou, who art the sovereign and the best good. But since most truly and certainly, the incorruptible is preferable to the corruptible (as I did now prefer it), then, wert Thou not incor- ruptible, I could in thought have arrived at something better than my God. Where then I saw the incorruptible to be prefer- able to the corruptible, there ought I to seek for Thee, and there observe “wherein evil itself was”; that is, whence corrup- tion comes, by which Thy substance can by no means be im- ‘paired. For corruption does no ways impair our God; by no will, by no necessity, by no ‘unlooked-for chance: because He is God, and what He wills is good, and Himself is that good; ‘but to be corrupted is not good. Nor art Thou against Thy will constrained to any thing, since Thy will is not greater than Thy power. But greater should it be, were Thyself greater than Thyself. For the will and power of God is God Himself.
> —- ee? 2s aa 7 = 7 me .
100 / Saint Augustine at a And what can be unlooked-for by Thee, Who knowest all © things? Nor is there any nature in things, but Thou knowest — it. And what should we more say, “why that substance which God is should not be corruptible,” seeing if it were so, it should not be God?
And I sought “whence is evil,” and sought in an evil way; and saw not the evil in my very search. I set now before the sight of my spirit the whole creation, whatsoever we can see therein (as sea, earth, air, stars, trees, mortal creatures); yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, all angels moreover, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof. But these very beings, as though they were bodies, did my fancy dispose in place, and I made one great mass of Thy crea- tion, distinguished as to the kinds of bodies; some, real bodies, some, what myself had feigned for spirits. And this mass I made huge, not as it was (which I could not know), but as I thought convenient, yet every way finite. But Thee, O Lord, I imagined on every part environing and penetrating it, though every way infinite: as if there were a sea, every where, and on every side, through unmeasured space, one only boundless sea, and it contained within it some sponge, huge, but bounded; that sponge must needs, in all its parts, be filled from that un- measurable sea: so conceived I Thy creation, itself finite, full of Thee, the Infinite; and I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created; and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better than all these: but yet He, the Good, created them good; and see how He environeth and fulfils them. Where is evil then, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed? Or hath it no be- ing? Why then fear we and avoid what is not? Or if we fear it idly, then is that very fear evil, whereby the soul is thus idly © goaded and racked. Yea, and so much a greater evil, as we have nothing to fear, and yet do fear. Therefore either is that evil which we fear, or else evil is, that we fear. Whence is it then? seeing God, the Good, hath created all these things good. He indeed, the greater and chiefest Good, hath created these lesser goods; still both Creator and created, all are good. Whence is evil? Or, was there some evil matter of which He made, and formed, and ordered it, yet left something in it which He did not convert into good? Why so then? Had He no might to turn and change the whole, so that no evil should remain in it, seeing He is All-mighty? Lastly, why would He make any thing at all of it, and not rather by the same All-
Sega ae ae. ms oh kek Paros Fa i aes: ss Phe Confessions / 101
= A
ert rie pi Re ; = : ; / poe + aightiness cause it not to be at all? Or, could it then be against His will? Or if it were from eternity, why suffered He it so to be for infinite spaces of times past, and was pleased so long after to make something out of it? Or if He were suddenly pleased now to effect somewhat, this rather should the All- mighty have effected, that this evil matter should not be, and He alone be, the whole, true, sovereign, and infinite Good. Or if it was not good that He who was good should not also frame and create something that were good, then, that evil matter being taken away and brought to nothing, He might form good matter; whereof to create all things. For He should not be All-mighty, if He might not create something good without the aid of that matter which Himself had not created. These thoughts I revolved in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares, lest I should die ere I had found the truth; yet was the faith of Thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, professed in the Church Catholic, firmly fixed in my heart, in many points, indeed, as yet unformed, and fluctuating from ‘the rule of doctrine; yet did not my mind utterly leave it, but rather daily took in more and more of it.
But this time also had I rejected the lying divinations and impious dotages of the astrologers. Let Thine own mercies, out of my very inmost soul, confess unto Thee for this also, O my God. For Thou, Thou altogether (for who else calls us back from the death of all errors, save the Life which cannot die, and the Wisdom which needing no light enlightens the minds that need it, whereby the universe is directed, down to the whirling leaves of trees?)—-Thou madest provision for my ob- stinacy wherewith I struggled against Vindicianus, an acute old man, and Nebridius, a young man of admirable talents; the first vehemently affirming, and the latter often (though with some doubtfulness) saying, “That there was no such art
whereby to foresee things to come, but that men’s conjectures were a sort of lottery, and that out of many things which they said should come to pass, some actually did, unawares to them who spake it, who stumbled upon it, through their oft speak- ing.” Thou providedst then a friend for me, no negligent con- sulter of the astrologers; nor yet well skilled in those arts, but (as I said) a curious consulter with them, and yet knowing something, which he said he had heard of his father, which how far it went to overthrow the estimation of that art, he ‘knew not. This man then, Firminus by name, having had a liberal education, and well taught in Rhetoric, consulted me,
102 / Saint Augustine — a ee as one very dear to him, what, according to his so-called con- stellations, I thought on certain affairs of his, wherein his worldly hopes had risen, and I, who had herein now begun to incline towards Nebridius’ opinion, did not altogether refuse to conjecture, and tell him what came into my unresolved mind; but added, that I was now almost persuaded that these were but empty and ridiculous follies. Thereupon he told me that his father had been very curious in such books, and had a friend as earnest in them as himself, who with joint study and conference fanned the flame of their affections to these toys, so that they would observe the moments whereat the very dumb animals, which bred about their houses, gave birth, and then observed the relative position of the heavens, thereby to make fresh experiments in this so-called art. He said then that he had heard of his father, that what time his mother was about to give birth to him, Firminus, a woman-servant of that friend of his father’s was also with child, which could not escape her master, who took care with most exact diligence to know the births of his very puppies. And so it was that (the one for his wife, and the other for his servant, with the most careful ob- servation, reckoning days, hours, nay, the lesser divisions of the hours) both were delivered at the same instant; so that both were constrained to allow the same constellations, even to the minutest points, the one for his son, the other for his new-born slave. For so soon as the women began to be in labour, they each gave notice to the other what was fallen out in their houses, and had messengers ready to send to one an- other so soon as they had notice of the actual birth, of which they had easily provided, each in his own province, to give instant intelligence. Thus then the messengers of the respec- tive parties met, he averred, at such an equal distance from . either house that neither of them could make out any differ- ence in the position of the stars, or any other minutest points; and yet Firminus, born in a high estate in his parents’ house, ran his course through the gilded paths of life, was increased in riches, raised to honours; whereas that slave continued to serve his masters, without any relaxation of his yoke, as Firmi- nus, who knew him, told me. ;
Upon hearing and believing these things, told by one of such credibility, all that my resistance gave way; and first I endeavoured to reclaim Firminus himself from that curiosity, by telling him that upon inspecting his constellations, I ought if I were to predict truly, to have seen in them parents emi-
fi ee fi me Jevend>~ fp: a ete sil Rae Pee Re Confessic
nent among their neighbours, a noble family high birth, good education, liberal learning. But if that servant had consulted me upon the same constellations, since they ~ were his also, I ought again (to tell him too truly) to see in — them a lineage the most abject, a slavish condition, and every thing else utterly at variance with the former. Whence then, if I spake the truth, I should, from the same constellations, speak diversely, or if I spake the same, speak falsely: thence it fol- lowed most certainly that whatever, upon consideration of the constellations, was spoken truly, was spoken not out of art, but chance; and whatever spoken falsely, was not out of ig- norance in the art, but the failure of the chance.
An opening thus made, ruminating with myself on the like things, that no one of those dotards (who lived by such a trade, and whom I longed to attack, and with derision to con- fute) might urge against me that Firminus had informed me falsely, or his father him; I bent my thoughts on those that are born twins, who for the most part come out of the womb so ‘near one to other, that the small interval (how much force ‘soever in the nature of things folk may pretend it to have) cannot be noted by human observation, or be at all expressed in those figures which the astrologer is to inspect, that he may pronounce truly. Yet they cannot be true: for looking into the same figures, he must have predicted the same of Esau and Jacob, whereas the same happened not to them. Therefore he must speak falsely; or if truly, then, looking into the same figures, he must not give the same answer. Not by art, then, but by chance, would he speak truly. For Thou, O Lord, most righteous Ruler of the Universe, while consulters and con- sulted know it not, dost by Thy hidden inspiration effect that the consulter should hear what, according to the hidden de- servings of souls, he ought to hear, out of the unsearchable depth of Thy just judgment, to Whom let no man say, What is this? Why that? Let him not so say, for he is man.
Now then, O my Helper, hadst Thou loosed me from those fetters: and I sought “whence is evil,” and found no way. But Thou sufferedst me not by any fluctuations of thought to be ‘carried away from the Faith whereby I believed Thee both to be, and Thy substance to be unchangeable, and that Thou hast a care of, and wouldest judge men, and that in Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, and the holy Scriptures, which the author- ‘ity of Thy Catholic Church pressed upon me, Thou hadst set ‘the way of man’s salvation, to that life which is to be after this
in its own city, —
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death. These things being safe and immovably settled in my — mind, I sought anxiously “whence was evil?” What were the pangs of my teeming heart, what groans, O my God! yet even there were Thine ears open, and I knew it not; and when in silence I vehemently sought, those silent contritions of my soul were strong cries unto Thy mercy. Thou knewest what I suf- fered, and no man. For, what was that which was thence through my tongue distilled into the ears of my most familiar friends? Did the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor utterance sufficed, reach them? Yet went up the whole to Thy hearing, all which I roared out from the groan- ings of my heart; and my desire was before Thee, and the light of mine eyes was not with me: for that was within, I without: nor was that confined to place, but I was intent on things contained in place, but there found I no resting-place, nor did they so receive me, that I could say, “It is enough,” “it is well”: nor did they yet suffer me to turn back, where it might be well enough with me. For to these things was I su- perior, but inferior to Thee; and Thou art my true joy when subjected to Thee, and Thou hadst subjected to me what Thou createdst below me. And this was the true temperament, and middle region of my safety, to remain in Thy Image, and by -serving Thee, rule the body. But when I rose proudly against Thee, and ran against the Lord with my neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, even these inferior things were set above me, and pressed me down, and no where was there respite or space of breathing. They met my sight on all sides by heaps and troops, and in thought the images thereof presented them- selves unsought, as I would return to Thee, as if they would say unto me, “Whither goest thou, unworthy and defiled?” And these things had grown out of my wound; for Thou “humbledst the proud like one that is wounded,” and through my own swelling was I separated from Thee; yea, my pride- swollen face closed up mine eyes.
But Thou, Lord, abidest for ever, yet not for ever art Thou angry with us; because Thou pitiest our dust and ashes, and it was pleasing in Thy sight to reform my deformities; and by inward goads didst Thou rouse me, that I should be ill at ease, until Thou wert manifested to my inward sight. Thus, by the secret hand of Thy medicining was my swelling abated, and the troubled and bedimmed eye-sight of my mind, by the smarting anointings of healthful sorrows, was from day to day healed.
Broud; but givest grace unto the humble, and by how great an
act of Thy mercy Thou hadst traced out to men the way of humility, in that Thy Word was made flesh, and dwelt among men:—Thou procuredst for me, by means of one puffed up with most unnatural pride, certain books of the Platonists, translated from Greek into Latin. And therein I read, not in- deed in the very words, but to the very same purpose, enforced
- by many and divers reasons, that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the Same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made: that which was made by Him is life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness compre- hended it not. And that the soul of man, though it bears wit- ness to the light, yet itself is not that light; but the Word of God, being God, is that true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And that He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. But, that He came unto His own, and His own received Him not; but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to be- come the sons of God, as many as believed in His name; this I read not there.
Again I read there, that God the Word was born not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. But that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, I read not there. For I traced in those books that it was many and divers ways said, that the Son was in the form of the Father, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, for that naturally He was the Same Substance. But that He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man, hum- bled Himself, and became obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross: wherefore God exalted Him from the dead, and gave Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father; those books have not. For that before all times and above all times Thy Only-Begotten Son remaineth un-
changeable, co-eternal with Thee, and that of His fulness souls.
receive, that they may be blessed; and that by participation of wisdom abiding in them, they are renewed, so as to be wise, is
Th 10u, willing Hied Worahole tab how” Thou reaittest #82
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106 / Saint Augustine rd See ay > there. But that in due time He died for the ungodly; and that Thou sparedst not Thine Only Son, but deliveredst Him for — us all, is not there. For Thou hiddest these things from the wise, and revealedst them to babes; that they that labour and are heavy laden might come unto Him, and He refresh them, because He is meek and lowly in heart; and the meek He di- recteth in judgment, and the gentle He teacheth His ways, be- holding our lowliness and trouble, and forgiving all our sins. But such as are lifted up in the lofty walk of some would-be sublimer learning, hear not Him, saying, Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls. Although they knew God, yet they glorify Him not-as, God, nor are thankful, but wax vain in their thoughts; and their foolish heart is darkened; professing that they were wise, they became fools.
And therefore did I read there also, that they had changed the glory of Thy incorruptible nature into idols and divers shapes, into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and birds, and beasts, and creeping things; namely, into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright, for that Thy first-born people worshipped the head of a four-footed beast instead of Thee; turning in heart back towards Egypt; and bowing Thy image, their own soul, before the image of a calf that eateth hay. These things found I here, but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger: and Thou calledst the Gentiles into Thine inherit- ance. And I had come to Thee from among the Gentiles; and I set my mind upon the gold which Thou willedst Thy people to take from Egypt, seeing Thine it was, wheresoever it were. And to the Athenians Thou saidst by Thy Apostle, that in Thee — we live, move, and have our being, as one of their own poets — had said. And verily these books came from thence. But I set not my mind on the idols of Egypt, whom they served with Thy gold, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and wor- shipped and served the creature more than the Creator.
And being thence admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inward self, Thou being my Guide: and able I was, for Thou wert become my Helper. And I entered and be- held with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light Unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of
‘ he | oh $i” oS 107,
c. F Pee ; Se eee ae * ' r _ this shou ifold brighter, and with its greatness take _ up all space. Not such was this light, but other, yea, far other _ from these. Nor was it above my soul, as oil is above water,
nor yet as heaven above earth: but above to my soul, because It made me; and I below It, because I was made by It. He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows eternity. Love knoweth it. O Truth Who art Eter- nity! and Love Who art Truth! and Eternity Who art Lovel Thou art my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day. Thee when I first knew, Thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was
_ what I might see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And Thou didst beat back the weakness of my sight, streaming forth Thy beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trem- bled with love and awe: and I perceived myself to be far off from Thee, in the region of unlikeness, as if I heard this Thy voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men, grow, and thou shalt feed upon Me; nor shalt thou convert Me, like the food of thy fiesh into thee, but thou shalt be converted into Me.” And I learned, that Thou for iniquity chastenest man, and Thou madest my soul to consume away like a spider. And I said, “Is Truth therefore nothing because it is not diffused through space finite or infinite?” And Thou criedst to me from afar: “Yet verily, I AM that I AM.” And I heard, as the heart heareth, nor had I room to doubt, and I should sooner doubt that I live than that Truth is not, which is clearly seen, being understood by those things which are made.
And I beheld the other things below Thee, and I perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not, for they are, since they are from Thee, but are not, because they are not, what Thou art. For that truly is which remains un- changeably. It is good then for me to hold fast unto God; for if I remain not in Him, I cannot in myself; but He remaining in Himself, reneweth all things. And Thou art the Lord my God, since Thou standest not in need of my goodness.
And it was manifested unto me, that those things be good which yet are corrupted; which neither were they sovereignly good, nor unless they were good could be corrupted: for if sovereignly good, they were incorruptible, if not good at all,
there were nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption injures, but unless it diminished goodness, it could not injure. Either then corruption injures not, which cannot be; or which
_ is most certain, all which is corrupted is deprived of good. But
_ if they be deprived of all good, they shall cease to be. For if
i
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108 / Saint Augustine
—- * 5 Aa ae
they shall be, and can now no longer be corrupted, they shall be better than before, because they shall abide incorruptibly. And what more monstrous than to affirm things to become better by losing all their good? Therefore, if they shall be de- prived of all good, they shall no longer be. So long therefore as they are, they are good: therefore whatsoever is, is good. That evil then which I sought, whence it is, is not any sub- stance: for were it a substance, it should be good. For either it should be an incorruptible substance, and so a chief good: or a corruptible substance; which unless it were good, could not be corrupted. I perceived therefore, and it was manifested to me that Thou madest all things good, nor is there any sub- stance at all, which Thou madest not; and for that Thou mad- est not all things equal, therefore are all things; because each is good, and altogether very good, because our God made all things very good.
And to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil: yea, not only to Thee, but also to Thy creation as a whole, because there is nothing without, which may break in, and corrupt that order which Thou hast appointed it. But in the parts thereof some things, because unharmonising with other some, are accounted evil: whereas those very things harmonise with others, and are good; and in themselves are good. And all these things which harmonise not together, do yet with the inferior part, which we call Earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky harmonising with it. Far be it then that I should say, “These things should not be”: for should I see nought but these, I should indeed long for the better; but still must even for these alone praise Thee; for that Thou art to be praised, do show from the earth, dragons, and all deeps, fire, hail, snow, ice, and stormy wind, which fulfil Thy word; mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts, and all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowls; kings of the earth, and all people, princes, and all judges of the earth; young men and maidens, old men and young, praise Thy Name. But when, from heaven, these praise Thee, praise Thee, our God, in the heights all Thy angels, all Thy hosts, sun and moon, all the stars and light, the Heaven of heavens, and the waters that be above the heavens, praise Thy Name; I did not now long for things better, because I con- ceived of all: and with a sounder judgment I apprehended that the things above were better than these below, but altogether better than those above by themselves.
There is no soundness in them, whom aught of Thy crea-
7 %; e Co 5 sy
— tio n displeaseth: as neither in me, when much which Thou hast
made, displeased me. And because my soul durst not be dis- pleased at my God, it would fain not account that Thine, which displeased it. Hence it had gone into the opinion of two substances, and had no rest, but talked idly. And returning thence, it had made to itself a God, through infinite measures of all space; and thought it to be Thee, and placed it in its heart; and had again become the temple of its own idol, to Thee abominable. But after Thou hadst soothed my head, un- known to me, and closed mine eyes that they should not be- hold vanity, I ceased somewhat of my former self, and my frenzy was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in Thee, and saw Thee infinite, but in another way, and this sight was not derived from the flesh.
And I looked back on other things; and I saw that they owed their being to Thee; and were all bounded in Thee: but in a different way; not as being in space; but because Thou containest all things in Thine hand in Thy Truth; and all
things are true so far as they be; nor is there any falsehood,
unless when that is thought to be, which is not. And I saw that all things did harmonise, not with their places only, but with their seasons. And that Thou, who only art Eternal, didst not begin to work after innumerable spaces of times spent; for that all spaces of times, both which have passed, and which shall pass, neither go nor come, but through Thee, working and abiding.
And I perceived and found it nothing strange, that bread which is pleasant to a healthy palate is loathsome to one dis- tempered: and to sore eyes light is offensive, which to the sound is delightful. And Thy righteousness displeaseth the wicked; much more the viper and reptiles, which Thou hast created good, fitting in with the inferior portions of Thy Crea- tion, with which the very wicked also fit in; and that the more, by how much they be unlike Thee; but with the superior creatures, by how much they become more like to Thee. And I enquired what iniquity was, and found it to be no substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, towards these lower things, and casting out its bowels, and puffed up outwardly.
And I wondered that I now loved Thee, and no phantasm
for Thee. And yet did I not press on to enjoy my God; but was borne up to Thee by thy beauty, and soon borne down _ from Thee by mine own weight, sinking with sorrow into these
oe oe, ee ees ee ee 110 / Saint Augustine — Ree
inferior things. This weight was carnal custom. Yet dwelt there with me a remembrance of Thee; nor did I any way doubt that there was One to whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet such as to cleave to Thee: for that the body which is corrupted presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things. And most certain I was, that Thy invisible works from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Thy eternal power and Godhead. For examining whence it was that I admired the beauty of bodies celestial or terrestrial; and what aided me in judging soundly on things mutable, and pronouncing, “This ought to be.thus, this not”; examining, I say, whence it was that I so judged, seeing I did so judge, I had found the unchangeable and true Eternity of Truth above my changeable mind. And thus by degrees I passed from bodies to the soul, which through the bodily senses perceives; and thence to its inward faculty, to which the bodily senses represent things external, whitherto reach the faculties of beasts; and thence again to the reasoning faculty, to which what is received from the senses of the body is referred to be judged. Which finding itself also to be in me a thing variable, raised itself up to its own understanding, and drew away my thoughts from the power of habit, with- drawing itself from those troops of contradictory phantasms; that so it might find what that light was whereby it was bedewed, when, without all doubting, it cried out, “That the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable”; whence also it knew That Unchangeable, which, unless it had in some way known, it had had no sure ground to prefer it to the changeable. And thus with the flash of one trembling glance it
arrived at THaT Wuicu Is. And then I saw Thy invisible
things understood by the things which are made. But I could
not fix my gaze thereon; and my infirmity being struck back, —
I was thrown again on my wonted habits, carrying along with me only a loving memory thereof, and a longing for what I had, as it were, perceived the odour of, but was not yet able to feed on.
Then I sought a way of obtaining strength sufficient to enjoy Thee; and found it not, until I embraced that Mediator be- twixt God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who is over all,
God blessed for evermore, calling unto me, and saying, I am
the way, the truth, and the life, and mingling that food which I was unable to receive, with our flesh. For, the Word was
made flesh, that Thy wisdom, whereby Thou createdst all
_ar
meee "The Confessions / IL things, might provide milk for our infant state. For I did ‘not hold to my Lord Jesus Christ, I, humbled, to the Humble; nor knew I yet whereto His infirmity would guide us. For Thy Word, the Eternal Truth, far above the higher parts of Thy Creation, raises up the subdued unto Itself: but in this lower world built for Itself a lowly habitation of our clay, whereby to abase from themselves such as would be subdued, and bring them over to Himself; allaying their swelling, and fomenting their love; to the end they might go on no further in self-con- fidence, but rather consent to become weak, seeing before their feet the Divinity weak by taking our coats of skin; and wearied, might cast themselves down upon It, and It rising, . might lift them up. But I thought otherwise; conceiving only of my Lord Christ as of a man of excellent wisdom, whom no one could be _ equalled unto; especially, for that being wonderfully born of a Virgin, He seemed, in conformity therewith, through the Di- vine care for us, to have attained that great eminence of authority, for an ensample of despising things temporal for the obtaining of immortality. But what mystery there lay in “The Word was made flesh,” I could not even imagine. Only I had learnt out of what is delivered to us in writing of Him that He did eat, and drink, sleep, walk, rejoiced in spirit, was sorrow- ful, discoursed; that flesh did not cleave by itself unto Thy Word, but with the human soul and mind. All know this who know the unchangeableness of Thy Word, which I now knew, as far as I could, nor did I at all doubt thereof. For, now te move the limbs of the body by will, now not, now to be moved by some affection, now not, now to deliver wise sayings through human signs, now to keep silence, belong to soul and mind subject to variation. And should these things be falsely written of Him, all the rest also would risk the charge, nor -would there remain in those books any saving faith for man- kind. Since then they were written truly, I acknowledged a perfect man to be in Christ; not the body of a man only, nor, with the body, a sensitive soul without a rational, but very man; whom, not only as being a form of Truth, but for a cer- tain great excellence of human nature and a more perfect par- ticipation of wisdom, I judged to be preferred before others. But Alypius imagined the Catholics to believe God to be so clothed with flesh, that besides God and flesh, there was no soul at all in Christ, and did not think that a human mind was ascribed to Him. And because he was well persuaded that the ‘actions recorded of Him could only be performed by a vital
|
PE ee aS tS” Sn oe, Pa eee
112 / Saint Augustine a and a rational creature, he moved the more slowly towards the — Christian Faith. But understanding afterwards that this was the error of the Apollinarian heretics, he joyed in and was conformed to the Catholic Faith. But somewhat later, I con- fess, did I learn how in that saying, The Word was made flesh, the Catholic truth is distinguished from the falsehood of Photinus. For the rejection of heretics makes the tenets of Thy Church and sound doctrine to stand out more clearly. For there must also be heresies, that the approved may be made manifest among the weak.
But having then read those books of the Platonists, and thence been taught to search for incorporeal truth, I saw Thy invisible things, understood by those things which are made; and though cast back, I perceived what that was which through the darkness of my mind I was hindered from con- templating, being assured “That Thou wert, and wert infinite, and yet not diffused in space, finite or infinite; and that Thou truly art Who art the same ever, in no part nor motion vary- ing; and that all other things are from Thee, on this most sure ground alone, that they are.” Of these things I was assured, yet too unsure to enjoy Thee. I prated as one well skilled; but had I not sought Thy way in Christ our Saviour, I had proved to be, not skilled, but killed. For now I had begun to wish to seem wise, being filled with mine own punishment, yet I did not mourn, but rather scorn, puffed up with knowledge. For ~ where was that charity building upon the foundation of hu- mility, which is Christ Jesus? or when should these books teach me it? Upon these, I believe, Thou therefore willedst that I should fall, before, I studied Thy Scriptures, that it might be imprinted on my memory how I was affected by them; and that afterwards when my spirits were tamed through Thy — books, and my wounds touched by Thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish between presumption and confession; between those who saw whither they were to go, yet saw not the way, and the way that leadeth not to behold only but to dwell in the beatific country. For had I first been formed in Thy Holy Scriptures, and hadst Thou in the familiar use of them grown” sweet unto me, and had I then fallen upon those other volumes, they might perhaps have withdrawn me from the solid ground of piety, or, had I continued in that healthful frame which I had thence imbibed, I might have thought that it might have been obtained by the study of those books alone.
Most eagerly then did I seize that venerable writing of Thy Spirit; and chiefly the Apostle Paul. Whereupon those diffi-
>, ~
yh ai k me me : re (ee ee aaa culties vanished away, wherein he once seemed to me to con- _ _ tradict himself, and the text of his discourse not to agree with _the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets. And the face of — that pure word appeared to me one and the same; and I learned to rejoice with trembling. So I began; and whatsoever truth I had read in those other books, I found here amid the praise of Thy Grace; that whoso sees, may not so glory as if he had not received, not only what he sees, but also that he sees (for what hath he, which he hath not received?), and that he may be not only admonished to behold Thee, who art ever the same, but also healed, to hold Thee; and that he who cannot see afar off, may yet walk on the way, whereby he may arrive, and behold, and hold Thee. For, though a man be delighted with the law of God after the inner man, what shall he do with that other law in his members which warreth against the law of his mind, and bringeth him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members? For, Thou art righteous, O Lord, but we have sinned and committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and Thy hand _is grown heavy upon us, and we are justly delivered over unto’ that ancient sinner, the king of death; because he persuaded our will to be like his will whereby he abode not in Thy truth. What shall wretched man do? who shall deliver him from the -body of his death, but only Thy Grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord, whom Thou hast begotten co-eternal, and formedst in the beginning of Thy ways, in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet killed he Him; and the handwriting, which was contrary to us, was blotted out? This those writings contain not. Those pages present not the image of this piety, the tears of confession, Thy sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, the salvation of the people, _ the Bridal City, the earnest of the Holy Ghost, the Cup of our Redemption. No man sings there, Shall not my soul be sub- mitted unto God? for of Him cometh my salvation. For He is -my God and my salvation, my guardian, I shall no more be moved. No one there hears Him call, Come unto Me, all ye that labour. They scorn to learn_of Him, because He is meek and lowly in heart; for these things hast Thou hid from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. For it is one thing, from the mountain’s shaggy top to see the land of peace, and to find no way thither; and in vain to essay through ways un- passable, opposed and beset by fugitives and deserters, under their captain the lion and the dragon: and another to keep on _ the way that leads thither, guarded by the host of the heavenly General; where they spoil not who have deserted the heavenly
.
s Sous
eo. i aaaieeie tua cd) po
BOOK EIGHT
Augustine’s thirty-second year. He consults Sim- plicianus; from him hears the history of the con- version of Victorinus, and longs to devote him- self entirely to God, but is mastered by his old habits; is still further roused by the history of St. Antony, and of the conversion of two cour- tiers; during a severe struggle, hears a voice from heaven, opens Scripture, and is converted.
O my Goon, let me, with thanksgiving, remember, and confess unto Thee Thy mercies on me. Let my bones be bedewed with Thy love, and let them say unto Thee, Who is like unto Thee, O Lord? Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer ‘unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. And how Thou hast broken them, I will declare; and all who worship Thee, when they hear this, shall say, “Blessed be the Lord, in heaven and in earth, great and wonderful is his name.” Thy words had stuck fast in my heart, and I was hedged round about on all sides by Thee. Of Thy eternal life I was now certain, though I saw it in a figure and as through a glass. Yet I had ceased to doubt that there was an incorruptible substance, whence was all other sub- stance; nor did I now desired to be more certain of Thee, but more steadfast in Thee. But for my temporal life, all was waver- ing, and my heart had to be purged from the old leaven. The Way, the Saviour Himself, well pleased me, but as yet I shrunk from going through its straitness. And Thou didst put into my mind, and it seemed good in my eyes, to go to Simplicianus, who seemed to me a good servant of Thine; and Thy grace shone in him. I had heard also that from his very youth he had lived most devoted unto Thee. Now he was grown into years; and by reason of so great age spent in such zealous following of Thy ways, he seemed to me likely to have learned much _ experience; and so he had. Out of which store I wished that he would tell me (setting before him my anxieties) which were the fittest way for one in my case to walk in Thy paths.
For, I saw the church full; and one went this way, and an- _other that way. But I was displeased that I led a secular life; yea now that my desires no longer inflamed me, as of old, with of honour and profit, a very grievous burden it was to
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116 / Saint Augustine
undergo so heavy a bondage. For, in comparison of Thy sweet-_ ness, and the beauty of Thy house which I loved, those things delighted me no longer. But still I was enthralled with the love of woman; nor did the Apostle forbid me to marry, although he advised me to something better, chiefly wishing that all men ~ were as himself was. But I being weak, chose the more in- duigent place; and because of this alone, was tossed up and down in all beside, faint and wasted with withering cares, be- cause in other matters I was constrained against my will to con- form myself to a married life, to which I was given up and enthralled. I had heard from the mouth of the Truth, that there were some eunuchs which had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake: but, saith He, let him who can receive it, receive it. Surely vain are all men who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things which are seen, find out Him who is good. But I was no longer in that vanity; I had surmounted it; and by the common witness of all Thy creatures had found Thee our Creator, and Thy Word, God with Thee, and together with Thee one God, by whom Thou createdst all things. There is yet another kind of ungodly, who knowing God, glorified Him not as God, neither were thank- ful. Into this also had I fallen, but Thy right hand upheld me, and took me thence, and Thou placedst me where I might re- cover. For Thou hast said unto man, Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and, Desire not to seem wise; because they who affirmed themselves to be wise, became fools. But I had now found the goodly pearl, which, selling all that I had, I ought to have bought, and I hesitated.
To Simplicianus then I went, the father of Ambrose (a Bishop now) in receiving Thy grace, and whom Ambrose truly loved as a father. To him I related the mazes of my wanderings. But when I mentioned that I had read certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, sometime Rhetoric Professor of — Rome (who had died a Christian, as I had heard), had trans- lated into Latin, he testified his joy that I had not fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, full of fallacies and deceits, after the rudiments of this world, whereas the Platonists many ways led to the belief in God and His Word. Then to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones, he spoke of Victorinus himself, whom while at Rome he had most intimately known: and of him he related what I will not conceal. For it contains great praise of Thy grace, to be confessed unto Thee, how that aged man, most learned and skilled in the liberal sciences, and who had read, and weighed
et ree
ve _ The Confessions / JIT p Sy aE ety ng Se’ i ‘ an y
ny of the philosophers; the instructor of so many ~ oble Senators, who also, as a monument of his excellent dis- charge of his office, had (which men of this world esteem a high honour) both deserved and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum; he, to that age a worshipper of idols, and a partaker of the sacrilegious rites, to which almost all.the nobility of Rome
were given up, and had inspired the people with the love of
Anubis, barking Deity, and all _The monster Gods of every kind, who fought ’Gainst Neptune, Venus, and Minerva:
whom Rome once conquered, now adored, all which the aged Victorinus had with thundering eloquence so many years de- fended;—he now blushed not to be the child of Thy Christ, and the new-born babe of Thy fountain; submitting his neck to the yoke of humility, and subduing his forehead to the reproach of the Cross.
O Lord, Lord, Which hast bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains and they did smoke, by what means didst*Thou convey Thyself into that breast? He used to read (as Simpiicianus said) the holy Scripture, most studiously sought and searched into all the Christian writings, and said to Simplicianus (not openly, but privately and as a friend), “Understand that I am already a Christian.” Whereto he an- swered, “I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among Chris- tians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ.” The other, in banter, replied, “Do walls then make Christians?” And this he often said, that he was already a Christian; and Simplicianus as often made the same answer, and the conceit of the “walls” was by the other as often renewed. For he feared to offend his friends, proud dzmon-worshippers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from cedars of Libanus, which the Lord. had not yet broken down, he supposed the weight of enmity would fall upon him. But after that by reading and earnest thought he had gathered firmness, and feared to be denied by Christ before the holy angels, should he now be afraid to con- fess Him before men, and appeared to himself guilty of a heavy offence, in being ashamed of the Sacraments of the humility of Thy Word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons, whose pride he had imitated and their rites adopted, he became bold-faced against vanity, and shame- faced towards the truth, and suddenly and unexpectedly said
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to Simplicianus (as himself told me), “Go we to the Church; I wish to be made a Christian.” But he, not containing himself for joy, went with him. And having been admitted to the first Sacrament and become a catechumen, not long after he further gave in his name, that he might be regenerated by baptism, Rome wondering, the Church rejoicing. The proud saw, and were wroth; they gnashed with their teeth, and melted away. But the Lord God was the hope of Thy servant, and he regarded not vanities and lying madness.
To conclude, when the hour was come for making profession of his faith (which at Rome they, who are about to approach to Thy grace, deliver, from an elevated place, in the sight of all the faithful, in a set form of words committed to memory), the presbyters, he said, offered Victorinus (as was done to such as seemed likely through bashfulness to be alarmed) to make his ' profession more privately: but he chose rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy multitude. “For it was not salvation that he taught in rhetoric, and yet that he had pub- licly professed: how much less then ought he, when pronounc- ing Thy word, to dread Thy meek flock, who, when delivering his own words, had not feared a mad multitude!” When, then, he went up to make his profession, all, as they knew him, whispered his name one to another with the voice of congratu- lation. And who there knew him not? and there ran a low murmur through all the mouths of the rejoicing multitude, Victorinus! Victorinus! Sudden was the burst of rapture, that they saw him; suddenly were they hushed that they might hear him. He pronounced the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all wished to draw him into their very heart; yea by their love and joy they drew him thither, such were the hands where- with they drew him.
Good God! what takes place in man, that he should more rejoice at the salvation of a soul despaired of, and freed from greater peril, than if there had always been hope of him, or the danger had been less? For so Thou also, merciful Father, dost more rejoice over one penitent than over ninety-nine just per- sons that need no repentance. And with much joyfulness do we hear, so often as we hear with what joy the sheep which had strayed is brought back upon the shepherd’s shoulder, and the groat is restored to Thy treasury, the neighbours rejoicing with the woman who found it; and the joy of the solemn service of Thy house forceth to tears, when in Thy house it is read of Thy younger son, that he was dead, and liveth again; had been lost, and is found. For Thou rejoicest in us, and in Thy holy angels, ©
_ The Confessions / 119
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y through holy
hi charity. For Thou art ever the same; for all
things which abide not the same nor for ever, Thou for ever
_knowest in the same way.
_ What then takes place in the soul, when it is more delighted at finding or recovering the things it loves, than if it had ever had them? yea, and other things witness hereunto; and all things are full of witnesses, crying out, “So is it.” The conquering —
commander triumpheth; yet had he not conquered unless he had fought; and the more peril there was in the battle, so much the more joy is there in the triumph. The storm tosses the sailors, threatens shipwreck; all wax pale at approaching death; sky and sea are calmed, and they are exceeding joyed, as having been exceeding afraid. A friend is sick, and his pulse threatens danger; all who long for his recovery are sick in mind with him. He is restored, though as yet he walks not with his former strength; yet there is such joy, as was not, when before he walked sound and strong. Yea, the very pleasures of human life men acquire by difficulties, not those only which fall upon us unlooked for, and against our wills, but even by self-chosen, and pleasure-seeking trouble. Eating and drinking have no pleasure, unless there precede the pinching of hunger and thirst. Men, given to drink, eat certain salt meats, to procure a trouble-
some heat, which the drink allaying, causes pleasure. It is also ordered that the affianced bride should not at once be given, lest as a husband he should hold cheap whom, as betrothed, he sighed not after.
This law holds in foul and accursed joy; this in permitted and lawful joy; this in the very purest perfection of friendship; this, in him who was dead, and lived again; had been lost and was found. Every where the greater joy is ushered in by the greater pain. What means this, O Lord my God, whereas Thou art
_everlastingly joy to Thyself, and some things around Thee ever- more rejoice in Thee? What means this, that this portion of things thus ebbs and flows alternately displeased and recon- ciled? Is this their allotted measure? Is this all Thou hast as- signed to them, whereas from the highest heavens to the lowest earth, from the beginning of the world to the end of ages, from the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and realisest each in their season, every
thing good after its kind? Woe is me! how high art Thou in the highest, and how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest,
‘and we scarcely return to Thee.
__Up, Lord, and do; stir us up, and recall us; kindle and draw
us; inflame, grow sweet unto us, let us now love, let us run. Do
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not many, out of a deeper hell of blindness than Victorinus, re- — turn to Thee, approach, and are enlightened, receiving that Light, which they who receive, receive power from Thee to be- come Thy sons? But if they be less known to the nations, even they that know them, joy less for them. For when many joy to- © gether, each also has more exuberant joy for that they are kindled and inflamed one by the other. Again, because those known to many, influence the more towards salvation, and lead the way with many to follow. And therefore do they also who preceded them much rejoice in them, because they rejoice not in them alone. For far be it, that in Thy tabernacle the persons of the rich should be accepted before the poor, or the noble before the ignoble; seeing rather Thou hast chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong; and the base things of this world, and the things despised hast Thou chosen, and those things which are not, that Thou mightest bring to nought — things that are. And yet even that least of Thy apostles, by whose tongue Thou soundedst forth these words, when through his warfare, Paulus the Proconsul, his pride conquered, was made to pass under the easy yoke of Thy Christ, and became a provincial of the great King; he also for his former name Saul, was pleased to be called Paul, in testimony of so great a vic- tory. For the enemy is more overcome in one, of whom he hath more hold; by whom he hath hold of more. But the proud he hath more hold of, through their nobility; and by them, of more through their authority. By how much the more welcome then the heart of Victorinus was esteemed, which the devil had held as an impregnable possession, the tongue of Victorinus, with which mighty and keen weapon he had slain many; so much the more abundantly ought Thy sons to rejoice, for that our King hath bound the strong man, and they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and made meet for Thy honour; and become serviceable for the Lord, unto every good work.
But when that man of Thine, Simplicianus, related to me this of Victorinus, I was on fire to imitate him; for for this very end had he related it. But when he had subjoined also, how in the days of the Emperor Julian a law was made, whereby Chris- tians were forbidden to teach the liberal sciences or oratory; and how he, obeying this law, chose rather to give over the wordy school than Thy Word, by which Thou makest eloquent the tongues of the dumb; he seemed to me not more resolute than blessed, in having thus found opportunity to wait on Thee only. Which thing I was sighing for, bound as I was, not with another’s irons, but by my own iron will. My will the enemy
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held, and thence had made a chain for me, and bound me. For
of a froward will, was a lust made; and a lust served, became custom; and custom not resisted, became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to serve Thee, and to wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only assured pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former wilfulness, strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the other old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their discord, undid my soul.
Thus, I understood, by my own experience, what I had read, how the fiesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Myself verily either way; yet more myself, in that which I approved in myself, than in that which in myself I disap- proved. For in this last, it was now for the more part not my- self, because in much I rather endured against my will, than acted willingly. And yet it was through me that custom had obtained this power of warring against me, because I had come willingly, whither I willed not. And who has any right to speak against it, if just punishment follow the sinner? Nor had I now any longer my former plea, that I therefore as yet hesitated to be above the world and serve Thee, for that the truth was not altogether ascertained to me; for now it too was. But I still un- der service to the earth, refused to fight under Thy banner, and feared as much to be freed of all incumbrances, as we should fear to be encumbered with it. Thus with the baggage of this present world was I held down pleasantly, as in sleep: and the thoughts wherein I meditated on Thee were like the efforts of such as would awake, who yet overcome with a heavy drowsi- ness, are again drenched therein. And as no one would sleep for ever, and in all men’s sober judgment waking is better, yet a man for the most part, feeling a heavy lethargy in all his limbs, defers to shake off sleep, and though half displeased, yet, even after it is time to rise, with pleasure yields to it, so was I assured that much better were it for me to give myself up to Thy charity, than to give myself over to mine own cupidity; but though the former course satisfied me and gained the mas- tery, the latter pleased me and held me mastered. Nor had I any thing to answer Thee calling to me, Awake, thou that sleep- est, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. And when Thou didst on all sides show me that what Thou saidst was true, I, convicted by the truth, had nothing at all to answer, but only those dull and drowsy words, “Anon, anon,”
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in vain i delighted in Thy law according to the inner man, when another law in my members rebelled against the law of my mind, and led me captive under the law of sin which was in my mem- bers. For the law of sin is the violence of custom, whereby the mind is drawn and holden, even against its will; but deservediy, for that it willingly fell into it. Who then should deliver me thus wretched from the body of this death, but Thy grace only, through Jesus Christ our Lord?
And how Thou didst deliver me out of the bonds of desire, wherewith I was bound most straitly to carnal concupiscence, and out of the drudgery of worldly things, I will now declare, and confess unto Thy name, O Lord, my helper and my re- deemer. Amid increasing anxiety, I was doing my wonted busi- ness, and daily sighing unto Thee. I attended Thy Church, whenever free from the business under the burden of which I groaned. Alypius was with me, now after the third sitting re- leased from his law business, and awaiting to whom to sell his ‘counsel, as I sold the skill of speaking, if indeed teaching can impart it. Nebridius had now, in consideration of our friend- ship, consented to teach under Verecundus, a citizen and a grammarian of Milan, and a very intimate friend of us all; who urgently desired, and by the right of friendship challenged from our company, such faithful aid as he greatly needed. Nebridius then was not drawn to this by any desire of advantage (for he might have made much more of his learning had he so willed), but as a most kind and gentle friend, he would not be wanting to a good office, and slight our request. But he acted herein very discreetly, shunning to become known to personages great according to this world, avoiding the distraction of mind thence ensuing, and desiring to have it free and at leisure, as many hours as might be, to seek, or read, or hear something con- cerning wisdom.
Upon a day then, Nebridius being absent (I recollect not why), lo, there came to see me and Alypius, one Pontitianus, our countryman so far as being an African, in high office in the Emperor’s court. What he would with us, I know not, but we sat down to converse, and it happened that upon a table for some game, before us, he observed a book, took, opened it, and contrary to his expectation, found it the Apostle Paul; for he thought it some of those books which I was wearing myself in teaching. Whereat smiling, and looking at me, he expressed his joy and wonder that he had on a sudden found this book, and
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and often bowed himself before Thee our God in the Church, in frequent and continued prayers. When then I had told him that I bestowed very great pains upon those Scriptures, a con- versation arose (suggested by his account) on Antony the Egyptian monk: whose name was in high reputation among Thy servants, though to that hour unknown to us. Which when he discovered, he dwelt the more upon that subject, informing and wondering at our ignorance of one so eminent. But we
stood amazed, hearing Thy wonderful works most fully at- —
tested, in times so recent, and almost in our own, wrought in the true Faith and Church Catholic. We all wondered; we, that they were so great, and he, that they had not reached us. Thence his discourse turned to the flocks in the monasteries; and their holy ways, a sweet-smelling savour unto Thee, and the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, whereof we knew noth- ing. And there was a monastery at Milan, full of good brethren, without the city walls, under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we knew it not. He went on with his discourse, and we listened in intent silence. He told us then how one afternoon at Triers, when the Emperor was taken up with the Circensian games, he and three others, his companions, went out to walk in gardens near the city walls, and there as they happened to walk in pairs, one went apart with him, and the other two wan- dered by themselves; and these, in their wanderings, lighted upon a certain cottage, inhabited by certain of Thy servants, poor in spirit, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, and there they found a little book containing the life of Antony. This one of them began to read, admire, and kindle at it; and as he read, to meditate on taking up such a life, and giving over his secular service to serve Thee. And these two were of those whom they style agents for the public affairs. Then suddenly, filled with a holy love, and a sober shame, in anger with himself he cast his eyes upon his friend, saying, “Tell me, I pray thee, what would We attain by all these labours of ours? what aim we at? what serve we for? Can our hopes in court rise higher than to be the Emperor’s favourites? and in this, what is there not brittle, and full of perils? and by how many perils arrive we at a greater peril? and when arrive we thither? But a friend of God, if I Wish it. I become now at once.” So spake he. And in pain with the travail of a new life, he turned his eyes again upon the book, and read on, and was changed inwardly, where Thou sawest, and his mind was stripped of the world, as soon appeared. For as he read, and rolled up and down the waves of his heart, he
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this onl ly before my eyes. For he was a Christian, and baptised, a
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Le Se ee 124 / Saint Augustine ae ne "9 E .
stormed at himself a while, then discerned, and determined on better course; and now being Thine, said to his friend, “Now have I broken loose from those our hopes, and am resolved to serve God; and this, from this hour, in this place, I begin upon. If thou likest not to imitate me, oppose not.” The other an- swered, he would cleave to him, to partake so glorious a re- ward, so glorious a service. Thus both being now Thine, were building the tower at the necessary cost, the forsaking all that they had, and following Thee. Then Pontitianus and the other with him, that had walked in other parts of the garden, came in search of them to the same place; and finding them, re- minded them to return, for the day was now far spent. But they relating their resolution and purpose, and how that will was begun and settled in them, begged them, if they would not join, not to molest them. But the others, though nothing altered from their former selves, did yet bewail themselves (as he affirmed), and piously congratulated them, recommending themselves to their prayers; and so, with hearts lingering on the earth, went away to the palace. But the other two, fixing their heart on heaven, remained in the cottage. And both had affianced brides, who when they heard hereof, also dedicated their virginity unto God.
Such was the story of Pontitianus; but Thou, O Lord, while he was speaking, didst turn me round towards myself, taking me from behind my back where I had placed me, unwilling to observe myself; and setting me before my face, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and defiled, bespotted and
-ulcerous. And I beheld and stood aghast; and whither to flee from myself I found not. And if I sought to turn mine eye from off myself, he went on with his relation, and Thou again didst set me over against myself, and thrustedst me before my” eyes, that I might find out mine iniquity, and hate it. I had known it, but made as though I saw it not, winked at it, and forgot it.
But now, the more ardently I loved those whose healthful affections I heard of, that they had resigned themselves wholly to Thee to be cured, the more did I abhor myself, when com- pared with them. For many of my years (some twelve) had now run out with me since my nineteenth, when, upon the read- ing of Cicero’s Hortensius, I was stirred to an earnest love of wisdom; and still I was deferring to reject mere earthly felicity, and give myself to search out that, whereof not the finding only, but the very search, was to be preferred to the treasures and kingdoms of the world, though already found, and to the pleasures of the body, though spread around me at my will.
But I
_ my early youth, had begged chastity of Thee, and said, “Give
_ me chastity and continency, only not yet.” For I feared lest Thou shouldest hear me soon, and soon cure me of the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to have satisfied, rather than extinguished. And I had wandered through crooked ways in a sacrilegious superstition, not indeed assured thereof, but as preferring it to the others which I did not seek religiously, but opposed maliciously.
And I had thought that I therefore deferred from day to day to reject the hopes of this world, and follow Thee only, because there did not appear aught certain, whither to direct my course. And now was the day come wherein I was to be laid bare to myself, and my conscience was to upbraid me. “Where art thou now, my tongue? Thou saidst that for an uncertain truth thou likedst not to cast off the baggage of vanity; now, it is certain, and yet that burden still oppresseth thee, while they who neither have so worn themselves out with seeking it, nor for ten years
and more have been thinking thereon, have had their shoulders
_ lightened, and received wings to fly away.” Thus was I gnawed within, and exceedingly confounded with a horrible shame, while Pontitianus was so speaking. And he having brought to a close his tale and the business he came for, went his way; and I into myself. What said I not against myself? with what
_scourges of condemnation lashed I not my soul, that it might follow me, striving to go after Thee! Yet it drew back; refused,
_but excused not itself. All arguments were spent and confuted; there remained a mute shrinking; and she feared, as she would death, to be restrained from the flux of that custom, whereby she was wasting to death.
Then in this great contention of my inward dwelling, which I had strongly raised against my soul, in the chamber of my heart, troubled in mind and countenance, I turned upon Aly-
ius. “What ails us?” I exclaim: “what is it? what heardest thou? The unlearned start up and take heaven by force, and we with our learning, and without heart, lo, where we wallow in flesh and blood! Are we ashamed to follow, because others are gone before, and not ashamed not even to follow?” Some such words I uttered, and my fever of mind tore me away from him, while he, gazing on me in astonishment, kept silence. For it was not my wonted tone; and my forehead, cheeks, eyes, colour, tone of voice, spake my mind more than the words I uttered. A little garden there was to our lodging, which we had the use of, as of the whole house; for the master of the house,
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z o ; v= “Se eS 126 / Saint Augustine veka our host, was not living there. Thither had the tumult of my breast hurried me, where no man might hinder the hot conten- tion wherein I had engaged with myself, until it should end as Thou knewest, I knew not. Only I was healthfully distracted and dying, to live; knowing what evil thing I was, and not knowing what good thing I was shortly to become. I retired then into the garden, and Alypius, on my steps, For his pres- ence did not lessen my privacy; or how could he forsake me so disturbed? We sate down as far removed as might be from the house. I was troubled in spirit, most vehemently indignant that I entered not into Thy will and covenant, O my God, which all my bones cried out unto me to enter, and praised it to the skies. And therein we enter not by ships, or chariots, or feet, no, move not so far as I had come from the house to that place where we were sitting. For, not to go only, but to go in thither was nothing else but to will to go, but to will resolutely. and thoroughly; not to turn and toss, this way and that, a maimed and half-divided will, struggling, with one part sinking as an- other rose.
Lastly, in the very fever of my irresoluteness, I made with my body many such motions as men sometimes would, but can- not, if either they have not the limbs, or these be bound with bands, weakened with infirmity, or any other way hindered. Thus, if I tore my hair, beat my forehead, if locking my fingers I clasped my knee; I willed, I did it. But I might have willed, and not done it; if the power of motion in my limbs had not obeyed. So many things then I did, when “to will” was not in itself “to be able”; and I did not what both I longed incom- parably more to do, and which soon after, when I should will, I should be able to do; because soon after, when I should will, I should will thoroughly. For in these things the ability was one with the will, and to will was to do; and yet was it not done: and more easily did my body obey the weakest willing of my soul, in moving its limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed itself to accomplish in the will alone this its momentous will.
Whence is this monstrousness? and to what end? Let Thy mercy gleam that I may ask, if so be the secret penalties of men, and those darkest pangs of the sons of Adam, may perhaps answer me. Whence is this monstrousness? and to what end? The mind commands the body, and it obeys instantly; the mind commands itself, and is resisted. The mind commands the hand to be moved; and such readiness is there, that command is scarce distinct from obedience. Yet the mind is mind, the hand
and yet it doth not. Whence this monstrousness? and to what end? It commands itself, I say, to will, and would not com- mand, unless it willed, and what it commands is not done. But it willeth not entirely: therefore doth it not command entirely. For so far forth it commandeth, as it willeth: and, so far forth is the thing commanded, not done, as it willeth not. For the will commandeth that there be a will; not another, but itself. But it doth not command entirely, therefore what it commandeth, is not. For were the will entire, it would not even command it to be, because it would already be. It is therefore no mon- strousness partly to will, partly to nill, but a disease of the mind, that it doth not wholly rise, by truth upborne, borne down by custom. And therefore are there two wills, for that one of them is not entire: and what the one lacketh, the other hath.
Let them perish from Thy presence, O God, as perish vain talkers and seducers of the soul: who observing that in deliber- ating there were two wills, affirm that there are two minds in us of two kinds, one good, the other evil. Themselves are truly evil, when they hold these evil things; and themselves shall be- come good when they hold the truth and assent unto the truth, that Thy Apostle may say to them, Ye were sometimes dark- ness, but now light in the Lord. But they, wishing to be light, not in the Lord, but in themselves, imagining the nature of the soul to be that which God is, are made more gross darkness through a dreadful arrogancy; for that they went back farther from Thee, the true Light that enlightened every man that cometh into the world. Take heed what you say, and blush for shame: draw near unto Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed. Myself when I was deliberating upon serving the Lord my God now, as I had long purposed, it was I who willed, I who nilled, I, I myself. I neither willed entirely, nor nilled entirely. Therefore was I at strife with myself, and rent asunder by myself. And this rent befell me against my will, and yet indicated, not the presence of another mind, but the punishment of my own. Therefore it was no more I that wrought it, but sin that dwelt in me; the punish- ment of a sin more freely committed, in that I was a son of Adam.
For if there be so many contrary natures as there be con- flicting wills, there shall now be not two only, but many. Ifa man deliberate whether he should go to their conventicle or to the theatre, these Manichees cry out, Behold, here are two
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natures: one good, draws this way; another bad, draws back _ that way. For whence else is this hesitation between conflict- ing wills? But I say that both be bad: that which draws to them, as that which draws back to the theatre. But they believe not that will to be other than good, which draws to them. What then if one of us should deliberate, and amid the strife of his two wills be in a strait, whether he should go to the theatre or to our church? would not these Manichees also be in a strait what to answer? For either they must confess (which they fain would not) that the will which leads to our church is good; as well as theirs, who have received and are held by the mysteries of theirs: or they must suppose two evil natures, and two evil souls conflicting in one man, and it will not be true, which they say, that there is one good and another bad; or they must be converted to the truth, and no more deny that where one de- liberates, one soul fluctuates between contrary wills.
Let them no more say then, when they perceive two con- flicting wills in one man, that the conflict is between two con- trary souls, of two contrary substances, from two contrary prin- ciples, one good, and the other bad. For Thou, O true God, dost disprove, check, and convict them; as when, both wills being bad, one deliberates whether he should kill a man by poison or by the sword; whether he should seize this or that estate of another’s, when he cannot both; whether he should purchase pleasure by luxury, or keep his money by covetous- ness; whether he go to the circus or the theatre, if both be open on one day; or, thirdly, to rob another’s house, if he have the opportunity; or, fourthly, to commit adultery, if at the same time he have the means thereof also; all these meeting to- gether in the same juncture of time, and all being equally de- sired, which cannot at one time be acted: for they rend the mind amid four, or even (amid the vast variety of things de- sired) more, conflicting wills, nor do they yet allege that there are so many divers substances. So also in wills which are good. For I ask them, is it good to take pleasure in reading the Apostle? or good to take pleasure in a sober Psalm? or good to discourse on the Gospel? They will answer to each, “‘it is good.” What then if all give equal pleasure, and all at once? Do not divers wills distract the mind, while he deliberates which he should rather choose? yet are they all good, and are at variance till one be chosen, whither the one entire will may be borne, which before was divided into many. Thus also, when, above, eternity delights us, and the pleasure of temporal: good
RS eee fet ht Mae) | eee Ce, . holds us dow below, it is the same soul which willeth not this or that with an entire will; and therefore is rent asunder with ievous preplexities, while out of truth it sets, this first, but out of habit sets not that aside.
Thus soul-sick was I, and tormented, accusing myself much ‘More severely than my wont, rolling and turning me in my chain, till that were wholly broken, whereby I now was but just, but still was, held. And Thou, O Lord, pressedst upon me in my inward parts by a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame, lest I should again give way, and not burst- ing that same slight remaining tie, it should recover strength, and bind me the faster. For I said with myself, “Be it done now, be it done now.” And as I spake, I all but enacted it: I all but did it, and did it not: yet sunk not back to my former state, but kept my stand hard by, and took breath. And I es- sayed again, and wanted somewhat less of it, and somewhat less, and all but touched, and laid hold of it; and yet came not at it, nor touched nor laid hold of it; hesitating to die to death and to live to life: and the worse whereto I was inured, prevailed more with me than the better whereto I was unused: ‘and the very moment wherein I was to become other than I was, the nearer it approached me, the greater horror did it strike into me; yet did it not strike me back, nor turned me away, but held me in suspense.
The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my ancient mistresses, still held me; they plucked my fleshy garment, and whispered softly, “Dost thou cast us off? and from that mo- ment shall we no more be with thee for ever? and from that moment shail not this or that be lawful for thee for ever?” And what was it which they suggested in that I said, “this or that,” what did they suggest, O my God? Let Thy mercy turn it away from the soul of Thy servant. What defilements did they suggest! what shame! And now I much less than half heard them, and not openly showing themselves and contradicting me, but muttering as it were behind my back, and privily plucking me, as I was departing, but to look back on them. Yet they did retard me, so that I hesitated to burst and shake my- self free from them, and to spring over whither I was called; a violent habit saying to me, “Thinkest thou, thou canst live without them?”
But now it spake very faintly. For on that side whither I had set my face, and whither I trembled to go, there appeared
unto me the chaste dignity of Continency, serene, yet not re-
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130 / Saint Augustine . laxedly, gay, honestly alluring me to come and doubt not; -and stretching forth to receive and embrace me, her holy hands full of multitudes of good examples: there were so many young men and maidens here, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and aged virgins; and Continence herself in all, not barren, but a fruitful mother of children of joys, by Thee her Husband, O Lord. And she smiled on me with a per- suasive mockery, as would she say, “Canst not thou what these youths, what these maidens can? or can they either in them- selves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me unto them. Why standest thou in thyself, and so standest not? cast thyself upon Him, fear not He will not with- draw Himself that thou shouldest fall; cast thyself fearlessly upon Him, He will receive, and will heal thee.” And I blushed exceedingly, for that I yet heard the muttering of those toys, and hung in suspense. And she again seemed to say, “Stop thine ears against those thy unclean members on the earth, that they may be mortified. They tell thee of delights, but not as doth the law of the Lord thy God.” This controversy in my heart was self against self only. But Alypius sitting close by my side, in silence waited the issue of my unwonted emotion.
But when a deep consideration had from the secret bottom of my soul drawn together and heaped up all my misery in the sight of my heart; there arose a mighty storm, bringing a mighty shower of tears. Which that I might pour forth wholly, in its natural expressions, I rose from Alypius: solitude was suggested to me as fitter for the business of weeping; so I re- tired so far that even his presence could not be a burden to me. Thus was it then with me, and he perceived something of it; for something I suppose I had spoken, wherein the tones of my voice appeared choked with weeping, and so had risen up. He then remained where we were sitting, most extremely as- tonished. I cast myself down I know not how, under a certain fig-tree, giving full vent to my tears; and the floods of mine eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to Thee. And, not indeed in these words, yet to this purpose, spake I much unto Thee: and Thou, O Lord, how long? how long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry for ever? Remember not our former iniquities, for I felt that I was held by them. I sent up these sorrowful words: How long, how long, “to-morrow, and to-morrow?” Why not now? why not is there this hour an end to my un- cleanness?
So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition
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ice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeat- ing, “Take up and read; Take up and read.” Instantly, my countenance altered, I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt — have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. ;
Then putting my finger between, or some other mark, I shut the volume, and with a calmed countenance made it known to Alypius. And what was wrought in him, which I knew not, he thus showed me. He asked to see what I had read: I showed him; and he looked even further than I had read, and I knew not what followed. This followed, him that is weak in the faith, receive; which he applied to himself, and disclosed to me. And by this admonition was he strengthened; and by a good resolution and purpose, and most corresponding to his. character, wherein he did always very far differ from me, for the better, without any turbulent delay he joined me. Thence we go in to my mother; we tell her; she rejoiceth: we relate in order how it took place; she leaps for joy, and triumpheth, and blesseth Thee, Who are able to do above that which we ask or think; for she perceived that Thou hadst given her more for me, than she was wont to beg by her pitiful and most sorrowful groanings. For thou convertedst me unto Thyself, so that I sought neither wife, nor any hope of this world, stand- ing in that rule of faith, where Thou hadst showed me unto her in a vision, so many years before. And Thou didst convert
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g into joy, m sired, and in a much more erst required, by having Lop apsiaas of 1 my body.
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oie By BOOK NINE... ee ee oe
Augustine determines to devote his life to God, and to abandon his profession of Rhetoric, quietly however; retires to the country to pre- pare himself to receive the grace of Baptism, and is baptised with Alypius, and his son Adeodatus. At Ostia, in his way to Africa, his mother Monnica dies. Her life and character.
O Lorp, I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy handmaid: Thou has broken my bonds in sunder. I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of praise. Let my heart and my tongue praise Thee; yea, let all my bones say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee? Let them say, and answer Thou me, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Who am I, and what am I?
_ What evil have not been either my deeds, or if not my deeds, my words, or if not my words, my will? But Thou, O Lord, are
_ good and merciful, and Thy right hand had respect unto the depth of my death, and from the bottom of my heart emptied that abyss of corruption. And this Thy whole gift was, to nill what I willed, and to will what Thou willedst. But where through all those years, and out of what low and deep recess was my free-will called forth in a moment, whereby to submit
_ my neck to Thy easy yoke, and my shoulders unto Thy light burden, O Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer? How sweet did it at once become to me, to want the sweetnesses of those toys! and what I feared to be parted from, was now a joy to part with. For Thou didst cast them forth from me, Thou true and highest sweetness. Thou castest them forth, and for them enteredst in Thyself, sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more hidden than all depths, higher than all honour, but not to the high in their own conceits. Now was my soul free from the biting cares of canvassing and getting, and weltering in filth, and scratching off the itch of lust. And my infant tongue spake freely to Thee, my brightness, and my riches, and my health, the Lord my God.
And I resolved in Thy sight, not tumultuously to tear, but gently to withdraw, the service of my tongue from the marts of lip-labour: that the young, no students in Thy law, nor in
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~ OPE PF Ses Oe Se ee 134 / Saint Augustine
Thy peace, but in lying dotages and law-skirmishes, should no longer buy at my mouth arms for their madness. And very seasonably, it now wanted but very few days unto the Vaca- — tion of the Vintage, and I resolved to endure them, then in a _ regular way to take my leave, and having been purchased by Thee, no more to return for sale. Our purpose then was known to Thee; but to men, other than our own friends, was it not known. For we had agreed among ourselves not to let it out abroad to any: although to us, now ascending from the valley of tears, and singing that song of degrees, Thou hadst given sharp arrows, and destroying coals against the subtle tongue, which as though advising for us, would thwart, and would out of love devour us, as it doth its meat.
Thou hadst pierced our hearts with Thy charity, and we carried Thy words as it were fixed in our entrails: and the examples of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the recep- tacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name’s sake which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the eyes of all; so that all looking on this act of. mine, and observ- ing how near was the time of vintage which I wished to antici- pate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to appear some great one. And what end had it served me, that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and that our good should be evil spoken of.
Moreover, it had at first troubled me that in this very sum- mer my lungs began to give way, amid too great literary la- bour, and to breathe deeply with difficulty, and by the pain in my chest to show that they were injured, and to refuse any full or lengthened speaking; this had troubled me, for it almost constrained me of necessity to lay down that burden of teach- ing, or, if I could be cured and recover, at least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and was fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, J began even to rejoice that I had this secondary, and that no feipned, excuse, which might something moderate the offence taken by those who, for their sons’ sake, wished me
have the ass of Thy s sons. Full then af muck joy, Phiresl till that interval of time were run; it may have been — some twenty days, yet they were endured manfully; endured,
_ for the covetousness which aforetime bere a part of this heavy
business, had left me, and I remained alone, and had been
overwhelmed, had not patience taken its place. Perchance,
some of Thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in
this, that with a heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered my-
self to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be
contentious. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, par-— doned and remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible
and déadly sins, in the holy water?
Verecundus was worn down with care about this our bless- _ edness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one of the faith- ful; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which we had now es- sayed. For he would not, he said, be a Christian on any other _ terms than on those he could not. However, he offered us _ courteously to remain at his country-house so long as we
should stay there. Thou, O Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, he departed this life; yet hadst Thou mercy not on him only, but on us also: lest remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to number him among Thy flock, we should be agonised with intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are Thine: Thy suggestions and consola- tions tell us, Faithful in promises, Thou now requitest Vere- . cundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we reposed in Thee, with the eternal fresh- ness of Thy Paradise: for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that rich mountain, that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine own mountain. - He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. For al- though he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh of Thy Son to be a phantom: yet emerging thence, he believed as we did; not as yet endued with any Sacraments of Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out of truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy Baptism, being also a
a2 Ese OP Lee ee ' a - 136 / Saint Augustine — te ee faithful member of the Church Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence amongst his people in Africa, . his whole house having through him first been made Christian, ~ didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abra- ham’s bosom. Whatever that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a freed man: there he liveth. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he liveth, whereof he asked much of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort; and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his measure, namely, of a married estate; and awaiting Nebridius to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing: and so, lo! those days rolled by at length; for long and many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, that I might sing to Thee, from my inmost marrow, My heart hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Now was the day come wherein I was in deed to be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. And I blessed Thee, re- joicing; retiring with all mine to the villa. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books may witness, as well what I debated with | others, as what with myself alone, before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was absent, my Epistles bear witness. And when shall I have time to rehearse all Thy great benefits to- wards us at that time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies? For my remembrance recalls me, and pleas- ant is it to me, O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, low- ering the mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe to have inserted in our writings. For rather would he have’ them
e “savour of ace ae LPs of et ae which the Lord beth: now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, the antidote against serpents.
Oh, in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a catechu- men, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, mother- ly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they are sung through the whole world, nor can any hide himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I angered at
_ the Manichees! and again I pitied them, for they knew not those Sacraments, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote which might have recovered them of their madness. How I would they had then been somewhere near me, and without my knowing that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me: When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes! Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me; nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural feelings of my soul.
I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and set- ting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And He had already sent Him, but-I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then, the Spirit was not yet
Skee kag ees areal 0 ae Rie eee 138 / Saint Augustine 1 Rv ae ee ee given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord hath magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and therefore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phantoms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after leas- ing! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it up; and Thou wouldest hear them when they cried unto Thee; for by a true death in the flesh did He die for us, who now intercedeth unto Thee for us. ] I further read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of a people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not angry at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun; for they that would have joy from without soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen and temporal, and in their famished thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine, and said, Who will show us good things? And we would say, and they hear, The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us. For we are not that light which enlighteneth every man, but we are enlightened by Thee; that having been sometimes darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that I could not show It them, so long as they brought me their heart in their eyes roving abroad from Thee, while they said, Who will show us good things? For there, where I was angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and commencing the pur- pose of a new life, putting my trust in Thee,—there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read this outwardly, finding it in- wardly. Nor would I be multiplied with worldly goods; wast- ing away time, and wasted by time; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other corn, and wine, and oil.
: ee ok et ere ae _ The Confessions / 139 |
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_ And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the next _ verse, O in peace, O for The Self-same! O what said he, I will
lay me down and sleep, for who shall hinder us, when cometh
to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-same, Who are not _ changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek those many other things, which are not what Thou art: but Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and
lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with.
zeal at the enemies of this Scripture.
When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on Wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with hum- ble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suf- fered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism.
The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear fore-shower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not under- standing the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be
like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our | _ Lord’s own words. :
Thence, when the time was come wherein I was to give in
OPE EE ee Se ee ae
140 / Saint Augustine * eS ag Sere ee ee my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy Sacraments; and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able to reform our deformities: for I had no