SAINT AUGUSTINE
CONFESSIONS: BOOK FIVE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Saint AUGUSTINE'S TWENTY-NINTH YEAR. FAUSTUS,
A SNARE OF SATAN TO MANY, MADE AN INSTRUMENT OF DELIVERANCE TO ST. AUGUSTINE,
BY SHEWING THE IGNORANCE OF THE MANICHEES ON THOSE THINGS, WHEREIN THEY
PROFESSED TO HAVE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE. AUGUSTINE GIVES LIP 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 confess 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 weariness arise towards Thee,
leaning on those things which Thou hast created, and passing on to Thyself,
who madest them wonderfully; 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
government, which, from the heaven to this lowest earth, is just and perfect?
For whither fled they, when they fled 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 gentleness, and stumbling at Thy uprightness,
and falling upon their own ruggedness. Ignorant, in truth, that Thou art every
where, Whom no place encompasseth! and Thou alone art near, even to those that
remove far from Thee. Let them then be turned, and seek Thee; because not as
they have forsaken their Creator, 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!
2 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 earnest 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 beholdest 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.
3 For with their understanding and wit, which Thou bestowedst 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, 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 imaginations, 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.
4 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 number, 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 sanctification, and was numbered among us, and
paid tribute unto Caesar. 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 creature,
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 imaginations, and profess themselves to be wise,
attributing to themselves what is Thine; and thereby with most perverse
blindness, study to impute to Thee what is their own, forging lies of Thee who
art the Truth, and changing the glory of the uncorruptible 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.
5 Yet many truths concerning the creature retained I from these men, and saw the
reason thereof from calculations, the succession of times, and the visible
testimonies of the stars; and compared them with the saying of Manicheus,
which in his frenzy he had written most largely on these subjects; but
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 commanded to believe; and yet it corresponded
not with what had been established by calculations and my own sight, but was
quite contrary.
6 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 thankful, 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 measure 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.
7 But yet who bade that Manicheus 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 ignorant, 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 wanderer 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
personally within him." When then he was found out to have taught falsely
of the heaven and stars, and of the motions of 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.
8 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 credence upon his authority.
9 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 objections about these things, still held out to me the coming of
this Faustus, by conference with whom these and greater difficulties, 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, because better said; nor therefore true, because
eloquent; nor 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 however that another sort of people were suspicious
even of truth, and refused to assent to it, if delivered in a smooth and
copious 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.
10 That greediness then, wherewith I had of so long time expected 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 troubled 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 TuIly'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 speaking, 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? before 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.
11 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 indeed 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 Manicheus 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 towards 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 could
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.
12 My zeal for the writings of Manicheus 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 himself 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 providence, did not forsake my soul; and out of my mother's
heart's blood, through her tears night and day poured out, was a sacrifice
offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst deal with me by wondrous ways. Thou
didst it, O my God: for the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He
shall dispose his way. Or how shall we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand,
re-making what it made?
13 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 warranted 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 order which any one hath
established for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit, with a
wonderful stolidity, punishable 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 incomparably 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 salvation of my
soul, at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn from it; and at
Rome didst proffer me allurements, 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.
14 But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet showedst it
neither to me, nor to my mother, who 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 Oratory 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
desire, regardedst 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 chastened 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 hard-heartedness,
she betook herself again to intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted
place, and I to Rome.
15 And lo, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness, 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 not believe it. And now the
fever heightening, I was parting and departing for ever. For had I then parted
hence, whither had I departed, but into fire and torments, such as my misdeeds
deserved in the truth of Thy appointment? And this she knew not, yet in
absence prayed for me. But Thou, everywhere 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
medicine, 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 affection she bare 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.
16 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 oblation 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 despise and reject from
Thy aid the tears of such an one, wherewith 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 endureth for ever, vouchsafest to
those to whom Thou forgivest all of their debts, to become also a debtor by
Thy promises.
17 Thou recoveredst me then of that sickness, and healedst the son of Thy
handmaid, for the time in body, that he might live, for Thee to bestow upon
him a better and more abiding health. 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 because 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 a safe keeping around my lips, that my heart might not turn aside to
wicked speeches, to make excuses of sins, with men that work iniquity: and,
therefore, was I still united with their Elect.
18 But now despairing to make proficiency in that false doctrine, 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 Manicheus 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 any thing),
this was the greatest, and almost only cause of my inevitable error. For hence
I believed Evil also to be some such kind of substance, 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 believe 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
salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid substance, so as to believe
nothing of Him, but what I could imagine in my vanity. 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
mingled, 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 confessions. Yet such was I.
19 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 produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily
withstood, the Manichees' answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this answer
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 engraft 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 oppressed and in a manner suffocated by
those "masses"; panting 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
fleeting 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.
20 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 send him at the public
expense, I made application (through those very persons, intoxicated with
Manichean 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 Thy people the flour of
Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy wine. To
him was I unknowing 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, trying 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 I 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
shamelessness; 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 objections; nor that what I held was therefore
to be condemned, because both sides could be maintained. For the Catholic
cause seemed to me in such sort not vanquished, as still not as yet to be
victorious.
21 Hereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by any certain
proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once have conceived a
spiritual substance, all 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 philosophers 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
philosophers 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
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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