SAINT AUGUSTINE
CONFESSIONS: BOOK SIX
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Arrival of Monnica at
Milan; her obedience to St. Ambrose, and his value for her; St. Ambrose’s
habits; Augustine’s gradual abandonment 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 inveterate sins, and
dread of judgment.
O Thou, 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 darkness, 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 being assured, that Thou, who
hadst promised the whole, 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.”
2 When then my mother had once,
as she was wont in Africa, brought to the Churches built in memory of the
Saints, certain cakes, and bread and wine, and was forbidden by the
doorkeeper; 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 therewith 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 carrying 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
that these, as it were, anniversary funeral solemnities did much resemble the
superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly forbare it: and for a basket
filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the Churches of
the martyrs a breast filled with more purified petitions, and to give what she
could to the poor; that so the communication of the Lord’s Body might be
there rightly celebrated, where, after the example of His Passion, the martyrs
had been sacrificed and crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God, and
thus thinks my heart of it in Thy sight, that perhaps she would not so readily
have yielded to the cutting off of this custom, had it been forbidden by
another, whom she loved not as 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 of life could not be found out.
3 Nor did I yet groan in my
prayers, that Thou wouldest help me; but my spirit was wholly intent on
learning, and restless to dispute. And Ambrose himself, as the world counts
happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom personages so great held in 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, or 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 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 obtained, 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 obscurely, 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 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.
4 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 created 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 conceived 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, condemning. 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
contained in space.
5 Ignorant then how this Thy
image should subsist, I should have knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was
to be believed, 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 vehemence, prated of so many uncertainties. For that they
were falsehoods 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 in her sound doctrine maintained any tenet which should confine
Thee, the Creator of all, in space, however great and large, yet bounded every
where by the limits of a human form.
6 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 assenting 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, except 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 believing,
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.
7 Being led, however, from this to prefer the Catholic doctrine,
I felt that her proceeding was more unassuming and honest, in that she
required to be believed things not demonstrated (whether it was that they
could in themselves be demonstrated 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 fabulous 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 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 assurance 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 almost 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
imparted 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 philosophers, could wring this belief from me, “That Thou
art” whatsoever Thou wert (what I knew not), and “That the government of
human things belongs to Thee.”
8 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.
9 I panted after honours, gains,
marriage; and Thou deridedst me. In these desires I underwent most bitter
crosses, Thou being the more gracious, the less Thou sufferedst 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 bird-lime 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 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 anxieties, 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 joyous: 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 obtained by
means of a few begged pence, the same was I plotting 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 myself 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.
10 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 more. He that very night
should digest his drunkenness; but I 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 almost before I could grasp it, it flew away.
11 These things we, who were
living as friends together, bemoaned 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 Carthaginian
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 rhetoric 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.
12 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 Sacrament; 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
before me, he entered, greeted me, sat down, and applied his mind to what I
then handled. I had by chance a passage in hand, which while I was explaining,
a likeness from the Circensian 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 knowest 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 fervently. 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 pastimes; 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
continency, 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.
13 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
incredible 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
Amphitheatre, 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 overcome 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, overcome 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, kindled, 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.
14 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 midday in the
market-place what he was to say by heart (as scholars 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 condemned 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 hatchet being heard, the silversmiths
beneath began to make a 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.
15 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 stealing the goods lost out of the market-place, as
though to show him at last by whom these thefts were committed. He, however,
had divers times seen Alypius at a certain senator’s house, to whom he often
went to pay his respects; and recognising him immediately, took him aside by
the hand, and enquiring 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
master, to disclose the whole. For he had attended his master to the
marketplace. 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.
16 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 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. There 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 unwonted 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 decided 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.
17 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 things be? This too we often
said; and so saying forsook them not, for as yet there dawned nothing certain,
which these forsaken, we might embrace.
18 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
myself, “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
sometimes seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken, and in a 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 ‘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
favour we need? When compose what we may sell to scholars? When refresh
ourselves, unbending our minds from this intenseness of care?
19 “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 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 abandon 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 imitation, have given themselves to the study of wisdom in the
state of marriage.”
20 While I went over these things,
and these winds shifted and drove my heart this way and that, time passed on,
but I delayed 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 fleeing 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.
21 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 wonderful; 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 his virtuous and free feet might be entangled.
22 For when he wondered that I,
whom he esteemed not 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 a
covenant 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 tormented, 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.
23 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.
24 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 belong 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 grievous 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.
25 Meanwhile my sins were being
multiplied, and my concubine 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 Africa, 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 servitude 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.
26 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 call me back from a yet deeper
gulf of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death, and of Thy judgment to come;
which amid all my changes, never departed from my breast. And in my disputes
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
immortal, 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 inner 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 according to the notions I then had of happiness,
be happy without 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.
27 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.”
BOOK SEVEN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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