Belijdenissen - Augustinus (boek VI)
The Confessions of Saint Augustine - Book VI
Chapter I
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.”
Chapter II
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 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 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 to life could not be found
out.
Chapter III
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.
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.
Chapter IV
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.
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.
Chapter V
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.”
This I believed, sometimes more strongly, more weakly otherwhiles; 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.
Chapter VI—
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 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 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.
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.
Chapter VII
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.
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, 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.
Chapter VIII
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 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.
Chapter IX
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 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.
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 marketplace, 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 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.
Chapter X
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 Praetorian 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 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.
Chapter XI
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; to, 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?
“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.
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.
Chapter XII
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.
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 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.
Chapter XIII
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.
Chapter XIV
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 often 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.
Chapter XV
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 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 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.
Chapter XVI
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.
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.
