Belijdenissen - Augustinus (boek V)
The Confessions of Saint Augustine - Book V
Chapter I
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.
Chapter II
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!
Chapter III
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.
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 seal they wander over the unknown paths
of the abyss), nor their own luxuriousness, as beasts of the field, that
Thou, Lord, a consuming fire, mayest burn up those dead cares of theirs, and
re-create themselves immortally.
But they knew not the way, Thy Word, by Whom Thou madest these things which
they number, and themselves who number, and the sense whereby they perceive
what they 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 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.
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
Manichaeus, 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.
Chapter IV
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.
Chapter V
But yet who bade that Manichaeus 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.
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.
Chapter VI
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.
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 Tully's Orations, a very few books of Seneca,
some things of the poets, and such few volumes of his own sect as were
written in Latin and neatly, and was daily practised in 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.
Chapter VII
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 Manichaeus were preferable, or at
least as good. Which when I proposed to he 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.
My zeal for the writings of Manichaeus 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?
Chapter VIII
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.
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, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou
mightest make me what she ever asked. The wind blew and swelled our sails,
and withdrew the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there,
frantic with sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears, Who
didst then disregard them; whilst through my desires, Thou wert hurrying me
to end all desire, and the earthly part of her affection to me was 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 hardheartedness, she betook herself again to
intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted place, and I to Rome.
Chapter IX
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 bore to me, and with how much more vehement anguish she was now in
labour of me in the spirit, than at her childbearing in the flesh.
I see not then how she should have been healed, had such a death of mine
stricken through the bowels of her love. And where would have been those her
so strong and unceasing prayers, unintermitting to Thee alone? But wouldest
Thou, God of mercies, despise the contrite and humbled heart of that chaste
and sober widow, so frequent in almsdeeds, so full of duty and service to
Thy saints, no day intermitting the 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.
Chapter X
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 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.
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 Manichaeus 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 anything), 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.
Chapter XI
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 engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith:
yet themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies. But I, conceiving of
things corporeal only, was mainly held down, vehemently 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.
Chapter XII
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 to, 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.
Chapter XIII
When therefore they of Milan had sent to Rome to the prefect of the city, to
furnish them with a rhetoric reader for their city, and sent him at the
public expense, I made application (through those very persons, intoxicated
with Manichaean 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 Manichaean 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.
Chapter XIV
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.
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.
