The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK III

To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a caul­dron of un­holy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-​seat­ed want, I hat­ed my­self for want­ing not. I sought what I might love, in love with lov­ing, and safe­ty I hat­ed, and a way with­out snares. For with­in me was a famine of that in­ward food, Thy­self, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hun­gered; but was with­out all long­ing for in­cor­rupt­ible sus­te­nance, not be­cause filled there­with, but the more emp­ty, the more I loathed it. For this cause my soul was sick­ly and full of sores, it mis­er­ably cast it­self forth, de­sir­ing to be scraped by the touch of ob­jects of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be ob­jects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I ob­tained to en­joy the per­son I loved, I de­filed, there­fore, the spring of friend­ship with the filth of con­cu­pis­cence, and I be­cloud­ed its bright­ness with the hell of lust­ful­ness; and thus foul and un­seem­ly, I would fain, through ex­ceed­ing van­ity, be fine and court­ly. I fell head­long then in­to the love where­in I longed to be en­snared. My God, my Mer­cy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great good­ness be­sprin­kle for me that sweet­ness? For I was both beloved, and se­cret­ly ar­rived at the bond of en­joy­ing; and was with joy fet­tered with sor­row-​bring­ing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burn­ing rods of jeal­ousy, and sus­pi­cions, and fears, and angers, and quar­rels.

Stage-​plays al­so car­ried me away, full of im­ages of my mis­eries, and of fu­el to my fire. Why is it, that man de­sires to be made sad, be­hold­ing dole­ful and trag­ical things, which yet him­self would no means suf­fer? yet he de­sires as a spec­ta­tor to feel sor­row at them, this very sor­row is his plea­sure. What is this but a mis­er­able mad­ness? for a man is the more af­fect­ed with these ac­tions, the less free he is from such af­fec­tions. How­so­ev­er, when he suf­fers in his own per­son, it us­es to be styled mis­ery: when he com­pas­sion­ates oth­ers, then it is mer­cy. But what sort of com­pas­sion is this for feigned and sceni­cal pas­sions? for the au­di­tor is not called on to re­lieve, but on­ly to grieve: and he ap­plauds the ac­tor of these fic­tions the more, the more he grieves. And if the calami­ties of those per­sons (whether of old times, or mere fic­tion) be so act­ed, that the spec­ta­tor is not moved to tears, he goes away dis­gust­ed and crit­icis­ing; but if he be moved to pas­sion, he stays in­tent, and weeps for joy.

Are griefs then too loved? Ver­ily all de­sire joy. Or where­as no man likes to be mis­er­able, is he yet pleased to be mer­ci­ful? which be­cause it can­not be with­out pas­sion, for this rea­son alone are pas­sions loved? This al­so springs from that vein of friend­ship. But whith­er goes that vein? whith­er flows it? where­fore runs it in­to that tor­rent of pitch bub­bling forth those mon­strous tides of foul lust­ful­ness, in­to which it is wil­ful­ly changed and trans­formed, be­ing of its own will pre­cip­itat­ed and cor­rupt­ed from its heav­en­ly clear­ness? Shall com­pas­sion then be put away? by no means. Be griefs then some­times loved. But be­ware of un­clean­ness, O my soul, un­der the guardian­ship of my God, the God of our fa­thers, who is to be praised and ex­alt­ed above all for ev­er, be­ware of un­clean­ness. For I have not now ceased to pity; but then in the the­atres I re­joiced with lovers when they wicked­ly en­joyed one an­oth­er, al­though this was imag­inary on­ly in the play. And when they lost one an­oth­er, as if very com­pas­sion­ate, I sor­rowed with them, yet had my de­light in both. But now I much more pity him that re­joiceth in his wicked­ness, than him who is thought to suf­fer hard­ship, by miss­ing some per­ni­cious plea­sure, and the loss of some mis­er­able fe­lic­ity. This cer­tain­ly is the truer mer­cy, but in it grief de­lights not. For though he that grieves for the mis­er­able, be com­mend­ed for his of­fice of char­ity; yet had he, who is gen­uine­ly com­pas­sion­ate, rather there were noth­ing for him to grieve for. For if good will be ill willed (which can nev­er be), then may he, who tru­ly and sin­cere­ly com­mis­er­ates, wish there might be some mis­er­able, that he might com­mis­er­ate. Some sor­row may then be al­lowed, none loved. For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more pure­ly than we, and hast more in­cor­rupt­ibly pity on them, yet are wound­ed with no sor­row­ful­ness. And who is suf­fi­cient for these things?

But I, mis­er­able, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at, when in an­oth­er’s and that feigned and per­son­at­ed mis­ery, that act­ing best pleased me, and at­tract­ed me the most ve­he­ment­ly, which drew tears from me. What mar­vel that an un­hap­py sheep, stray­ing from Thy flock, and im­pa­tient of Thy keep­ing, I be­came in­fect­ed with a foul dis­ease? And hence the love of griefs; not such as should sink deep in­to me; for I loved not to suf­fer, what I loved to look on; but such as up­on hear­ing their fic­tions should light­ly scratch the sur­face; up­on which, as on en­ven­omed nails, fol­lowed in­flamed swelling, im­pos­tumes, and a pu­tre­fied sore. My life be­ing such, was it life, O my God?

And Thy faith­ful mer­cy hov­ered over me afar. Up­on how grievous in­iq­ui­ties con­sumed I my­self, pur­su­ing a sac­ri­le­gious cu­rios­ity, that hav­ing for­sak­en Thee, it might bring me to the treach­er­ous abyss, and the be­guil­ing ser­vice of dev­ils, to whom I sac­ri­ficed my evil ac­tions, and in all these things Thou didst scourge me! I dared even, while Thy solem­ni­ties were cel­ebrat­ed with­in the walls of Thy Church, to de­sire, and to com­pass a busi­ness de­serv­ing death for its fruits, for which Thou scourgedst me with grievous pun­ish­ments, though noth­ing to my fault, O Thou my ex­ceed­ing mer­cy, my God, my refuge from those ter­ri­ble de­stroy­ers, among whom I wan­dered with a stiff neck, with­draw­ing fur­ther from Thee, lov­ing mine own ways, and not Thine; lov­ing a va­grant lib­er­ty.

Those stud­ies al­so, which were ac­count­ed com­mend­able, had a view to ex­celling in the courts of lit­iga­tion; the more bepraised, the crafti­er. Such is men’s blind­ness, glo­ry­ing even in their blind­ness. And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, where­at I joyed proud­ly, and I swelled with ar­ro­gan­cy, though (Lord, Thou know­est) far qui­eter and al­to­geth­er re­moved from the sub­vert­ings of those “Sub­vert­ers” (for this ill-​omened and dev­il­ish name was the very badge of gal­lantry) among whom I lived, with a shame­less shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was some­times de­light­ed with their friend­ship, whose do­ings I ev­er did ab­hor -i.e., their “sub­vert­ings,” where­with they wan­ton­ly per­se­cut­ed the mod­esty of strangers, which they dis­turbed by a gra­tu­itous jeer­ing, feed­ing there­on their ma­li­cious birth. Noth­ing can be lik­er the very ac­tions of dev­ils than these. What then could they be more tru­ly called than “Sub­vert­ers”? them­selves sub­vert­ed and al­to­geth­er per­vert­ed first, the de­ceiv­ing spir­its se­cret­ly de­rid­ing and se­duc­ing them, where­in them­selves de­light to jeer at and de­ceive oth­ers.

Among such as these, in that un­set­tled age of mine, learned I books of elo­quence, where­in I de­sired to be em­inent, out of a damnable and vain­glo­ri­ous end, a joy in hu­man van­ity. In the or­di­nary course of study, I fell up­on a cer­tain book of Ci­cero, whose speech al­most all ad­mire, not so his heart. This book of his con­tains an ex­hor­ta­tion to phi­los­ophy, and is called “Hort­en­sius.” But this book al­tered my af­fec­tions, and turned my prayers to Thy­self O Lord; and made me have oth­er pur­pos­es and de­sires. Ev­ery vain hope at once be­came worth­less to me; and I longed with an in­cred­ibly burn­ing de­sire for an im­mor­tal­ity of wis­dom, and be­gan now to arise, that I might re­turn to Thee. For not to sharp­en my tongue (which thing I seemed to be pur­chas­ing with my moth­er’s al­lowances, in that my nine­teenth year, my fa­ther be­ing dead two years be­fore), not to sharp­en my tongue did I em­ploy that book; nor did it in­fuse in­to me its style, but its mat­ter.

How did I burn then, my God, how did I burn to re-​mount from earth­ly things to Thee, nor knew I what Thou wouldest do with me? For with Thee is wis­dom. But the love of wis­dom is in Greek called “phi­los­ophy,” with which that book in­flamed me. Some there be that se­duce through phi­los­ophy, un­der a great, and smooth, and hon­ourable name colour­ing and dis­guis­ing their own er­rors: and al­most all who in that and for­mer ages were such, are in that book cen­sured and set forth: there al­so is made plain that whole­some ad­vice of Thy Spir­it, by Thy good and de­vout ser­vant: Be­ware lest any man spoil you through phi­los­ophy and vain de­ceit, af­ter the tra­di­tion of men, af­ter the rudi­ments of the world, and not af­ter Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the ful­ness of the God­head bod­ily. And since at that time (Thou, O light of my heart, know­est) Apos­tolic Scrip­ture was not known to me, I was de­light­ed with that ex­hor­ta­tion, so far on­ly, that I was there­by strong­ly roused, and kin­dled, and in­flamed to love, and seek, and ob­tain, and hold, and em­brace not this or that sect, but wis­dom it­self what­ev­er it were; and this alone checked me thus un­kin­dled, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, ac­cord­ing to Thy mer­cy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Thy Son, had my ten­der heart, even with my moth­er’s milk, de­vout­ly drunk in and deeply trea­sured; and what­so­ev­er was with­out that name, though nev­er so learned, pol­ished, or true, took not en­tire hold of me.

I re­solved then to bend my mind to the holy Scrip­tures, that I might see what they were. But be­hold, I see a thing not un­der­stood by the proud, nor laid open to chil­dren, low­ly in ac­cess, in its re­cess­es lofty, and veiled with mys­ter­ies; and I was not such as could en­ter in­to it, or stoop my neck to fol­low its steps. For not as I now speak, did I feel when I turned to those Scrip­tures; but they seemed to me un­wor­thy to he com­pared to the state­li­ness of Tul­ly: for my swelling pride shrunk from their low­li­ness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the in­te­ri­or there­of. Yet were they such as would grow up in a lit­tle one. But I dis­dained to be a lit­tle one; and, swollen with pride, took my­self to be a great one.

There­fore I fell among men proud­ly dot­ing, ex­ceed­ing car­nal and prat­ing, in whose mouths were the snares of the Dev­il, limed with the mix­ture of the syl­la­bles of Thy name, and of our Lord Je­sus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, the Par­aclete, our Com­forter. These names de­part­ed not out of their mouth, but so far forth as the sound on­ly and the noise of the tongue, for the heart was void of truth. Yet they cried out “Truth, Truth,” and spake much there­of to me, yet it was not in them: but they spake false­hood, not of Thee on­ly (who tru­ly art Truth), but even of those el­ements of this world, Thy crea­tures. And I in­deed ought to have passed by even philoso­phers who spake truth con­cern­ing them, for love of Thee, my Fa­ther, supreme­ly good, Beau­ty of all things beau­ti­ful. O Truth, Truth, how in­ward­ly did even then the mar­row of my soul pant af­ter Thee, when they of­ten and di­verse­ly, and in many and huge books, echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the dish­es where­in to me, hun­ger­ing af­ter Thee, they, in­stead of Thee, served up the Sun and Moon, beau­ti­ful works of Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thy­self, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spir­itu­al works are be­fore these cor­po­re­al works, ce­les­tial though they be, and shin­ing. But I hun­gered and thirst­ed not even af­ter those first works of Thine, but af­ter Thee Thy­self, the Truth, in whom is no vari­able­ness, nei­ther shad­ow of turn­ing: yet they still set be­fore me in those dish­es, glit­ter­ing fan­tasies, than which bet­ter were it to love this very sun (which is re­al to our sight at least), than those fan­tasies which by our eyes de­ceive our mind. Yet be­cause I thought them to be Thee, I fed there­on; not ea­ger­ly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou art; for Thou wast not these empti­ness­es, nor was I nour­ished by them, but ex­haust­ed rather. Food in sleep shows very like our food awake; yet are not those asleep nour­ished by it, for they are asleep. But those were not even any way like to Thee, as Thou hast now spo­ken to me; for those were cor­po­re­al fan­tasies, false bod­ies, than which these true bod­ies, ce­les­tial or ter­res­tri­al, which with our flesh­ly sight we be­hold, are far more cer­tain: these things the beasts and birds dis­cern as well as we, and they are more cer­tain than when we fan­cy them. And again, we do with more cer­tain­ty fan­cy them, than by them con­jec­ture oth­er vaster and in­fi­nite bod­ies which have no be­ing. Such emp­ty husks was I then fed on; and was not fed. But Thou, my soul’s Love, in look­ing for whom I fail, that I may be­come strong, art nei­ther those bod­ies which we see, though in heav­en; nor those which we see not there; for Thou hast cre­at­ed them, nor dost Thou ac­count them among the chiefest of Thy works. How far then art Thou from those fan­tasies of mine, fan­tasies of bod­ies which al­to­geth­er are not, than which the im­ages of those bod­ies, which are, are far more cer­tain, and more cer­tain still the bod­ies them­selves, which yet Thou art not; no, nor yet the soul, which is the life of the bod­ies. So then, bet­ter and more cer­tain is the life of the bod­ies than the bod­ies. But Thou art the life of souls, the life of lives, hav­ing life in Thy­self; and changest not, life of my soul.

Where then wert Thou then to me, and how far from me? Far ver­ily was I stray­ing from Thee, barred from the very husks of the swine, whom with husks I fed. For how much bet­ter are the fa­bles of po­ets and gram­mar­ians than these snares? For vers­es, and po­ems, and “Medea fly­ing,” are more prof­itable tru­ly than these men’s five el­ements, var­ious­ly dis­guised, an­swer­ing to five dens of dark­ness, which have no be­ing, yet slay the be­liev­er. For vers­es and po­ems I can turn to true food, and “Medea fly­ing,” though I did sing, I main­tained not; though I heard it sung, I be­lieved not: but those things I did be­lieve. Woe, woe, by what steps was I brought down to the depths of hell! toil­ing and tur­moil­ing through want of Truth, since I sought af­ter Thee, my God (to Thee I con­fess it, who hadst mer­cy on me, not as yet con­fess­ing), not ac­cord­ing to the un­der­stand­ing of the mind, where­in Thou willedst that I should ex­cel the beasts, but ac­cord­ing to the sense of the flesh. But Thou wert more in­ward to me than my most in­ward part; and high­er than my high­est. I light­ed up­on that bold wom­an, sim­ple and knoweth noth­ing, shad­owed out in Solomon, sit­ting at the door, and say­ing, Eat ye bread of se­cre­cies will­ing­ly, and drink ye stolen wa­ters which are sweet: she se­duced me, be­cause she found my soul dwelling abroad in the eye of my flesh, and ru­mi­nat­ing on such food as through it I had de­voured.

For oth­er than this, that which re­al­ly is I knew not; and was, as it were through sharp­ness of wit, per­suad­ed to as­sent to fool­ish de­ceivers, when they asked me, “whence is evil?” “is God bound­ed by a bod­ily shape, and has hairs and nails?” “are they to be es­teemed righ­teous who had many wives at once, and did kill men, and sac­ri­fice liv­ing crea­tures?” At which I, in my ig­no­rance, was much trou­bled, and de­part­ing from the truth, seemed to my­self to be mak­ing to­wards it; be­cause as yet I knew not that evil was noth­ing but a pri­va­tion of good, un­til at last a thing ceas­es al­to­geth­er to be; which how should I see, the sight of whose eyes reached on­ly to bod­ies, and of my mind to a phan­tasm? And I knew not God to be a Spir­it, not one who hath parts ex­tend­ed in length and breadth, or whose be­ing was bulk; for ev­ery bulk is less in a part than in the whole: and if it be in­fi­nite, it must be less in such part as is de­fined by a cer­tain space, than in its in­fini­tude; and so is not whol­ly ev­ery where, as Spir­it, as God. And what that should be in us, by which we were like to God, and might be right­ly said to be af­ter the im­age of God, I was al­to­geth­er ig­no­rant.

Nor knew I that true in­ward righ­teous­ness which jud­geth not ac­cord­ing to cus­tom, but out of the most right­ful law of God Almighty, where­by the ways of places and times were dis­posed ac­cord­ing to those times and places; it­self mean­time be­ing the same al­ways and ev­ery where, not one thing in one place, and an­oth­er in an­oth­er; ac­cord­ing to which Abra­ham, and Isaac, and Ja­cob, and Moses, and David, were righ­teous, and all those com­mend­ed by the mouth of God; but were judged un­righ­teous by sil­ly men, judg­ing out of man’s judg­ment, and mea­sur­ing by their own pet­ty habits, the moral habits of the whole hu­man race. As if in an ar­mory, one ig­no­rant of what were adapt­ed to each part should cov­er his head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a hel­met, and com­plain that they fit­ted not: or as if on a day when busi­ness is pub­licly stopped in the af­ter­noon, one were an­gered at not be­ing al­lowed to keep open shop, be­cause he had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he ob­serveth some ser­vant take a thing in his hand, which the but­ler is not suf­fered to med­dle with; or some­thing per­mit­ted out of doors, which is for­bid­den in the din­ing-​room; and should be an­gry, that in one house, and one fam­ily, the same thing is not al­lot­ted ev­ery where, and to all. Even such are they who are fret­ted to hear some­thing to have been law­ful for righ­teous men for­mer­ly, which now is not; or that God, for cer­tain tem­po­ral re­spects, com­mand­ed them one thing, and these an­oth­er, obey­ing both the same righ­teous­ness: where­as they see, in one man, and one day, and one house, dif­fer­ent things to be fit for dif­fer­ent mem­bers, and a thing for­mer­ly law­ful, af­ter a cer­tain time not so; in one cor­ner per­mit­ted or com­mand­ed, but in an­oth­er right­ly for­bid­den and pun­ished. Is jus­tice there­fore var­ious or mu­ta­ble? No, but the times, over which it pre­sides, flow not even­ly, be­cause they are times. But men whose days are few up­on the earth, for that by their sens­es they can­not har­monise the caus­es of things in for­mer ages and oth­er na­tions, which they had not ex­pe­ri­ence of, with these which they have ex­pe­ri­ence of, where­as in one and the same body, day, or fam­ily, they eas­ily see what is fit­ting for each mem­ber, and sea­son, part, and per­son; to the one they take ex­cep­tions, to the oth­er they sub­mit.

These things I then knew not, nor ob­served; they struck my sight on all sides, and I saw them not. I in­dit­ed vers­es, in which I might not place ev­ery foot ev­ery where, but dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fer­ent me­tres; nor even in any one me­tre the self-​same foot in all places. Yet the art it­self, by which I in­dit­ed, had not dif­fer­ent prin­ci­ples for these dif­fer­ent cas­es, but com­prised all in one. Still I saw not how that righ­teous­ness, which good and holy men obeyed, did far more ex­cel­lent­ly and sub­lime­ly con­tain in one all those things which God com­mand­ed, and in no part var­ied; al­though in vary­ing times it pre­scribed not ev­ery thing at once, but ap­por­tioned and en­joined what was fit for each. And I in my blind­ness, cen­sured the holy Fa­thers, not on­ly where­in they made use of things present as God com­mand­ed and in­spired them, but al­so where­in they were fore­telling things to come, as God was re­veal­ing in them.

Can it at any time or place be un­just to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; and his neigh­bour as him­self? There­fore are those foul of­fences which be against na­ture, to be ev­ery where and at all times de­test­ed and pun­ished; such as were those of the men of Sodom: which should all na­tions com­mit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God, which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one an­oth­er. For even that in­ter­course which should be be­tween God and us is vi­olat­ed, when that same na­ture, of which He is Au­thor, is pol­lut­ed by per­ver­si­ty of lust. But those ac­tions which are of­fences against the cus­toms of men, are to be avoid­ed ac­cord­ing to the cus­toms sev­er­al­ly pre­vail­ing; so that a thing agreed up­on, and con­firmed, by cus­tom or law of any city or na­tion, may not be vi­olat­ed at the law­less plea­sure of any, whether na­tive or for­eign­er. For any part which har­moniseth not with its whole, is of­fen­sive. But when God com­mands a thing to be done, against the cus­toms or com­pact of any peo­ple, though it were nev­er by them done hereto­fore, it is to be done; and if in­ter­mit­ted, it is to be re­stored; and if nev­er or­dained, is now to be or­dained. For law­ful if it he for a king, in the state which he reigns over, to com­mand that which no one be­fore him, nor he him­self hereto­fore, had com­mand­ed, and to obey him can­not be against the com­mon weal of the state (nay, it were against it if he were not obeyed, for to obey princes is a gen­er­al com­pact of hu­man so­ci­ety); how much more un­hesi­tat­ing­ly ought we to obey God, in all which He com­mands, the Ruler of all His crea­tures! For as among the pow­ers in man’s so­ci­ety, the greater au­thor­ity is obeyed in pref­er­ence to the less­er, so must God above all.

So in acts of vi­olence, where there is a wish to hurt, whether by re­proach or in­jury; and these ei­ther for re­venge, as one en­emy against an­oth­er; or for some prof­it be­long­ing to an­oth­er, as the rob­ber to the trav­eller; or to avoid some evil, as to­wards one who is feared; or through en­vy, as one less for­tu­nate to one more so, or one well thriv­en in any thing, to him whose be­ing on a par with him­self he fears, or grieves at, or for the mere plea­sure at an­oth­er’s pain, as spec­ta­tors of glad­ia­tors, or de­rid­ers and mock­ers of oth­ers. These be the heads of in­iq­ui­ty which spring from the lust of the flesh, of the eye, or of rule, ei­ther singly, or two com­bined, or all to­geth­er; and so do men live ill against the three, and sev­en, that psaltery of of­ten strings, Thy Ten Com­mand­ments, O God, most high, and most sweet. But what foul of­fences can there be against Thee, who canst not be de­filed? or what acts of vi­olence against Thee, who canst not be harmed? But Thou avengest what men com­mit against them­selves, see­ing al­so when they sin against Thee, they do wicked­ly against their own souls, and in­iq­ui­ty gives it­self the lie, by cor­rupt­ing and per­vert­ing their na­ture, which Thou hast cre­at­ed and or­dained, or by an im­mod­er­ate use of things al­lowed, or in burn­ing in things un­al­lowed, to that use which is against na­ture; or are found guilty, rag­ing with heart and tongue against Thee, kick­ing against the pricks; or when, burst­ing the pale of hu­man so­ci­ety, they bold­ly joy in self-​willed com­bi­na­tions or di­vi­sions, ac­cord­ing as they have any ob­ject to gain or sub­ject of of­fence. And these things are done when Thou art for­sak­en, O Foun­tain of Life, who art the on­ly and true Cre­ator and Gov­er­nor of the Uni­verse, and by a self-​willed pride, any one false thing is se­lect­ed there­from and loved. So then by a hum­ble de­vout­ness we re­turn to Thee; and Thou cleans­est us from our evil habits, and art mer­ci­ful to their sins who con­fess, and hear­est the groan­ing of the pris­on­er, and loos­est us from the chains which we made for our­selves, if we lift not up against Thee the horns of an un­re­al lib­er­ty, suf­fer­ing the loss of all, through cov­etous­ness of more, by lov­ing more our own pri­vate good than Thee, the Good of all.

Amidst these of­fences of foul­ness and vi­olence, and so many in­iq­ui­ties, are sins of men, who are on the whole mak­ing pro­fi­cien­cy; which by those that judge right­ly, are, af­ter the rule of per­fec­tion, dis­com­mend­ed, yet the per­sons com­mend­ed, up­on hope of fu­ture fruit, as in the green blade of grow­ing corn. And there are some, re­sem­bling of­fences of foul­ness or vi­olence, which yet are no sins; be­cause they of­fend nei­ther Thee, our Lord God, nor hu­man so­ci­ety; when, name­ly, things fit­ting for a giv­en pe­ri­od are ob­tained for the ser­vice of life, and we know not whether out of a lust of hav­ing; or when things are, for the sake of cor­rec­tion, by con­sti­tut­ed au­thor­ity pun­ished, and we know not whether out of a lust of hurt­ing. Many an ac­tion then which in men’s sight is dis­ap­proved, is by Thy tes­ti­mo­ny ap­proved; and many, by men praised, are (Thou be­ing wit­ness) con­demned: be­cause the show of the ac­tion, and the mind of the do­er, and the un­known ex­igen­cy of the pe­ri­od, sev­er­al­ly vary. But when Thou on a sud­den com­man­dest an un­wont­ed and un­thought of thing, yea, al­though Thou hast some­time for­bid­den it, and still for the time hidest the rea­son of Thy com­mand, and it be against the or­di­nance of some so­ci­ety of men, who doubts but it is to be done, see­ing that so­ci­ety of men is just which serves Thee? But blessed are they who know Thy com­mands! For all things were done by Thy ser­vants; ei­ther to show forth some­thing need­ful for the present, or to fore­show things to come.

These things I be­ing ig­no­rant of, scoffed at those Thy holy ser­vants and prophets. And what gained I by scoff­ing at them, but to be scoffed at by Thee, be­ing in­sen­si­bly and step by step drawn on to those fol­lies, as to be­lieve that a fig-​tree wept when it was plucked, and the tree, its moth­er, shed milky tears? Which fig notwith­stand­ing (plucked by some oth­er’s, not his own, guilt) had some Manichaean saint eat­en, and min­gled with his bow­els, he should breathe out of it an­gels, yea, there shall burst forth par­ti­cles of di­vin­ity, at ev­ery moan or groan in his prayer, which par­ti­cles of the most high and true God had re­mained bound in that fig, un­less they had been set at lib­er­ty by the teeth or bel­ly of some “Elect” saint! And I, mis­er­able, be­lieved that more mer­cy was to be shown to the fruits of the earth than men, for whom they were cre­at­ed. For if any one an hun­gered, not a Manichaean, should ask for any, that morsel would seem as it were con­demned to cap­ital pun­ish­ment, which should be giv­en him.

And Thou sen­test Thine hand from above, and drewest my soul out of that pro­found dark­ness, my moth­er, Thy faith­ful one, weep­ing to Thee for me, more than moth­ers weep the bod­ily deaths of their chil­dren. For she, by that faith and spir­it which she had from Thee, dis­cerned the death where­in I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her, and de­spisedst not her tears, when stream­ing down, they wa­tered the ground un­der her eyes in ev­ery place where she prayed; yea Thou heardest her. For whence was that dream where­by Thou com­fort­edst her; so that she al­lowed me to live with her, and to eat at the same ta­ble in the house, which she had be­gun to shrink from, ab­hor­ring and de­test­ing the blas­phemies of my er­ror? For she saw her­self stand­ing on a cer­tain wood­en rule, and a shin­ing youth com­ing to­wards her, cheer­ful and smil­ing up­on her, her­self griev­ing, and over­whelmed with grief. But he hav­ing (in or­der to in­struct, as is their wont not to be in­struct­ed) en­quired of her the caus­es of her grief and dai­ly tears, and she an­swer­ing that she was be­wail­ing my perdi­tion, he bade her rest con­tent­ed, and told her to look and ob­serve, “That where she was, there was I al­so.” And when she looked, she saw me stand­ing by her in the same rule. Whence was this, but that Thine ears were to­wards her heart? O Thou Good om­nipo­tent, who so carest for ev­ery one of us, as if Thou caredst for him on­ly; and so for all, as if they were but one!

Whence was this al­so, that when she had told me this vi­sion, and I would fain bend it to mean, “That she rather should not de­spair of be­ing one day what I was”; she present­ly, with­out any hes­ita­tion, replies: “No; for it was not told me that, ‘where he, there thou al­so’; but ‘where thou, there he al­so’?” I con­fess to Thee, O Lord, that to the best of my re­mem­brance (and I have oft spo­ken of this), that Thy an­swer, through my wak­ing moth­er, -that she was not per­plexed by the plau­si­bil­ity of my false in­ter­pre­ta­tion, and so quick­ly saw what was to be seen, and which I cer­tain­ly had not per­ceived be­fore she spake, -even then moved me more than the dream it­self, by which a joy to the holy wom­an, to be ful­filled so long af­ter, was, for the con­so­la­tion of her present an­guish, so long be­fore fore­sig­ni­fied. For al­most nine years passed, in which I wal­lowed in the mire of that deep pit, and the dark­ness of false­hood, of­ten as­say­ing to rise, but dashed down the more grievous­ly. All which time that chaste, god­ly, and sober wid­ow (such as Thou lovest), now more cheered with hope, yet no whit re­lax­ing in her weep­ing and mourn­ing, ceased not at all hours of her de­vo­tions to be­wail my case un­to Thee. And her prayers en­tered in­to Thy pres­ence; and yet Thou suf­feredst me to be yet in­volved and rein­volved in that dark­ness.

Thou gavest her mean­time an­oth­er an­swer, which I call to mind; for much I pass by, hast­ing to those things which more press me to con­fess un­to Thee, and much I do not re­mem­ber. Thou gavest her then an­oth­er an­swer, by a Priest of Thine, a cer­tain Bish­op brought up in Thy Church, and well stud­ied in Thy books. Whom when this wom­an had en­treat­ed to vouch­safe to con­verse with me, re­fute my er­rors, un­teach me ill things, and teach me good things (for this he was wont to do, when he found per­sons fit­ted to re­ceive it), he re­fused, wise­ly, as I af­ter­wards per­ceived. For he an­swered, that I was yet un­teach­able, be­ing puffed up with the nov­el­ty of that heresy, and had al­ready per­plexed divers un­skil­ful per­sons with cap­tious ques­tions, as she had told him: “but let him alone a while” (saith he), “on­ly pray God for him, he will of him­self by read­ing find what that er­ror is, and how great its impi­ety.” At the same time he told her, how him­self, when a lit­tle one, had by his se­duced moth­er been con­signed over to the Manichees, and had not on­ly read, but fre­quent­ly copied out al­most all, their books, and had (with­out any ar­gu­ment or proof from any one) seen how much that sect was to be avoid­ed; and had avoid­ed it. Which when he had said, and she would not be sat­is­fied, but urged him more, with en­treaties and many tears, that he would see me and dis­course with me; he, a lit­tle dis­pleased at her im­por­tu­ni­ty, saith, “Go thy ways and God bless thee, for it is not pos­si­ble that the son of these tears should per­ish.” Which an­swer she took (as she of­ten men­tioned in her con­ver­sa­tions with me) as if it had sound­ed from heav­en.