The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK IV

For this space of nine years (from my nine­teenth year to my eight-​and-​twen­ti­eth) we lived se­duced and se­duc­ing, de­ceived and de­ceiv­ing, in divers lusts; open­ly, by sci­ences which they call lib­er­al; se­cret­ly, with a false-​named re­li­gion; here proud, there su­per­sti­tious, ev­ery where vain. Here, hunt­ing af­ter the empti­ness of pop­ular praise, down even to the­atri­cal ap­plaus­es, and po­et­ic prizes, and strifes for grassy gar­lands, and the fol­lies of shows, and the in­tem­per­ance of de­sires. There, de­sir­ing to be cleansed from these de­file­ments, by car­ry­ing food to those who were called “elect” and “holy,” out of which, in the work­house of their stom­achs, they should forge for us An­gels and Gods, by whom we might be cleansed. These things did I fol­low, and prac­tise with my friends, de­ceived by me, and with me. Let the ar­ro­gant mock me, and such as have not been, to their soul’s health, strick­en and cast down by Thee, O my God; but I would still con­fess to Thee mine own shame in Thy praise. Suf­fer me, I be­seech Thee, and give me grace to go over in my present re­mem­brance the wan­der­ings of my forepassed time, and to of­fer un­to Thee the sac­ri­fice of thanks­giv­ing. For what am I to my­self with­out Thee, but a guide to mine own down­fall? or what am I even at the best, but an in­fant suck­ing the milk Thou givest, and feed­ing up­on Thee, the food that per­isheth not? But what sort of man is any man, see­ing he is but a man? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh at us, but let us poor and needy con­fess un­to Thee.

In those years I taught rhetoric, and, over­come by cu­pid­ity, made sale of a lo­quaci­ty to over­come by. Yet I pre­ferred (Lord, Thou know­est) hon­est schol­ars (as they are ac­count­ed), and these I, with­out ar­ti­fice, taught ar­ti­fices, not to be prac­tised against the life of the guilt­less, though some­times for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar per­ceivedst me stum­bling in that slip­pery course, and amid much smoke send­ing out some sparks of faith­ful­ness, which I showed in that my guid­ance of such as loved van­ity, and sought af­ter leas­ing, my­self their com­pan­ion. In those years I had one, -not in that which is called law­ful mar­riage, but whom I had found out in a way­ward pas­sion, void of un­der­stand­ing; yet but one, re­main­ing faith­ful even to her; in whom I in my own case ex­pe­ri­enced what dif­fer­ence there is be­twixt the self-​re­straint of the mar­riage-​covenant, for the sake of is­sue, and the bar­gain of a lust­ful love, where chil­dren are born against their par­ents’ will, al­though, once born, they con­strain love.

I re­mem­ber al­so, that when I had set­tled to en­ter the lists for a the­atri­cal prize, some wiz­ard asked me what I would give him to win; but I, de­test­ing and ab­hor­ring such foul mys­ter­ies, an­swered, “Though the gar­land were of im­per­ish­able gold, I would not suf­fer a fly to be killed to gain me it. ” For he was to kill some liv­ing crea­tures in his sac­ri­fices, and by those hon­ours to in­vite the dev­ils to favour me. But this ill al­so I re­ject­ed, not out of a pure love for Thee, O God of my heart; for I knew not how to love Thee, who knew not how to con­ceive aught be­yond a ma­te­ri­al bright­ness. And doth not a soul, sigh­ing af­ter such fic­tions, com­mit for­ni­ca­tion against Thee, trust in things un­re­al, and feed the wind? Still I would not for­sooth have sac­ri­fices of­fered to dev­ils for me, to whom I was sac­ri­fic­ing my­self by that su­per­sti­tion. For what else is it to feed the wind, but to feed them, that is by go­ing astray to be­come their plea­sure and de­ri­sion?

Those im­pos­tors then, whom they style Math­emati­cians, I con­sult­ed with­out scru­ple; be­cause they seemed to use no sac­ri­fice, nor to pray to any spir­it for their div­ina­tions: which art, how­ev­er, Chris­tian and true piety con­sis­tent­ly re­jects and con­demns. For, it is a good thing to con­fess un­to Thee, and to say, Have mer­cy up­on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee; and not to abuse Thy mer­cy for a li­cence to sin, but to re­mem­ber the Lord’s words, Be­hold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come un­to thee. All which whole­some ad­vice they labour to de­stroy, say­ing, “The cause of thy sin is in­evitably de­ter­mined in heav­en”; and “This did Venus, or Sat­urn, or Mars”: that man, for­sooth, flesh and blood, and proud cor­rup­tion, might be blame­less; while the Cre­ator and Or­dain­er of heav­en and the stars is to bear the blame. And who is He but our God? the very sweet­ness and well-​spring of righ­teous­ness, who ren­der­est to ev­ery man ac­cord­ing to his works: and a bro­ken and con­trite heart wilt Thou not de­spise.

There was in those days a wise man, very skil­ful in physic, and renowned there­in, who had with his own pro­con­sular hand put the Ag­onis­tic gar­land up­on my dis­tem­pered head, but not as a physi­cian: for this dis­ease Thou on­ly curest, who re­sistest the proud, and givest grace to the hum­ble. But didst Thou fail me even by that old man, or for­bear to heal my soul? For hav­ing be­come more ac­quaint­ed with him, and hang­ing as­sid­uous­ly and fixed­ly on his speech (for though in sim­ple terms, it was vivid, live­ly, and earnest), when he had gath­ered by my dis­course that I was giv­en to the books of na­tiv­ity-​cast­ers, he kind­ly and fa­ther­ly ad­vised me to cast them away, and not fruit­less­ly be­stow a care and dili­gence, nec­es­sary for use­ful things, up­on these van­ities; say­ing, that he had in his ear­li­est years stud­ied that art, so as to make it the pro­fes­sion where­by he should live, and that, un­der­stand­ing Hip­pocrates, he could soon have un­der­stood such a study as this; and yet he had giv­en it over, and tak­en to physic, for no oth­er rea­son but that he found it ut­ter­ly false; and he, a grave man, would not get his liv­ing by de­lud­ing peo­ple. “But thou,” saith he, “hast rhetoric to main­tain thy­self by, so that thou fol­low­est this of free choice, not of ne­ces­si­ty: the more then ought­est thou to give me cred­it here­in, who laboured to ac­quire it so per­fect­ly as to get my liv­ing by it alone.” Of whom when I had de­mand­ed, how then could many true things be fore­told by it, he an­swered me (as he could) “that the force of chance, dif­fused through­out the whole or­der of things, brought this about. For if when a man by hap­haz­ard opens the pages of some po­et, who sang and thought of some­thing whol­ly dif­fer­ent, a verse of­ten­times fell out, won­drous­ly agree­able to the present busi­ness: it were not to be won­dered at, if out of the soul of man, un­con­scious what takes place in it, by some high­er in­stinct an an­swer should be giv­en, by hap, not by art, cor­re­spond­ing to the busi­ness and ac­tions of the de­man­der.”

And thus much, ei­ther from or through him, Thou con­veyedst to me, and tracedst in my mem­ory, what I might here­after ex­am­ine for my­self. But at that time nei­ther he, nor my dear­est Ne­brid­ius, a youth sin­gu­lar­ly good and of a holy fear, who de­rid­ed the whole body of div­ina­tion, could per­suade me to cast it aside, the au­thor­ity of the au­thors sway­ing me yet more, and as yet I had found no cer­tain proof (such as I sought) where­by it might with­out all doubt ap­pear, that what had been tru­ly fore­told by those con­sult­ed was the re­sult of hap­haz­ard, not of the art of the star-​gaz­ers.

In those years when I first be­gan to teach rhetoric in my na­tive town, I had made one my friend, but too dear to me, from a com­mu­ni­ty of pur­suits, of mine own age, and, as my­self, in the first open­ing flow­er of youth. He had grown up of a child with me, and we had been both school-​fel­lows and play-​fel­lows. But he was not yet my friend as af­ter­wards, nor even then, as true friend­ship is; for true it can­not be, un­less in such as Thou ce­mentest to­geth­er, cleav­ing un­to Thee, by that love which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is giv­en un­to us. Yet was it but too sweet, ripened by the warmth of kin­dred stud­ies: for, from the true faith (which he as a youth had not sound­ly and thor­ough­ly im­bibed), I had warped him al­so to those su­per­sti­tious and per­ni­cious fa­bles, for which my moth­er be­wailed me. With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be with­out him. But be­hold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy fugi­tives, at once God of vengeance, and Foun­tain of mer­cies, turn­ing us to Thy­self by won­der­ful means; Thou took­est that man out of this life, when he had scarce filled up one whole year of my friend­ship, sweet to me above all sweet­ness of that my life.

Who can re­count all Thy prais­es, which he hath felt in his one self? What did­dest Thou then, my God, and how un­search­able is the abyss of Thy judg­ments? For long, sore sick of a fever, he lay sense­less in a death-​sweat; and his re­cov­ery be­ing de­spaired of, he was bap­tised, un­know­ing; my­self mean­while lit­tle re­gard­ing, and pre­sum­ing that his soul would re­tain rather what it had re­ceived of me, not what was wrought on his un­con­scious body. But it proved far oth­er­wise: for he was re­freshed, and re­stored. Forth­with, as soon as I could speak with him (and I could, so soon as he was able, for I nev­er left him, and we hung but too much up­on each oth­er), I es­sayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with me at that bap­tism which he had re­ceived, when ut­ter­ly ab­sent in mind and feel­ing, but had now un­der­stood that he had re­ceived. But he so shrunk from me, as from an en­emy; and with a won­der­ful and sud­den free­dom bade me, as I would con­tin­ue his friend, for­bear such lan­guage to him. I, all as­ton­ished and amazed, sup­pressed all my emo­tions till he should grow well, and his health were strong enough for me to deal with him as I would. But he was tak­en away from my fren­zy, that with Thee he might be pre­served for my com­fort; a few days af­ter in my ab­sence, he was at­tacked again by the fever, and so de­part­ed.

At this grief my heart was ut­ter­ly dark­ened; and what­ev­er I be­held was death. My na­tive coun­try was a tor­ment to me, and my fa­ther’s house a strange un­hap­pi­ness; and what­ev­er I had shared with him, want­ing him, be­came a dis­tract­ing tor­ture. Mine eyes sought him ev­ery where, but he was not grant­ed them; and I hat­ed all places, for that they had not him; nor could they now tell me, “he is com­ing,” as when he was alive and ab­sent. I be­came a great rid­dle to my­self, and I asked my soul, why she was so sad, and why she dis­qui­et­ed me sore­ly: but she knew not what to an­swer me. And if I said, Trust in God, she very right­ly obeyed me not; be­cause that most dear friend, whom she had lost, was, be­ing man, both truer and bet­ter than that phan­tasm she was bid to trust in. On­ly tears were sweet to me, for they suc­ceed­ed my friend, in the dear­est of my af­fec­tions.

And now, Lord, these things are passed by, and time hath as­suaged my wound. May I learn from Thee, who art Truth, and ap­proach the ear of my heart un­to Thy mouth, that Thou mayest tell me why weep­ing is sweet to the mis­er­able? Hast Thou, al­though present ev­ery where, cast away our mis­ery far from Thee? And Thou abidest in Thy­self, but we are tossed about in divers tri­als. And yet un­less we mourned in Thine ears, we should have no hope left. Whence then is sweet fruit gath­ered from the bit­ter­ness of life, from groan­ing, tears, sighs, and com­plaints? Doth this sweet­en it, that we hope Thou hear­est? This is true of prayer, for there­in is a long­ing to ap­proach un­to Thee. But is it al­so in grief for a thing lost, and the sor­row where­with I was then over­whelmed? For I nei­ther hoped he should re­turn to life nor did I de­sire this with my tears; but I wept on­ly and grieved. For I was mis­er­able, and had lost my joy. Or is weep­ing in­deed a bit­ter thing, and for very loathing of the things which we be­fore en­joyed, does it then, when we shrink from them, please us?

But what speak I of these things? for now is no time to ques­tion, but to con­fess un­to Thee. Wretched I was; and wretched is ev­ery soul bound by the friend­ship of per­ish­able things; he is torn asun­der when he los­es them, and then he feels the wretched­ness which he had ere yet he lost them. So was it then with me; I wept most bit­ter­ly, and found my re­pose in bit­ter­ness. Thus was I wretched, and that wretched life I held dear­er than my friend. For though I would will­ing­ly have changed it, yet was I more un­will­ing to part with it than with him; yea, I know not whether I would have part­ed with it even for him, as is re­lat­ed (if not feigned) of Py­lades and Orestes, that they would glad­ly have died for each oth­er or to­geth­er, not to live to­geth­er be­ing to them worse than death. But in me there had arisen some un­ex­plained feel­ing, too con­trary to this, for at once I loathed ex­ceed­ing­ly to live and feared to die. I sup­pose, the more I loved him, the more did I hate, and fear (as a most cru­el en­emy) death, which had be­reaved me of him: and I imag­ined it would speed­ily make an end of all men, since it had pow­er over him. Thus was it with me, I re­mem­ber. Be­hold my heart, O my God, be­hold and see in­to me; for well I re­mem­ber it, O my Hope, who cleans­est me from the im­pu­ri­ty of such af­fec­tions, di­rect­ing mine eyes to­wards Thee, and pluck­ing my feet out of the snare. For I won­dered that oth­ers, sub­ject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should nev­er die, was dead; and I won­dered yet more that my­self, who was to him a sec­ond self, could live, he be­ing dead. Well said one of his friend, “Thou half of my soul”; for I felt that my soul and his soul were “one soul in two bod­ies”: and there­fore was my life a hor­ror to me, be­cause I would not live halved. And there­fore per­chance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved should die whol­ly.

O mad­ness, which know­est not how to love men, like men! O fool­ish man that I then was, en­dur­ing im­pa­tient­ly the lot of man! I fret­ted then, sighed, wept, was dis­tract­ed; had nei­ther rest nor coun­sel. For I bore about a shat­tered and bleed­ing soul, im­pa­tient of be­ing borne by me, yet where to re­pose it, I found not. Not in calm groves, not in games and mu­sic, nor in fra­grant spots, nor in cu­ri­ous ban­quet­ings, nor in the plea­sures of the bed and the couch; nor (fi­nal­ly) in books or poesy, found it re­pose. All things looked ghast­ly, yea, the very light; what­so­ev­er was not what he was, was re­volt­ing and hate­ful, ex­cept groan­ing and tears. For in those alone found I a lit­tle re­fresh­ment. But when my soul was with­drawn from them a huge load of mis­ery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee to light­en; I knew it; but nei­ther could nor would; the more, since, when I thought of Thee, Thou wert not to me any sol­id or sub­stan­tial thing. For Thou wert not Thy­self, but a mere phan­tom, and my er­ror was my God. If I of­fered to dis­charge my load there­on, that it might rest, it glid­ed through the void, and came rush­ing down again on me; and I had re­mained to my­self a hap­less spot, where I could nei­ther be, nor be from thence. For whith­er should my heart flee from my heart? Whith­er should I flee from my­self? Whith­er not fol­low my­self? And yet I fled out of my coun­try; for so should mine eyes less look for him, where they were not wont to see him. And thus from Tha­gaste, I came to Carthage.

Times lose no time; nor do they roll idly by; through our sens­es they work strange op­er­ations on the mind. Be­hold, they went and came day by day, and by com­ing and go­ing, in­tro­duced in­to my mind oth­er imag­ina­tions and oth­er re­mem­brances; and lit­tle by lit­tle patched me up again with my old kind of de­lights, un­to which that my sor­row gave way. And yet there suc­ceed­ed, not in­deed oth­er griefs, yet the caus­es of oth­er griefs. For whence had that for­mer grief so eas­ily reached my very in­most soul, but that I had poured out my soul up­on the dust, in lov­ing one that must die, as if he would nev­er die? For what re­stored and re­freshed me chiefly was the so­laces of oth­er friends, with whom I did love, what in­stead of Thee I loved; and this was a great fa­ble, and pro­tract­ed lie, by whose adul­ter­ous stim­ulus, our soul, which lay itch­ing in our ears, was be­ing de­filed. But that fa­ble would not die to me, so oft as any of my friends died. There were oth­er things which in them did more take my mind; to talk and jest to­geth­er, to do kind of­fices by turns; to read to­geth­er honied books; to play the fool or be earnest to­geth­er; to dis­sent at times with­out dis­con­tent, as a man might with his own self; and even with the sel­dom­ness of these dis­sent­ings, to sea­son our more fre­quent con­sent­ings; some­times to teach, and some­times learn; long for the ab­sent with im­pa­tience; and wel­come the com­ing with joy. These and the like ex­pres­sions, pro­ceed­ing out of the hearts of those that loved and were loved again, by the coun­te­nance, the tongue, the eyes, and a thou­sand pleas­ing ges­tures, were so much fu­el to melt our souls to­geth­er, and out of many make but one.

This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a man’s con­science con­demns it­self, if he love not him that loves him again, or love not again him that loves him, look­ing for noth­ing from his per­son but in­di­ca­tions of his love. Hence that mourn­ing, if one die, and dark­en­ings of sor­rows, that steep­ing of the heart in tears, all sweet­ness turned to bit­ter­ness; and up­on the loss of life of the dy­ing, the death of the liv­ing. Blessed whoso loveth Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his en­emy for Thee. For he alone los­es none dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who can­not be lost. And who is this but our God, the God that made heav­en and earth, and fil­leth them, be­cause by fill­ing them He cre­at­ed them? Thee none los­eth, but who leaveth. And who leaveth Thee, whith­er goeth or whith­er teeth he, but from Thee well-​pleased, to Thee dis­pleased? For where doth he not find Thy law in his own pun­ish­ment? And Thy law is truth, and truth Thou.

Turn us, O God of Hosts, show us Thy coun­te­nance, and we shall be whole. For whith­er­so­ev­er the soul of man turns it­self, un­less to­ward Thee, it is riv­et­ed up­on sor­rows, yea though it is riv­et­ed on things beau­ti­ful. And yet they, out of Thee, and out of the soul, were not, un­less they were from Thee. They rise, and set; and by ris­ing, they be­gin as it were to be; they grow, that they may be per­fect­ed; and per­fect­ed, they wax old and with­er; and all grow not old, but all with­er. So then when they rise and tend to be, the more quick­ly they grow that they may be, so much the more they haste not to be. This is the law of them. Thus much has Thou al­lot­ted them, be­cause they are por­tions of things, which ex­ist not all at once, but by pass­ing away and suc­ceed­ing, they to­geth­er com­plete that uni­verse, where­of they are por­tions. And even thus is our speech com­plet­ed by signs giv­ing forth a sound: but this again is not per­fect­ed un­less one word pass away when it hath sound­ed its part, that an­oth­er may suc­ceed. Out of all these things let my soul praise Thee, O God, Cre­ator of all; yet let not my soul be riv­et­ed un­to these things with the glue of love, through the sens­es of the body. For they go whith­er they were to go, that they might not be; and they rend her with pesti­lent long­ings, be­cause she longs to be, yet loves to re­pose in what she loves. But in these things is no place of re­pose; they abide not, they flee; and who can fol­low them with the sens­es of the flesh? yea, who can grasp them, when they are hard by? For the sense of the flesh is slow, be­cause it is the sense of the flesh; and there­by is it bound­ed. It suf­ficeth for that it was made for; but it suf­ficeth not to stay things run­ning their course from their ap­point­ed start­ing-​place to the end ap­point­ed. For in Thy Word, by which they are cre­at­ed, they hear their de­cree, “hence and hith­er­to.”

Be not fool­ish, O my soul, nor be­come deaf in the ear of thine heart with the tu­mult of thy fol­ly. Hear­ken thou too.

The Word it­self cal­leth thee to re­turn: and there is the place of rest im­per­turbable, where love is not for­sak­en, if it­self for­saketh not. Be­hold, these things pass away, that oth­ers may re­place them, and so this low­er uni­verse be com­plet­ed by all his parts. But do I de­part any whith­er? saith the Word of God. There fix thy dwelling, trust there what­so­ev­er thou hast thence, O my soul, at least now thou art tired out with van­ities. En­trust Truth, what­so­ev­er thou hast from the Truth, and thou shalt lose noth­ing; and thy de­cay shall bloom again, and all thy dis­eases be healed, and thy mor­tal parts be re­formed and re­newed, and bound around thee: nor shall they lay thee whith­er them­selves de­scend; but they shall stand fast with thee, and abide for ev­er be­fore God, Who abideth and standeth fast for ev­er.

Why then be per­vert­ed and fol­low thy flesh? Be it con­vert­ed and fol­low thee. What­ev­er by her thou hast sense of, is in part; and the whole, where­of these are parts, thou know­est not; and yet they de­light thee. But had the sense of thy flesh a ca­pac­ity for com­pre­hend­ing the whole, and not it­self al­so, for thy pun­ish­ment, been just­ly re­strict­ed to a part of the whole, thou wouldest, that what­so­ev­er ex­is­teth at this present, should pass away, that so the whole might bet­ter please thee. For what we speak al­so, by the same sense of the flesh thou hear­est; yet wouldest not thou have the syl­la­bles stay, but fly away, that oth­ers may come, and thou hear the whole. And so ev­er, when any one thing is made up of many, all of which do not ex­ist to­geth­er, all col­lec­tive­ly would please more than they do sev­er­al­ly, could all be per­ceived col­lec­tive­ly. But far bet­ter than these is He who made all; and He is our God, nor doth He pass away, for nei­ther doth aught suc­ceed Him.

If bod­ies please thee, praise God on oc­ca­sion of them, and turn back thy love up­on their Mak­er; lest in these things which please thee, thou dis­please. If souls please thee, be they loved in God: for they too are mu­ta­ble, but in Him are they firm­ly sta­blished; else would they pass, and pass away. In Him then be they beloved; and car­ry un­to Him along with thee what souls thou canst, and say to them, “Him let us love, Him let us love: He made these, nor is He far off. For He did not make them, and so de­part, but they are of Him, and in Him. See there He is, where truth is loved. He is with­in the very heart, yet hath the heart strayed from Him. Go back in­to your heart, ye trans­gres­sors, and cleave fast to Him that made you. Stand with Him, and ye shall stand fast. Rest in Him, and ye shall be at rest. Whith­er go ye in rough ways? Whith­er go ye? The good that you love is from Him; but it is good and pleas­ant through ref­er­ence to Him, and just­ly shall it be em­bit­tered, be­cause un­just­ly is any thing loved which is from Him, if He be for­sak­en for it. To what end then would ye still and still walk these dif­fi­cult and toil­some ways? There is no rest, where ye seek it. Seek what ye seek; but it is not there where ye seek. Ye seek a blessed life in the land of death; it is not there. For how should there be a blessed life where life it­self is not?

“But our true Life came down hith­er, and bore our death, and slew him, out of the abun­dance of His own life: and He thun­dered, call­ing aloud to us to re­turn hence to Him in­to that se­cret place, whence He came forth to us, first in­to the Vir­gin’s womb, where­in He es­poused the hu­man cre­ation, our mor­tal flesh, that it might not be for ev­er mor­tal, and thence like a bride­groom com­ing out of his cham­ber, re­joic­ing as a gi­ant to run his course. For He lin­gered not, but ran, call­ing aloud by words, deeds, death, life, de­scent, as­cen­sion; cry­ing aloud to us to re­turn un­to Him. And He de­part­ed from our eyes, that we might re­turn in­to our heart, and there find Him. For He de­part­ed, and to, He is here. He would not be long with us, yet left us not; for He de­part­ed thith­er, whence He nev­er part­ed, be­cause the world was made by Him. And in this world He was, and in­to this world He came to save sin­ners, un­to whom my soul con­fes­seth, and He healeth it, for it hath sinned against Him. O ye sons of men, how long so slow of heart? Even now, af­ter the de­scent of Life to you, will ye not as­cend and live? But whith­er as­cend ye, when ye are on high, and set your mouth against the heav­ens? De­scend, that ye may as­cend, and as­cend to God. For ye have fall­en, by as­cend­ing against Him.” Tell them this, that they may weep in the val­ley of tears, and so car­ry them up with thee un­to God; be­cause out of His spir­it thou speak­est thus un­to them, if thou speak­est, burn­ing with the fire of char­ity.

These things I then knew not, and I loved these low­er beau­ties, and I was sink­ing to the very depths, and to my friends I said, “Do we love any thing but the beau­ti­ful? What then is the beau­ti­ful? and what is beau­ty? What is it that at­tracts and wins us to the things we love? for un­less there were in them a grace and beau­ty, they could by no means draw us un­to them.” And I marked and per­ceived that in bod­ies them­selves, there was a beau­ty, from their form­ing a sort of whole, and again, an­oth­er from apt and mu­tu­al cor­re­spon­dence, as of a part of the body with its whole, or a shoe with a foot, and the like. And this con­sid­er­ation sprang up in my mind, out of my in­most heart, and I wrote “on the fair and fit,” I think, two or three books. Thou know­est, O Lord, for it is gone from me; for I have them not, but they are strayed from me, I know not how.

But what moved me, O Lord my God, to ded­icate these books un­to Hi­erius, an or­ator of Rome, whom I knew not by face, but loved for the fame of his learn­ing which was em­inent in him, and some words of his I had heard, which pleased me? But more did he please me, for that he pleased oth­ers, who high­ly ex­tolled him, amazed that out of a Syr­ian, first in­struct­ed in Greek elo­quence, should af­ter­wards be formed a won­der­ful Latin or­ator, and one most learned in things per­tain­ing un­to phi­los­ophy. One is com­mend­ed, and, un­seen, he is loved: doth this love en­ter the heart of the hear­er from the mouth of the com­mender? Not so. But by one who loveth is an­oth­er kin­dled. For hence he is loved who is com­mend­ed, when the com­mender is be­lieved to ex­tol him with an un­feigned heart; that is, when one that loves him, prais­es him.

For so did I then love men, up­on the judg­ment of men, not Thine, O my God, in Whom no man is de­ceived. But yet why not for qual­ities, like those of a fa­mous char­io­teer, or fight­er with beasts in the the­atre, known far and wide by a vul­gar pop­ular­ity, but far oth­er­wise, and earnest­ly, and so as I would be my­self com­mend­ed? For I would not be com­mend­ed or loved, as ac­tors are (though I my­self did com­mend and love them), but had rather be un­known, than so known; and even hat­ed, than so loved. Where now are the im­puls­es to such var­ious and divers kinds of loves laid up in one soul? Why, since we are equal­ly men, do I love in an­oth­er what, if I did not hate, I should not spurn and cast from my­self? For it holds not, that as a good horse is loved by him, who would not, though he might, be that horse, there­fore the same may be said of an ac­tor, who shares our na­ture. Do I then love in a man, what I hate to be, who am a man? Man him­self is a great deep, whose very hairs Thou num­ber­est, O Lord, and they fall not to the ground with­out Thee. And yet are the hairs of his head eas­ier to be num­bered than his feel­ings, and the beat­ings of his heart.

But that or­ator was of that sort whom I loved, as wish­ing to be my­self such; and I erred through a swelling pride, and was tossed about with ev­ery wind, but yet was steered by Thee, though very se­cret­ly. And whence do I know, and whence do I con­fi­dent­ly con­fess un­to Thee, that I had loved him more for the love of his com­menders, than for the very things for which he was com­mend­ed? Be­cause, had he been un­praised, and these self-​same men had dis­praised him, and with dis­praise and con­tempt told the very same things of him, I had nev­er been so kin­dled and ex­cit­ed to love him. And yet the things had not been oth­er, nor he him­self oth­er; but on­ly the feel­ings of the re­la­tors. See where the im­po­tent soul lies along, that is not yet stayed up by the so­lid­ity of truth! Just as the gales of tongues blow from the breast of the opin­ion­ative, so is it car­ried this way and that, driv­en for­ward and back­ward, and the light is over­cloud­ed to it, and the truth un­seen. And to, it is be­fore us. And it was to me a great mat­ter, that my dis­course and labours should be known to that man: which should he ap­prove, I were the more kin­dled; but if he dis­ap­proved, my emp­ty heart, void of Thy so­lid­ity, had been wound­ed. And yet the “fair and fit,” where­on I wrote to him, I dwelt on with plea­sure, and sur­veyed it, and ad­mired it, though none joined there­in.

But I saw not yet, where­on this weighty mat­ter turned in Thy wis­dom, O Thou Om­nipo­tent, who on­ly doest won­ders; and my mind ranged through cor­po­re­al forms; and “fair,” I de­fined and dis­tin­guished what is so in it­self, and “fit,” whose beau­ty is in cor­re­spon­dence to some oth­er thing: and this I sup­port­ed by cor­po­re­al ex­am­ples. And I turned to the na­ture of the mind, but the false no­tion which I had of spir­itu­al things, let me not see the truth. Yet the force of truth did of it­self flash in­to mine eyes, and I turned away my pant­ing soul from in­cor­po­re­al sub­stance to lin­ea­ments, and colours, and bulky mag­ni­tudes. And not be­ing able to see these in the mind, I thought I could not see my mind. And where­as in virtue I loved peace, and in vi­cious­ness I ab­horred dis­cord; in the first I ob­served a uni­ty, but in the oth­er, a sort of di­vi­sion. And in that uni­ty I con­ceived the ra­tio­nal soul, and the na­ture of truth and of the chief good to con­sist; but in this di­vi­sion I mis­er­ably imag­ined there to be some un­known sub­stance of ir­ra­tional life, and the na­ture of the chief evil, which should not on­ly be a sub­stance, but re­al life al­so, and yet not de­rived from Thee, O my God, of whom are all things. And yet that first I called a Mon­ad, as it had been a soul with­out sex; but the lat­ter a Du­ad; -anger, in deeds of vi­olence, and in flagi­tious­ness, lust; not know­ing where­of I spake. For I had not known or learned that nei­ther was evil a sub­stance, nor our soul that chief and un­change­able good.

For as deeds of vi­olence arise, if that emo­tion of the soul be cor­rupt­ed, whence ve­he­ment ac­tion springs, stir­ring it­self in­so­lent­ly and un­rulily; and lusts, when that af­fec­tion of the soul is un­governed, where­by car­nal plea­sures are drunk in, so do er­rors and false opin­ions de­file the con­ver­sa­tion, if the rea­son­able soul it­self be cor­rupt­ed; as it was then in me, who knew not that it must be en­light­ened by an­oth­er light, that it may be par­tak­er of truth, see­ing it­self is not that na­ture of truth. For Thou shalt light my can­dle, O Lord my God, Thou shalt en­light­en my dark­ness: and of Thy ful­ness have we all re­ceived, for Thou art the true light that lighteth ev­ery man that cometh in­to the world; for in Thee there is no vari­able­ness, nei­ther shad­ow of change.

But I pressed to­wards Thee, and was thrust from Thee, that I might taste of death: for thou re­sistest the proud. But what proud­er, than for me with a strange mad­ness to main­tain my­self to be that by na­ture which Thou art? For where­as I was sub­ject to change (so much be­ing man­ifest to me, my very de­sire to be­come wise, be­ing the wish, of worse to be­come bet­ter), yet chose I rather to imag­ine Thee sub­ject to change, and my­self not to be that which Thou art. There­fore I was re­pelled by Thee, and Thou re­sist­edst my vain stiff­necked­ness, and I imag­ined cor­po­re­al forms, and, my­self flesh, I ac­cused flesh; and, a wind that pas­seth away, I re­turned not to Thee, but I passed on and on to things which have no be­ing, nei­ther in Thee, nor in me, nor in the body. Nei­ther were they cre­at­ed for me by Thy truth, but by my van­ity de­vised out of things cor­po­re­al. And I was wont to ask Thy faith­ful lit­tle ones, my fel­low-​cit­izens (from whom, un­known to my­self, I stood ex­iled), I was wont, prat­ing and fool­ish­ly, to ask them, “Why then doth the soul err which God cre­at­ed?” But I would not be asked, “Why then doth God err?” And I main­tained that Thy un­change­able sub­stance did err up­on con­straint, rather than con­fess that my change­able sub­stance had gone astray vol­un­tar­ily, and now, in pun­ish­ment, lay in er­ror.

I was then some six or sev­en and twen­ty years old when I wrote those vol­umes; re­volv­ing with­in me cor­po­re­al fic­tions, buzzing in the ears of my heart, which I turned, O sweet truth, to thy in­ward melody, med­itat­ing on the “fair and fit,” and long­ing to stand and hear­ken to Thee, and to re­joice great­ly at the Bride­groom’s voice, but could not; for by the voic­es of mine own er­rors, I was hur­ried abroad, and through the weight of my own pride, I was sink­ing in­to the low­est pit. For Thou didst not make me to hear joy and glad­ness, nor did the bones ex­ult which were not yet hum­bled.

And what did it prof­it me, that scarce twen­ty years old, a book of Aris­to­tle, which they call the of­ten Predica­ments, falling in­to my hands (on whose very name I hung, as on some­thing great and di­vine, so of­ten as my rhetoric mas­ter of Carthage, and oth­ers, ac­count­ed learned, mouthed it with cheeks burst­ing with pride), I read and un­der­stood it un­aid­ed? And on my con­fer­ring with oth­ers, who said that they scarce­ly un­der­stood it with very able tu­tors, not on­ly oral­ly ex­plain­ing it, but draw­ing many things in sand, they could tell me no more of it than I had learned, read­ing it by my­self. And the book ap­peared to me to speak very clear­ly of sub­stances, such as “man,” and of their qual­ities, as the fig­ure of a man, of what sort it is; and stature, how many feet high; and his re­la­tion­ship, whose broth­er he is; or where placed; or when born; or whether he stands or sits; or be shod or armed; or does, or suf­fers any­thing; and all the in­nu­mer­able things which might be ranged un­der these nine Predica­ments, of which I have giv­en some spec­imens, or un­der that chief Predica­ment of Sub­stance.

What did all this fur­ther me, see­ing it even hin­dered me? when, imag­in­ing what­ev­er was, was com­pre­hend­ed un­der those of­ten Predica­ments, I es­sayed in such wise to un­der­stand, O my God, Thy won­der­ful and un­change­able Uni­ty al­so, as if Thou al­so hadst been sub­ject­ed to Thine own great­ness or beau­ty; so that (as in bod­ies) they should ex­ist in Thee, as their sub­ject: where­as Thou Thy­self art Thy great­ness and beau­ty; but a body is not great or fair in that it is a body, see­ing that, though it were less great or fair, it should notwith­stand­ing be a body. But it was false­hood which of Thee I con­ceived, not truth, fic­tions of my mis­ery, not the re­al­ities of Thy blessed­ness. For Thou hadst com­mand­ed, and it was done in me, that the earth should bring forth bri­ars and thorns to me, and that in the sweat of my brows I should eat my bread.

And what did it prof­it me, that all the books I could pro­cure of the so-​called lib­er­al arts, I, the vile slave of vile af­fec­tions, read by my­self, and un­der­stood? And I de­light­ed in them, but knew not whence came all, that there­in was true or cer­tain. For I had my back to the light, and my face to the things en­light­ened; whence my face, with which I dis­cerned the things en­light­ened, it­self was not en­light­ened. What­ev­er was writ­ten, ei­ther on rhetoric, or log­ic, ge­om­etry, mu­sic, and arith­metic, by my­self with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty or any in­struc­tor, I un­der­stood, Thou know­est, O Lord my God; be­cause both quick­ness of un­der­stand­ing, and acute­ness in dis­cern­ing, is Thy gift: yet did I not thence sac­ri­fice to Thee. So then it served not to my use, but rather to my perdi­tion, since I went about to get so good a por­tion of my sub­stance in­to my own keep­ing; and I kept not my strength for Thee, but wan­dered from Thee in­to a far coun­try, to spend it up­on har­lotries. For what prof­it­ed me good abil­ities, not em­ployed to good us­es? For I felt not that those arts were at­tained with great dif­fi­cul­ty, even by the stu­dious and tal­ent­ed, un­til I at­tempt­ed to ex­plain them to such; when he most ex­celled in them who fol­lowed me not al­to­geth­er slow­ly.

But what did this fur­ther me, imag­in­ing that Thou, O Lord God, the Truth, wert a vast and bright body, and I a frag­ment of that body? Per­verse­ness too great! But such was I. Nor do I blush, O my God, to con­fess to Thee Thy mer­cies to­wards me, and to call up­on Thee, who blushed not then to pro­fess to men my blas­phemies, and to bark against Thee. What prof­it­ed me then my nim­ble wit in those sci­ences and all those most knot­ty vol­umes, un­rav­elied by me, with­out aid from hu­man in­struc­tion; see­ing I erred so foul­ly, and with such sac­ri­le­gious shame­ful­ness, in the doc­trine of piety? Or what hin­drance was a far slow­er wit to Thy lit­tle ones, since they de­part­ed not far from Thee, that in the nest of Thy Church they might se­cure­ly be fledged, and nour­ish the wings of char­ity, by the food of a sound faith. O Lord our God, un­der the shad­ow of Thy wings let us hope; pro­tect us, and car­ry us. Thou wilt car­ry us both when lit­tle, and even to hoar hairs wilt Thou car­ry us; for our firm­ness, when it is Thou, then is it firm­ness; but when our own, it is in­fir­mi­ty. Our good ev­er lives with Thee; from which when we turn away, we are turned aside. Let us now, O Lord, re­turn, that we may not be over­turned, be­cause with Thee our good lives with­out any de­cay, which good art Thou; nor need we fear, lest there be no place whith­er to re­turn, be­cause we fell from it: for through our ab­sence, our man­sion fell not- Thy eter­ni­ty.