The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK V

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.