The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK VII

De­ceased was now that my evil and abom­inable youth, and I was pass­ing in­to ear­ly man­hood; the more de­filed by vain things as I grew in years, who could not imag­ine any sub­stance, but such as is wont to be seen with these eyes. I thought not of Thee, O God, un­der the fig­ure of a hu­man body; since I be­gan to hear aught of wis­dom, I al­ways avoid­ed this; and re­joiced to have found the same in the faith of our spir­itu­al moth­er, Thy Catholic Church. But what else to con­ceive of Thee I knew not. And I, a man, and such a man, sought to con­ceive of Thee the sovereign, on­ly, true God; and I did in my in­most soul be­lieve that Thou wert in­cor­rupt­ible, and un­in­jurable, and un­change­able; be­cause though not know­ing whence or how, yet I saw plain­ly, and was sure, that that which may be cor­rupt­ed must be in­fe­ri­or to that which can­not; what could not be in­jured I pre­ferred un­hesi­tat­ing­ly to what could re­ceive in­jury; the un­change­able to things sub­ject to change. My heart pas­sion­ate­ly cried out against all my phan­toms, and with this one blow I sought to beat away from the eye of my mind all that un­clean troop which buzzed around it. And to, be­ing scarce put off, in the twin­kling of an eye they gath­ered again thick about me, flew against my face, and be­cloud­ed it; so that though not un­der the form of the hu­man body, yet was I con­strained to con­ceive of Thee (that in­cor­rupt­ible, un­in­jurable, and un­change­able, which I pre­ferred be­fore the cor­rupt­ible, and in­jurable, and change­able) as be­ing in space, whether in­fused in­to the world, or dif­fused in­finite­ly with­out it. Be­cause what­so­ev­er I con­ceived, de­prived of this space, seemed to me noth­ing, yea al­to­geth­er noth­ing, not even a void, as if a body were tak­en out of its place, and the place should re­main emp­ty of any body at all, of earth and wa­ter, air and heav­en, yet would it re­main a void place, as it were a spa­cious noth­ing.

I then be­ing thus gross-​heart­ed, nor clear even to my­self, what­so­ev­er was not ex­tend­ed over cer­tain spaces, nor dif­fused, nor con­densed, nor swelled out, or did not or could not re­ceive some of these di­men­sions, I thought to be al­to­geth­er noth­ing. For over such forms as my eyes are wont to range, did my heart then range: nor yet did I see that this same no­tion of the mind, where­by I formed those very im­ages, was not of this sort, and yet it could not have formed them, had not it­self been some great thing. So al­so did I en­deav­our to con­ceive of Thee, Life of my life, as vast, through in­fi­nite spaces on ev­ery side pen­etrat­ing the whole mass of the uni­verse, and be­yond it, ev­ery way, through un­mea­sur­able bound­less spaces; so that the earth should have Thee, the heav­en have Thee, all things have Thee, and they be bound­ed in Thee, and Thou bound­ed nowhere. For that as the body of this air which is above the earth, hin­dereth not the light of the sun from pass­ing through it, pen­etrat­ing it, not by burst­ing or by cut­ting, but by fill­ing it whol­ly: so I thought the body not of heav­en, air, and sea on­ly, but of the earth too, per­vi­ous to Thee, so that in all its parts, the great­est as the small­est, it should ad­mit Thy pres­ence, by a se­cret in­spi­ra­tion, with­in and with­out, di­rect­ing all things which Thou hast cre­at­ed. So I guessed, on­ly as un­able to con­ceive aught else, for it was false. For thus should a greater part of the earth con­tain a greater por­tion of Thee, and a less, a less­er: and all things should in such sort be full of Thee, that the body of an ele­phant should con­tain more of Thee, than that of a spar­row, by how much larg­er it is, and takes up more room; and thus shouldest Thou make the sev­er­al por­tions of Thy­self present un­to the sev­er­al por­tions of the world, in frag­ments, large to the large, pet­ty to the pet­ty. But such art not Thou. But not as yet hadst Thou en­light­ened my dark­ness.

It was enough for me, Lord, to op­pose to those de­ceived de­ceivers, and dumb praters, since Thy word sound­ed not out of them; -that was enough which long ago, while we were yet at Carthage, Ne­brid­ius used to pro­pound, at which all we that heard it were stag­gered: “That said na­tion of dark­ness, which the Manichees are wont to set as an op­pos­ing mass over against Thee, what could it have done un­to Thee, hadst Thou re­fused to fight with it? For, if they an­swered, ‘it would have done Thee some hurt,’ then shouldest Thou be sub­ject to in­jury and cor­rup­tion: but if could do Thee no hurt,’ then was no rea­son brought for Thy fight­ing with it; and fight­ing in such wise, as that a cer­tain por­tion or mem­ber of Thee, or off­spring of Thy very Sub­stance, should he min­gled with op­posed pow­ers, and na­tures not cre­at­ed by Thee, and be by them so far cor­rupt­ed and changed to the worse, as to be turned from hap­pi­ness in­to mis­ery, and need as­sis­tance, where­by it might be ex­tri­cat­ed and pu­ri­fied; and that this off­spring of Thy Sub­stance was the soul, which be­ing en­thralled, de­filed, cor­rupt­ed, Thy Word, free, pure, and whole, might re­lieve; that Word it­self be­ing still cor­rupt­ible be­cause it was of one and the same Sub­stance. So then, should they af­firm Thee, what­so­ev­er Thou art, that is, Thy Sub­stance where­by Thou art, to be in­cor­rupt­ible, then were all these say­ings false and ex­ecrable; but if cor­rupt­ible, the very state­ment showed it to be false and re­volt­ing.” This ar­gu­ment then of Ne­brid­ius suf­ficed against those who de­served whol­ly to be vom­it­ed out of the over­charged stom­ach; for they had no es­cape, with­out hor­ri­ble blas­phe­my of heart and tongue, thus think­ing and speak­ing of Thee.

But I al­so as yet, al­though I held and was firm­ly per­suad­ed that Thou our Lord the true God, who madest not on­ly our souls, but our bod­ies, and not on­ly our souls and bod­ies, but all be­ings, and all things, wert un­de­fi­lable and un­al­ter­able, and in no de­gree mu­ta­ble; yet un­der­stood I not, clear­ly and with­out dif­fi­cul­ty, the cause of evil. And yet what­ev­er it were, I per­ceived it was in such wise to be sought out, as should not con­strain me to be­lieve the im­mutable God to be mu­ta­ble, lest I should be­come that evil I was seek­ing out. I sought it out then, thus far free from anx­iety, cer­tain of the un­truth of what these held, from whom I shrunk with my whole heart: for I saw, that through en­quir­ing the ori­gin of evil, they were filled with evil, in that they pre­ferred to think that Thy sub­stance did suf­fer ill than their own did com­mit it.

And I strained to per­ceive what I now heard, that free-​will was the cause of our do­ing ill, and Thy just judg­ment of our suf­fer­ing ill. But I was not able clear­ly to dis­cern it. So then en­deav­our­ing to draw my soul’s vi­sion out of that deep pit, I was again plunged there­in, and en­deav­our­ing of­ten, I was plunged back as of­ten. But this raised me a lit­tle in­to Thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will, as that I lived: when then I did will or nill any thing, I was most sure that no oth­er than my­self did will and nill: and I all but saw that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will, I saw that I suf­fered rather than did, and I judged not to be my fault, but my pun­ish­ment; where­by, how­ev­er, hold­ing Thee to be just, I speed­ily con­fessed my­self to be not un­just­ly pun­ished. But again I said, Who made me? Did not my God, Who is not on­ly good, but good­ness it­self? Whence then came I to will evil and nill good, so that I am thus just­ly pun­ished? who set this in me, and in­grat­ed in­to me this plant of bit­ter­ness, see­ing I was whol­ly formed by my most sweet God? If the dev­il were the au­thor, whence is that same dev­il? And if he al­so by his own per­verse will, of a good an­gel be­came a dev­il, whence, again, came in him that evil will where­by he be­came a dev­il, see­ing the whole na­ture of an­gels was made by that most good Cre­ator? By these thoughts I was again sunk down and choked; yet not brought down to that hell of er­ror (where no man con­fes­seth un­to Thee), to think rather that Thou dost suf­fer ill, than that man doth it.

For I was in such wise striv­ing to find out the rest, as one who had al­ready found that the in­cor­rupt­ible must needs be bet­ter than the cor­rupt­ible: and Thee there­fore, what­so­ev­er Thou wert, I con­fessed to be in­cor­rupt­ible. For nev­er soul was, nor shall be, able to con­ceive any thing which may be bet­ter than Thou, who art the sovereign and the best good. But since most tru­ly and cer­tain­ly, the in­cor­rupt­ible is prefer­able to the cor­rupt­ible (as I did now pre­fer it), then, wert Thou not in­cor­rupt­ible, I could in thought have ar­rived at some­thing bet­ter than my God. Where then I saw the in­cor­rupt­ible to be prefer­able to the cor­rupt­ible, there ought I to seek for Thee, and there ob­serve “where­in evil it­self was”; that is, whence cor­rup­tion comes, by which Thy sub­stance can by no means be im­paired. For cor­rup­tion does no ways im­pair our God; by no will, by no ne­ces­si­ty, by no un­looked-​for chance: be­cause He is God, and what He wills is good, and Him­self is that good; but to be cor­rupt­ed is not good. Nor art Thou against Thy will con­strained to any thing, since Thy will is not greater than Thy pow­er. But greater should it be, were Thy­self greater than Thy­self. For the will and pow­er of God is God Him­self. And what can be un­looked-​for by Thee, Who know­est all things? Nor is there any na­ture in things, but Thou know­est it. And what should we more say, “why that sub­stance which God is should not be cor­rupt­ible,” see­ing if it were so, it should not be God?

And I sought “whence is evil,” and sought in an evil way; and saw not the evil in my very search. I set now be­fore the sight of my spir­it the whole cre­ation, what­so­ev­er we can see there­in (as sea, earth, air, stars, trees, mor­tal crea­tures); yea, and what­ev­er in it we do not see, as the fir­ma­ment of heav­en, all an­gels more­over, and all the spir­itu­al in­hab­itants there­of. But these very be­ings, as though they were bod­ies, did my fan­cy dis­pose in place, and I made one great mass of Thy cre­ation, dis­tin­guished as to the kinds of bod­ies; some, re­al bod­ies, some, what my­self had feigned for spir­its. And this mass I made huge, not as it was (which I could not know), but as I thought con­ve­nient, yet ev­ery way fi­nite. But Thee, O Lord, I imag­ined on ev­ery part en­vi­ron­ing and pen­etrat­ing it, though ev­ery way in­fi­nite: as if there were a sea, ev­ery where, and on ev­ery side, through un­mea­sured space, one on­ly bound­less sea, and it con­tained with­in it some sponge, huge, but bound­ed; that sponge must needs, in all its parts, be filled from that un­mea­sur­able sea: so con­ceived I Thy cre­ation, it­self fi­nite, full of Thee, the In­fi­nite; and I said, Be­hold God, and be­hold what God hath cre­at­ed; and God is good, yea, most might­ily and in­com­pa­ra­bly bet­ter than all these: but yet He, the Good, cre­at­ed them good; and see how He en­vi­roneth and ful­fils them. Where is evil then, and whence, and how crept it in hith­er? What is its root, and what its seed? Or hath it no be­ing? Why then fear we and avoid what is not? Or if we fear it idly, then is that very fear evil, where­by the soul is thus idly goad­ed and racked. Yea, and so much a greater evil, as we have noth­ing to fear, and yet do fear. There­fore ei­ther is that evil which we fear, or else evil is, that we fear. Whence is it then? see­ing God, the Good, hath cre­at­ed all these things good. He in­deed, the greater and chiefest Good, hath cre­at­ed these less­er goods; still both Cre­ator and cre­at­ed, all are good. Whence is evil? Or, was there some evil mat­ter of which He made, and formed, and or­dered it, yet left some­thing in it which He did not con­vert in­to good? Why so then? Had He no might to turn and change the whole, so that no evil should re­main in it, see­ing He is All-​mighty? Last­ly, why would He make any thing at all of it, and not rather by the same All-​might­iness cause it not to be at all? Or, could it then be against His will? Or if it were from eter­ni­ty, why suf­fered He it so to be for in­fi­nite spaces of times past, and was pleased so long af­ter to make some­thing out of it? Or if He were sud­den­ly pleased now to ef­fect some­what, this rather should the All-​mighty have ef­fect­ed, that this evil mat­ter should not be, and He alone be, the whole, true, sovereign, and in­fi­nite Good. Or if it was not good that He who was good should not al­so frame and cre­ate some­thing that were good, then, that evil mat­ter be­ing tak­en away and brought to noth­ing, He might form good mat­ter, where­of to cre­ate all things. For He should not be All-​mighty, if He might not cre­ate some­thing good with­out the aid of that mat­ter which Him­self had not cre­at­ed. These thoughts I re­volved in my mis­er­able heart, over­charged with most gnaw­ing cares, lest I should die ere I had found the truth; yet was the faith of Thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, pro­fessed in the Church Catholic, firm­ly fixed in my heart, in many points, in­deed, as yet un­formed, and fluc­tu­at­ing from the rule of doc­trine; yet did not my mind ut­ter­ly leave it, but rather dai­ly took in more and more of it.

But this time al­so had I re­ject­ed the ly­ing div­ina­tions and im­pi­ous dotages of the as­trologers. Let Thine own mer­cies, out of my very in­most soul, con­fess un­to Thee for this al­so, O my God. For Thou, Thou al­to­geth­er (for who else calls us back from the death of all er­rors, save the Life which can­not die, and the Wis­dom which need­ing no light en­light­ens the minds that need it, where­by the uni­verse is di­rect­ed, down to the whirling leaves of trees?) -Thou madest pro­vi­sion for my ob­sti­na­cy where­with I strug­gled against Vin­di­cianus, an acute old man, and Ne­brid­ius, a young man of ad­mirable tal­ents; the first ve­he­ment­ly af­firm­ing, and the lat­ter of­ten (though with some doubt­ful­ness) say­ing, “That there was no such art where­by to fore­see things to come, but that men’s con­jec­tures were a sort of lot­tery, and that out of many things which they said should come to pass, some ac­tu­al­ly did, un­awares to them who spake it, who stum­bled up­on it, through their oft speak­ing.” Thou pro­vid­edst then a friend for me, no neg­li­gent con­sul­ter of the as­trologers; nor yet well skilled in those arts, but (as I said) a cu­ri­ous con­sul­ter with them, and yet know­ing some­thing, which he said he had heard of his fa­ther, which how far it went to over­throw the es­ti­ma­tion of that art, he knew not. This man then, Firmi­nus by name, hav­ing had a lib­er­al ed­uca­tion, and well taught in Rhetoric, con­sult­ed me, as one very dear to him, what, ac­cord­ing to his so­called con­stel­la­tions, I thought on cer­tain af­fairs of his, where­in his world­ly hopes had risen, and I, who had here­in now be­gun to in­cline to­wards Ne­brid­ius’ opin­ion, did not al­to­geth­er refuse to con­jec­ture, and tell him what came in­to my un­re­solved mind; but added, that I was now al­most per­suad­ed that these were but emp­ty and ridicu­lous fol­lies. There­upon he told me that his fa­ther had been very cu­ri­ous in such books, and had a friend as earnest in them as him­self, who with joint study and con­fer­ence fanned the flame of their af­fec­tions to these toys, so that they would ob­serve the mo­ments where­at the very dumb an­imals, which bred about their hous­es, gave birth, and then ob­served the rel­ative po­si­tion of the heav­ens, there­by to make fresh ex­per­iments in this so-​called art. He said then that he had heard of his fa­ther, that what time his moth­er was about to give birth to him, Firmi­nus, a wom­an-​ser­vant of that friend of his fa­ther’s was al­so with child, which could not es­cape her mas­ter, who took care with most ex­act dili­gence to know the births of his very pup­pies. And so it was that (the one for his wife, and the oth­er for his ser­vant, with the most care­ful ob­ser­va­tion, reck­on­ing days, hours, nay, the less­er di­vi­sions of the hours) both were de­liv­ered at the same in­stant; so that both were con­strained to al­low the same con­stel­la­tions, even to the min­utest points, the one for his son, the oth­er for his new-​born slave. For so soon as the wom­en be­gan to be in labour, they each gave no­tice to the oth­er what was fall­en out in their hous­es, and had mes­sen­gers ready to send to one an­oth­er so soon as they had no­tice of the ac­tu­al birth, of which they had eas­ily pro­vid­ed, each in his own province, to give in­stant in­tel­li­gence. Thus then the mes­sen­gers of the re­spec­tive par­ties met, he averred, at such an equal dis­tance from ei­ther house that nei­ther of them could make out any dif­fer­ence in the po­si­tion of the stars, or any oth­er min­utest points; and yet Firmi­nus, born in a high es­tate in his par­ents’ house, ran his course through the gild­ed paths of life, was in­creased in rich­es, raised to hon­ours; where­as that slave con­tin­ued to serve his mas­ters, with­out any re­lax­ation of his yoke, as Firmi­nus, who knew him, told me.

Up­on hear­ing and be­liev­ing these things, told by one of such cred­ibil­ity, all that my re­sis­tance gave way; and first I en­deav­oured to re­claim Firmi­nus him­self from that cu­rios­ity, by telling him that up­on in­spect­ing his con­stel­la­tions, I ought if I were to pre­dict tru­ly, to have seen in them par­ents em­inent among their neigh­bours, a no­ble fam­ily in its own city, high birth, good ed­uca­tion, lib­er­al learn­ing. But if that ser­vant had con­sult­ed me up­on the same con­stel­la­tions, since they were his al­so, I ought again (to tell him too tru­ly) to see in them a lin­eage the most ab­ject, a slav­ish con­di­tion, and ev­ery thing else ut­ter­ly at vari­ance with the for­mer. Whence then, if I spake the truth, I should, from the same con­stel­la­tions, speak di­verse­ly, or if I spake the same, speak false­ly: thence it fol­lowed most cer­tain­ly that what­ev­er, up­on con­sid­er­ation of the con­stel­la­tions, was spo­ken tru­ly, was spo­ken not out of art, but chance; and what­ev­er spo­ken false­ly, was not out of ig­no­rance in the art, but the fail­ure of the chance.

An open­ing thus made, ru­mi­nat­ing with my­self on the like things, that no one of those dotards (who lived by such a trade, and whom I longed to at­tack, and with de­ri­sion to con­fute) might urge against me that Firmi­nus had in­formed me false­ly, or his fa­ther him; I bent my thoughts on those that are born twins, who for the most part come out of the womb so near one to oth­er, that the small in­ter­val (how much force so­ev­er in the na­ture of things folk may pre­tend it to have) can­not be not­ed by hu­man ob­ser­va­tion, or be at all ex­pressed in those fig­ures which the as­trologer is to in­spect, that he may pro­nounce tru­ly. Yet they can­not be true: for look­ing in­to the same fig­ures, he must have pre­dict­ed the same of Esau and Ja­cob, where­as the same hap­pened not to them. There­fore he must speak false­ly; or if tru­ly, then, look­ing in­to the same fig­ures, he must not give the same an­swer. Not by art, then, but by chance, would he speak tru­ly. For Thou, O Lord, most righ­teous Ruler of the Uni­verse, while con­sul­ters and con­sult­ed know it not, dost by Thy hid­den in­spi­ra­tion ef­fect that the con­sul­ter should hear what, ac­cord­ing to the hid­den de­serv­ings of souls, he ought to hear, out of the un­search­able depth of Thy just judg­ment, to Whom let no man say, What is this? Why that? Let him not so say, for he is man.

Now then, O my Helper, hadst Thou loosed me from those fet­ters: and I sought “whence is evil,” and found no way. But Thou suf­feredst me not by any fluc­tu­ations of thought to be car­ried away from the Faith where­by I be­lieved Thee both to be, and Thy sub­stance to be un­change­able, and that Thou hast a care of, and wouldest judge men, and that in Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, and the holy Scrip­tures, which the au­thor­ity of Thy Catholic Church pressed up­on me, Thou hadst set the way of man’s sal­va­tion, to that life which is to be af­ter this death. These things be­ing safe and im­mov­ably set­tled in my mind, I sought anx­ious­ly “whence was evil?” What were the pangs of my teem­ing heart, what groans, O my God! yet even there were Thine ears open, and I knew it not; and when in si­lence I ve­he­ment­ly sought, those silent con­tri­tions of my soul were strong cries un­to Thy mer­cy. Thou knewest what I suf­fered, and no man. For, what was that which was thence through my tongue dis­tilled in­to the ears of my most fa­mil­iar friends? Did the whole tu­mult of my soul, for which nei­ther time nor ut­ter­ance suf­ficed, reach them? Yet went up the whole to Thy hear­ing, all which I roared out from the groan­ings of my heart; and my de­sire was be­fore Thee, and the light of mine eyes was not with me: for that was with­in, I with­out: nor was that con­fined to place, but I was in­tent on things con­tained in place, but there found I no rest­ing-​place, nor did they so re­ceive me, that I could say, “It is enough,” “it is well”: nor did they yet suf­fer me to turn back, where it might be well enough with me. For to these things was I su­pe­ri­or, but in­fe­ri­or to Thee; and Thou art my true joy when sub­ject­ed to Thee, and Thou hadst sub­ject­ed to me what Thou cre­at­edst be­low me. And this was the true tem­per­ament, and mid­dle re­gion of my safe­ty, to re­main in Thy Im­age, and by serv­ing Thee, rule the body. But when I rose proud­ly against Thee, and ran against the Lord with my neck, with the thick boss­es of my buck­ler, even these in­fe­ri­or things were set above me, and pressed me down, and no where was there respite or space of breath­ing. They met my sight on all sides by heaps and troops, and in thought the im­ages there­of pre­sent­ed them­selves un­sought, as I would re­turn to Thee, as if they would say un­to me, “Whith­er goest thou, un­wor­thy and de­filed?” And these things had grown out of my wound; for Thou “hum­bledst the proud like one that is wound­ed,” and through my own swelling was I sep­arat­ed from Thee; yea, my pride-​swollen face closed up mine eyes.

But Thou, Lord, abidest for ev­er, yet not for ev­er art Thou an­gry with us; be­cause Thou piti­est our dust and ash­es, and it was pleas­ing in Thy sight to re­form my de­for­mi­ties; and by in­ward goads didst Thou rouse me, that I should be ill at ease, un­til Thou wert man­ifest­ed to my in­ward sight. Thus, by the se­cret hand of Thy medicin­ing was my swelling abat­ed, and the trou­bled and be­dimmed eye­sight of my mind, by the smart­ing anoint­ings of health­ful sor­rows, was from day to day healed.

And Thou, will­ing first to show me how Thou re­sistest the proud, but givest grace un­to the hum­ble, and by how great an act of Thy mer­cy Thou hadst traced out to men the way of hu­mil­ity, in that Thy Word was made flesh, and dwelt among men:- Thou pro­curedst for me, by means of one puffed up with most un­nat­ural pride, cer­tain books of the Pla­ton­ists, trans­lat­ed from Greek in­to Latin. And there­in I read, not in­deed in the very words, but to the very same pur­pose, en­forced by many and divers rea­sons, that In the be­gin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the Same was in the be­gin­ning with God: all things were made by Him, and with­out Him was noth­ing made: that which was made by Him is life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the dark­ness, and the dark­ness com­pre­hend­ed it not. And that the soul of man, though it bears wit­ness to the light, yet it­self is not that light; but the Word of God, be­ing God, is that true light that lighteth ev­ery man that cometh in­to the world. And that He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. But, that He came un­to His own, and His own re­ceived Him not; but as many as re­ceived Him, to them gave He pow­er to be­come the sons of God, as many as be­lieved in His name; this I read not there.

Again I read there, that God the Word was born not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. But that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, I read not there. For I traced in those books that it was many and divers ways said, that the Son was in the form of the Fa­ther, and thought it not rob­bery to be equal with God, for that nat­ural­ly He was the Same Sub­stance. But that He emp­tied Him­self, tak­ing the form of a ser­vant, be­ing made in the like­ness of men, and found in fash­ion as a man, hum­bled Him­self, and be­came obe­di­ent un­to death, and that the death of the cross: where­fore God ex­alt­ed Him from the dead, and gave Him a name above ev­ery name, that at the name of Je­sus ev­ery knee should how, of things in heav­en, and things in earth, and things un­der the earth; and that ev­ery tongue should con­fess that the Lord Je­sus Christ is in the glo­ry of God the Fa­ther; those books have not. For that be­fore all times and above all times Thy On­ly-​Be­got­ten Son re­maineth un­change­able, co-​eter­nal with Thee, and that of His ful­ness souls re­ceive, that they may be blessed; and that by par­tic­ipa­tion of wis­dom abid­ing in them, they are re­newed, so as to be wise, is there. But that in due time He died for the un­god­ly; and that Thou sparedst not Thine On­ly Son, but de­liv­eredst Him for us all, is not there. For Thou hid­dest these things from the wise, and re­vealedst them to babes; that they that labour and are heavy laden might come un­to Him, and He re­fresh them, be­cause He is meek and low­ly in heart; and the meek He di­recteth in judg­ment, and the gen­tle He tea­cheth His ways, be­hold­ing our low­li­ness and trou­ble, and for­giv­ing all our sins. But such as are lift­ed up in the lofty walk of some would-​be sub­limer learn­ing, hear not Him, say­ing, Learn of Me, for I am meek and low­ly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls. Al­though they knew God, yet they glo­ri­fy Him not as God, nor are thank­ful, but wax vain in their thoughts; and their fool­ish heart is dark­ened; pro­fess­ing that they were wise, they be­came fools.

And there­fore did I read there al­so, that they had changed the glo­ry of Thy in­cor­rupt­ible na­ture in­to idols and divers shapes, in­to the like­ness of the im­age of cor­rupt­ible man, and birds, and beasts, and creep­ing things; name­ly, in­to that Egyp­tian food for which Esau lost his birthright, for that Thy first-​born peo­ple wor­shipped the head of a four-​foot­ed beast in­stead of Thee; turn­ing in heart back to­wards Egypt; and bow­ing Thy im­age, their own soul, be­fore the im­age of a calf that eateth hay. These things found I here, but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the re­proach of diminu­tion from Ja­cob, that the el­der should serve the younger: and Thou calledst the Gen­tiles in­to Thine in­her­itance. And I had come to Thee from among the Gen­tiles; and I set my mind up­on the gold which Thou willedst Thy peo­ple to take from Egypt, see­ing Thine it was, where­so­ev­er it were. And to the Athe­ni­ans Thou saidst by Thy Apos­tle, that in Thee we live, move, and have our be­ing, as one of their own po­ets had said. And ver­ily these books came from thence. But I set not my mind on the idols of Egypt, whom they served with Thy gold, who changed the truth of God in­to a lie, and wor­shipped and served the crea­ture more than the Cre­ator.

And be­ing thence ad­mon­ished to re­turn to my­self, I en­tered even in­to my in­ward self, Thou be­ing my Guide: and able I was, for Thou wert be­come my Helper. And I en­tered and be­held with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light Un­change­able. Not this or­di­nary light, which all flesh may look up­on, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the bright­ness of this should be man­ifold brighter, and with its great­ness take up all space. Not such was this light, but oth­er, yea, far oth­er from these. Nor was it above my soul, as oil is above wa­ter, nor yet as heav­en above earth: but above to my soul, be­cause It made me; and I be­low It, be­cause I was made by It. He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows eter­ni­ty. Love knoweth it. O Truth Who art Eter­ni­ty! and Love Who art Truth! and Eter­ni­ty Who art Love! Thou art my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day. Thee when I first knew, Thou lift­edst me up, that I might see there was what I might see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And Thou didst beat back the weak­ness of my sight, stream­ing forth Thy beams of light up­on me most strong­ly, and I trem­bled with love and awe: and I per­ceived my­self to be far off from Thee, in the re­gion of un­like­ness, as if I heard this Thy voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men, grow, and thou shalt feed up­on Me; nor shalt thou con­vert Me, like the food of thy flesh in­to thee, but thou shalt be con­vert­ed in­to Me.” And I learned, that Thou for in­iq­ui­ty chasten­est man, and Thou madest my soul to con­sume away like a spi­der. And I said, “Is Truth there­fore noth­ing be­cause it is not dif­fused through space fi­nite or in­fi­nite?” And Thou criedst to me from afar: “Yet ver­ily, I AM that I AM.” And I heard, as the heart heareth, nor had I room to doubt, and I should soon­er doubt that I live than that Truth is not, which is clear­ly seen, be­ing un­der­stood by those things which are made. And I be­held the oth­er things be­low Thee, and I per­ceived that they nei­ther al­to­geth­er are, nor al­to­geth­er are not, for they are, since they are from Thee, but are not, be­cause they are not what Thou art. For that tru­ly is which re­mains un­change­ably. It is good then for me to hold fast un­to God; for if I re­main not in Him, I can­not in my­self; but He re­main­ing in Him­self, re­neweth all things. And Thou art the Lord my God, since Thou stand­est not in need of my good­ness.

And it was man­ifest­ed un­to me, that those things be good which yet are cor­rupt­ed; which nei­ther were they sovereign­ly good, nor un­less they were good could he cor­rupt­ed: for if sovereign­ly good, they were in­cor­rupt­ible, if not good at all, there were noth­ing in them to be cor­rupt­ed. For cor­rup­tion in­jures, but un­less it di­min­ished good­ness, it could not in­jure. Ei­ther then cor­rup­tion in­jures not, which can­not be; or which is most cer­tain, all which is cor­rupt­ed is de­prived of good. But if they he de­prived of all good, they shall cease to be. For if they shall be, and can now no longer he cor­rupt­ed, they shall be bet­ter than be­fore, be­cause they shall abide in­cor­rupt­ibly. And what more mon­strous than to af­firm things to be­come bet­ter by los­ing all their good? There­fore, if they shall be de­prived of all good, they shall no longer be. So long there­fore as they are, they are good: there­fore what­so­ev­er is, is good. That evil then which I sought, whence it is, is not any sub­stance: for were it a sub­stance, it should be good. For ei­ther it should be an in­cor­rupt­ible sub­stance, and so a chief good: or a cor­rupt­ible sub­stance; which un­less it were good, could not be cor­rupt­ed. I per­ceived there­fore, and it was man­ifest­ed to me that Thou madest all things good, nor is there any sub­stance at all, which Thou madest not; and for that Thou madest not all things equal, there­fore are all things; be­cause each is good, and al­to­geth­er very good, be­cause our God made all things very good.

And to Thee is noth­ing what­so­ev­er evil: yea, not on­ly to Thee, but al­so to Thy cre­ation as a whole, be­cause there is noth­ing with­out, which may break in, and cor­rupt that or­der which Thou hast ap­point­ed it. But in the parts there­of some things, be­cause un­har­mon­is­ing with oth­er some, are ac­count­ed evil: where­as those very things har­monise with oth­ers, and are good; and in them­selves are good. And all these things which har­monise not to­geth­er, do yet with the in­fe­ri­or part, which we call Earth, hav­ing its own cloudy and windy sky har­mon­is­ing with it. Far be it then that I should say, “These things should not be”: for should I see nought but these, I should in­deed long for the bet­ter; but still must even for these alone praise Thee; for that Thou art to be praised, do show from the earth, drag­ons, and all deeps, fire, hail, snow, ice, and stormy wind, which ful­fil Thy word; moun­tains, and all hills, fruit­ful trees, and all cedars; beasts, and all cat­tle, creep­ing things, and fly­ing fowls; kings of the earth, and all peo­ple, princes, and all judges of the earth; young men and maid­ens, old men and young, praise Thy Name. But when, from heav­en, these praise Thee, praise Thee, our God, in the heights all Thy an­gels, all Thy hosts, sun and moon, all the stars and light, the Heav­en of heav­ens, and the wa­ters that be above the heav­ens, praise Thy Name; I did not now long for things bet­ter, be­cause I con­ceived of all: and with a sounder judg­ment I ap­pre­hend­ed that the things above were bet­ter than these be­low, but al­to­geth­er bet­ter than those above by them­selves.

There is no sound­ness in them, whom aught of Thy cre­ation dis­pleaseth: as nei­ther in me, when much which Thou hast made, dis­pleased me. And be­cause my soul durst not be dis­pleased at my God, it would fain not ac­count that Thine, which dis­pleased it. Hence it had gone in­to the opin­ion of two sub­stances, and had no rest, but talked idly. And re­turn­ing thence, it had made to it­self a God, through in­fi­nite mea­sures of all space; and thought it to be Thee, and placed it in its heart; and had again be­come the tem­ple of its own idol, to Thee abom­inable. But af­ter Thou hadst soothed my head, un­known to me, and closed mine eyes that they should not be­hold van­ity, I ceased some­what of my for­mer self, and my fren­zy was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in Thee, and saw Thee in­fi­nite, but in an­oth­er way, and this sight was not de­rived from the flesh.

And I looked back on oth­er things; and I saw that they owed their be­ing to Thee; and were all bound­ed in Thee: but in a dif­fer­ent way; not as be­ing in space; but be­cause Thou con­tainest all things in Thine hand in Thy Truth; and all things are true so far as they nor is there any false­hood, un­less when that is thought to be, which is not. And I saw that all things did har­monise, not with their places on­ly, but with their sea­sons. And that Thou, who on­ly art Eter­nal, didst not be­gin to work af­ter in­nu­mer­able spaces of times spent; for that all spaces of times, both which have passed, and which shall pass, nei­ther go nor come, but through Thee, work­ing and abid­ing.

And I per­ceived and found it noth­ing strange, that bread which is pleas­ant to a healthy palate is loath­some to one dis­tem­pered: and to sore eyes light is of­fen­sive, which to the sound is de­light­ful. And Thy righ­teous­ness dis­pleaseth the wicked; much more the viper and rep­tiles, which Thou hast cre­at­ed good, fit­ting in with the in­fe­ri­or por­tions of Thy Cre­ation, with which the very wicked al­so fit in; and that the more, by how much they be un­like Thee; but with the su­pe­ri­or crea­tures, by how much they be­come more like to Thee. And I en­quired what in­iq­ui­ty was, and found it to be sub­stance, but the per­ver­sion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, to­wards these low­er things, and cast­ing out its bow­els, and puffed up out­ward­ly.

And I won­dered that I now loved Thee, and no phan­tasm for Thee. And yet did I not press on to en­joy my God; but was borne up to Thee by Thy beau­ty, and soon borne down from Thee by mine own weight, sink­ing with sor­row in­to these in­fe­ri­or things. This weight was car­nal cus­tom. Yet dwelt there with me a re­mem­brance of Thee; nor did I any way doubt that there was One to whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet such as to cleave to Thee: for that the body which is cor­rupt­ed pres­seth down the soul, and the earth­ly taber­na­cle weigheth down the mind that museth up­on many things. And most cer­tain I was, that Thy in­vis­ible works from the cre­ation of the world are clear­ly seen, be­ing un­der­stood by the things that are made, even Thy eter­nal pow­er and God­head. For ex­am­in­ing whence it was that I ad­mired the beau­ty of bod­ies ce­les­tial or ter­res­tri­al; and what aid­ed me in judg­ing sound­ly on things mu­ta­ble, and pro­nounc­ing, “This ought to be thus, this not”; ex­am­in­ing, I say, whence it was that I so judged, see­ing I did so judge, I had found the un­change­able and true Eter­ni­ty of Truth above my change­able mind. And thus by de­grees I passed from bod­ies to the soul, which through the bod­ily sens­es per­ceives; and thence to its in­ward fac­ul­ty, to which the bod­ily sens­es rep­re­sent things ex­ter­nal, whith­er­to reach the fac­ul­ties of beasts; and thence again to the rea­son­ing fac­ul­ty, to which what is re­ceived from the sens­es of the body is re­ferred to be judged. Which find­ing it­self al­so to be in me a thing vari­able, raised it­self up to its own un­der­stand­ing, and drew away my thoughts from the pow­er of habit, with­draw­ing it­self from those troops of con­tra­dic­to­ry phan­tasms; that so it might find what that light was where­by it was be­dewed, when, with­out all doubt­ing, it cried out, “That the un­change­able was to be pre­ferred to the change­able”; whence al­so it knew That Un­change­able, which, un­less it had in some way known, it had had no sure ground to pre­fer it to the change­able. And thus with the flash of one trem­bling glance it ar­rived at THAT WHICH IS. And then I saw Thy in­vis­ible things un­der­stood by the things which are made. But I could not fix my gaze there­on; and my in­fir­mi­ty be­ing struck back, I was thrown again on my wont­ed habits, car­ry­ing along with me on­ly a lov­ing mem­ory there­of, and a long­ing for what I had, as it were, per­ceived the odour of, but was not yet able to feed on.

Then I sought a way of ob­tain­ing strength suf­fi­cient to en­joy Thee; and found it not, un­til I em­braced that Me­di­ator be­twixt God and men, the Man Christ Je­sus, who is over all, God blessed for ev­er­more, call­ing un­to me, and say­ing, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and min­gling that food which I was un­able to re­ceive, with our flesh. For, the Word was made flesh, that Thy wis­dom, where­by Thou cre­at­edst all things, might pro­vide milk for our in­fant state. For I did not hold to my Lord Je­sus Christ, I, hum­bled, to the Hum­ble; nor knew I yet where­to His in­fir­mi­ty would guide us. For Thy Word, the Eter­nal Truth, far above the high­er parts of Thy Cre­ation, rais­es up the sub­dued un­to It­self: but in this low­er world built for It­self a low­ly habi­ta­tion of our clay, where­by to abase from them­selves such as would be sub­dued, and bring them over to Him­self; al­lay­ing their swelling, and to­ment­ing their love; to the end they might go on no fur­ther in self-​con­fi­dence, but rather con­sent to be­come weak, see­ing be­fore their feet the Di­vin­ity weak by tak­ing our coats of skin; and wea­ried, might cast them­selves down up­on It, and It ris­ing, might lift them up.

But I thought oth­er­wise; con­ceiv­ing on­ly of my Lord Christ as of a man of ex­cel­lent wis­dom, whom no one could be equalled un­to; es­pe­cial­ly, for that be­ing won­der­ful­ly born of a Vir­gin, He seemed, in con­for­mi­ty there­with, through the Di­vine care for us, to have at­tained that great em­inence of au­thor­ity, for an en­sam­ple of de­spis­ing things tem­po­ral for the ob­tain­ing of im­mor­tal­ity. But what mys­tery there lay in “The Word was made flesh,” I could not even imag­ine. On­ly I had learnt out of what is de­liv­ered to us in writ­ing of Him that He did eat, and drink, sleep, walk, re­joiced in spir­it, was sor­row­ful, dis­coursed; that flesh did not cleave by it­self un­to Thy Word, but with the hu­man soul and mind. All know this who know the un­change­able­ness of Thy Word, which I now knew, as far as I could, nor did I at all doubt there­of. For, now to move the limbs of the body by will, now not, now to be moved by some af­fec­tion, now not, now to de­liv­er wise say­ings through hu­man signs, now to keep si­lence, be­long to soul and mind sub­ject to vari­ation. And should these things be false­ly writ­ten of Him, all the rest al­so would risk the charge, nor would there re­main in those books any sav­ing faith for mankind. Since then they were writ­ten tru­ly, I ac­knowl­edged a per­fect man to be in Christ; not the body of a man on­ly, nor, with the body, a sen­si­tive soul with­out a ra­tio­nal, but very man; whom, not on­ly as be­ing a form of Truth, but for a cer­tain great ex­cel­lence of hu­man na­ture and a more per­fect par­tic­ipa­tion of wis­dom, I judged to be pre­ferred be­fore oth­ers. But Alyp­ius imag­ined the Catholics to be­lieve God to be so clothed with flesh, that be­sides God and flesh, there was no soul at all in Christ, and did not think that a hu­man mind was as­cribed to Him. And be­cause he was well per­suad­ed that the ac­tions record­ed of Him could on­ly be per­formed by a vi­tal and a ra­tio­nal crea­ture, he moved the more slow­ly to­wards the Chris­tian Faith. But un­der­stand­ing af­ter­wards that this was the er­ror of the Apol­li­nar­ian heretics, he joyed in and was con­formed to the Catholic Faith. But some­what lat­er, I con­fess, did I learn how in that say­ing, The Word was made flesh, the Catholic truth is dis­tin­guished from the false­hood of Phot­inus. For the re­jec­tion of heretics makes the tenets of Thy Church and sound doc­trine to stand out more clear­ly. For there must al­so be here­sies, that the ap­proved may be made man­ifest among the weak.

But hav­ing then read those books of the Pla­ton­ists, and thence been taught to search for in­cor­po­re­al truth, I saw Thy in­vis­ible things, un­der­stood by those things which are made; and though cast back, I per­ceived what that was which through the dark­ness of my mind I was hin­dered from con­tem­plat­ing, be­ing as­sured “That Thou wert, and wert in­fi­nite, and yet not dif­fused in space, fi­nite or in­fi­nite; and that Thou tru­ly art Who art the same ev­er, in no part nor mo­tion vary­ing; and that all oth­er things are from Thee, on this most sure ground alone, that they are.” Of these things I was as­sured, yet too un­sure to en­joy Thee. I prat­ed as one well skilled; but had I not sought Thy way in Christ our Saviour, I had proved to be, not skilled, but killed. For now I had be­gun to wish to seem wise, be­ing filled with mine own pun­ish­ment, yet I did not mourn, but rather scorn, puffed up with knowl­edge. For where was that char­ity build­ing up­on the foun­da­tion of hu­mil­ity, which is Christ Je­sus? or when should these books teach me it? Up­on these, I be­lieve, Thou there­fore willedst that I should fall, be­fore I stud­ied Thy Scrip­tures, that it might be im­print­ed on my mem­ory how I was af­fect­ed by them; and that af­ter­wards when my spir­its were tamed through Thy books, and my wounds touched by Thy heal­ing fin­gers, I might dis­cern and dis­tin­guish be­tween pre­sump­tion and con­fes­sion; be­tween those who saw whith­er they were to go, yet saw not the way, and the way that lead­eth not to be­hold on­ly but to dwell in the be­atif­ic coun­try. For had I first been formed in Thy Holy Scrip­tures, and hadst Thou in the fa­mil­iar use of them grown sweet un­to me, and had I then fall­en up­on those oth­er vol­umes, they might per­haps have with­drawn me from the sol­id ground of piety, or, had I con­tin­ued in that health­ful frame which I had thence im­bibed, I might have thought that it might have been ob­tained by the study of those books alone.

Most ea­ger­ly then did I seize that ven­er­able writ­ing of Thy Spir­it; and chiefly the Apos­tle Paul. Where­upon those dif­fi­cul­ties van­ished away, where­in he once seemed to me to con­tra­dict him­self, and the text of his dis­course not to agree with the tes­ti­monies of the Law and the Prophets. And the face of that pure word ap­peared to me one and the same; and I learned to re­joice with trem­bling. So I be­gan; and what­so­ev­er truth I had read in those oth­er books, I found here amid the praise of Thy Grace; that whoso sees, may not so glo­ry as if he had not re­ceived, not on­ly what he sees, but al­so that he sees (for what hath he, which he hath not re­ceived?), and that he may be not on­ly ad­mon­ished to be­hold Thee, who art ev­er the same, but al­so healed, to hold Thee; and that he who can­not see afar off, may yet walk on the way, where­by he may ar­rive, and be­hold, and hold Thee. For, though a man be de­light­ed with the law of God af­ter the in­ner man, what shall he do with that oth­er law in his mem­bers which war­reth against the law of his mind, and bringeth him in­to cap­tiv­ity to the law of sin which is in his mem­bers? For, Thou art righ­teous, O Lord, but we have sinned and com­mit­ted in­iq­ui­ty, and have done wicked­ly, and Thy hand is grown heavy up­on us, and we are just­ly de­liv­ered over un­to that an­cient sin­ner, the king of death; be­cause he per­suad­ed our will to be like his will where­by he abode not in Thy truth. What shall wretched man do? who shall de­liv­er him from the body of his death, but on­ly Thy Grace, through Je­sus Christ our Lord, whom Thou hast be­got­ten co-​eter­nal, and formedst in the be­gin­ning of Thy ways, in whom the prince of this world found noth­ing wor­thy of death, yet killed he Him; and the hand­writ­ing, which was con­trary to us, was blot­ted out? This those writ­ings con­tain not. Those pages present not the im­age of this piety, the tears of con­fes­sion, Thy sac­ri­fice, a trou­bled spir­it, a bro­ken and a con­trite heart, the sal­va­tion of the peo­ple, the Bridal City, the earnest of the Holy Ghost, the Cup of our Re­demp­tion. No man sings there, Shall not my soul be sub­mit­ted un­to God? for of Him cometh my sal­va­tion. For He is my God and my sal­va­tion, my guardian, I shall no more be moved. No one there hears Him call, Come un­to Me, all ye that labour. They scorn to learn of Him, be­cause He is meek and low­ly in heart; for these things hast Thou hid from the wise and pru­dent, and hast re­vealed them un­to babes. For it is one thing, from the moun­tain’s shag­gy top to see the land of peace, and to find no way thith­er; and in vain to es­say through ways un­pass­able, op­posed and be­set by fugi­tives and de­sert­ers, un­der their cap­tain the li­on and the drag­on: and an­oth­er to keep on the way that leads thith­er, guard­ed by the host of the heav­en­ly Gen­er­al; where they spoil not who have de­sert­ed the heav­en­ly army; for they avoid it, as very tor­ment. These things did won­der­ful­ly sink in­to my bow­els, when I read that least of Thy Apos­tles, and had med­itat­ed up­on Thy works, and trem­bled ex­ceed­ing­ly.