The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK VIII

O my God, let me, with thanks­giv­ing, re­mem­ber, and con­fess un­to Thee Thy mer­cies on me. Let my bones be be­dewed with Thy love, and let them say un­to Thee, Who is like un­to Thee, O Lord? Thou hast bro­ken my bonds in sun­der, I will of­fer un­to Thee the sac­ri­fice of thanks­giv­ing. And how Thou hast bro­ken them, I will de­clare; and all who wor­ship Thee, when they hear this, shall say, “Blessed be the Lord, in heav­en and in earth, great and won­der­ful is his name. ” Thy words had stuck fast in my heart, and I was hedged round about on all sides by Thee. Of Thy eter­nal life I was now cer­tain, though I saw it in a fig­ure and as through a glass. Yet I had ceased to doubt that there was an in­cor­rupt­ible sub­stance, whence was all oth­er sub­stance; nor did I now de­sire to be more cer­tain of Thee, but more stead­fast in Thee. But for my tem­po­ral life, all was wa­ver­ing, and my heart had to be purged from the old leav­en. The Way, the Saviour Him­self, well pleased me, but as yet I shrunk from go­ing through its strait­ness. And Thou didst put in­to my mind, and it seemed good in my eyes, to go to Sim­pli­cianus, who seemed to me a good ser­vant of Thine; and Thy grace shone in him. I had heard al­so that from his very youth he had lived most de­vot­ed un­to Thee. Now he was grown in­to years; and by rea­son of so great age spent in such zeal­ous fol­low­ing of Thy ways, he seemed to me like­ly to have learned much ex­pe­ri­ence; and so he had. Out of which store I wished that he would tell me (set­ting be­fore him my anx­ieties) which were the fittest way for one in my case to walk in Thy paths.

For, I saw the church full; and one went this way, and an­oth­er that way. But I was dis­pleased that I led a sec­ular life; yea now that my de­sires no longer in­flamed me, as of old, with hopes of hon­our and prof­it, a very grievous bur­den it was to un­der­go so heavy a bondage. For, in com­par­ison of Thy sweet­ness, and the beau­ty of Thy house which I loved, those things de­light­ed me no longer. But still I was en­thralled with the love of wom­an; nor did the Apos­tle for­bid me to mar­ry, al­though he ad­vised me to some­thing bet­ter, chiefly wish­ing that all men were as him­self was. But I be­ing weak, chose the more in­dul­gent place; and be­cause of this alone, was tossed up and down in all be­side, faint and wast­ed with with­er­ing cares, be­cause in oth­er mat­ters I was con­strained against my will to con­form my­self to a mar­ried life, to which I was giv­en up and en­thralled. I had heard from the mouth of the Truth, that there were some eu­nuchs which had made them­selves eu­nuchs for the king­dom of heav­en’s sake: but, saith He, let him who can re­ceive it, re­ceive it. Sure­ly vain are all men who are ig­no­rant of God, and could not out of the good things which are seen, find out Him who is good. But I was no longer in that van­ity; I had sur­mount­ed it; and by the com­mon wit­ness of all Thy crea­tures had found Thee our Cre­ator, and Thy Word, God with Thee, and to­geth­er with Thee one God, by whom Thou cre­at­edst all things. There is yet an­oth­er kind of un­god­ly, who know­ing God, glo­ri­fied Him not as God, nei­ther were thank­ful. In­to this al­so had I fall­en, but Thy right hand up­held me, and took me thence, and Thou placedst me where I might re­cov­er. For Thou hast said un­to man, Be­hold, the fear of the Lord is wis­dom, and, De­sire not to seem wise; be­cause they who af­firmed them­selves to be wise, be­came fools. But I had now found the good­ly pearl, which, sell­ing all that I had, I ought to have bought, and I hes­itat­ed.

To Sim­pli­cianus then I went, the fa­ther of Am­brose (a Bish­op now) in re­ceiv­ing Thy grace, and whom Am­brose tru­ly loved as a fa­ther. To him I re­lat­ed the mazes of my wan­der­ings. But when I men­tioned that I had read cer­tain books of the Pla­ton­ists, which Vic­tor­inus, some­time Rhetoric Pro­fes­sor of Rome (who had died a Chris­tian, as I had heard), had trans­lat­ed in­to Latin, he tes­ti­fied his joy that I had not fall­en up­on the writ­ings of oth­er philoso­phers, full of fal­la­cies and de­ceits, af­ter the rudi­ments of this world, where­as the Pla­ton­ists many ways led to the be­lief in God and His Word. Then to ex­hort me to the hu­mil­ity of Christ, hid­den from the wise, and re­vealed to lit­tle ones, he spoke of Vic­tor­inus him­self, whom while at Rome he had most in­ti­mate­ly known: and of him he re­lat­ed what I will not con­ceal. For it con­tains great praise of Thy grace, to be con­fessed un­to Thee, how that aged man, most learned and skilled in the lib­er­al sci­ences, and who had read, and weighed so many works of the philoso­phers; the in­struc­tor of so many no­ble Sen­ators, who al­so, as a mon­ument of his ex­cel­lent dis­charge of his of­fice, had (which men of this world es­teem a high hon­our) both de­served and ob­tained a stat­ue in the Ro­man Fo­rum; he, to that age a wor­ship­per of idols, and a par­tak­er of the sac­ri­le­gious rites, to which al­most all the no­bil­ity of Rome were giv­en up, and had in­spired the peo­ple with the love of

Anu­bis, bark­ing De­ity, and all The mon­ster Gods of ev­ery kind, who fought ‘Gainst Nep­tune, Venus, and Min­er­va:

whom Rome once con­quered, now adored, all which the aged Vic­tor­inus had with thun­der­ing elo­quence so many years de­fend­ed; -he now blushed not to be the child of Thy Christ, and the new-​born babe of Thy foun­tain; sub­mit­ting his neck to the yoke of hu­mil­ity, and sub­du­ing his fore­head to the re­proach of the Cross.

O Lord, Lord, Which hast bowed the heav­ens and come down, touched the moun­tains and they did smoke, by what means didst Thou con­vey Thy­self in­to that breast? He used to read (as Sim­pli­cianus said) the holy Scrip­ture, most stu­dious­ly sought and searched in­to all the Chris­tian writ­ings, and said to Sim­pli­cianus (not open­ly, but pri­vate­ly and as a friend), “Un­der­stand that I am al­ready a Chris­tian.” Where­to he an­swered, “I will not be­lieve it, nor will I rank you among Chris­tians, un­less I see you in the Church of Christ.” The oth­er, in ban­ter, replied, “Do walls then make Chris­tians?” And this he of­ten said, that he was al­ready a Chris­tian; and Sim­pli­cianus as of­ten made the same an­swer, and the con­ceit of the “walls” was by the oth­er as of­ten re­newed. For he feared to of­fend his friends, proud dae­mon-​wor­ship­pers, from the height of whose Baby­lo­ni­an dig­ni­ty, as from cedars of Libanus, which the Lord had not yet bro­ken down, he sup­posed the weight of en­mi­ty would fall up­on him. But af­ter that by read­ing and earnest thought he had gath­ered firm­ness, and feared to be de­nied by Christ be­fore the holy an­gels, should he now be afraid to con­fess Him be­fore men, and ap­peared to him­self guilty of a heavy of­fence, in be­ing ashamed of the Sacra­ments of the hu­mil­ity of Thy Word, and not be­ing ashamed of the sac­ri­le­gious rites of those proud dae­mons, whose pride he had im­itat­ed and their rites adopt­ed, he be­came bold-​faced against van­ity, and shame-​faced to­wards the truth, and sud­den­ly and un­ex­pect­ed­ly said to Sim­pli­cianus (as him­self told me), “Go we to the Church; I wish to be made a Chris­tian.” But he, not con­tain­ing him­self for joy, went with him. And hav­ing been ad­mit­ted to the first Sacra­ment and be­come a Cat­echu­men, not long af­ter he fur­ther gave in his name, that he might be re­gen­er­at­ed by bap­tism, Rome won­der­ing, the Church re­joic­ing. The proud saw, and were wroth; they gnashed with their teeth, and melt­ed away. But the Lord God was the hope of Thy ser­vant, and he re­gard­ed not van­ities and ly­ing mad­ness.

To con­clude, when the hour was come for mak­ing pro­fes­sion of his faith (which at Rome they, who are about to ap­proach to Thy grace, de­liv­er, from an el­evat­ed place, in the sight of all the faith­ful, in a set form of words com­mit­ted to mem­ory), the pres­byters, he said, of­fered Vic­tor­inus (as was done to such as seemed like­ly through bash­ful­ness to be alarmed) to make his pro­fes­sion more pri­vate­ly: but he chose rather to pro­fess his sal­va­tion in the pres­ence of the holy mul­ti­tude. “For it was not sal­va­tion that he taught in rhetoric, and yet that he had pub­licly pro­fessed: how much less then ought he, when pro­nounc­ing Thy word, to dread Thy meek flock, who, when de­liv­er­ing his own words, had not feared a mad mul­ti­tude!” When, then, he went up to make his pro­fes­sion, all, as they knew him, whis­pered his name one to an­oth­er with the voice of con­grat­ula­tion. And who there knew him not? and there ran a low mur­mur through all the mouths of the re­joic­ing mul­ti­tude, Vic­tor­inus! Vic­tor­inus! Sud­den was the burst of rap­ture, that they saw him; sud­den­ly were they hushed that they might hear him. He pro­nounced the true faith with an ex­cel­lent bold­ness, and all wished to draw him in­to their very heart; yea by their love and joy they drew him thith­er, such were the hands where­with they drew him.

Good God! what takes place in man, that he should more re­joice at the sal­va­tion of a soul de­spaired of, and freed from greater per­il, than if there had al­ways been hope of him, or the dan­ger had been less? For so Thou al­so, mer­ci­ful Fa­ther, dost more re­joice over one pen­itent than over nine­ty-​nine just per­sons that need no re­pen­tance. And with much joy­ful­ness do we hear, so of­ten as we hear with what joy the sheep which had strayed is brought back up­on the shep­herd’s shoul­der, and the groat is re­stored to Thy trea­sury, the neigh­bours re­joic­ing with the wom­an who found it; and the joy of the solemn ser­vice of Thy house forceth to tears, when in Thy house it is read of Thy younger son, that he was dead, and liveth again; had been lost, and is found. For Thou re­joic­est in us, and in Thy holy an­gels, holy through holy char­ity. For Thou art ev­er the same; for all things which abide not the same nor for ev­er, Thou for ev­er know­est in the same way.

What then takes place in the soul, when it is more de­light­ed at find­ing or re­cov­er­ing the things it loves, than if it had ev­er had them? yea, and oth­er things wit­ness here­un­to; and all things are full of wit­ness­es, cry­ing out, “So is it.” The con­quer­ing com­man­der tri­umpheth; yet had he not con­quered un­less he had fought; and the more per­il there was in the bat­tle, so much the more joy is there in the tri­umph. The storm toss­es the sailors, threat­ens ship­wreck; all wax pale at ap­proach­ing death; sky and sea are calmed, and they are ex­ceed­ing joyed, as hav­ing been ex­ceed­ing afraid. A friend is sick, and his pulse threat­ens dan­ger; all who long for his re­cov­ery are sick in mind with him. He is re­stored, though as yet he walks not with his for­mer strength; yet there is such joy, as was not, when be­fore he walked sound and strong. Yea, the very plea­sures of hu­man life men ac­quire by dif­fi­cul­ties, not those on­ly which fall up­on us un­looked for, and against our wills, but even by self-​cho­sen, and plea­sure-​seek­ing trou­ble. Eat­ing and drink­ing have no plea­sure, un­less there pre­cede the pinch­ing of hunger and thirst. Men, giv­en to drink, eat cer­tain salt meats, to pro­cure a trou­ble­some heat, which the drink al­lay­ing, caus­es plea­sure. It is al­so or­dered that the af­fi­anced bride should not at once be giv­en, lest as a hus­band he should hold cheap whom, as be­trothed, he sighed not af­ter.

This law holds in foul and ac­cursed joy; this in per­mit­ted and law­ful joy; this in the very purest per­fec­tion of friend­ship; this, in him who was dead, and lived again; had been lost and was found. Ev­ery where the greater joy is ush­ered in by the greater pain. What means this, O Lord my God, where­as Thou art ev­er­last­ing­ly joy to Thy­self, and some things around Thee ev­er­more re­joice in Thee? What means this, that this por­tion of things thus ebbs and flows al­ter­nate­ly dis­pleased and rec­on­ciled? Is this their al­lot­ted mea­sure? Is this all Thou hast as­signed to them, where­as from the high­est heav­ens to the low­est earth, from the be­gin­ning of the world to the end of ages, from the an­gel to the worm, from the first mo­tion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and re­alis­est each in their sea­son, ev­ery thing good af­ter its kind? Woe is me! how high art Thou in the high­est, and how deep in the deep­est! and Thou nev­er de­partest, and we scarce­ly re­turn to Thee.

Up, Lord, and do; stir us up, and re­call us; kin­dle and draw us; in­flame, grow sweet un­to us, let us now love, let us run. Do not many, out of a deep­er hell of blind­ness than Vic­tor­inus, re­turn to Thee, ap­proach, and are en­light­ened, re­ceiv­ing that Light, which they who re­ceive, re­ceive pow­er from Thee to be­come Thy sons? But if they be less known to the na­tions, even they that know them, joy less for them. For when many joy to­geth­er, each al­so has more ex­uber­ant joy for that they are kin­dled and in­flamed one by the oth­er. Again, be­cause those known to many, in­flu­ence the more to­wards sal­va­tion, and lead the way with many to fol­low. And there­fore do they al­so who pre­ced­ed them much re­joice in them, be­cause they re­joice not in them alone. For far be it, that in Thy taber­na­cle the per­sons of the rich should be ac­cept­ed be­fore the poor, or the no­ble be­fore the ig­no­ble; see­ing rather Thou hast cho­sen the weak things of the world to con­found the strong; and the base things of this world, and the things de­spised hast Thou cho­sen, and those things which are not, that Thou might­est bring to nought things that are. And yet even that least of Thy apos­tles, by whose tongue Thou sound­edst forth these words, when through his war­fare, Paulus the Pro­con­sul, his pride con­quered, was made to pass un­der the easy yoke of Thy Christ, and be­came a provin­cial of the great King; he al­so for his for­mer name Saul, was pleased to be called Paul, in tes­ti­mo­ny of so great a vic­to­ry. For the en­emy is more over­come in one, of whom he hath more hold; by whom he hath hold of more. But the proud he hath more hold of, through their no­bil­ity; and by them, of more through their au­thor­ity. By how much the more wel­come then the heart of Vic­tor­inus was es­teemed, which the dev­il had held as an im­preg­nable pos­ses­sion, the tongue of Vic­tor­inus, with which mighty and keen weapon he had slain many; so much the more abun­dant­ly ought Thy sons to re­joice, for that our King hath bound the strong man, and they saw his ves­sels tak­en from him and cleansed, and made meet for Thy hon­our; and be­come ser­vice­able for the Lord, un­to ev­ery good work.

But when that man of Thine, Sim­pli­cianus, re­lat­ed to me this of Vic­tor­inus, I was on fire to im­itate him; for for this very end had he re­lat­ed it. But when he had sub­joined al­so, how in the days of the Em­per­or Ju­lian a law was made, where­by Chris­tians were for­bid­den to teach the lib­er­al sci­ences or or­ato­ry; and how he, obey­ing this law, chose rather to give over the wordy school than Thy Word, by which Thou mak­est elo­quent the tongues of the dumb; he seemed to me not more res­olute than blessed, in hav­ing thus found op­por­tu­ni­ty to wait on Thee on­ly. Which thing I was sigh­ing for, bound as I was, not with an­oth­er’s irons, but by my own iron will. My will the en­emy held, and thence had made a chain for me, and bound me. For of a for­ward will, was a lust made; and a lust served, be­came cus­tom; and cus­tom not re­sist­ed, be­came ne­ces­si­ty. By which links, as it were, joined to­geth­er (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me en­thralled. But that new will which had be­gun to be in me, freely to serve Thee, and to wish to en­joy Thee, O God, the on­ly as­sured pleas­ant­ness, was not yet able to over­come my for­mer wil­ful­ness, strength­ened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the oth­er old, one car­nal, the oth­er spir­itu­al, strug­gle with­in me; and by their dis­cord, un­did my soul.

Thus, I un­der­stood, by my own ex­pe­ri­ence, what I had read, how the flesh lus­teth against the spir­it and the spir­it against the flesh. My­self ver­ily ei­ther way; yet more my­self, in that which I ap­proved in my­self, than in that which in my­self I dis­ap­proved. For in this last, it was now for the more part not my­self, be­cause in much I rather en­dured against my will, than act­ed will­ing­ly. And yet it was through me that cus­tom had ob­tained this pow­er of war­ring against me, be­cause I had come will­ing­ly, whith­er I willed not. And who has any right to speak against it, if just pun­ish­ment fol­low the sin­ner? Nor had I now any longer my for­mer plea, that I there­fore as yet hes­itat­ed to be above the world and serve Thee, for that the truth was not al­to­geth­er as­cer­tained to me; for now it too was. But I still un­der ser­vice to the earth, re­fused to fight un­der Thy ban­ner, and feared as much to be freed of all in­cum­brances, as we should fear to be en­cum­bered with it. Thus with the bag­gage of this present world was I held down pleas­ant­ly, as in sleep: and the thoughts where­in I med­itat­ed on Thee were like the ef­forts of such as would awake, who yet over­come with a heavy drowsi­ness, are again drenched there­in. And as no one would sleep for ev­er, and in all men’s sober judg­ment wak­ing is bet­ter, yet a man for the most part, feel­ing a heavy lethar­gy in all his limbs, de­fers to shake off sleep, and though half dis­pleased, yet, even af­ter it is time to rise, with plea­sure yields to it, so was I as­sured that much bet­ter were it for me to give my­self up to Thy char­ity, than to give my­self over to mine own cu­pid­ity; but though the for­mer course sat­is­fied me and gained the mas­tery, the lat­ter pleased me and held me mas­tered. Nor had I any thing to an­swer Thee call­ing to me, Awake, thou that sleep­est, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. And when Thou didst on all sides show me that what Thou saidst was true, I, con­vict­ed by the truth, had noth­ing at all to an­swer, but on­ly those dull and drowsy words, “Anon, anon,” “present­ly,” “leave me but a lit­tle.” But “present­ly, present­ly,” had no present, and my “lit­tle while” went on for a long while; in vain I de­light­ed in Thy law ac­cord­ing to the in­ner man, when an­oth­er law in my mem­bers re­belled against the law of my mind, and led me cap­tive un­der the law of sin which was in my mem­bers. For the law of sin is the vi­olence of cus­tom, where­by the mind is drawn and hold­en, even against its will; but de­served­ly, for that it will­ing­ly fell in­to it. Who then should de­liv­er me thus wretched from the body of this death, but Thy grace on­ly, through Je­sus Christ our Lord?

And how Thou didst de­liv­er me out of the bonds of de­sire, where­with I was bound most strait­ly to car­nal con­cu­pis­cence, and out of the drudgery of world­ly things, I will now de­clare, and con­fess un­to Thy name, O Lord, my helper and my re­deemer. Amid in­creas­ing anx­iety, I was do­ing my wont­ed busi­ness, and dai­ly sigh­ing un­to Thee. I at­tend­ed Thy Church, when­ev­er free from the busi­ness un­der the bur­den of which I groaned. Alyp­ius was with me, now af­ter the third sit­ting re­leased from his law busi­ness, and await­ing to whom to sell his coun­sel, as I sold the skill of speak­ing, if in­deed teach­ing can im­part it. Ne­brid­ius had now, in con­sid­er­ation of our friend­ship, con­sent­ed to teach un­der Vere­cun­dus, a cit­izen and a gram­mar­ian of Mi­lan, and a very in­ti­mate friend of us all; who ur­gent­ly de­sired, and by the right of friend­ship chal­lenged from our com­pa­ny, such faith­ful aid as he great­ly need­ed. Ne­brid­ius then was not drawn to this by any de­sire of ad­van­tage (for he might have made much more of his learn­ing had he so willed), but as a most kind and gen­tle friend, he would not be want­ing to a good of­fice, and slight our re­quest. But he act­ed here­in very dis­creet­ly, shun­ning to be­come known to per­son­ages great ac­cord­ing to this world, avoid­ing the dis­trac­tion of mind thence en­su­ing, and de­sir­ing to have it free and at leisure, as many hours as might be, to seek, or read, or hear some­thing con­cern­ing wis­dom.

Up­on a day then, Ne­brid­ius be­ing ab­sent (I rec­ol­lect not why), to, there came to see me and Alyp­ius, one Pon­ti­tianus, our coun­try­man so far as be­ing an African, in high of­fice in the Em­per­or’s court. What he would with us, I know not, but we sat down to con­verse, and it hap­pened that up­on a ta­ble for some game, be­fore us, he ob­served a book, took, opened it, and con­trary to his ex­pec­ta­tion, found it the Apos­tle Paul; for he thought it some of those books which I was wear­ing my­self in teach­ing. Where­at smil­ing, and look­ing at me, he ex­pressed his joy and won­der that he had on a sud­den found this book, and this on­ly be­fore my eyes. For he was a Chris­tian, and bap­tised, and of­ten bowed him­self be­fore Thee our God in the Church, in fre­quent and con­tin­ued prayers. When then I had told him that I be­stowed very great pains up­on those Scrip­tures, a con­ver­sa­tion arose (sug­gest­ed by his ac­count) on Antony the Egyp­tian monk: whose name was in high rep­uta­tion among Thy ser­vants, though to that hour un­known to us. Which when he dis­cov­ered, he dwelt the more up­on that sub­ject, in­form­ing and won­der­ing at our ig­no­rance of one so em­inent. But we stood amazed, hear­ing Thy won­der­ful works most ful­ly at­test­ed, in times so re­cent, and al­most in our own, wrought in the true Faith and Church Catholic. We all won­dered; we, that they were so great, and he, that they had not reached us.

Thence his dis­course turned to the flocks in the monas­ter­ies, and their holy ways, a sweet-​smelling savour un­to Thee, and the fruit­ful deserts of the wilder­ness, where­of we knew noth­ing. And there was a monastery at Mi­lan, full of good brethren, with­out the city walls, un­der the fos­ter­ing care of Am­brose, and we knew it not. He went on with his dis­course, and we lis­tened in in­tent si­lence. He told us then how one af­ter­noon at Tri­ers, when the Em­per­or was tak­en up with the Circensian games, he and three oth­ers, his com­pan­ions, went out to walk in gar­dens near the city walls, and there as they hap­pened to walk in pairs, one went apart with him, and the oth­er two wan­dered by them­selves; and these, in their wan­der­ings, light­ed up­on a cer­tain cot­tage, in­hab­it­ed by cer­tain of Thy ser­vants, poor in spir­it, of whom is the king­dom of heav­en, and there they found a lit­tle book con­tain­ing the life of Antony. This one of them be­gan to read, ad­mire, and kin­dle at it; and as he read, to med­itate on tak­ing up such a life, and giv­ing over his sec­ular ser­vice to serve Thee. And these two were of those whom they style agents for the pub­lic af­fairs. Then sud­den­ly, filled with a holy love, and a sober shame, in anger with him­self cast his eyes up­on his friend, say­ing, “Tell me, I pray thee, what would we at­tain by all these labours of ours? what aim we at? what serve we for? Can our hopes in court rise high­er than to be the Em­per­or’s favourites? and in this, what is there not brit­tle, and full of per­ils? and by how many per­ils ar­rive we at a greater per­il? and when ar­rive we thith­er? But a friend of God, if I wish it, I be­come now at once.” So spake he. And in pain with the tra­vail of a new life, he turned his eyes again up­on the book, and read on, and was changed in­ward­ly, where Thou sawest, and his mind was stripped of the world, as soon ap­peared. For as he read, and rolled up and down the waves of his heart, he stormed at him­self a while, then dis­cerned, and de­ter­mined on a bet­ter course; and now be­ing Thine, said to his friend, “Now have I bro­ken loose from those our hopes, and am re­solved to serve God; and this, from this hour, in this place, I be­gin up­on. If thou lik­est not to im­itate me, op­pose not.” The oth­er an­swered, he would cleave to him, to par­take so glo­ri­ous a re­ward, so glo­ri­ous a ser­vice. Thus both be­ing now Thine, were build­ing the tow­er at the nec­es­sary cost, the for­sak­ing all that they had, and fol­low­ing Thee. Then Pon­ti­tianus and the oth­er with him, that had walked in oth­er parts of the gar­den, came in search of them to the same place; and find­ing them, re­mind­ed them to re­turn, for the day was now far spent. But they re­lat­ing their res­olu­tion and pur­pose, and how that will was be­gun and set­tled in them, begged them, if they would not join, not to mo­lest them. But the oth­ers, though noth­ing al­tered from their for­mer selves, did yet be­wail them­selves (as he af­firmed), and pi­ous­ly con­grat­ulat­ed them, rec­om­mend­ing them­selves to their prayers; and so, with hearts lin­ger­ing on the earth, went away to the palace. But the oth­er two, fix­ing their heart on heav­en, re­mained in the cot­tage. And both had af­fi­anced brides, who when they heard here­of, al­so ded­icat­ed their vir­gin­ity un­to God.

Such was the sto­ry of Pon­ti­tianus; but Thou, O Lord, while he was speak­ing, didst turn me round to­wards my­self, tak­ing me from be­hind my back where I had placed me, un­will­ing to ob­serve my­self; and set­ting me be­fore my face, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and de­filed, bespot­ted and ul­cer­ous. And I be­held and stood aghast; and whith­er to flee from my­self I found not. And if I sought to turn mine eye from off my­self, he went on with his re­la­tion, and Thou again didst set me over against my­self, and thrust­edst me be­fore my eyes, that I might find out mine in­iq­ui­ty, and hate it. I had known it, but made as though I saw it not, winked at it, and for­got it.

But now, the more ar­dent­ly I loved those whose health­ful af­fec­tions I heard of, that they had re­signed them­selves whol­ly to Thee to be cured, the more did I ab­hor my­self, when com­pared with them. For many of my years (some twelve) had now run out with me since my nine­teenth, when, up­on the read­ing of Ci­cero’s Hort­en­sius, I was stirred to an earnest love of wis­dom; and still I was de­fer­ring to re­ject mere earth­ly fe­lic­ity, and give my­self to search out that, where­of not the find­ing on­ly, but the very search, was to be pre­ferred to the trea­sures and king­doms of the world, though al­ready found, and to the plea­sures of the body, though spread around me at my will. But I wretched, most wretched, in the very com­mence­ment of my ear­ly youth, had begged chasti­ty of Thee, and said, “Give me chasti­ty and con­ti­nen­cy, on­ly not yet.” For I feared lest Thou shouldest hear me soon, and soon cure me of the dis­ease of con­cu­pis­cence, which I wished to have sat­is­fied, rather than ex­tin­guished. And I had wan­dered through crooked ways in a sac­ri­le­gious su­per­sti­tion, not in­deed as­sured there­of, but as pre­fer­ring it to the oth­ers which I did not seek re­li­gious­ly, but op­posed ma­li­cious­ly.

And I had thought that I there­fore de­ferred from day to day to re­ject the hopes of this world, and fol­low Thee on­ly, be­cause there did not ap­pear aught cer­tain, whith­er to di­rect my course. And now was the day come where­in I was to be laid bare to my­self, and my con­science was to up­braid me. “Where art thou now, my tongue? Thou saidst that for an un­cer­tain truth thou likedst not to cast off the bag­gage of van­ity; now, it is cer­tain, and yet that bur­den still op­pres­seth thee, while they who nei­ther have so worn them­selves out with seek­ing it, nor for of­ten years and more have been think­ing there­on, have had their shoul­ders light­ened, and re­ceived wings to fly away.” Thus was I gnawed with­in, and ex­ceed­ing­ly con­found­ed with a hor­ri­ble shame, while Pon­ti­tianus was so speak­ing. And he hav­ing brought to a close his tale and the busi­ness he came for, went his way; and I in­to my­self. What said I not against my­self? with what scourges of con­dem­na­tion lashed I not my soul, that it might fol­low me, striv­ing to go af­ter Thee! Yet it drew back; re­fused, but ex­cused not it­self. All ar­gu­ments were spent and con­fut­ed; there re­mained a mute shrink­ing; and she feared, as she would death, to be re­strained from the flux of that cus­tom, where­by she was wast­ing to death.

Then in this great con­tention of my in­ward dwelling, which I had strong­ly raised against my soul, in the cham­ber of my heart, trou­bled in mind and coun­te­nance, I turned up­on Alyp­ius. “What ails us?” I ex­claim: “what is it? what heardest thou? The un­learned start up and take heav­en by force, and we with our learn­ing, and with­out heart, to, where we wal­low in flesh and blood! Are we ashamed to fol­low, be­cause oth­ers are gone be­fore, and not ashamed not even to fol­low?” Some such words I ut­tered, and my fever of mind tore me away from him, while he, gaz­ing on me in as­ton­ish­ment, kept si­lence. For it was not my wont­ed tone; and my fore­head, cheeks, eyes, colour, tone of voice, spake my mind more than the words I ut­tered. A lit­tle gar­den there was to our lodg­ing, which we had the use of, as of the whole house; for the mas­ter of the house, our host, was not liv­ing there. Thith­er had the tu­mult of my breast hur­ried me, where no man might hin­der the hot con­tention where­in I had en­gaged with my­self, un­til it should end as Thou knewest, I knew not. On­ly I was health­ful­ly dis­tract­ed and dy­ing, to live; know­ing what evil thing I was, and not know­ing what good thing I was short­ly to be­come. I re­tired then in­to the gar­den, and Alyp­ius, on my steps. For his pres­ence did not lessen my pri­va­cy; or how could he for­sake me so dis­turbed? We sate down as far re­moved as might be from the house. I was trou­bled in spir­it, most ve­he­ment­ly in­dig­nant that I en­tered not in­to Thy will and covenant, O my God, which all my bones cried out un­to me to en­ter, and praised it to the skies. And there­in we en­ter not by ships, or char­iots, or feet, no, move not so far as I had come from the house to that place where we were sit­ting. For, not to go on­ly, but to go in thith­er was noth­ing else but to will to go, but to will res­olute­ly and thor­ough­ly; not to turn and toss, this way and that, a maimed and half-​di­vid­ed will, strug­gling, with one part sink­ing as an­oth­er rose.

Last­ly, in the very fever of my ir­res­olute­ness, I made with my body many such mo­tions as men some­times would, but can­not, if ei­ther they have not the limbs, or these be bound with bands, weak­ened with in­fir­mi­ty, or any oth­er way hin­dered. Thus, if I tore my hair, beat my fore­head, if lock­ing my fin­gers I clasped my knee; I willed, I did it. But I might have willed, and not done it; if the pow­er of mo­tion in my limbs had not obeyed. So many things then I did, when “to will” was not in it­self “to be able”; and I did not what both I longed in­com­pa­ra­bly more to do, and which soon af­ter, when I should will, I should be able to do; be­cause soon af­ter, when I should will, I should will thor­ough­ly. For in these things the abil­ity was one with the will, and to will was to do; and yet was it not done: and more eas­ily did my body obey the weak­est will­ing of my soul, in mov­ing its limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed it­self to ac­com­plish in the will alone this its mo­men­tous will.

Whence is this mon­strous­ness? and to what end? Let Thy mer­cy gleam that I may ask, if so be the se­cret penal­ties of men, and those dark­est pangs of the sons of Adam, may per­haps an­swer me. Whence is this mon­strous­ness? and to what end? The mind com­mands the body, and it obeys in­stant­ly; the mind com­mands it­self, and is re­sist­ed. The mind com­mands the hand to be moved; and such readi­ness is there, that com­mand is scarce dis­tinct from obe­di­ence. Yet the mind is mind, the hand is body. The mind com­mands the mind, its own self, to will, and yet it doth not. Whence this mon­strous­ness? and to what end? It com­mands it­self, I say, to will, and would not com­mand, un­less it willed, and what it com­mands is not done. But it wil­leth not en­tire­ly: there­fore doth it not com­mand en­tire­ly. For so far forth it com­man­deth, as it wil­leth: and, so far forth is the thing com­mand­ed, not done, as it wil­leth not. For the will com­man­deth that there be a will; not an­oth­er, but it­self. But it doth not com­mand en­tire­ly, there­fore what it com­man­deth, is not. For were the will en­tire, it would not even com­mand it to be, be­cause it would al­ready be. It is there­fore no mon­strous­ness part­ly to will, part­ly to nill, but a dis­ease of the mind, that it doth not whol­ly rise, by truth up­borne, borne down by cus­tom. And there­fore are there two wills, for that one of them is not en­tire: and what the one lack­eth, the oth­er hath.

Let them per­ish from Thy pres­ence, O God, as per­ish vain talk­ers and se­duc­ers of the soul: who ob­serv­ing that in de­lib­er­at­ing there were two wills, af­firm that there are two minds in us of two kinds, one good, the oth­er evil. Them­selves are tru­ly evil, when they hold these evil things; and them­selves shall be­come good when they hold the truth and as­sent un­to the truth, that Thy Apos­tle may say to them, Ye were some­times dark­ness, but now light in the Lord. But they, wish­ing to be light, not in the Lord, but in them­selves, imag­in­ing the na­ture of the soul to be that which God is, are made more gross dark­ness through a dread­ful ar­ro­gan­cy; for that they went back far­ther from Thee, the true Light that en­light­ened ev­ery man that cometh in­to the world. Take heed what you say, and blush for shame: draw near un­to Him and be en­light­ened, and your faces shall not be ashamed. My­self when I was de­lib­er­at­ing up­on serv­ing the Lord my God now, as I had long pur­posed, it was I who willed, I who nilled, I, I my­self. I nei­ther willed en­tire­ly, nor nilled en­tire­ly. There­fore was I at strife with my­self, and rent asun­der by my­self. And this rent be­fell me against my will, and yet in­di­cat­ed, not the pres­ence of an­oth­er mind, but the pun­ish­ment of my own. There­fore it was no more I that wrought it, but sin that dwelt in me; the pun­ish­ment of a sin more freely com­mit­ted, in that I was a son of Adam.

For if there he so many con­trary na­tures as there be con­flict­ing wills, there shall now be not two on­ly, but many. If a man de­lib­er­ate whether he should go to their con­ven­ti­cle or to the the­atre, these Manichees cry out, Be­hold, here are two na­tures: one good, draws this way; an­oth­er bad, draws back that way. For whence else is this hes­ita­tion be­tween con­flict­ing wills? But I say that both be bad: that which draws to them, as that which draws back to the the­atre. But they be­lieve not that will to be oth­er than good, which draws to them. What then if one of us should de­lib­er­ate, and amid the strife of his two wills be in a strait, whether he should go to the the­atre or to our church? would not these Manichees al­so be in a strait what to an­swer? For ei­ther they must con­fess (which they fain would not) that the will which leads to our church is good, as well as theirs, who have re­ceived and are held by the mys­ter­ies of theirs: or they must sup­pose two evil na­tures, and two evil souls con­flict­ing in one man, and it will not be true, which they say, that there is one good and an­oth­er bad; or they must be con­vert­ed to the truth, and no more de­ny that where one de­lib­er­ates, one soul fluc­tu­ates be­tween con­trary wills.

Let them no more say then, when they per­ceive two con­flict­ing wills in one man, that the con­flict is be­tween two con­trary souls, of two con­trary sub­stances, from two con­trary prin­ci­ples, one good, and the oth­er bad. For Thou, O true God, dost dis­prove, check, and con­vict them; as when, both wills be­ing bad, one de­lib­er­ates whether he should kill a man by poi­son or by the sword; whether he should seize this or that es­tate of an­oth­er’s, when he can­not both; whether he should pur­chase plea­sure by lux­ury, or keep his mon­ey by cov­etous­ness; whether he go to the cir­cus or the the­atre, if both be open on one day; or third­ly, to rob an­oth­er’s house, if he have the op­por­tu­ni­ty; or, fourth­ly, to com­mit adul­tery, if at the same time he have the means there­of al­so; all these meet­ing to­geth­er in the same junc­ture of time, and all be­ing equal­ly de­sired, which can­not at one time be act­ed: for they rend the mind amid four, or even (amid the vast va­ri­ety of things de­sired) more, con­flict­ing wills, nor do they yet al­lege that there are so many divers sub­stances. So al­so in wills which are good. For I ask them, is it good to take plea­sure in read­ing the Apos­tle? or good to take plea­sure in a sober Psalm? or good to dis­course on the Gospel? They will an­swer to each, “it is good.” What then if all give equal plea­sure, and all at once? Do not divers wills dis­tract the mind, while he de­lib­er­ates which he should rather choose? yet are they all good, and are at vari­ance till one be cho­sen, whith­er the one en­tire will may be borne, which be­fore was di­vid­ed in­to many. Thus al­so, when, above, eter­ni­ty de­lights us, and the plea­sure of tem­po­ral good holds us down be­low, it is the same soul which wil­leth not this or that with an en­tire will; and there­fore is rent asun­der with grievous per­plex­ities, while out of truth it sets this first, but out of habit sets not that aside.

Thus soul-​sick was I, and tor­ment­ed, ac­cus­ing my­self much more severe­ly than my wont, rolling and turn­ing me in my chain, till that were whol­ly bro­ken, where­by I now was but just, but still was, held. And Thou, O Lord, pressedst up­on me in my in­ward parts by a se­vere mer­cy, re­dou­bling the lash­es of fear and shame, lest I should again give way, and not burst­ing that same slight re­main­ing tie, it should re­cov­er strength, and bind me the faster. For I said with my­self, “Be it done now, be it done now.” And as I spake, I all but en­act­ed it: I all but did it, and did it not: yet sunk not back to my for­mer state, but kept my stand hard by, and took breath. And I es­sayed again, and want­ed some­what less of it, and some­what less, and all but touched, and laid hold of it; and yet came not at it, nor touched nor laid hold of it; hes­itat­ing to die to death and to live to life: and the worse where­to I was in­ured, pre­vailed more with me than the bet­ter where­to I was un­used: and the very mo­ment where­in I was to be­come oth­er than I was, the near­er it ap­proached me, the greater hor­ror did it strike in­to me; yet did it not strike me back, nor turned me away, but held me in sus­pense.

The very toys of toys, and van­ities of van­ities, my an­cient mis­tress­es, still held me; they plucked my fleshy gar­ment, and whis­pered soft­ly, “Dost thou cast us off? and from that mo­ment shall we no more be with thee for ev­er? and from that mo­ment shall not this or that be law­ful for thee for ev­er?” And what was it which they sug­gest­ed in that I said, “this or that,” what did they sug­gest, O my God? Let Thy mer­cy turn it away from the soul of Thy ser­vant. What de­file­ments did they sug­gest! what shame! And now I much less than half heard them, and not open­ly show­ing them­selves and con­tra­dict­ing me, but mut­ter­ing as it were be­hind my back, and priv­ily pluck­ing me, as I was de­part­ing, but to look back on them. Yet they did re­tard me, so that I hes­itat­ed to burst and shake my­self free from them, and to spring over whith­er I was called; a vi­olent habit say­ing to me, “Think­est thou, thou canst live with­out them?”

But now it spake very faint­ly. For on that side whith­er I had set my face, and whith­er I trem­bled to go, there ap­peared un­to me the chaste dig­ni­ty of Con­ti­nen­cy, serene, yet not re­laxed­ly, gay, hon­est­ly al­lur­ing me to come and doubt not; and stretch­ing forth to re­ceive and em­brace me, her holy hands full of mul­ti­tudes of good ex­am­ples: there were so many young men and maid­ens here, a mul­ti­tude of youth and ev­ery age, grave wid­ows and aged vir­gins; and Con­ti­nence her­self in all, not bar­ren, but a fruit­ful moth­er of chil­dren of joys, by Thee her Hus­band, O Lord. And she smiled on me with a per­sua­sive mock­ery, as would she say, “Canst not thou what these youths, what these maid­ens can? or can they ei­ther in them­selves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me un­to them. Why stand­est thou in thy­self, and so stand­est not? cast thy­self up­on Him, fear not He will not with­draw Him­self that thou shouldest fall; cast thy­self fear­less­ly up­on Him, He will re­ceive, and will heal thee.” And I blushed ex­ceed­ing­ly, for that I yet heard the mut­ter­ing of those toys, and hung in sus­pense. And she again seemed to say, “Stop thine ears against those thy un­clean mem­bers on the earth, that they may be mor­ti­fied. They tell thee of de­lights, but not as doth the law of the Lord thy God.” This con­tro­ver­sy in my heart was self against self on­ly. But Alyp­ius sit­ting close by my side, in si­lence wait­ed the is­sue of my un­wont­ed emo­tion.

But when a deep con­sid­er­ation had from the se­cret bot­tom of my soul drawn to­geth­er and heaped up all my mis­ery in the sight of my heart; there arose a mighty storm, bring­ing a mighty show­er of tears. Which that I might pour forth whol­ly, in its nat­ural ex­pres­sions, I rose from Alyp­ius: soli­tude was sug­gest­ed to me as fit­ter for the busi­ness of weep­ing; so I re­tired so far that even his pres­ence could not be a bur­den to me. Thus was it then with me, and he per­ceived some­thing of it; for some­thing I sup­pose I had spo­ken, where­in the tones of my voice ap­peared choked with weep­ing, and so had risen up. He then re­mained where we were sit­ting, most ex­treme­ly as­ton­ished. I cast my­self down I know not how, un­der a cer­tain fig-​tree, giv­ing full vent to my tears; and the floods of mine eyes gushed out an ac­cept­able sac­ri­fice to Thee. And, not in­deed in these words, yet to this pur­pose, spake I much un­to Thee: and Thou, O Lord, how long? how long, Lord, wilt Thou be an­gry for ev­er? Re­mem­ber not our for­mer in­iq­ui­ties, for I felt that I was held by them. I sent up these sor­row­ful words: How long, how long, “to-​mor­row, and to­mor­row?” Why not now? why not is there this hour an end to my un­clean­ness?

So was I speak­ing and weep­ing in the most bit­ter con­tri­tion of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neigh­bour­ing house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chant­ing, and oft re­peat­ing, “Take up and read; Take up and read. ” In­stant­ly, my coun­te­nance al­tered, I be­gan to think most in­tent­ly whether chil­dren were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I re­mem­ber ev­er to have heard the like. So check­ing the tor­rent of my tears, I arose; in­ter­pret­ing it to be no oth­er than a com­mand from God to open the book, and read the first chap­ter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that com­ing in dur­ing the read­ing of the Gospel, he re­ceived the ad­mo­ni­tion, as if what was be­ing read was spo­ken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have trea­sure in heav­en, and come and fol­low me: and by such or­acle he was forth­with con­vert­ed un­to Thee. Ea­ger­ly then I re­turned to the place where Alyp­ius was sit­ting; for there had I laid the vol­ume of the Apos­tle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in si­lence read that sec­tion on which my eyes first fell: Not in ri­ot­ing and drunk­en­ness, not in cham­ber­ing and wan­ton­ness, not in strife and en­vy­ing; but put ye on the Lord Je­sus Christ, and make not pro­vi­sion for the flesh, in con­cu­pis­cence. No fur­ther would I read; nor need­ed I: for in­stant­ly at the end of this sen­tence, by a light as it were of seren­ity in­fused in­to my heart, all the dark­ness of doubt van­ished away.

Then putting my fin­ger be­tween, or some oth­er mark, I shut the vol­ume, and with a calmed coun­te­nance made it known to Alyp­ius. And what was wrought in him, which I knew not, he thus showed me. He asked to see what I had read: I showed him; and he looked even fur­ther than I had read, and I knew not what fol­lowed. This fol­lowed, him that is weak in the faith, re­ceive; which he ap­plied to him­self, and dis­closed to me. And by this ad­mo­ni­tion was he strength­ened; and by a good res­olu­tion and pur­pose, and most cor­re­spond­ing to his char­ac­ter, where­in he did al­ways very far dif­fer from me, for the bet­ter, with­out any tur­bu­lent de­lay he joined me. Thence we go in to my moth­er; we tell her; she re­joiceth: we re­late in or­der how it took place; she leaps for joy, and tri­umpheth, and bles­seth Thee, Who are able to do above that which we ask or think; for she per­ceived that Thou hadst giv­en her more for me, than she was wont to beg by her piti­ful and most sor­row­ful groan­ings. For thou con­vert­edst me un­to Thy­self, so that I sought nei­ther wife, nor any hope of this world, stand­ing in that rule of faith, where Thou hadst showed me un­to her in a vi­sion, so many years be­fore. And Thou didst con­vert her mourn­ing in­to joy, much more plen­ti­ful than she had de­sired, and in a much more pre­cious and pur­er way than she erst re­quired, by hav­ing grand­chil­dren of my body.