Confessions of St. Augustine

By Saint of Hippo Augustine

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Title: Confessions of St. Augustine

Author: Saint of Hippo Augustine

Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius
        Lloyd E. Smith

Translator: E. B. Pusey

Release date: December 31, 2025 [eBook #77585]

Language: English

Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1924

Credits: Tim Miller, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE ***

                      Confessions of St. Augustine




                        LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 735
                      Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius

                      Confessions of St. Augustine

                     Edited, with Introduction, by
                             Lloyd E. Smith


                        HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
                             GIRARD, KANSAS




Copyright, 1924.

Haldeman-Julius Company.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




                              INTRODUCTION


Saint Augustine, “one of the four great fathers of the Latin Church,”
was born in what is now Algeria (North Africa), November, 354 A. D. His
mother was a devout Christian, but his father was unconverted at the
time of Augustine’s birth. The piety of the mother finally won both
father and son to the Christian faith.

Augustine’s early life, especially his youth, was characterized by
sinful lapses into the evils of temptation, temptation to which he often
yielded, for which weakness he has chastised himself mercilessly in his
_Confessions_. His self-condemned wickedness did not prevent his being a
determined student, however, and he was carefully trained to become a
teacher of rhetoric. At nineteen, his mind was stirred by Cicero’s
_Hortensius_ to seek the truth, but he wandered aimlessly about in the
mazes of various schools of thought without adopting any one of them,
good or bad. Manicheism (a religious philosophy in which goodness and
light, identified with God, were in conflict with evil and chaos,
identified with the powers of darkness) attracted Augustine, until he
became an enthusiastic exponent of its doctrines. He hoped that his own
dark path of sensuality might be directed to the light by the influence
of this oriental system (Manicheism originated in Persia and had a
bright coloring of eastern myth), but he had not acquired sufficient
moral strength to enable him to attain his ideal of chastity and
temperance. Because it did not lead him out of his evil ways, as he had
hoped, Manicheism gradually weakened in its sway over him. Then, too,
Augustine was well-versed in the exact sciences, and so found it
impossible to coordinate the superstitions of Manicheism with known
facts.

Augustine, became a teacher of grammar, was, by all accounts, an
excellent instructor. He returned to his birthplace, and, while teaching
there, secured the lasting friendship of Alypius. Staying here about a
year—the chief happening, besides his friendship with Alypius, being a
vision of his mother comforting her for her son’s lack of faith,
described in the _Confessions_ (III, xi)—Augustine went back to
Carthage, and from there to Rome. This was in 383; but Rome, since his
interest in Manicheism was on the wane, held little attraction for him,
so he accepted a position as teacher of rhetoric at Milan.

Now openly separated from Manicheism, Augustine turned to Skepticism
(Pyrrhonism: disbelief in all doctrines and principles derived from
either the reason or the senses; the judgment was to be kept in aloof
non-committal on all subjects) temporarily, and from that to
Neo-Platonism (involving that all matter was evil, that all ideas were
emanations from the mind of God, that human reason was in affinity with
Divine reason, that the soul was to be redeemed by separation from
matter, and that the human reason was to be absorbed in the divine by
“continuous contemplation;” it professed a trinity composed of the One,
Intelligence, and the Soul) which gave him his first hint of a God minus
materialism: invisible, eternal, and changeless. A devout preacher of
Milan further influenced him in this trend toward faith, and his battle
with the curse of sensuality that was upon him became an intolerable
conflict within him.

His struggle toward truth culminated in one poignant moment of
realization, which he has described in the _Confessions_ (VIII, xii,
30). This conversion occurred in 386, when he withdrew, accompanied by
several friends, to a country place near Milan and offered himself as a
candidate for baptism. Augustine’s mother rejoiced at this fulfilment of
her vision, and, when she was dying soon after this realization of her
life-long hopes, her last hours of life were made happy by her son’s
Christian understanding. The account of their companionship in the
_Confessions_ (IX, x-xi, 23-28) displays Augustine’s “literary power at
its highest.”

Unwilling to assume religious responsibility in any official capacity
too soon, Augustine, within a year, was persuaded to become presbyter of
Hippo (now Bona, Algiers), and about 395 he became coadjutor to the
bishop, and subsequently bishop of the see. The remaining years of his
life were occupied with his ecclesiastical duties, and by prolific
writing, which was largely controversial. His _Confessions_, consisting
of an autobiographical record of his spiritual conversion and growth,
are his most famous achievement, and were written about 397. Probably
his greatest work, from the point of view of intellectual as well as
literary power, is the _City of God_, begun in 413 and continuing over a
period of thirteen years, which was planned as an elaborate treatise “in
vindication of Christianity and the Christian Church.” In 427 he wrote
the _Retractions_, which are a review of all his literary work, and
include revisions, corrections, explanations, etc., to bring them all
into line with the maturity of mind to which he had then attained. A
work entitled _The Trinity_ occupied him for some thirty years, and was
not, as most of his writings were, inspired by the strife of religious
controversy, but was the result of steady growth by contemplation in the
author’s pious mind. These four, here named, are by no means all that
Augustine wrote, but they serve to indicate his remarkable devotion and
energy in his life of faith, a faith which came to him, a self-flailed
sinner, as a remarkable sign of redemption.

Augustine died, sick and weary, while the Vandals were besieging Hippo,
in 430, at seventy-five years of age. He did not live to see the city in
the hands of its conquerors. “None can deny the greatness of Augustine’s
soul—his enthusiasm, his unceasing search after truth, his affectionate
disposition, his ardor, his self-devotion. And even those who may doubt
the soundness of his dogmatic conclusions, cannot but acknowledge the
depth of his spiritual convictions, and the logical force and
penetration with which he handled the most difficult questions, thus
weaving all the elements of his experience and of his profound
scriptural knowledge into a great system of Christian thought.” (Gustav
Krüger.)

The present edition has been based on the translation of E. B. Pusey,
which first appeared in 1838, and of which Pusey speaks in his Preface:
“The _Confessions_ of St. Augustine have ever been a favorite Christian
study. St. Augustine says of them himself, ‘The thirteen books of my
Confessions praise God, Holy and Good, on occasion of that which has in
me been good or evil, and raise up man’s understanding and affections to
Him: for myself, they did so while they were being written, and now do,
when read. Let others think of them, as to them seems right; yet that
they have and do much please many brethren, I know.’” Pusey says
further: “The subject of the _Confessions_ would naturally give them a
deep interest, presenting, as they do, an account of the way in which
God led perhaps the most powerful mind of Christian antiquity out of
darkness to light, and changed one who was a chosen vessel unto Himself
from a heretic and a seducer of the brethren, into one of the most
energetic defenders of Catholic Truth, both against the strange sect to
which he had belonged, and against the Arians, Pelagians, and
semi-Pelagians, Donatists, Priscillianists. Such, not an autobiography,
is the object of the _Confessions_; a praise and confession of God’s
unmerited goodness, but of himself only so much as might illustrate out
of what depth God’s mercy had raised him.”




                      CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
                                 BOOK I


(i) 1. _Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy
power, and Thy wisdom infinite._ Thee would man praise; man, but a
particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the
witness of his sin, the witness that _Thou resistest the proud_: yet
would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest
us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our
heart is restless until it repose in Thee. Grant me, Lord, to know and
understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and,
again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? For who can call on Thee, not
knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not may call on Thee as other
than Thou art. Or is it rather that we call on Thee that we may know
Thee? But _how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or
how shall they believe without a preacher?_ And _they that seek the Lord
shall praise Him. For they that seek shall find Him_, and they that find
shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will
call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My
faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith
Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the
ministry of the Preacher.[1]

(ii) 2. And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I
call for Him, I shall be calling Him to myself? and what room is there
within me whither my God can come into me? Whither can God come into me,
God who made heaven and earth? Is there, indeed, O Lord my God, aught in
me that can contain Thee? Do then heaven and earth, which Thou hast
made, and wherein Thou hast made me, contain Thee? or, because nothing
which exists could exist without Thee, doth therefore whatever exists
contain Thee? Since, then, I too exist, why do I seek that Thou shouldst
enter into me, who were not, wert Thou not in me? Why? Because I am not
gone down in hell, and yet Thou art there also. For _if I go down into
hell, Thou art there_. I could not be, then, O my God, could not be at
all, wert Thou not in me; or, rather, unless I were in Thee, _of whom
are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things_? Even
so, Lord, even so. Whither do I call Thee, since I am in Thee? or whence
canst Thou enter into me? For whither can I go beyond heaven and earth,
that thence my God should come into me, who hath said, _I fill the
heaven and the earth_?

(iv) 4. What art Thou then, my God? What but the Lord God? _For who is
Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God?_ Most highest, most good,
most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden,
yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet
incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old;
all-renewing, and _bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not_;
ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking;
supporting, filling, and over-spreading; creating, nourishing, and
maturing; seeking, yet having all things. Thou lovest, without passion;
art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry,
yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again
what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in
gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. Thou receivest over and
above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou
payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what
have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any man
when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to him that speaketh not, since mute are
even the most eloquent.

(v) 5. Oh! that I might repose on Thee! Oh! that Thou wouldst enter into
my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee,
my sole good?...

6. Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest
enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it. It has that within which must
offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or
to whom should I cry, save Thee?...

(vi) 7. Yet suffer me to speak unto Thy mercy, me, _dust and ashes_. Yet
suffer me to speak, since I speak to Thy mercy, and not to scornful man.
Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, yet wilt Thou _return and have
compassion_ upon me....

(He gives a detailed account of his infancy and boyhood, placing
particular emphasis on the natural benefits derived from God, and laying
repentant stress on the sins of which he was guilty. “As a boy I had
already heard of an eternal life, promised us through the humility of
the Lord our God stooping to our pride.” But he was rebellious against
the commands of his elders, nevertheless. He was forced to study the
classics, to become acquainted therein with men who boasted of and were
praised for their dissolution. “These are indeed his [Homer’s] fictions;
but attributing a divine nature to wicked men that crimes might be no
longer crimes, and whoso commits them might seem to imitate not
abandoned men, but the celestial gods [that is, the gods, passionate and
sensual, have been dismissed by some as merely ‘fictions’ of Homer].”)

Footnote 1:

  The preacher who influenced Augustine’s conversion and baptized him.
  (see Introduction).




                                BOOK II


(i) 1. I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal
corruptions of my soul: not because I love them, but that I may love
Thee, O my God. For love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked
ways in the very bitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow
sweet unto me; and gathering me again out of that my dissipation,
wherein I was torn piecemeal, while turned from Thee, the One Good, I
lost myself among a multiplicity of things....

(In his sixteenth year, lured on by the praise of sin common in the
company of young men with whom he associated, he seduced a girl—and
subsequently became the father of an illegitimate son, whom he loved
greatly. “To whom tell I this? not to Thee, my God; but before Thee to
mine own kind, even to that small portion of mankind as may light upon
these writings of mine. And to what purpose? that whosoever reads this
may think _out of what depths we are to cry unto Thee_. For what is
nearer to Thine ears than a confessing heart, and a life of faith?” His
parents did not help him, did not seek to have him marry: “Neither did
the mother of my flesh, as she advised me to chastity, so heed what she
had heard of me from her husband as to restrain within the bounds of
conjugal affection what she felt to be pestilent at present, and for the
future dangerous. She heeded not this, for she feared lest a wife should
prove a clog and hindrance to my hopes. Not those hopes of the world to
come, which my mother reposed in Thee; but the hope of learning, which
both my parents were too desirous I should attain; my father, because he
had next to no thought of Thee, and of me but vain conceits; my mother,
because she accounted that those usual courses of learning would not
only be no hindrance, but even some furtherance towards attaining
Thee.”)

(In addition, he commits theft for the sake of theft, stealing some
pears for the pure joy of stealing—for they did not eat the pears.
“They” were the group in which he acted this part: he insists that he
would never have stolen had he been alone.)

(vi) 12. What then did wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine,
thou deed of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age? Lovely thou
wert not, because thou wert theft. But art thou anything, that thus I
speak to thee? Fair were the pears we stole, because they were Thy
creation, Thou fairest of all, Creator of all, Thou good God; God, the
sovereign good and my true good. Fair were those pears, but not them did
my wretched soul desire; for I had store of better, and those I gathered
only that I might steal. For, when gathered, I flung them away, my only
feast therein being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy. For if
aught of those pears came within my mouth, what sweetened it was sin.
And now, O Lord my God, I inquire what in that theft delighted me; and
behold it hath no loveliness; I mean not such loveliness as in justice
and wisdom; nor such as is in the mind and memory, and senses, and
animal life of man; nor yet as the stars are glorious and beautiful in
their orbs; or the earth, or sea, full of embryo-life, replacing by its
birth that which decayeth; nay, nor even that false and shadowy beauty
which belongeth to deceiving vices.

(vii) 15. _What shall I render unto the Lord_, that, whilst my memory
recalls these things, my soul is not affrighted at them? _I will love
Thee, O Lord, and thank Thee, and confess unto Thy name_; because Thou
hast forgiven me these so great and heinous deeds of mine. To Thy grace
I ascribe it, and to Thy mercy, that Thou hast melted away my sins as it
were ice. To Thy grace I ascribe also whatsoever I have not done of
evil; for what might I not have done, who even loved a sin for its own
sake? Yea, all I confess to have been forgiven me; both what evils I
committed by my own wilfulness, and what by Thy guidance I committed
not. What man is he, who, weighing his own infirmity, dares to ascribe
his purity and innocence to his own strength; that so he should love
Thee the less, as if he had less needed Thy mercy, whereby Thou
remittest sins to those that turn to Thee? For whosoever, called by
Thee, followed Thy voice, and avoided those things which he read me
recalling and confessing of myself, let him not scorn me, who being sick
was cured by that Physician, through Whose aid it was that he was not,
or rather was less, sick: and for this let him love Thee as much, yea
and more; since by Whom he sees me to have been recovered from such deep
consumption of sin, by Him he sees himself to have been from the like
consumption of sin preserved.




                                BOOK III


(He resides at Carthage from his seventeenth to nineteenth year; he
reads and is strongly influenced by Cicero’s _Hortensius_; he is
attracted to the Manicheans. Confessing a love of shows and fiction in
which the passions of life are simulated, he repents his lack of
interest in the Scriptures at this period.)

(xi) 19. And Thou _sentest Thine hand from above_, and drewest my soul
out of that profound darkness, my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to
Thee for me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children.
For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the
death wherein I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her,
and despisedst not her tears, when streaming down they watered the
ground under her eyes[2] in every place where she prayed; yea Thou
heardest her. For whence was that dream whereby Thou comfortedst her; so
that she allowed me to live with her, and to eat at the same table in
the house, which she had begun to shrink from, abhorring and detesting
the blasphemies of my error? For she saw herself standing on a certain
wooden rule, and a shining youth coming towards her, cheerful and
smiling upon her, herself grieving, and overwhelmed with grief. But he
having (in order to instruct, as is their wont, not to be instructed)
inquired of her the causes of her grief and daily tears, and she
answering that she was bewailing my perdition, he bade her rest
contented, and told her to look and observe, “That where she was, there
was I also.” And when she looked, she saw me standing by her in the same
rule. Whence was this, but that Thine ears were towards her heart? O
Thou Good omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, as if Thou
caredst for him only; and so for all, as if they were but one!

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

(His mother attempts to persuade a bishop to convert her son, but the
bishop explains that he is not yet ready for the faith, and that when he
is, he will follow it himself. “Go thy ways, and God bless thee, for it
is not possible that the son of these tears should perish.”)

Footnote 2:

  “He alludes here to that devout manner of the Eastern ancients, who
  used to lie flat on their faces in prayer.”




                                BOOK IV


(For nine years, from his nineteenth to his twenty-eighth year,
Augustine continues in his erring ways; “himself a Manichean and
seducing others to the same heresy; partial obedience amidst vanity and
sin, consulting astrologers, only partially shaken herein; loss of an
early friend, who is converted by being baptized when in a swoon.”)

(v) 10. And now, Lord, these things are passed by, and time hath
assuaged my wound. May I learn from Thee, who art Truth, and approach
the ear of my heart unto Thy mouth, that Thou mayest tell me why weeping
is sweet to the miserable? Hast Thou, although present everywhere, cast
away our misery far from Thee? And Thou abidest in Thyself, but we are
tossed about in divers trials. And yet unless we mourned in Thine ears,
we should have no hope left. Whence then is sweet fruit gathered from
the bitterness of life, from groaning, tears, sighs, and complaints?
Doth this sweeten it, that we hope Thou hearest? This is true of prayer,
for therein is a longing to approach unto Thee. But it is also in grief
for a thing lost, and the sorrow wherewith I was then overwhelmed? For I
neither hoped he should return to life, nor did I desire this with my
tears; but I wept only and grieved. For I was miserable, and had lost my
joy. Or is weeping indeed a bitter thing, and for very loathing of the
things, which we before enjoyed, does it then, when we shrink from them,
please us?

(vi) 11. But what speak I of these things? for now is no time to
question, but to confess unto Thee. Wretched I was; and wretched is
every soul bound by the friendship of perishable things; he is torn
asunder when he loses them, and then he feels the wretchedness, which he
had ere he lost them. So was it then with me; I wept most bitterly, and
found my repose in bitterness. Thus was I wretched, and that wretched
life I held dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have
changed it, yet was I more unwilling to part with it, than with him;
yea, I know not whether I would have parted with it even for him. In me
there had arisen some unexplained feeling, too contrary to this, for at
once I loathed exceedingly to live, and feared to die. I suppose, the
more I loved him, the more did I hate, and fear (as a most cruel enemy)
death, which had bereaved me of him: and I imagined it would speedily
make an end of all men, since it had power over him. For I wondered that
others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he
should never die, was dead: and I wondered yet more that myself, who was
to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said, one of his
friend, “Thou half of my soul:” for I felt that my soul and his soul
were “one soul in two bodies:” and therefore was my life a horror to me,
because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to
die, lest he whom I had much loved, should die wholly.

(viii) 13. Yet there succeeded, not indeed other griefs, yet the causes
of other griefs. For whence had that former grief so easily reached my
very inmost soul, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust, in
loving one that must die, as if he would never die? For what restored
and refreshed me chiefly was the solaces of other friends, with whom I
did love, what instead of Thee I loved; and this was a great fable, and
protracted lie, by whose adulterous stimulus, our soul, which lay
itching in our ears, was being defiled. But that fable would not die to
me, so oft as any of my friends died. There were other things which in
them did more take my mind; to talk and jest together, to do kind
offices by turns; to read together honied books; to play the fool or be
earnest together; to dissent at times without discontent, as a man might
with his own self; and even with the seldomness of these dissentings, to
season our more frequent consentings; sometimes to teach, and sometimes
learn; long for the absent with impatience: and welcome the coming with
joy. These and the like expressions, proceeding out of the hearts of
those that loved and were loved again, by the countenance, the tongue,
the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, were so much fuel to melt
our souls together, and out of many make but one.

(ix) 14. This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a man’s
conscience condemns itself if he love not him that loves him again, or
love not again him that loves him, looking for nothing from his person
but indications of his love. Hence that mourning, if one die, and
darkenings of sorrows, that steeping of the heart in tears, all
sweetness turned to bitterness; and upon the loss of life of the dying,
the death of the living. Blessed whoso loveth Thee, and his friend in
Thee, and his enemy for Thee. For he alone loses none dear to him, to
whom all are dear in Him Who cannot be lost....

(xiv) 22. So did I then love men, upon the judgment of men, not thine, O
my God, in Whom no man is deceived. But yet why not for qualities like
those of a famous charioteer, or fighter with beasts in the theater,
known far and wide by a vulgar popularity, but far otherwise, and
earnestly, and so as I would be myself commended? For I would not be
commended or loved, as actors are, (though I myself did commend and love
them,) but had rather be unknown, than so known; and even hated, than so
loved. Where now are the impulses to such various and divers kinds of
loves laid up in one soul? Why, since we are equally men, do I love in
another what, if I did not hate, I should not spurn and cast from
myself? For it holds not, that as a good horse is loved by him who would
not, though he might, be that horse, therefore the same may be said of
an actor, who shares our nature. Do I then love in a man what I hate to
be, who am a man? Man himself is a great deep, whose very _hairs Thou
numberest_, O Lord, _and they fall not to the ground without Thee_. And
yet are the hairs of his head easier to be numbered than are his
feelings, and the beatings of his heart.

23. But there was an orator of that sort whom I loved as wishing to be
myself such; and I erred through a swelling pride, and _was tossed about
with every wind_, but yet was steered by Thee, though very secretly. And
whence do I know, and whence do I confidently confess unto Thee, that I
had loved him more for the love of his commenders, than for the very
things for which he was commended? Because, had he been unpraised, and
these self-same men had dispraised him, and with dispraise and contempt
told the very same things of him, I had never been so kindled and
excited to love him. And yet the things had not been other, nor he
himself other; but only the feelings of the relators. See where the
impotent soul lies along, that is not yet stayed up by the solidity of
truth! Just as the gales of tongues blow from the breast of the
opinionative, so is it carried this way and that, driven forward and
backward, and the light is overclouded to it, and the truth unseen. And
lo, it is before us. And it was to me a great matter that my discourse
and labors should be known to that man: which should he approve, I were
the more kindled; but if he disapproved, my empty heart, void of Thy
solidity, had been wounded.

(Augustine confesses himself unable even to apply his knowledge and
talents rightly without proper notions of God.)




                                 BOOK V


(Augustine’s twenty-ninth year: due to his knowledge of scientific
subjects, he has begun to question many Manichean doctrines, and he is
told that one Faustus, an eloquent defender of this sect, will remove
all his doubts. This Faustus, however, in spite of his eloquence, fails
to convince Augustine; on the contrary, he serves to expose even more
the falsity of Manichean tenets. Augustine leaves Carthage for Rome, the
better to continue his work in rhetoric, but in Rome he finds the
distractions greater than he expected, so accepts a position as teacher
of rhetoric in Milan. Here he meets Ambrose, the bishop who first shows
him the way to divine truth—he is interested first, not by what Ambrose
says, but by how he says it; yet, in the nature of things, he cannot
entirely escape paying some attention to the thought as well as to the
vehicle carrying it. Augustine therefore becomes a catechumen, or
“beginner,” in the Catholic Church.)

(vi) 10. ... I now learned that neither ought anything to seem to be
spoken truly, because eloquently; nor therefore falsely, because the
utterance of the lips is inharmonious; nor, again, therefore true,
because rudely delivered; nor therefore false, because the language is
rich; but that wisdom and folly are as wholesome and unwholesome food;
and adorned or unadorned phrases, as courtly or country vessels; either
kind of meats may be served up in either kind of dishes.


                                BOOK VI


(Augustine’s mother, whom he had left at Carthage when he departed for
Rome, arrives to join him at Milan. She is pleased by his start on the
right road, and redoubles her prayers for his ultimate conversion.
Augustine is gradually progressing toward this culmination of his
mother’s hopes, but he is continually assailed by doubts. He is troubled
by the worldly pursuits he has indulged in so long. His friend, Alypius,
become a devotee of the contests and games in the Circus, is saved from
this passionate dissipation by the God to whom Augustine looks for final
salvation. But, indicative of his imprisonment in earthly pleasures,
Augustine plans to marry, to enable himself to continue his carnal lusts
under the protection of a legal union; he is dissuaded by his friends,
with whom he discusses, at some length, their mode of life. Because of
these “inveterate sins,” Augustine lives in dread of divine judgment.)




                                BOOK VII


(i) 1. Deceased was now that my evil and abominable youth, and I was
passing into early manhood [his thirty-first year]; 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 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 lo, 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 specious nothing.

2. I then being thus gross-hearted, nor clear even to myself, whatsoever
was not extended over certain space, 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 endeavor 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
immeasurable 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, previous 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
shouldst 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.

(He “sees that the cause of sin lies in free-will, rejects the Manichean
heresy, but cannot altogether embrace the doctrine of the Church;
recovered from the belief in Astrology, but miserably perplexed about
the origin of evil; is led to find in the Platonists the seeds of the
doctrine of the Divinity of the WORD, but not of His humiliation; hence
he obtains clearer notions of God’s majesty, but, not knowing Christ to
be the Mediator, remains estranged from Him; all his doubts removed by
the study of Holy Scripture, especially St. Paul.” This Book completes
Augustine’s thirty-first year.)

(Dealing with his abandonment of astrology, a naively elaborate proof of
the falsity of that science is brought forward, to-wit: By careful
planning, two children of widely different parents were observed, who
were born at approximately the same time. According to astrology, their
horoscopes should be the same, for the stars would obviously be in the
same positions at their simultaneous birth. But one was a slave, the
other a successful freeman. In addition, the common phenomenon of twins,
born at the same hour or so nearly at the same moment that the stars
could not vary enough to be noted, is cited. The twins, according to
their horoscopes, should be similarly endowed with abilities, and
similarly favored by fortune. Yet this has seldom proved the case.)




                               BOOK VIII


(Augustine’s thirty-second year.)

(i) 1. O my God, let me, with thanksgiving, remember, and confess unto
Thee Thy mercies on me.... 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 Savior Himself, well pleased me, but as
yet I shrunk from going, through its straitness....

(The story of the conversion of one Victorinus influences him strongly,
and he “longs to devote himself entirely to God, but is mastered by his
old habits.”)

(iii) 6. 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 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 lived again;
had been lost, and is found_....

(iv) 9. 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_?...

(v) 10. ... I was bound, 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 froward 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.

11. Thus I understood, by my own experience, what I had read, how _the
flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh_....
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 forever, 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.... _Who then should deliver me thus wretched from the body of
this death, but Thy grace only, through Jesus Christ our Lord?_

(Alypius and Nebridius, friends of Augustine, are now with him at Milan.
Alypius and another friend relate of Antony, the Egyptian monk, and of
how two courtiers were converted by his influence. This rouses Augustine
and stirs him deeply.)

(vii) 16. Thou, O Lord, 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, 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.

18. ... 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.

(viii) 19. ... 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 drying, to live; knowing what evil thing I
was, and not knowing what good thing I was shortly to become....
(Alypius, as his intimate friend, goes with him into the garden;
otherwise he is quite alone.)

(xi) 25. 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 within 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.

(xii) 28. 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
burthen 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, forever? Remember not our former iniquities_, for I felt that I
was held by them. I sent up these sorrowful words: How long? how long,
“tomorrow, and tomorrow?” Why not now? why not is there this hour an end
to my uncleanness.

29. So was I speaking, and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my
heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighboring 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_,[3] in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor need 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.

30. 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 into 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 art 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.

Footnote 3:

  Romans xiii, 13-14.




                                BOOK IX


(i) 1. _O Lord, I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy
handmaid: Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder. I will offer to Thee the
sacrifice of praise._...

(v) 13. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to
provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for
that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of
breathing and pain in my chest, was not equal to the Professorship. And
by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former
errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I
had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great
grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above
the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of
the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and
imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better
practised in our Lord’s own words.

(vi) 14. Thence, when the time was come, wherein I was to give in my
name,[4] we left the country and returned to Milan.... and we were
baptized, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I
sated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth
of Thy counsels concerning the salvation of mankind. How did I weep, in
Thy Hymns and Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy
sweet-attuned Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth
distilled into my heart, whence the affections of my devotion
overflowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein.

(viii) 17. ... We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and
were returned to Africa: whitherward being as far as Ostia, my mother
departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my
confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof
I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth
concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh,
that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might
be born to light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak
of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her;
nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And
the scepter of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a
Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear.

(ix) 19. Brought up modestly and soberly, and made subject rather by
Thee to her parents, than by her parents to Thee, so soon as she was of
marriageable age, being bestowed upon a husband, she served him as her
lord; and did her diligence to win him unto Thee, preaching Thee unto
him by her conversation; by which Thou ornamentedst her, making her
reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband....

21. This great gift also Thou bestowedst, O my God, my mercy, upon that
good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou createdst me, that between
any disagreeing and discordant parties where she was able, she showed
herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things
when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a
present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught
of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. A
small good this might appear to me, did I not to my grief know
numberless persons who, through some horrible and widespreading
contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things
said in anger, but add withal things never spoken, whereas to humane
humanity it ought to seem a light thing, not to foment or increase ill
will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it.
Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching her in the
school of the heart.

22. Finally, her own husband, towards the very end of his earthly life,
did she gain unto Thee; nor had she to complain of that in him as a
believer, which before he was a believer she had borne from him.... For
she had been _the wife of one man_, had _requited her parents, had
governed her house_ piously, _was well reported of for good works, had
brought up children_, so often _travailing in birth of them_, as she saw
them swerving from Thee. Lastly, of all of us Thy servants, O Lord,
(whom on occasion of Thy own gift Thou sufferest to speak,) us, who
before her sleeping in Thee lived united together, having received the
grace of Thy baptism, did she so take care of, as though she had been
mother of us all; so served us, as though she had been child to us all.

(x) 23. The day now approaching whereon she was to depart this life,
(which day Thou well knewest, we knew not,) it came to pass, Thyself, as
I believe, by Thy secret ways so ordering it, that she and I stood
alone; leaning in a certain window, which looked into the garden of the
house where we now lay, at Ostia; where removed from the din of men, we
were recruiting from the fatigues of a long journey, for the voyage. We
were discoursing then together, alone, very sweetly; and _forgetting
those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before_, we were inquiring between ourselves in the presence
of the Truth, which Thou art, of what sort the eternal life of the
saints was to be, _which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it
entered into the heart of man_. But yet we gasped with the mouth of our
heart, after those heavenly streams of Thy fountain, _the fountain of
life_, which is _with Thee_; that being bedewed thence according to our
capacity, we might in some sort meditate upon so high a mystery.

24. And when our discourse was brought to that point, that the very
highest delight of the earthly senses, in the very purest material
light, was, in respect of the sweetness of that life, not only not
worthy of comparison, but not even of mention; we raising up ourselves
with a more glowing affection towards the “Self-same,” did by degrees
pass through all things bodily, even the very heaven, when sun and moon,
and stars shine upon the earth; yea, we were soaring higher yet, by
inward musing, and discourse, and admiring of Thy works; and we came to
our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region
of never-failing plenty, where _Thou feedest Israel_ forever with the
food of truth, and where life is the _Wisdom by whom all_ these _things
are made_, and what have been, and what shall be, and she is not made,
but is, as she hath been, and so shall she be ever; yea rather, to “have
been,” and “hereafter to be,” are not in her, but only “to be,” seeing
she is eternal. For to “have been,” and “to be hereafter,” are not
eternal. And while we were discoursing and panting after her, we
slightly touched on her with the whole effort of our heart; and we
sighed, and there we leave bound _the first fruits of the Spirit_; and
returned to vocal expressions of our mouth, where the word spoken was
beginning and end. And what is like unto Thy Word, our Lord, who
_endureth in Himself_ without becoming old, and _maketh all things new_?

25. We were saying then: If to any the tumult of the flesh were hushed,
hushed the images of earth, and waters, and air, hushed also the poles
of heaven, yea the very soul be hushed to herself, and by not thinking
on self surmount self, hushed all dreams and imaginary revelations,
every tongue and every sign, and whatsoever exists only in transition,
since if any could hear, all these say, _We made not ourselves, but He
made us that abideth forever_—If then having uttered this, they too
should be hushed, having roused only our ears to Him who made them, and
He alone speak, not by them, but by Himself, that we may hear His Word,
not through any tongue of flesh, nor Angel’s voice, nor sound of
thunder, nor in the dark riddle of similitude, but, might hear Whom in
these things we love, might hear His Very Self without these, (as we two
now strained ourselves, and in swift thought touched on that Eternal
Wisdom, which abideth over all;)—could this be continued on; and other
visions of kind far unlike be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and
absorb, and wrap up its beholder amid these inward joys, so that life
might be forever like that one moment of understanding which now we
sighed after; were not this, _Enter into thy Master’s joy_? And when
shall that be? When _we shall all rise again_, though we _shall not all
be changed_?

26. Such things was I speaking, and even if not in this very manner, and
these same words, yet, Lord, Thou knowest, that in that day when we were
speaking of these things, and this world with all its delights became,
as we spake, contemptible to us, my mother said, “Son, for mine own part
I have no further delight in anything in this life. What I do here any
longer, and to what end I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this
world are accomplished. One thing there was for which I desired to
linger for a while in this life, that I might see thee a Catholic
Christian before I died. My God hath done this for me more abundantly,
that I should now see thee withal, despising earthly happiness, become
His servant: what do I here?”

(xi) 27. What answer I made her unto these things, I remember not. For
scarce five days after, or not much more, she fell sick of a fever; and
in that sickness one day she fell into a swoon, and was for a while
withdrawn from these visible things. We hastened round her; but she was
soon brought back to her senses; and looking on me and my brother
standing by her, said to us inquiringly, “Where was I?” And then looking
fixedly on us, with grief amazed; “Here,” saith she, “shall you bury
your mother.” I held my peace and refrained weeping; but my brother
spake something, wishing for her, as the happier lot, that she might
die, not in a strange place, but in her own land. Whereat, she with
anxious look, checking him with her eyes, for that he still _savored
such things_, and then looking upon me; “Behold,” saith she, “what he
saith:” and soon after to us both, “Lay,” she saith, “this body
anywhere; let not the care for that any way disquiet you: this only I
request, that you would remember me at the Lord’s altar, wherever you
be.” And having delivered this sentiment in what words she could, she
held her peace, being exercised by her growing sickness.

28. But I, considering Thy gifts, Thou unseen God, which Thou instillest
into the hearts of Thy faithful ones, whence wondrous fruits do spring,
did rejoice and give thanks to Thee, recalling what I before knew, how
careful and anxious she had ever been, as to her place of burial, which
she had provided and prepared for herself by the body of her husband.
For because they had lived in great harmony together, she also wished
(so little can the human mind embrace things divine) to have this
addition to that happiness, and to have it remembered among men, that
after her pilgrimage beyond the seas, what was earthly of this united
pair had been permitted to be united beneath the same earth. But when
this emptiness had through the fullness of Thy goodness begun to cease
in her heart, I knew not, and rejoiced admiring what she had so
disclosed to me; though indeed in that our discourse also in the window,
when she said, “What do I here any longer?” there appeared no desire of
dying in her own country. I heard afterwards also, that when we were now
at Ostia, she with a mother’s confidence, when I was absent, one day
discoursed with certain of my friends about the contempt of this life,
and the blessing of death: and when they were amazed at such courage
which Thou hadst given to a woman, and asked, “Whether she were not
afraid to leave her body so far from her own city?” she replied,
“Nothing is far to God; nor was it to be feared lest at the end of the
world, He should not recognize whence He were to raise me up.” On the
ninth day then of her sickness, and the fifty-sixth year of her age, and
the three and thirtieth of mine, was that religious and holy soul freed
from the body.

(xii) 29. I closed her eyes; and there flowed withal a mighty sorrow
into my heart; which was overflowing into tears; mine eyes at the same
time, by the violent command of my mind, drank up their fountain wholly
dry; and woe was me in such a strife! But when she breathed her last, a
boy burst out into a loud lament; then, checked by us all, held his
peace. In like manner also a childish feeling in me, which was, through
my heart’s youthful voice, finding its vent in weeping, was checked and
silenced. For we thought it not fitting to solemnize that funeral with
tearful lament, and groanings: for thereby do they for the most part
express grief for the departed, as though unhappy, or altogether dead;
whereas she was neither unhappy in her death, nor altogether dead. Of
this we were assured on good grounds, the testimony of her good
conversation and her _faith unfeigned_.

30. What then was it which did grievously pain me within, but a fresh
wound wrought through the sudden wrench of that most sweet and dear
custom of living together? I joyed indeed in her testimony, when, in
that her last sickness, mingling her endearments with my acts of duty,
she called me “dutiful,” and mentioned, with great affection of love,
that she never had heard any harsh or reproachful sound uttered by my
mouth against her. But yet, O my God, Who madest us, what comparison is
there betwixt that honor that I paid to her, and her slavery for me?
Being then forsaken of so great comfort in her, my soul was wounded, and
that life rent asunder as it were, which, of hers and mine together, had
been made but one.

31. The boy then being stifled from weeping, Euodius took up the
Psalter, and began to sing, our whole house answering him, the Psalm, _I
will sing of mercy and judgment to Thee, O Lord_. But hearing what we
were doing, many brethren and religious women came together; and whilst
they (whose office it was) made ready for the burial, as the manner is,
I (in a part of the house where I might properly), together with those
who thought not fit to leave me, discoursed upon something fitting the
time; and by this balm of truth assuaged that torment, known to Thee,
they unknowing and listening intently, and conceiving me to be without
all sense of sorrow. But in Thy ears, where none of them heard, I blamed
the weakness of my feelings, and refrained my flood of grief, which gave
way a little unto me; but again came, as with a tide, yet not so as to
burst out into tears, nor to a change of countenance; still I knew what
I was keeping down in my heart. And being very much displeased that
these human things had such power over me, which in the due order and
appointment of our natural condition must needs come to pass, with a new
grief I grieved for my grief, and was thus worn by a double sorrow.

32. And behold, the corpse was carried to the burial; we went and
returned without tears. For neither in those prayers which we poured
forth unto Thee, when the sacrifice of our ransom was offered for her,
when now the corpse was by the grave’s side, as the manner there is,
previous to its being laid therein, did I weep even during those
prayers; yet was I the whole day in secret heavily sad, and with
troubled mind prayed Thee, as I could, to heal my sorrow, yet Thou didst
not; impressing, I believe, upon my memory by this one instance, how
strong is the bond of all habit, even upon a soul which now feeds upon
no deceiving Word. It seemed also good to me to go and bathe, having
heard that the bath had its name from the Greek word implying a driving
of sadness from the mind. And this also I confess unto Thy mercy,
_Father of the fatherless_, that I bathe, and was the same as before I
bathed. For the bitterness of sorrow could not exude out of my heart.
Then I slept, and woke up again, and found my grief not a little
softened; and as I was alone in my bed, I remembered those true verses
of Thy Ambrose. For Thou art the

                 Maker of all, the Lord,
                   And Ruler of the height,
                 Who, robing day in light, hast poured
                   Soft slumbers o’er the night,
                 That to our limbs the power
                   Of toil may be renew’d,
                 And hearts be rais’d that sink and cower,
                   And sorrows be subdu’d.

33. And then by little and little I recovered my former thoughts of Thy
handmaid, her holy conversation towards Thee, her holy tenderness and
observance toward us, whereof I was suddenly deprived: and I was minded
to weep in Thy sight, for her and for myself, in her behalf and in my
own. And I gave way to the tears which I before restrained, to overflow
as much as they desired; reposing my heart upon them; and it found rest
in them, for it was in Thy ears, not in those of man, who would have
scornfully interpreted my weeping. And now, Lord, in writing I confess
it unto Thee. Read it, who will, and interpret it, how he will: and if
he finds sin therein, that I wept my mother for a small portion of an
hour, (the mother who for the time was dead to mine eyes, who had for
many years wept for me, that I might live in Thine eyes,) let him not
deride me; but rather, if he be one of large charity, let him weep
himself for my sins unto Thee, the Father of all the brethren of Thy
Christ.

(xiii) 37. May she rest then in peace with the husband, before and after
whom she had never any; whom she obeyed, _with patience bringing forth
fruit_ unto Thee, that she might win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O
Lord my God, inspire Thy servants my brethren, Thy sons my masters, whom
with voice, and heart, and pen I serve, that so many as shall read these
Confessions may at Thy Altar remember Monnica Thy handmaid, with
Patricius, her sometimes husband, by whose bodies Thou broughtest me
into this life, how, I know not. May they with devout affection remember
my parents in this transitory light, my brethren under Thee our Father
in our Catholic Mother, and my fellow citizens in that eternal
Jerusalem, which Thy pilgrim people sigheth after from their Exodus,
even unto their return thither. That so my mother’s last request of me
may, through my confessions, more than through my prayers, be, through
the prayers of many, more abundantly fulfilled to her.

Footnote 4:

  To be baptized at Easter, they handed in their names before the second
  Sunday in Lent.




                                 BOOK X


(“Having in the former books spoken of himself before his receiving the
grace of Baptism, in this Augustine confesses what he then was. But
first he inquires by what faculty we can know God at all, whence he
enlarges on the mysterious character of the memory, wherein God, being
made known, dwells, but which could not discover Him. Then he examines
his own trials under the triple division of temptation, ‘lust of the
flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride;’ what Christian continency
prescribes as to each. On Christ, the Only Mediator, who heals and will
heal all infirmities.” The sections on the nature of memory are the most
interesting, and surprizing, too, in the light of modern psychology.)

(viii) 12. I come to the fields and spacious palaces of my memory, where
are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of
all sorts perceived by the senses. There is stored up, whatsoever
besides we think, either by enlarging or diminishing, or any other way
varying those things which the sense hath come to; and whatever else
hath been committed and laid up, which forgetfulness hath not yet
swallowed up and buried. When I enter there, I require what I will to be
brought forth, and something instantly comes; others must be longer
sought after, which are fetched, as it were, out of some inner
receptacle; others rush out in troops, and while one thing is desired
and required, they start forth, as who should say, “Is it perchance I?”
These I drive away with the hand of my heart from the face of my
remembrance; until what I wished for be unveiled, and appear in sight,
out of its secret place. Other things come up readily, in unbroken
order, as they are called for; those in front making way for the
following; and as they make way, they are hidden from sight, ready to
come when I will. All which takes place, when I repeat a thing by heart.

13. There are all things preserved distinctly and under general heads,
each having entered by its own avenue: as light, and all colors and
forms of bodies, by the eyes; by the ears all sorts of sounds; all
smells by the avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by
the sensation of the whole body, what is hard or soft; hot or cold;
smooth or rugged; heavy or light; either outwardly or inwardly to the
body. All these doth that great harbor of the memory receive in her
numberless secret and inexpressible windings, to be forthcoming, and
brought out at need; each entering in by his own gate, and there laid
up. Nor yet do the things themselves enter in; only the images of the
things perceived are there in readiness, for thought to recall. Which
images, how they are formed, who can tell, though it doth plainly appear
by which sense each hath been brought in and stored up? For even while I
dwell in darkness and silence, in my memory I can produce colors, if I
will, and discern betwixt black and white, and what others I will: nor
yet do sounds break in, and disturb the image drawn in by my eyes, which
I am reviewing, though they also are there, lying dormant, and laid up,
as it were, apart. For these too I call for, and forthwith they appear.
And though my tongue be still, and my throat mute, so can I sing as much
as I will; nor do those images of colors, which notwithstanding be
there, intrude themselves and interrupt, when another store is called
for, which flowed in by the ears. So the other things, piled in and up
by the other senses, I recall at my pleasure. Yea, I discern the breath
of lilies from violets, though smelling nothing; and I prefer honey to
sweet wine, smooth before rugged, at the time neither tasting, nor
handling, but remembering only.

14. These things do I within, in that vast court of my memory. For there
are present with me heaven, earth, sea, and whatever I could think on
therein, besides what I have forgotten. There also meet I with myself,
and recall myself, and when, where, and what I have done, and under what
feelings. There be all which I remember, either on my own experience, or
others’ credit. Out of the same store do I myself with the past
continually combine fresh and fresh likenesses of things, which I have
experienced, or, from what I have experienced, have believed: and thence
again infer future actions, events and hopes, and all these again I
reflect on, as present.... I speak to myself: and when I speak, the
images of all I speak of are present, out of the same treasury of
memory; nor would I speak of any thereof, were the images wanting.

15. Great is this force of memory, excessive great, O my God; a large
and boundless chamber! who ever sounded the bottom thereof? yet is this
a power of mine, and belongs unto my nature; nor do I myself comprehend
all that I am. Therefore is the mind too strait to contain itself....

(ix) 16. Here also is all learnt of the liberal sciences and as yet
unforgotten; removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no
place: nor are they the images thereof, but the things themselves....
For some things are not transmitted into the memory, but their images
only are with an admirable swiftness caught up, and stored as it were in
wondrous cabinets, and thence wonderfully by the act of remembering
brought forth.

(xii) 19. The memory containeth also reasons and laws innumerable of
numbers and dimensions, none of which hath any bodily sense impressed;
seeing they have neither color, nor sound, nor taste, nor smell, nor
touch....

(xiv) 21. The same memory contains also the affections of my mind, not
in the same manner that my mind itself contains them, when it feels
them; but far otherwise, according to a power of its own. For without
rejoicing I remember myself to have joyed; and without sorrow do I
recollect my past sorrow. And that I once feared, I review without fear;
and without desire call to mind a past desire. Sometimes, on the
contrary, with joy do I remember my fore-past sorrow, and with sorrow,
joy....

(xvi) 24. What, when I name forgetfulness, and withal recognize what I
name? whence should I recognize it, did I not remember it? I speak not
of the sound of the name, but of the thing which it signifies: which if
I had forgotten, I could not recognize what that sound signifies. When
then I remember memory, memory itself is, through itself, present with
itself: but when I remember forgetfulness, there are present both memory
and forgetfulness; memory whereby I remember, forgetfulness which I
remember. But what is forgetfulness, but the privation of memory? How
then is it present that I remember it, since when present I cannot
remember? But if what we remember we hold it in memory, yet, unless we
did remember forgetfulness, we could never at the hearing of the name,
recognize the thing thereby signified, then forgetfulness is retained by
memory. Present then it is, that we forget not, and being so, we forget.
It is to be understood from this, that forgetfulness, when we remember
it, is not present to the memory by itself, but by its image: because if
it were present by itself, it would not cause us to remember, but to
forget. Who now shall search out this? who shall comprehend how it is?

25. Lord, I, truly, toil therein, yea and toil in myself; I am became a
heavy soil requiring over much _sweat of the brow_. For we are not now
searching out the regions of heaven, or measuring the distances of the
stars, or inquiring the balancings of the earth. It is I myself who
remember, I the mind. It is not so wonderful if what I myself am not, be
far from me. But what is nearer to me than myself? And lo, the force of
mine own memory is not understood by me; though I cannot so much as name
myself without it. For what shall I say, when it is clear to me that I
remember forgetfulness? Shall I say that that is not in my memory, which
I remember? or shall I say that forgetfulness is for this purpose in my
memory, that I might not forget? Both were most absurd. What third way
is there? How can I say that the image of forgetfulness is retained by
my memory, not forgetfulness itself, when I remember it? How could I say
this either, seeing that when the image of anything is impressed on the
memory, the thing itself must needs be first present, whence that image
may be impressed? For thus do I remember Carthage, thus all places where
I have been, thus men’s faces whom I have seen, and things reported by
the other senses; thus the health or sickness of the body. For when
these things were present, my memory received from them images, which,
being present with me, I might look on and bring back in my mind when I
remember them in their absence. If then this forgetfulness is retained
in the memory through its image, not through itself, then plainly itself
was once present, that its image might be taken. But when it was
present, how did it write its image in the memory, seeing that
forgetfulness by its presence effaces even what it finds already noted?
And yet, in whatever way, although that way be past conceiving and
explaining, yet certain am I that I remember forgetfulness itself also,
whereby what we remember is effaced.

(xvii) 26. ... I will pass even beyond this power of mine which is
called memory: yea, I will pass beyond it, that I may approach unto
Thee, O sweet Light. What sayest Thou to me? See, I am mounting up
through my mind towards Thee who abidest above me. Yea I will now pass
beyond this power of mine which is called memory, desirous to arrive at
Thee, whence Thou mayest be arrived at; and to cleave unto Thee, whence
one may cleave unto Thee. For even beasts and birds have memory; else
could they not return to their dens and nests, nor many other things
they are used unto: nor indeed could they be used to anything, but by
memory. I will pass then beyond memory, that I may arrive at Him who
hath separated me from the four-footed beasts and made me wiser than the
fowls of the air, I will pass beyond memory also, and where shall I find
Thee, Thou truly good and certain sweetness? And where shall I find
Thee?...

(xxiv) 35. See what a space I have gone over in my memory seeking Thee,
O Lord; and I have not found Thee without it. Nor have I found anything
concerning Thee, but what I have kept in memory ever since I learnt
Thee. For since I learnt Thee, I have not forgotten Thee. For where I
found Truth, there found I my God, the Truth Itself; which since I
learnt, I have not forgotten. Since then I learned Thee, Thou residest
in my memory; and there do I find Thee, when I call Thee to remembrance,
and delight in Thee. These be my holy delights, which Thou hast given me
in Thy mercy, having regard to my poverty.

(xxv) 36. But where in my memory residest Thou, O Lord, where residest
Thou there? what manner of lodging hast Thou framed for Thee? what
manner of sanctuary hast Thou builded for Thee? Thou hast given this
honor to my memory, to reside in it; but in what quarter of it Thou
residest, that am I considering. For in thinking on Thee, I passed
beyond such parts of it as the beasts also have, for I found Thee not
there among the images of corporeal things: and I came to those parts to
which I committed the affections of my mind, nor found Thee there. And I
entered into the very seat of my mind, (which it hath in my memory,
inasmuch as the mind remembers itself also,) neither wert Thou there:
for as Thou art not a corporeal image, nor the affection of a living
being; (as when we rejoice, condole, desire, fear, remember, forget, or
the like;) so neither art Thou the mind itself; because Thou art the
Lord God of the mind; and all these are changed, but Thou remainest
unchangeable over all, and yet hast vouchsafed to dwell in my memory,
since I learnt Thee. And why seek I now, in what place whereof Thou
dwellest, as if there were places therein? Sure I am, that in it Thou
dwellest, since I have remembered Thee, ever since I learnt Thee, and
there I find Thee, when I call Thee to remembrance.

(xxvi) 37. Where then did I find Thee, that I might learn Thee? For in
my memory Thou wert not, before I learned Thee. Where then did I find
Thee, that I might learn Thee, but in Thee above me? Place there is
none; _we go backward and forward_, and there is no place. Everywhere, O
Truth, dost Thou give audience to all who ask counsel of Thee, and at
once answerest all, though on manifold matters they ask Thy counsel.
Clearly dost Thou answer, though all do not clearly hear. All consult
Thee on what they will, though they hear not always what they will. He
is thy best servant who looks not so much to hear that from Thee which
himself willeth; as rather to will that which from Thee he heareth.




                                BOOK XI


(“Augustine breaks off the history of the mode whereby God led him to
holy Orders, in order to ‘confess’ God’s mercies in opening to him the
Scripture. Moses is not to be understood, but in Christ, not even the
first words _In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth_.
Answer to cavillers who asked, what did God before He created the heaven
and the earth, and whence willed He at length to make them, whereas He
did not make them before. Inquiry into the nature of Time.”)

(It is in considering the question of God’s actions before the Creation,
and of his delay in not bringing about the Creation sooner, that
Augustine comes to consider the nature of Time.)

(xiv) 17. At no time then hadst Thou not made anything, because time
itself Thou madest. And no times are coeternal with Thee, because Thou
abidest; but if they abode, they should not be times. For what is time?
Who can readily and briefly explain this? Who can even in thought
comprehend it, so as to utter a word about it? But what in discourse do
we mention more familiarly and knowingly than time? And we understand
when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by
another. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to
explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly that I know,
that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were
coming, a time to come were not; and if nothing were, time present were
not. Those two times then, past and to come, how are they, seeing the
past now is not, and that to come is not yet? But the present, should it
always be present, and never pass into time past, verily it should not
be time, but eternity. If time present (if it is to be time) only cometh
into existence, because it passeth into time past, how can we say that
either this is, whose cause of being is, that it shall not be; so,
namely, that we cannot truly say that time is, but because it is tending
not to be?

(xv) 18. And yet we say, “a long time” and “a short time;” still, only
of time past or to come. A long time past (for example) we call an
hundred years since; and a long time to come, an hundred years hence.
But a short time past, we call (suppose) ten days since; and a short
time to come, ten days hence. But in what sense is that long or short,
which is not? For the past is not now; and the future is not yet. Let us
not then say “it is long”; but of the past, “it hath been long”; and of
the future, “it will be long.”

(But the past, being no more, cannot be long, for what ceases to be,
ceases also to be long. Yet can the present be long? Say, a hundred
years? No, for a hundred years is never present at once, nor even a
month, or a day, or an hour—only the smallest conceivable instant is
present. What then of the future? The future is not yet, so is not long;
and when the future is here, it is the present, which has been shown to
be the briefest conceivable instant.)

(xvi) 21. And yet, Lord, we perceive intervals of times, and compare
them, and say some are shorter and others longer. We measure also how
much longer or shorter this time is than that; and we answer, “This is
double, or treble; and that, but once, or only just so much as that.”
But we measure times as they are passing, by perceiving them; but past,
which now are not, or the future, which are not yet, who can measure?
unless a man shall presume to say that can be measured which is not.
When then time is passing, it may be perceived and measured; but when it
is past, it cannot, because it is not.

(xx) 26. What now is clear and plain is that neither things to come nor
past are. Nor is it properly said, “there be three times, past, present,
and to come”: yet perchance it might be properly said, “there be three
times; a present of things past, a present of things present, and a
present of things future.” For these three do exist in some sort, in the
soul, but otherwhere do I not see them; present of things past, memory;
present of things present, sight; present of things future, expectation.
If thus we be permitted to speak, I see three times, and I confess there
are three. Let it be said too, “there be three times, past, present, and
to come”: in our incorrect way. See, I object not, nor gainsay, nor find
fault, if what is so said be but understood, that neither what is to be,
now is, nor what is past. For but few things are there which we speak
properly, most things improperly; still the things intended are
understood.

(xxi) 27. I said then even now, we measure times as they pass, in order
to be able to say, this time is twice so much as that one; or, this is
just so much as that; and so of any other parts of time, which be
measurable. Wherefore, as I said, we measure times as they pass....

(xxiii) 30. I desire to know the force and nature of time, by which we
measure the motions of bodies, and say (for example) this motion is
twice as long as that....

(xxiv) 31. Dost Thou bid me assent, if any define time to be “motion of
a body?” Thou dost not bid me. For that no body is moved, but in time, I
hear; this Thou sayest; but that the motion of a body is time, I hear
not; Thou sayest it not.

(For it is quite possible to measure the time a body stands still, as,
for instance, in the expression: “It stood still twice as long as it
moved.” Time, therefore, is not the motion of a body.)

(xxvi) 33. Does not my soul most truly confess unto Thee that I do
measure times?... That I measure time, I know; and yet I measure not
time to come, for it is not yet; nor present, because it is not
protracted by any space; nor past, because it now is not. What then do I
measure? Times passing, not past? for so I said.

(Time is measured between the beginning and end of something, as between
the beginning and end of a sound. The sound cannot be measured before it
begins, while it is sounding, or after it has stopped. But, by noting
the beginning and ending, the interval can be determined.)

(xxvii) 36. It is in thee, my mind, that I measure times. Interrupt me
not, that is, interrupt not thyself with the tumults of thy impressions.
In thee I measure times; the impression, which things as they pass by
cause in thee, remains even when they are gone; this it is which still
present, I measure, not the things which pass by to make this
impression. This I measure, when I measure times. Either then this is
time, or I do not measure times. What when we measure silence, and say
that this silence hath held as long time as did that voice? do we not
stretch out our thought to the measure of a voice, as if it sounded?
that so we may be able to report of the intervals of silence in a given
space of time?...

(xxviii) 37. ... It is not future time that is long, for as yet it is
not: but a “long future” is “a long expectation of the future,” nor is
it time past, which now is not, that is long; but a long past is “a long
memory of the past.”

38. I am about to repeat a Psalm that I know. Before I begin, my
expectation is extended over the whole; but when I have begun, how much
soever of it I shall separate off into the past, is extended along my
memory; thus the life of this action of mine is divided between my
memory as to what I have repeated, and expectation as to what I am about
to repeat; but “consideration” is present with me, that through it what
was future may be conveyed over, so as to become past. Which the more it
is done again and again, so much the more the expectation being
shortened, is the memory enlarged; till the whole expectation be at
length exhausted, when the whole action being ended, shall have passed
into memory. And this which takes place in the whole Psalm, the same
takes place in each several portion of it, and each several syllable;
the same holds in that longer action, whereof this Psalm may be a part;
the same holds in the whole life of man, whereof all the actions of man
are parts; the same holds through the whole age of the sons of men,
whereof all the lives of men are parts.

(xxx) 40. And now I will stand and become firm in Thee, in my mold, Thy
truth; nor will I endure the questions of men, who by a penal disease
thirst for more than they can contain, and say, “what did God before He
_made heaven and earth_?” “Or, how came it into His mind to make
anything, having never before made anything?” Give them, O Lord, well to
bethink themselves what they say, and to find that “never” cannot be
predicated, when “time” is not. This then that He is said “never to have
made;” what else is it to say, then “in ‘no time’ to have made?” Let
them see therefore that time cannot be without created being, and cease
to _speak_ that _vanity_. May they also be _extended towards those
things which are before_; and understand Thee before all times, the
eternal Creator of all times, and that no times be coeternal with Thee,
nor any creature, even if there be any creature before all time.




                                BOOK XII


(“Augustine proceeds to comment on Genesis i, 1, and explains the
‘heaven’ to mean that spiritual and incorporeal creation, which cleaves
to God unintermittingly, always beholding His countenance; ‘earth,’ the
formless matter whereof the corporeal creation was afterwards formed. He
does not reject, however, other interpretations, which he adduces, but
rather confesses that such is the depth of Holy Scripture that manifold
senses may and ought to be extracted from it, and that whatever truth
can be obtained from its words, does, in fact, lie concealed in them.”)

(Most of this Book and some of the next is devoted to a discussion of
the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, deriving a great many
possible interpretations of the words of Moses, and considering
carefully their respective meanings and bearings upon the Scripture and
upon man’s attitude toward the Scripture and toward God. That it is
possible so to derive many meanings is to Augustine a proof of the
greatness of the Scriptures, as he summarizes in the following brief
extract.)

(xxvii) 37. For as a fountain with a narrow compass is more plentiful,
and supplies a tide for more streams over larger spaces, than any one of
those streams, which, after a wide interval, is derived from the same
fountain; so the relation of that dispenser of Thine, which was to
benefit many who were to discourse thereon, does out of a narrow
scantling of language overflow into streams of clearest truth, whence
every man may draw out for himself such truth as he can upon these
subjects, one, one truth, another, another, by larger circumlocutions of
discourse....


                               BOOK XIII


(“Continuation of the exposition of Genesis i, 1; it contains the
mystery of the Trinity, and a type of the formation, extension, and
support of the Church.”)

(xxxii) 47. Thanks to Thee, O Lord. We behold _the heaven and earth_,
whether the corporeal part, superior and inferior, or the spiritual and
corporeal creature; and in the adorning of these parts, whereof the
universal pile of the world, or rather the universal creation, doth
consist, we see _light_ made, and _divided from the darkness_. We see
the _firmament of heaven_, whether that primary body of the world,
_between the_ spiritual upper _waters and the_ inferior corporeal
_waters_, or (since this also is called heaven) this space of air
through which wander the fowls of heaven, _betwixt those waters_ which
are in vapors borne above them, and in clear nights distil down in dew;
_and_ those heavier _waters_ which flow along the earth. We behold a
face of _waters gathered together_ in the fields of _the sea_; and _the
dry land_ both void, and formed so as to be visible and harmonized, yea
and the matter of herbs and trees. We behold _the lights_ shining from
above, _the sun_ to suffice for _the day, the moon and the stars_ to
cheer _the night_; and that by all these, _times_ should be marked and
signified. We behold on all sides a moist element, replenished with
fishes, beasts, and birds; because the grossness of the air, which bears
up the flights of birds, thickeneth itself by the exhalation of the
waters. We behold the face of the earth decked out with earthly
creatures, and _man, created after Thy image and likeness_, even through
that Thy very _image and likeness_, (that is the power of reason and
understanding), set over all irrational creatures. And as in his soul
there is one power which has dominion by directing, another made
subject, that it might obey; so was there for the man, corporeally also,
made a woman, who in the mind of her reasonable understanding should
have a parity of nature, but in the sex of her body, should be in like
manner subject to the sex of her husband, as the appetite of doing is
fain to conceive the skill of right-doing, from the reason of the mind.
These things we behold, and they are severally _good_, and altogether
_very good_.

(xxxiii) 48. Let Thy works praise Thee, that we may love Thee; and let
us love Thee, that Thy works may praise Thee, which from time have
beginning and ending, rising and setting, growth and decay, form and
privation. They have then their succession of morning and evening, part
secretly, part apparently; for they were made of nothing, by Thee, not
of Thee; not of any matter not Thine, or that was before, but of matter
concreated, (that is, at the same time created by Thee), because to its
state _without form_, Thou without any interval of time didst give form.
For seeing the matter of _heaven and earth_ is one thing, and the form
another, Thou madest the matter of merely nothing, but the form of the
world out of the matter _without form_; yet both together, so that the
form should follow the matter, without any interval of delay.

(xxxiv) 49. We have also examined what Thou willedst to be shadowed
forth, whether by the creation, or the relation of things in such an
order. And we have seen, that things singly _are good_, and together
_very good_, in Thy word, in Thy Only-Begotten, both _heaven and earth_,
the Head and the body of the Church, in Thy predestination before all
times, without _morning and evening_. But when Thou begannest to execute
in time the things predestinated, to the end Thou mightest reveal hidden
things, and rectify our _disorders_; for our sins hung over us, and we
had sunk into the _dark deep_, and Thy good _Spirit was borne_ over us,
to help us _in due season_; and Thou didst _justify the ungodly_, and
_dividest_ them from the wicked; and Thou _madest the firmament_ of
authority of Thy Book between those placed _above_, who were to be
docile unto Thee, and those _under_, who were to be subject to them: and
Thou _gatheredst together_ the society of unbelievers _into one_
conspiracy, that the zeal of the faithful might appear, and they might
_bring forth_ works of mercy, even distributing to the poor their
earthly riches, to obtain heavenly. And after this didst Thou kindle
certain _lights in the firmament_, Thy Holy ones, having _the word of
life_; and shining with an eminent authority set on high through
spiritual gifts; after that again, for the initiation of the unbelieving
Gentiles, didst Thou out of corporeal matter produce the Sacraments, and
visible miracles, and forms of words according to the firmament of Thy
Book, by which the faithful should be _blessed_ and _multiplied_. Next
didst Thou form the _living soul_ of the faithful, through affections
well ordered by the vigor of continency: and after that, the mind
subjected to Thee alone and needing to imitate no human authority, hast
Thou renewed _after_ Thy _image and likeness_; and didst subject its
rational actions to the excellency of the understanding, as _the_ woman
to the man; and to all Offices of Thy Ministry, necessary for the
perfecting of the faithful in this life, Thou willedst, that for their
temporal uses, good things, fruitful to themselves in time to come, be
given by the same faithful. _All_ these we see, and they are _very
good_, because Thou seest them in us, Who hast given unto us Thy Spirit,
by which we might see them, and in them love Thee.

(xxxv) 50. O Lord God, _give peace unto us_: (for Thou hast given us all
things); the peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath, which hath no
evening. For all this most goodly array of things _very good_, having
finished their courses, is to pass away, for in them there _was morning
and evening_.

(xxxvi) 51. But the seventh day hath no evening, nor hath it setting;
because Thou hast sanctified it to an everlasting continuance; that that
which Thou didst _after Thy works which were very good, resting the
seventh day_, although Thou madest them in unbroken rest, that may the
voice of Thy Book announce beforehand unto us, that we also after our
works, (therefore, _very good_, because Thou hast given them us), shall
_rest_ in Thee also in the Sabbath of eternal life.

(xxxvii) 52. For then shalt Thou so rest in us, as now Thou workest in
us; and so shall that be Thy rest through us, as these are Thy works
through us. But Thou, Lord, ever workest, and art ever at rest. Nor dost
Thou see in time, nor art moved in time, nor restest in a time; and yet
Thou makest things seen in time, yea the times themselves, and the rest
which results from time.

(xxxviii) 53. We therefore see these things which Thou madest, because
they are: but they are, because Thou seest them. And we see without,
that they are, and within, that they are good, but Thou sawest them
there, when made, where Thou sawest them, yet to be made. And we were at
a later time moved to do well, after our hearts had conceived of Thy
spirit; but in the former time we were moved to do evil, forsaking Thee;
but Thou, the One, the Good God, didst never cease doing good. And we
also have some _good works_, of Thy gift, but not eternal; _after them_
we trust to _rest_ in Thy great _hallowing_. But Thou, being the Good
which needeth no good, art ever at rest, because Thy rest is Thou
Thyself. And what man can teach man to understand this? or what Angel,
an Angel? or what Angel, a man? Let it be _asked_ of Thee, _sought_ in
Thee, _knocked_ for at Thee; so, so shall it be _received_, so shall it
be _found_, so shall it be _opened_. Amen.


GRATIAS TIBI DOMINE.




 ● Transcriber’s Notes:
    ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
    ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the Books in which they are
      referenced.



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