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Fifth BookFurther Studies
Further Studies
My zeal for the writings of Manichaeus being thus blunted, and despairing
yet more of their other teachers, seeing that in divers things which perplexed
me, he, so renowned among them, had so turned out; I began to engage with him
in the study of that literature, on which he also was much set (and which as
rhetoric-reader I was at that time teaching young students at Carthage), and
to read with him, either what himself desired to hear, or such as I judged fit
for his genius. But all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that
sect, upon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I detached
myself from them altogether, but as one finding nothing better, I had settled
to be content meanwhile with what I had in whatever way fallen upon, unless by
chance something more eligible should dawn upon me. Thus that Faustus, to so
many a snare of death, had now, neither willing nor witting it, begun to
loosen that wherein I was taken. For Thy hands, O my God, in the secret
purpose of Thy providence, did not forsake my soul; and out of my mother`s
heart`s blood, through her tears night and day poured out, was a sacrifice
offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst deal with me by wondrous ways. ^25
Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and
He shall dispose his way. ^26 Or how shall we obtain salvation, but from Thy
hand, re-making what it made?
[Footnote 25: Joel. ii. 26.]
[Footnote 26: Ps. xxxvii. 23.]
Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome, and to
teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage. And how I was persuaded
to this, I will not neglect to confess to Thee: because herein also the
deepest recesses of Thy wisdom, and Thy most present mercy to us, must be
considered and confessed. I did not wish therefore to go to Rome, because
higher gains and higher dignities were warranted me by my friends who
persuaded me to this (though even these things had at that time an influence
over my mind), but my chief and almost only reason was, that I heard that
young men studied there more peacefully, and were kept quiet under a restraint
of more regular discipline; so that they did not, at their pleasures,
petulantly rush into the school of one whose pupils they were not, nor were
even admitted without his permission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among
the scholars a most disgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in audaciously,
and with gestures almost frantic, disturb all order which any one hath
established for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit, with a
wonderful stolidity, punishable by law, did not custom uphold them; that
custom evincing them to be the more miserable, in that they now do as lawful
what by Thy eternal law shall never be lawful; and they think they do it
unpunished, whereas they are punished with the very blindness whereby they do
it, and suffer incomparably worse than what they do. The manners then which,
when a student, I would not make my own, I was fain as a teacher to endure in
others: and so I was well pleased to go where, all that knew it, assured me
that the like was not done. But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of
the living; ^27 that I might change my earthly dwelling for the salvation of
my soul, at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn from it; and
at Rome didst proffer me allurements, whereby I might be drawn thither, by men
in love with a dying life, the one doing frantic, the other promising vain,
things; and, to correct my steps, didst secretly use their and my own
perverseness. For both they who disturbed my quiet were blinded with a
disgraceful frenzy, and they who invited me elsewhere savoured of earth. And
I, who here detested real misery, was there seeking unreal happiness.
[Footnote 27: Ps. cxlii. 5.]
But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet showedst
it neither to me, nor to my mother, who grievously bewailed my journey, and
followed me as far as the sea. But I deceived her, holding me by force, that
either she might keep me back or go with me, and I feigned that I had a friend
whom I could not leave, till he had a fair wind to sail. And I lied to my
mother, and such a mother, and escaped: for this also hast Thou mercifully
forgiven me, preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements, from the
waters of the sea, for the water of Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed,
the streams of my mother`s eyes should be dried, with which for me she daily
watered the ground under her face. And yet refusing to return without me, I
scarcely persuaded her to stay that night in a place hard by our ship, where
was an Oratory in memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I privily
departed, but she was not behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was
she with so many tears asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldst not suffer me to
sail? But Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her
desire, regardedst not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me what
she ever asked. The wind blew and swelled our sails, and withdrew the shore
from our sight; and she on the morrow was there, frantic with sorrow, and with
complaints and groans filled Thine ears, who didst then disregard them; whilst
through my desires, Thou wert hurrying me to end all desire, and the earthly
part of her affection to me was chastened by the allotted scourge of sorrows.
For she loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many; and
she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her out of my absence.
She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail, and by this agony there
appeared in her the inheritance of Eve, with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she
had brought forth. And yet, after accusing my treachery and hardheartedness,
she betook herself again to intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted
place, and I to Rome.
And lo, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was
going down to hell, carrying all the sins which I had committed, both against
Thee, and myself, and others, many and grievous, over and above that bond of
original sin, whereby we all die in Adam. ^28 For Thou hadst not forgiven me
any of these things in Christ, nor had He abolished by His cross the enmity
which by my sins I had incurred with Thee. For how should He, by the
crucifixion of a phantasm, which I believed Him to be? So true, then, was the
death of my soul, as that of His flesh seemed to me false; and how true the
death of His body, so false was the life of my soul, which did not believe it.
And now the fever heightening, I was parting and departing for ever. For had I
then parted hence, whither had I departed, but into fire and torments, such as
my misdeeds deserved in the truth of Thy appointment? And this she knew not,
yet in absence prayed for me. But Thou, everywhere present, heardest her where
she was, and, where I was, hadst compassion upon me; that I should recover the
health of my body, though frenzied as yet in my sacrilegious heart. For I did
not in all that danger desire Thy baptism; and I was better as a boy, when I
begged it of my mother`s piety, as I have before recited and confessed. But I
had grown up to my own shame, and I madly scoffed at the prescripts of Thy
medicine, who wouldest not suffer me, being such, to die a double death. With
which wound had my mother`s heart been pierced, it could never be healed. For
I cannot express the affection she bare to me, and with how much more vehement
anguish she was now in labour of me in the spirit, than at her childbearing in
the flesh. ^29
[Footnote 28: 1 Cor. xv. 22.]
[Footnote 29: Gal. iv. 9.]
I see not then how she should have been healed, had such a death of mine
stricken through the bowels of her love. And where would have been those her
so strong and unceasing prayers, unintermitting to Thee alone? But wouldest
Thou, God of mercies, despise the contrite and humbled heart ^30 of that
chaste and sober widow, so frequent in alms-deeds, so full of duty and service
to Thy saints, no day intermitting the oblation at Thine altar, twice a day,
morning and evening, without any intermission, coming to Thy church, not for
idle tattlings and old wives` fables; ^31 but that she might hear Thee in Thy
discourses, and Thou her in her prayers. Couldest Thou despise and reject from
Thy aid the tears of such an one, wherewith she begged of Thee not gold or
silver, nor mutable or passing good, but the salvation of her son`s soul?
Thou, by whose gift she was such? Never, Lord. Yea, Thou wert at hand, and
wert hearing and doing, in that order wherein Thou hadst determined before
that it should be done. Far be it that Thou shouldest deceive her in Thy
visions and answers, some whereof I have, some I have not mentioned, which she
laid up in her faithful heart, and ever praying urged upon Thee, as Thine own
handwriting. For Thou, because Thy mercy endureth for ever, vouchsafest to
those to whom Thou forgivest all their debts, to become also a debtor by Thy
promises.
[Footnote 30: Ps. xli. 17.]
[Footnote 31: I Tim. v. 10.]
Thou recoveredst me then of that sickness, and healedst the son of Thy
handmaid, for the time in body, that he might live, for Thee to bestow upon
him a better and more abiding health. And even then, at Rome, I joined myself
to those deceiving and deceived "holy ones"; not with their disciples only (of
which number was he, in whose house I had fallen sick and recovered); but also
with those whom they call "The Elect." For I still thought "that it was not we
that sin, but that I know not what other nature sinned in us"; and it
delighted my pride, to be free from blame; and when I had done any evil, not
to confess I had done any, that Thou mightest heal my soul because it had
sinned against Thee: ^32 but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse I know not
what other thing, which was with me, but which I was not. But in truth it was
wholly I, and mine impiety had divided me against myself; and that sin was the
more incurable, whereby I did not judge myself a sinner; and execrable
iniquity it was, that I had rather have Thee, Thee, O God Almighty, to be
overcome in me to my destruction, than myself of Thee to salvation. Not as yet
then hadst Thou set a watch before my mouth, and a door of safe keeping around
my lips, that my heart might not turn aside to wicked speeches, to make
excuses of sins, with men that work iniquity: and, therefore, was I still
united with their Elect. ^33
[Footnote 32: Ps. xli. 4]
[Footnote 33: Ps. cxli. 3, 4. - Vulg.]
But now despairing to make proficiency in that false doctrine, even those
(with which if I should find no better, I had resolved to rest contented) I
now held more laxly and carelessly. For there half arose a thought in me that
those philosophers, whom they call Academics, were wiser than the rest, for
that they held men ought to doubt everything, and laid down that no truth can
be comprehended by man: for so, not then understanding even their meaning, I
also was clearly convinced that they thought, as they are commonly reported.
Yet did I freely and openly discourage that host of mine from that over -
confidence which I perceived him to have in those fables, which the books of
Manichaeus are full of. Yet I lived in more familiar friendship with them,
than with others who were not of this heresy. Nor did I maintain it with my
ancient eagerness; still my intimacy with that sect (Rome secretly harbouring
many of them) made me slower to seek any other way: especially since I
despaired of finding the truth, from which they had turned me aside, in Thy
Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and
invisible: and it seemed to me unseemly to believe Thee to have the shape of
human flesh, and to be bounded by the bodily lineaments of our members. And
because, when I wished to think on my God, I knew not what to think of, but a
mass of bodies (for what was not such did not seem to me to be any thing),
this was the greatest, and almost only cause of my inevitable error.
For hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of substance, and to
have its own foul and hideous bulk; whether gross, which they called earth, or
thin and subtile (like the body of the air), which they imagine to be some
malignant mind, creeping through that earth. And because a piety, such as it
was, constrained me to believe that the good God never created any evil
nature, I conceived two masses, contrary to one another, both unbounded, but
the evil narrower, the good more expansive. And from this pestilent beginning,
the other sacrilegious conceits followed on me. For when my mind endeavoured
to recur to the Catholic faith, I was driven back, since that was not the
Catholic faith which I thought to be so. And I seemed to myself more
reverential, if I believed of Thee, my God (to whom Thy mercies confess out of
my mouth), as unbounded, at least on other sides, although on that where the
mass of evil was opposed to Thee, I was constrained to confess Thee bounded;
than if on all sides I should imagine Thee to be bounded by the form of a
human body. And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have created no evil
(which to me ignorant seemed not some only, but a bodily substance, because I
could not conceive of mind unless as a subtile body, and that diffused in
definite spaces), than to believe the nature of evil, such as I conceived it,
could come from Thee. Yea, and our Saviour Himself, Thy Only Begotten, I
believed to have been reached forth (as it were) for our salvation, out of the
mass of Thy most lucid substance, so as to believe nothing of Him, but what I
could imagine in my vanity. His Nature then, being such, I thought could not
be born of the Virgin Mary, without being mingled with the flesh: and how that
which I had so figured to myself could be mingled, and not defiled, I saw not.
I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest I should be forced
to believe Him defiled by the flesh. Now will Thy spiritual ones mildly and
lovingly smile upon me, if they shall read these my confessions. Yet such was
I.
Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I
thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to confer upon
these several points with some one very well skilled in those books, and to
make trial what he thought thereon: for the words of one Helpidius, as he
spoke and disputed face to face against the said Manichees, had begun to stir
me even at Carthage: in that he had produced things out of the Scriptures, not
easily withstood, the Manichees` answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this
answer they liked not to give publicly, but only to us in private. It was,
that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by I know not
whom, who wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith: yet
themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies. But I, conceiving of things
corporeal only, was mainly held down, vehemently oppressed and in a manner
suffocated by those "masses"; panting under which after the breath of Thy
truth, I could not breath it pure and untainted.
I began then diligently to practise that for which I came to Rome, to
teach rhetoric; and first, to gather some to my house, to whom, and through
whom, I had begun to be known; when lo, I found other offences committed in
Rome, to which I was not exposed in Africa. True, those "subvertings" by
profligate young men were not here practised, as was told me: but on a sudden,
said they, to avoid paying their master`s stipend, a number of youths plot
together, and remove to another; - breakers of faith, who for love of money
hold justice cheap. These also my heart hated, though not with a perfect
hatred: ^34 for perchance I hated them more because I was to suffer by them,
than because they did things utterly unlawful. Of a truth such are base
persons, and they go a whoring from Thee, loving these fleeting mockeries of
things temporal, and filthy lucre, which fouls the hand that grasps it;
hugging the fleeting world, and despising Thee, who abidest, and recallest,
and forgivest the adulteress soul of man, when she returns to Thee. And now I
hate such depraved and crooked persons, though I love them if corrigible, so
as to prefer to money the learning which they acquire, and to learning, Thee,
O God, the truth and fullness of assured good, and most pure peace. But then I
rather for my own sake misliked them evil, than liked and wished them good for
Thine.
[Footnote 34: Ps. cxxxix. 22.]
When therefore they of Milan had sent to Rome to the prefect of the city,
to furnish them with a rhetoric reader for their city, and send him at the
public expense, I made application (through those very persons, intoxicated
with Manichaean vanities, to be freed wherefrom I was to go, neither of us
however knowing it) that Symmachus, then prefect of the city, would try me by
setting me some subject, and so send me. To Milan I came, to Ambrose the
Bishop, known to the whole world as among the best of men, Thy devout servant;
whose eloquent discourse did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the
flour of Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy
wine. ^35 To him was I unknowing led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be
led to Thee. That man of God received me as a father, and showed me an
Episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at first
indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which I utterly despaired of in Thy
Church), but as a person kind towards myself. And I listened diligently to him
preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, trying
his eloquence, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower
than was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I
was as a careless and scornful looker-on; and I was delighted with the
sweetness of his discourse, more recondite, yet in manner less winning and
harmonious, than that of Faustus. Of the matter, however, there was no
comparison; for the one was wandering amid Manichaean delusions, the other
teaching salvation most soundly. But salvation is far from sinners, ^36 such
as I then stood before him; and as yet was I drawing nearer by little and
little, and unconsciously.
[Footnote 35: Ps. iv. 7; civ. 15.]
[Footnote 36: Ps. cxix. 155.]
For though I took no pains to learn what he spake, but only to hear how
he spake (for that empty care alone was left me, despairing of a way, open for
man, to Thee), yet together with the words which I would choose, came also
into my mind the things which I would refuse; for I could not separate them.
And while I opened my heart to admit "how eloquently he spake," there also
entered "how truly he spake;" but this by degrees. For first, these things
also had now begun to appear to me capable of defence; and the Catholic faith,
for which I had thought nothing could be said against the Manichees`
objections, I now thought might be maintained without shamelessness;
especially after I had heard one or two places of the Old Testament resolved,
and oftentimes "in a figure," ^37 which when I understood literally, I was
slain spiritually. Very many places then of those books having been explained,
I now blamed my despair, in believing that no answer could be given to such as
hated and scoffed at the Law and the Prophets. Yet did I not therefore then
see that the Catholic way was to be held, because it also could find learned
maintainers, who could at large and with some show of reason answer
objections; nor that what I held was therefore to be condemned, because both
sides could be maintained. For the Catholic cause seemed to me in such sort
not vanquished, as still not as yet to be victorious.
[Footnote 37: I Cor. xiii. 12; 2 Cor. iii. 6.]
Hereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by any
certain proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once have conceived
a spiritual substance, all their strongholds had been beaten down, and cast
utterly out of my mind; but I could not. Notwithstanding, concerning the frame
of this world, and the whole of nature, which the senses of the flesh can
reach to, as I more and more considered and compared things, I judged the
tenets of most of the philosophers to have been much more probable. So then
after the manner of the Academics (as they are supposed) doubting of
everything, and wavering between all, I settled so far, that the Manichees
were to be abandoned; judging that, even while doubting, I might not continue
in that sect, to which I already preferred some of the philosophers; to which
philosophers notwithstanding, for that they were without the saving Name of
Christ, I utterly refused to commit the cure of my sick soul. I determined
therefore so long to be a Catechumen in the Catholic Church, to which I had
been commended by my parents, till something certain should dawn upon me,
whither I might steer my course.
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