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Second BookResidence at Carthage
Residence at Carthage
His residence at Carthage from his seventeenth to his nineteenth year.
Source of his disorders. Love of shows. Advance in studies, and love of
wisdom. Distaste for Scripture. Led astray to the Manichaeans. Refutation of
some of their tenets. Grief of his mother Monnica at his heresy, and prayers
for his conversion. Her vision from God, and answer through a Bishop.
To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron
of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a
deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love,
in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares. For within
me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine
I was not hungered; but was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance,
not because filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For
this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself
forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense. Yet if these
had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love then, and to be
beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I
loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of
concupiscense, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness;
and thus foul and unseemly, I would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine
and courtly. I fell headlong then into the love wherein I longed to be
ensnared. My God, my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great
goodness besprinkle for me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and
secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with
sorrow-bringing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods
of jealousy, and suspicion, and fears, and angers, and quarrels.
Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries, and of
fuel to my fire. Why is it, that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful
and tragical things, which yet himself would by no means suffer? yet he
desires as a spectator to feel sorrow at them, and this very sorrow is his
pleasure. What is this but a miserable madness? for a man is the more affected
with these actions, the less free he is from such affections. Howsoever, when
he suffers in his own person, it used to be styled misery; when he
compassionates others, then it is mercy. But what sort of compassion is this
for feigned and scenical passions? for the auditor is not called on to
relieve, but only to grieve: and he applauds the actor of these fictions the
more, the more he grieves. And if the calamities of those persons (whether of
old times, or mere fiction) be so acted, that the spectator is not moved to
tears, he goes away disgusted and criticising; but if he be moved to passion,
he stays intent, and weeps for joy.
Are griefs then too loved? Verily all desire joy. Or whereas no man likes
to be miserable, is he yet pleased to be merciful? which because it cannot be
without passion, for this reason alone are passions loved? This also springs
from that vein of friendship. But whither goes that vein? whither flows it?
wherefore runs it into that torrent of pitch bubbling forth those monstrous
tides of foul lustfulness, into which it is wilfully changed and transformed,
being of its own will precipitated and corrupted from its heavenly clearness?
Shall compassion then be put away? by no means. Be griefs then sometimes
loved. But beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the guardianship of my God,
the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted above all for ever,
^1 beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased to pity; but then in the
theatres I rejoiced with lovers when they wickedly enjoyed one another,
although this was imaginary only in the play. And when they lost one another,
as if very compassionate, I sorrowed with them, yet had my delight in both.
But now I much more pity him that rejoiceth in his wickedness, than him who is
thought to suffer hardship, by hissing some pernicious pleasure, and the loss
of some miserable felicity. This certainly is the truer mercy, but in it grief
delights not. For though he that grieves for the miserable, be commended for
his office of charity; yet had he, who is genuinely compassionate, rather
there were nothing for him to grieve for. For it good will be ill willed which
can never be), then may he, who truly and sincerely commiserates, wish there
might be some miserable, that he might commiserate. Some sorrow may then be
allowed, none loved. For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more
purely than we, and hast more incorruptibly pity on them, yet are wounded with
no sorrowfulness. And who is sufficient for these things? ^2
[Footnote 1: song of the Three Children, ver. 3]
[Footnote 2: 2 Cor. ii, 16]
But I, miserable, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at,
when in another`s and that feigned and personated misery, that acting best
pleased me, and attracted me the most vehemently, which drew tears from me.
What marvel that an unhappy sheep straying from Thy flock, and impatient of
Thy keeping, I became infected with a foul disease? And hence the love of
griefs; not such as should sink deep into me; for I loved not to suffer, what
I loved to look on; but such as upon hearing their fictions should lightly
scratch the surface; upon which, as on envenomed nails, followed inflamed
swelling, impostumes, and a putrefied sore. My life being such, was it life, O
my God?
And Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous iniquities
consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity, that having forsaken
Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous abyss, and the beguiling service of
devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil actions, and in all these things Thou
didst scourge me! I dared even, while Thy solemnities were celebrated within
the walls of Thy church, to desire, and to compass a business deserving death
for its fruits, for which Thou scourgedst me with grievous punishments, though
nothing to my fault, O Thou my exceeding mercy, my God, my refuge from those
terrible destroyers, among whom I wandered with a stiff neck, withdrawing
further from Thee, loving mine own ways, and not Thine; loving a vagrant
liberty.
Those studies also, which were accounted commendable, had a view to
excelling in the courts of litigation; the more bepraised, the craftier. Such
is men`s blindness, glorying even in their blindness. And now I was chief in
the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled with arrogancy,
though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether removed from the
subvertings of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish name was
the very" badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that
I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with
their friendship, whose doings I ever did abhor - i.e., their "subvertings,"
wherewith they wantonly persecuted the modesty of strangers, which they
disturbed by a gratuitous jeering, feeding thereon their malicious mirth.
Nothing can be liker the very actions of devils than these. What then could
they be more truly called than "subverters"? themselves subverted and
altogether perverted first, the deceiving spirits secretly deriding and
seducing them, wherein themselves delight to jeer at, and deceive others.
Among such as these, in that unsettled age of mine, learned I books of
eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent, out of a damnable and vainglorious
end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I fell upon a
certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire, not so his heart. This
book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius."
But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord;
and made me have other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became
worthless to me; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an
immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to Thee.
For not to sharpen my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with my
mother`s allowances, in that my nineteenth year, my father being dead two
years before), not to sharpen my tongue did I employ that book; nor did it
infuse into me its style, but its matter.
How did I burn then, my God, how did I burn to re-mount from earthly
things to Thee, nor knew I what Thou wouldst do with me? For with Thee is
wisdom. But the love of wisdom is in Greek called "philosophy," with which
that book inflamed me. Some there be that seduce through philosophy, under a
great, and smooth, and honourable name colouring and disguising their own
errors: and almost all who in that and former ages were such, are in that book
censured and set forth: there also is made plain that wholesome advice of Thy
Spirit, by Thy good and devout servant: Beware lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of
the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. ^3 And since at that time (Thou, O light of my heart, knowest)
Apostolic Scripture was not known to me, I was delighted with that
exhortation, so far only, that I was thereby strongly roused, and kindled, and
inflamed to love, and seek, and obtain, and hold, and embrace not this or that
sect, but wisdom itself whatever it were; and this alone checked me thus
enkindled, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according to
Thy mercy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Thy Son, had my tender heart, even
with my mother`s milk, devoutly drunk in, and deeply treasured; and whatsoever
was without that name, though never so learned, polished, or true, took not
entire hold of me.
[Footnote 3: Col. ii. 8, 9.]
I resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I might see
what they were. But behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud, nor
laid open to children, lowly in access, in its recesses lofty, and veiled with
mysteries; and I was not such as could enter into it, or stoop my neck to
follow its steps. For not as I now speak, did I feel when I turned to those
Scriptures; but they seemed to me unworthy to be compared to the stateliness
of Tully: for my swelling pride shrunk from their lowliness, nor could my
sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet were they such as would grow up in
a little one. But I disdained to be a little one; and, swollen with pride,
took myself to be a great one.
Therefore I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal and prating,
in whose mouths were the snares of the Devil, limed with the mixture of the
syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost,
the Paraclete, our Comforter. These names departed not out of their mouth, but
so far forth as the sound only and the noise of the tongue, for the heart was
void of truth. Yet they cried out "Truth, Truth," and spake much thereof to
me, yet it was not in them: ^4 but they spake falsehood, not of Thee only (who
truly art Truth), but even of those elements of this world, Thy creatures. And
I indeed ought to have passed by even philosophers who spake truth concerning
them, for love of Thee, my Father, supremely good, Beauty of all things
beautiful. O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul
pant after Thee, when they often and diversly, and in many and huge books,
echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the dishes
wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up the Sun
and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thyself, no nor Thy
first works. For Thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works,
celestial though they be, and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even
after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the Truth, in whom
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. ^5 yet they still set before me
in those dishes, glittering fantasies, than which better were it to love this
very sun (which is real to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by
our eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed
thereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou art; for
Thou wast not these emptiness, nor was I nourished by them, but exhausted
rather. Food in sleep shows very like our food awake; yet are not those asleep
nourished by it, for they are asleep. But those were not even any way like to
Thee, as Thou hast now spoken to me; for those were corporeal fantasies, false
bodies, than which these true bodies, celestial or terrestrial, which with our
fleshy sight we behold, are far more certain: these things the beasts and
birds discern as well as we, and they are more certain than when we fancy
them. And again, we do with more certainty fancy them, than by them conjecture
other vaster and infinite bodies which have no being. Such empty husks was I
then fed on; and was not fed. But Thou, my soul`s Love, in looking for whom I
fail, ^6 that I may become strong, art neither those bodies which we see,
though in heaven; nor those which we see not there; for Thou hast created
them, nor dost Thou account them among the chiefest of Thy works. How far then
art Thou from those fantasies of mine, fantasies of bodies which altogether
are not, than which the images of those bodies, which are, are far more
certain, and more certain still the bodies themselves, which yet Thou art not;
no, nor the soul, which is the life of the bodies. So then, better and more
certain is the life of the bodies than the bodies. But Thou art the life of
souls, the life of lives, having life in Thyself; and changest not, life of my
soul.
[Footnote 4: I John ii. 4.]
[Footnote 5: James i. 17]
[Footnote 6: Ps. lxix. 3.]
Where then wert Thou then to me, and how far from me? Far verily was I
straying from Thee, barred from the very husks of the swine, whom with husks I
fed. For how much better are the fables of poets and grammarians than these
snares? For verses, and poems, and "Medea flying," are more profitable truly
than these men`s five elements, variously disguised, answering to five dens of
darkness which have no being, yet slay the believer. For verses and poems I
can turn to true food, and "Medea flying," though I did sing, I maintained
not; though I heard it sung, I believed not; but those things I did believe.
Woe, woe, by what steps was I brought down to the depths of hell! ^7 toiling
and turmoiling through want of Truth, since I sought after Thee, my God (to
Thee I confess it, who hadst mercy on me, not as yet confessing), not
according to the understanding by the mind, wherein Thou willedst that I
should excel the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh. But Thou
wert more inward to me, than my most inward part; and higher than my highest.
I lighted upon that bold woman, simple and knoweth nothing, shadowed out in
Solomon, sitting at the door, and saying, Eat ye bread of secrecies willingly,
and drink ye stolen waters which are sweet: ^8 she seduced me, because she
found my soul dwelling abroad in the eye of my flesh, and ruminating on such
food as through it I had devoured.
[Footnote 7: Prov. ix. 18.]
[Footnote 8: Prov. ix. 13-17.]
For other than this, that which really is I knew not; and was, as it were
through sharpness of wit, persuaded to assent to foolish deceivers, when they
asked me, "whence is evil?" "is God bounded by a bodily shape, and has hairs
and nails?" "are they to be esteemed righteous who had many wives at once, and
did kill men, and sacrificed living creatures?" ^9 At which I, in my
ignorance, was much troubled, and departing from the truth, seemed to myself
to be making towards it; because as yet I knew not that evil was nothing but a
privation of good, until at last a thing ceases altogether to be; which how
should I see, the sight of whose eyes reached only to bodies, and of my mind
to a phantasm? And I knew not God to be a Spirit, ^10 not one who hath parts
extended in length and breadth, or whose being was bulk; for every bulk is
less in a part than in the whole: and if it be infinite, it must be less in
such part as is defined by a certain space, than in its infinitude; and so is
not wholly every where, as Spirit, as God. And what that should be in us, by
which we were like to God, and might in Scripture be rightly said to be after
the image of God, ^11 I was altogether ignorant.
[Footnote 9: I Kings xviii. 40.]
[Footnote 10: John iv. 24.]
[Footnote 11: Gen. i. 27.]
Nor knew I that true inward righteousness which judgeth not according to
custom, but out of the most rightful law of God Almighty, whereby the ways of
places and times were disposed according to those times and places; itself
meantime being the same always and every where, one thing in one place, and
another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, Jacob, and Moses,
and David, were righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God; but
were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man`s judgment, ^12 and
measuring by their own petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race.
As if is an armory, one ignorant what were adapted to each part should cover
his head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, and complain that
they fitted not: of as if on a day when business is publicly stopped in the
afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he
had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth some servant take
a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with; or
something permitted our of doors, which is forbidden in the dining-room; and
should be angry, that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not
allotted every where, and to all. Even such are they who are fretted to her
something to have been lawful for righteous men formerly, which now is not; or
that God, for certain temporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these
another, obeying both the same righteousness: whereas they see, in one man,
and one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members,
and a thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so; in one corner
permitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden and punished. Is
justice therefore various or mutable? No, but the times, over which it
presides, flow not evenly, because they are times. But men whose days are few
upon the earth, ^13 for that by their senses they cannot harmonise the causes
of things in former ages and other nations, which they had no experience of,
with these which they have experience of, whereas in one and the same body,
day, or family, they easily see what is fitting for each member, and season,
part, and person; to the one they take exceptions, to the other they submit.
[Footnote 12: I Cor. iv. 3.]
[Footnote 13: Job xiv. 1.]
These things I then knew not, nor observed; they struck my sight on all
sides, and I saw them not. I indited verses, in which I might not place every
foot every where, but differently in different metres; nor even in any one
metre the self-same foot in all places. Yet the art itself, by which I
indited, had not different principles for these different cases, but comprised
all in one. Still I saw not how that righteousness, which good and holy men
obeyed, did far more excellently and sublimely contain in one all those things
which God commanded, and in no part varied; although in varying times it
prescribed not every thing at once, but apportioned and enjoined what was fit
for each. And I, in my blindness, censured the holy Fathers, not only wherein
they made use of things present as God commanded and inspired them, but also
wherein they were foretelling things to come, as God was revealing in them.
Can it at any time or place be unjust to love God with all his heart,
with all his soul, and with all his mind; and his neighbour as himself? ^14
Therefore are those foul offences which be against nature, to be every where
and at all times detested and punished: such as were those of the men of
Sodom; which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the
same crime, by the law of God, which hath not so made men that they should so
abuse one another. For even that intercourse which should be between God and
us is violated, when that same nature, of which He is Author, is polluted by
perversity of lust. But those actions which are offences against the customs
of men, are to be avoided according to the customs severally prevailing; so
that a thing agreed upon, and confirmed, by custom or law of any city or
nation, may not be violated at the lawless pleasure of any, whether native or
foreigner. For any part which harmoniseth not with its whole, is offensive.
But when God commands a thing to be done, against the customs or compact of
any people, though it were never by them done heretofore, it is to be done;
and if intermitted, it is to be restored; and if never ordained, is now to be
ordained. For lawful if it be for a king, in the state which he reigns over,
to command that which no one before him, nor he himself heretofore, had
commanded, and to obey him cannot be against the common weal of the state
(nay, it were against it if he were not obeyed, for to obey princes is a
general compact of human society); how much more unhesitatingly ought we to
obey Godl in all which He commands, the Ruler of all His creatures! For as
among the powers in man`s society, the greater authority is obeyed in
preference to the lesser, so must God above all.
[Footnote 14: Matt. xxii. 37-39.]
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