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3 1924 079 583 476 
 
LIBRARY OF FATHERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, 
 
 ANTERIOR TO THE DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MEMBERS OP THE BNOLISH CHURCH. 
 
 YET SHALL NOT THY TEACHERS BE REMOVED INTO A CORNER ANY MOKE, BDT 
 THINE EYES SHALL SEE THY TEACHERS. Isaiuh XXX. 20. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER ; 
 
 J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. 
 
 MDCCCXL. 
 
BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD' 
 
TO THE 
 MOST REVEREND FATHER IN SOD 
 
 WILLIAM 
 
 LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 
 PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, 
 
 FOBMEBLY REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 
 
 , THIS LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 ANCIENT BISHOPS, FATHERS, DOCTORS, MARTYRS, CONFESSORS, 
 OF CHRIST'S HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, 
 
 IS 
 
 WITH HIS SRACe's PERMISSION 
 
 RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 
 
 IN TOKEN OF 
 
 REViRKNCE FOR HIS PERSON AND SACRED OFFICE, 
 
 AND OF 
 
 S-RATITUDK FOR HIS EPISCOPAL KINDNESS. 
 
THE 
 
 CONFESSIONS 
 
 S. AUGUSTINE. 
 
THE 
 
 C ONFE S SIGN S 
 
 S. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 REVISED FROM A FORMER TRANSLATION, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM S. AU&USTINE HIMSELF. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER; 
 
 J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. 
 
 MDCCCXL. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 The general objects of the " Library of the Fathers," have 
 been already summarily stated". It may however be well, 
 before entering on the particular work with which the series 
 is commenced, to make a few observations with reference to 
 such misapprehensions, or errors, as are not unlikely to arise. 
 For though certainly it should seem, that the writings of 
 men, ever venerated by the Church on whom they were be- 
 stowed, ought to be received with thankfulness ; yet, in the 
 present state of things, some wiU perhaps rather be suspicious 
 of the gift, through want of familiarity with the Fathers 
 themselves, and the principles of our Church with regard to 
 their value. A few words then may here be said, for the sake 
 of such as are honestly in doubt on the subject. More will 
 be avoided, lest we should seem to wish to be heard ourselves, 
 when our only wish is to obtain a hearing for those ancient wit- 
 nesses of Catholic truth, and ourselves also to listen to them. 
 At the same time, it must be said in the outset, that " authority" 
 is not put forth as the use of the Fathers; it is dwelt upon thus 
 prominently, only because it is an use, about which many 
 misapprehensions exist. 
 
 These misconceptions may be referred to three heads. 
 1. The amount of authority claimed: 2. For whom: and, 3. 
 For what that authority is claimed. For it seems by some to 
 be thought, thai, 1. The authority of the Fathers will interfere 
 whh the paramount authority of Holy Scripture. 2. That it 
 
 * Prospectus. See end of the vol. 
 
 b 
 
ii PHEFACE. 
 
 involves ascribing undue authority to men fallible like our- 
 selves, and exalting the dicta of one or the other Father, 
 which may be erroneous. 3. That the appeal to the Fathers 
 entails a disparagement of the authority of our own Church, 
 and innovations upon her discipline or doctrine. 
 
 They, who so tliink, are of c6urse right to be jealous for 
 these things, — if only they be careful that they are jealous for 
 the authority of Holy Scripture and of our Church, not for 
 their own constructions of either ; — every Churchman should 
 be careful that he place not any private authority, whether of 
 ancient or modern, Father or recent teacher, domestic autho- 
 rity or foreign, Churchman or Sectarian, above that of his 
 Church, or put any human authority on a par with Holy 
 Scripture. Our Church, however, once, solemnly met, did 
 ascribe considerable authority to the Fathers, and it will be 
 plain, both from the circumstances, and from the tenor of the 
 words which she used, that she therein neither derogated from 
 her own legitimate authority, nor from the supreme authority 
 of Holy Scripture. It is plain from the circumstances, because 
 it was the act of the Convocation of A.D. 1571, the same 
 Convocation, which enforced Subscription to our Articles, — 
 an act certainly evidencing their sense of the power of a par- 
 ticular Church, and one involving the claim of considerable 
 authority; and those Articles decidedly recognizing Holy 
 Scripture, as the sole ultimate source of authority. In this 
 very Convocation, in which she exerted her own authority, 
 she secured also the legitimate authority of the Fathers. She 
 then enacted, 
 
 The Clergy shall be careful never to teach any 
 
 THING from the PULPIT, TO BE RELIGIOUSLY HELD AND 
 
 believed by the people, but what is agreeable to the 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE OlD OR NeW TESTAMENT, AND COXLECTED 
 OUT OF THAT SAME DOCTRINE BY THE CaTHOLIC FaTHERS, 
 AND ANCIENT BiSHOPS. 
 
 Thus at the same time that she was, by enforcing subscrip- 
 tion to the Articles, fencing herself round, as a particular 
 
PREFACE. iii 
 
 Church, she formally maintained her connection with the 
 Church Catholic, and made provision that her Ministers 
 should not narrow her teaching, but retain it as co-extensive 
 with that of the Universal Church. 
 
 The very language of this Canon itself shews, that the 
 rightful authority of the Fathers interferes neither with that 
 of Holy Scripture, nor with her own. 
 
 First then, there is no semblance of " contrasting Scripture 
 and the Fathers, as coordinate authority." Scripture is reve- 
 renced as paramoimt; the " doctrine of the Old or New 
 Testament" is the source ; the " Catholic Fathers and ancient 
 Bishops" have but the office of " collecting out of that same 
 doctrine ;" the Old and New Testaments are the fountain ; 
 the Catholic Fathers, the channel, through which it has flowed 
 down to us. The contrast, then, in point of authority, is 
 not between Holy Scripture and the Fathers, but between the 
 Fathers and its ; not between the Book interpreted and the 
 interpreters, but between one class of interpreters and another; 
 between ancient Catholic truth and modem private opinions; 
 not, as is sometimes said, between the word of God and the 
 word of man, but between varying modes of understanding 
 the word of God. Scripture is the depository of the will of 
 our Heavenly Father, His will. His covenant; but since 
 every thing conveyed in the language of men will be liable to 
 be by men differently interpreted, it would, of course, be a 
 merciful provision of Almighty God, if He has been pleased 
 to give us, within certain limits, rules for understanding that 
 word. Now any one would acknowledge, in any man's testa- 
 ment, that if the father, when yet with his children, had ex- 
 plained to them the meaning of his testament, (whether 
 formally reading it to them, or conveying to them its substance 
 in other words,) such an exposition would be of great authority 
 in ascertaining the meaning of the general tenor of that testa- 
 ment, or of any portion of it which might otherwise seem 
 capable of two interpretations. And if such children, when 
 their father was no longer present here, were, when asked, 
 
 b2 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 without any wrong bias, to explain such will in one and the 
 same way, and to declare that their father had told them that 
 it was so to be understood, we should yield unhesitating assent 
 to this testimony. Nor again would our value for that testi- 
 mony be weakened, if, instead of the immediate children, the 
 children's children should be the witnesses, especially had 
 they been separated from each other in different countries, yet 
 all agreed in the meaning which they had learnt from their 
 several parents was to be attached to the will of their common 
 father. All such illustrations as this must indeed fall short of 
 the truth, because such reference to the things of men can 
 furnish no adequate parallel to those of God. Thus, this 
 illustration omits, that Holy Scripture is not a formal document, 
 written for the purpose of conveying systematic, precise, state- 
 ments ; or, again, that God did not leave the meaning of His 
 word to be collected any how, or ever did employ it without 
 living guardians and expounders, and the like. It suffices, 
 however, for the purpose for which it is here used. It gives 
 an instance, how in the case of such agTeement as to the 
 meaning of a document, no one would doubt about it; (the 
 testimony of the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, was valid 
 testimony as to that which their father commanded them ;) 
 nor, in the case of a written document, would any one say that 
 these witnesses were regarded as equal in authority to that to 
 whose meaning they bore testimony, since the very fact of 
 appealing to, and expounding an original document, implies 
 that it is the ultimate source of authority; it is not, as men 
 say, its independence, but ours, which is denied ; it is the 
 independent source of authority ; but we, to be satisfied of its 
 meaning, are not independent, (as some would wish lo be,) 
 but depend upon the testimony of others. These points then 
 are plain; 1. The paramount authority of the document ap- 
 pealed to. 2. The authority of concurring testimony to its 
 meaning, if it is to be had from those to whom its meaning 
 was originally explained, or their descendants. Now this is 
 just what is claimed by our Church for the Fathers, i. e. for 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 the ancient Church, in whatever way its testimony is to be 
 collected; whether they had themselves occasion to deposit it 
 once for all, as at the General Councils (truly so called), or 
 whether, though not collected by themselves, it is still capable 
 of being collected from them. They are witnesses, and in 
 whatever cases agreement is to be had, they are valid witnesses, 
 as to the sense in which God willed His Scripture to be un- 
 derstood. Thus, we are assured at once, without further 
 scruple, that theNicene Creed contains the Scriptural Doctrine 
 of the Holy Trinity, not only in case any can prove it to them- 
 selves to be such, (for as to some of its Articles many might 
 find much difficulty in so doing,) but because we have the 
 witness of the whole Church that it is so. We believe that it 
 " may be proved by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture," 
 (Art. VIII.) because it was so proved, and the Church Universal 
 bore witness that such was the meaning of Holy Scripture on 
 these awful truths, and that such was the interpretation which 
 they had received from their fathers, and so from the Apostles. 
 It is our privilege, that questions so decided are closed — ^not 
 against us, but for us — or, if we so will, for us against our- 
 selves. We have ground to be satisfied that the results so 
 gained are true, and may benefit by them, without the labour 
 of further questioning. We are satisfied to " receive them as 
 agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testaments," 
 even because " the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have 
 gathered it out of that very Doctrine," for us as well as for 
 themselves. The Fathers, then, are not, as some mistakenly 
 suppose, equalled, much less preferred, to Holy Scripture, 
 but only to ourselves, i. e. the ancient to the modem, the 
 waters near the fountain to the troubled sestuary rolled back- 
 ward and forward by the varying tide of human opinion, and 
 rendered brackish by the continued contact with the bitter 
 waters of this world, unity to disunion, the knowledge of the 
 near successors of the Apostles to that of these latter times. 
 
 The same will be the case as to any other truths, '' consen- 
 taneous to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament," 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 which the Fathers had not occasion to collect, but which still 
 may be collected from their existing works. The Creeds, 
 indeed, happily contain the great mass of Doctrine, although 
 even as to these, (as is apparent from the very expositions of 
 the Creeds, e. g. Bp. Pearson's,) a further enquiry is necessary 
 to ascertain what is the precise meaning of these compendious 
 statements in some of their Articles. The process in such 
 cases may be longer, but the result the same. We become 
 assured that we know what was the Apostolic doctrine, when 
 we have the agreement of early and independent witnesses as 
 to that Doctrine. 
 
 2. There can be no notion of " appealing to fallible men, 
 as of ultimate authority, or setting up unduly the authority of 
 one or other of the Fathers." The appeal of our Church is not 
 to the Fathers, mdividually, or as individuals, but as witnesses; 
 not to this or that Father, but to the whole body, and agreement 
 of" Catholic Fathers and ancient J3ishops." The appeal is not 
 to St. Athanasius, or St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, much as we have 
 reason to venerate those blessed servants of God, but to " the 
 Church Universal throughout the world," to whose belief these 
 are eminent, but still single, witnesses. We could not tell, 
 from any single Father, unless where he directly avers it, 
 whether any sentiment or statement of doctrine be peculiar to 
 himself or his own Church, or to some particular Churches, or 
 whether, finally, it belong to the belief of the Holy Church 
 Universal. It may be, that any given Father, on some parti- 
 cular point, is not speaking as a witness at all, but expressing 
 only his own individual sentiments, as an enlightened Chris- 
 tian of the present day might. Not but that he would even 
 then be to be regarded with deference by individuals, (unless 
 indeed he should be at variance with the majority of the 
 ancients,) but it would be, in part, in a different capacity. 
 We should regard him then with respect, in that he lived in 
 holier and more self-denying times, before the Church was 
 divided, while the memory of the truths first delivered was 
 fresher, and men's perception of the " analogy of the Faith" 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 more vivid. There would be greater likelihood that he would 
 be in the right, as an individual, in that the tone of his mind 
 would be more likely to be in entire accordance with that of 
 the Holy Spirit, that he would have larger measures of that 
 Spirit, and have no opposing prejudices to disturb His influence. 
 There would be a greater likelihood also of his being a witness, 
 in that the statement which he was delivering, may very pro- 
 bably have been aflFected or produced by the body of Catholic 
 truth then floating in the Church, but which has not arrived 
 orally down to us, or for which we have, through later circum- 
 stances, a less keen perception. Still, we have thus far only 
 a probability that he was herein speaking the truth, and it 
 might be that he was under some secret bias of his own, as 
 St. Augustine has generally been held to be with regard to 
 some part of his controversy with the Pelagians. The words 
 then of an individual Father may be only those of an enlight- 
 ened man ; it is only by their harmony or unity with others, 
 that we ascertain them to be part of the Catholic Verities. 
 By comparing them with those of other members of his 
 Church, (who have ever been quoted as of eminence in each 
 Church,) we should ascertain them to be the doctrines of that 
 Church ; by comparison with other Churches, to be part of 
 the teaching of the Church Catholic. Each Father is, in the 
 first instance, probably a witness for the doctrine of his own 
 Church, and indirectly, and ultimately, through his Church, 
 of the Church Catholic, if so be his Church herein agree with 
 the other Churches. For, some things we find in the African, 
 some in the Latin Church, peculiar to those Churches j some 
 things, again, in two or more Churches, which yet we have no 
 proof that they were ever Catholic. Things so held, or prac- 
 tices so received, (such as the re-baptizing of heretics, held in 
 the Churches of Africa proper, Egypt, Asia Minor,) would, of 
 course, be entitled to their degree of weight, in that they were 
 so entertained in ancient or Apostolic Churches, and would 
 claim the more respect, if it should appear that there was no 
 positive evidence on the other side, (as in case other Churches 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 knew not of them, but knew of no authority positively opposed 
 to them ;) — still they would be to be regarded very differently 
 from what was universally received. It is that only, which, 
 according to Vincentius' invaluable rule, was received " by 
 all, in all Churches, and at all times," (i. e. that, whose begin- 
 ning cannot be traced, so that it should appear that the Church 
 ever knew not of it, and in the evidence of whose reception 
 there are no flaws, as if it should appear not to have been held 
 either by distinct Churches, or by eminent individuals in each 
 Church,) which has the degree of evidence, upon which we 
 can undoubtingly pronounce that it is Apostolic. 
 
 3. Our Church being a sound member of the Church Ca- 
 tholic, " there is no notion of innovating upon her doctrine or 
 practice," but rather of bringing out more fully how Catholic 
 that doctrine and practice are, to determine in many cases 
 what the meaning of her teaching is, to shew things to be Ca- 
 tholic and Primitive, and so Apostolic, which people, because 
 they have only seen them in our Church, think to be human. 
 Thus, much doctrine is contained in our Collects, much in our 
 Sacramental Services, which, as belonging to high antiquity, 
 can only be fiilly understood by means of that antiquity 
 whence it is derived ; and which, so understood, will appear 
 in its real character, as part of those primitive ordinances or 
 teaching, which the Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit 
 to establish or impart in the Churches, which they severally 
 founded. Thus, as far as any appeal is made to antiquity, 
 as, in the other case, it is made, not to the disparagement of 
 Scripture, (God forbid !) but against modem interpretations 
 of Scripture, so here it is made, not against our own Church, 
 or as wishing to superadd any thing to it, but against modem 
 misinterpretations of her meaning. The great object of prac- 
 tical and reverential men, must be, for a long time, confined 
 to bringing out her existing system, in its depth, beauty, 
 and fulness: if it should please God, that these should be 
 ever fully and generally appreciated and felt in the Church, 
 not with the patrouizing pretensions of" friends of the Church," 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 but with the dutiful devotion of sons, they, whose minds shall 
 have been so purified and enlightened, will doubtless be 
 guided to do what is best for their parent ; our office is not to 
 amend her, but respectfully to learn her real character our- 
 selves, and convey it to those who wish to know it. Rather, 
 the office of the present generation is to restore her sons to 
 her ; and she, when she shall again be raised from the dust, 
 and have put on her jewels, like a bride, will be led by the 
 Spirit of the Church, to do what is best for her children. 
 What is done for the Church, as a whole, must be done by 
 the Church, as a whole. 
 
 The object then of recalling men's attention to the Fathers, 
 so far as relates to the establishment of doctrine or practice, 
 is, subordinately to Scripture, to bring out the meaning of 
 Holy Scripture, and, with respectful deference to our Church, 
 to lead people to see the Catholic and Primitive character 
 and meaning of the treasures which she possesses. To those 
 who doubt whether there be any such thing as Catholic agree- 
 ment, having been accustomed to partial statements of the 
 variations of the Fathers, it can only be said, as of old time, 
 " Come and see ;" and we doubt not that they who have the 
 candour of Nathanael, will, imder the guise of flesh, see Him 
 Whom they seek, — will,inhis Church, see Him, Who promised 
 to be with His Church, " even to the end of the world," per- 
 vading by His Spirit men of different temperaments, intellec- 
 tual powers, learning, speech, discipline or depth or acuteness 
 of mind, but fitting them alike, by docility and holiness, to 
 carry on His message to the Church, and keep and transmit 
 to us that one good thing committed unto them. 
 
 Meanwhile one or two remarks or cautions may be of use, 
 with a view to prepare the more candid of those who have 
 misgivings about the Fathers, to receive them, 'as not to 
 receive them amiss. 
 
 It is not denied, then, that there is diversity among the 
 Fathers ; the very contrary is implied in the very distinction 
 of what is Catholic, and what is not ; since, if there were no 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 diversity, all would be Catholic. But then, as Bp. Beveridge'' 
 well retorts the objection, " all the dissensions which have 
 been raised among them on certain points, take nothing from 
 their supreme authority on those points on which they agree, 
 but rather in an eminent degree confirm it. For the fact 
 that in other things they have differed, most plainly manifests, 
 that those things, on which they have agreed, they have 
 handed down, not from any compact or agreement, not from 
 any party formed, not from any communication of design, nor, 
 finally, from their own private opinions, but naked and unadul- 
 terated, as derived from the common and general interpretation 
 of the Universal Church. And indeed, although, on certain 
 less necessary points, as well of faith as of discipline, the 
 ancient Fathers do in some little degree differ one from an- 
 other, yet that very many things have been received with the 
 fiillest agreement by all, is so clear, that we may judge of it 
 with our own eyes. For there are many things, which we see 
 have been defined by the Universal Church in Councils truly 
 oecumenical, many things which have been approved by the 
 consent of several, many things by the consent of all the 
 writers of the Church ; many things, finally, concerning which 
 there was in ancient times no controversy moved; some of 
 this class have been mentioned by us above, to which very 
 many others may be added ; those especially, which, although 
 not definitively prescribed in Holy Scripture, have yet been 
 retained by our very pious and prudent reformers of the 
 English Church." 
 
 Any one, indeed, who would reflect how many subjects are 
 contained in our Creeds, and how many other truths these 
 involve, how many again in our Liturgy, and how many prac- 
 tices and rites are herein contained, on all which there was 
 universal agreement in the ancient Church, will be slow to 
 receive the vague assertions of the discordancy of her teachers, 
 
 ' In his most valuable preface to the of Lirins' Commonitory, Oxford, 1836, 
 Codex Canonum. The translation pre- has been employed, 
 fixed to the Translation of Vineentius 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 which are wont to be made by such as have but a superficial 
 acquaintance with Christian antiquity. For a superficial ac- 
 quaintance, and a superficial view, will only see discrepancy, 
 where to one who can see a little below the surface, all is 
 unity and harmony. The rills are different, the spring one. 
 Then, also, the points of disagreement (where there is such) 
 are offshoots, so to speak, remotely connected with the trunk, 
 not the main stem of doctrine or practice : or they are details, 
 where agreement is in principle ; or they are points, which 
 have been left free for the human mind to expatiate upon, 
 and on which no definite result has been communicated, or is 
 to be looked for. Disagreement on such points does not affect 
 agreement upon the others, unless there be no such thing as 
 partial knowledge, or unless because " we know in part," we 
 know nothing, and are to be sceptics, because we are not " as 
 God." And, in truth, these notions of Christian antiquity 
 originate in an imconscious, and may, and have ended, in a 
 conscious, scepticism. 
 
 There is, indeed, one ground, on which people rest their 
 despair of finding agreement in Christian antiquity, (per- 
 haps, more truly in many cases, their hope that they may 
 find none against themselves,) which deserves respect, for the 
 sake of the source whence it is drawn : the descriptions of 
 early divisions and heresies, in Holy Scripture. But the in- 
 ference is founded on two mistakes ; 1. The divisions were 
 not between the recognized teachers of the Church ; nor 
 arose in misapprehensions of their doctrine ; but the carnal 
 among those who were taught, " would not endure sound 
 doctrine ;" and so " heaped to themselves" heretical " teach- 
 ers." Thus Paul and Apollos taught the same doctrine ; it is 
 the rivalry of Aere^icaZ teachers, which St. Paul condemns; 
 in speaking whereof, St. Paul " transfers to himself and 
 Apollos" what others were guilty of, that they might " learn 
 in them," that there was to be no private teaching or authority 
 in the Church ; no name, however high, was to be set up as 
 being any thing individually ; but all were to " speak the 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 same thing'," as having but one Gospel to deliver, and " with 
 one mind, one mouth, glorify God''." 2. The authors of these 
 heresies ceased to be members of the Church, " they went 
 out from us ;" so that one must not only speak of heresies, 
 or heretical teachers " creeping into the Church," but of their 
 being ejected out of it. They strove to assimilate themselves 
 to it, but they could not ; the inherent vitality of the Church 
 separated and rejected them from it ; and if they still appeared 
 on its surface, no one could any more mistake them for the 
 Church, than in a fair human countenance they would the 
 foul matter, which the healthy action of the body had detached 
 firom itself. Hence St. Augustine takes blame to himself, 
 for not having been at pains to ascertain the Church's doc- 
 trine, and having carped at what, after all, were but his own 
 notions of it'. So then he might have known it, had he 
 pleased. There was a recognized body of Catholic truth, 
 which belonged to the Church, and which whoso willed, might 
 know to be her's. The modem doubts as to the meaning of 
 the Church had no place then. In truth, the existence of early 
 heresies, so far from at all disparaging Catholic unity, the 
 more illustrates it ; there was unity within the Church, and 
 that unity so living and so powerful, that whoso abandoned 
 the true doctrine ceased to be a member of it ; " they went 
 out from us, because they were not of us." " The rejection 
 of heretics," says St. Augustine', " makes the tenets of Thy 
 Chm-ch and sound doctrine stand out more clearly." Even in 
 a less healthy state of the Church, it becomes clear in the long 
 run, which doctrine was of the Church, which in the Church 
 only; no one, for instance, would mistake Hoadley for a 
 representative of the English Church, though the Church had 
 not strength to cast him out, but he sat in high ofSce within 
 her. The waters clear as they flow on; much more then, 
 when the primitive awe of the Church was so great, and her 
 consciousness of the sacredness of her deposit so vivid, that 
 
 = 1 Cor. 1, 10. e Conf. vi. §. 4, 5. pp. 89, 90. 
 
 <1 Rom. 15, 6. f Conf. vii. §. 25. p. 128. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 they who violated it, stood convicted as offenders and aliens, 
 and " went away ashamed." 
 
 And not only was the line thus distinctly drawn between the 
 Church, and the heretical depravations of her doctrine, but, 
 even within the bosom of the Church, Christian antiquity 
 itself stamped the peculiar opinions, even of those whom in 
 the main it honoured. We ourselves also, in that we speak 
 familiarly of the harshness of Tertullian, the predestinarianism 
 of St. Austin, Origen's speculativeness, Arnobius' deficient ac- 
 quaintance with the Gospel he defended, are witnesses that 
 there is a tangible distinction between Catholic truth and 
 individual opinion. We discovered not these peculiarities for 
 ourselves, nor that they were peculiarities; they were not dis- 
 covered by any modems, nor was it by reference to any 
 standard of our own, that we knew them to be such ; they 
 came down to us in the stream, along with our knowledge of 
 the writers themselves, and previous to any acquaintance of 
 our own with them ; i. e. together with the doctrines, and 
 opinions, which are known to have been held by the Fathers 
 of the Christian Church, there were handed down to us certain 
 criteria, whereby to judge of them. We have not received 
 (as many now seem to think) a confused heap of opinions, 
 expositions, doctrines, errors, which we are to unravel as we 
 may, but a well-ordered body of truth, digested into its several 
 compartments, and arranged, what was accepted, what unde- 
 cided, what rejected, for those who wish to see. Those who 
 will, may indeed dispute, whether Catholic truth be indeed 
 truth, or whether it must not first be submitted to their own 
 private judgment, to receive its stamp, and so be received, not 
 on its own authority, but on theirs, not because it is in itself 
 truth, but because it appears to a given individual to be such. 
 But they who will, will have no difficulty in ascertaining what 
 Catholic Truth is. It is plain, well-defined, uniform, con- 
 sistent. 
 
 Only we must not set up an estimate of that Truth for our- 
 selves, and make that a criterion of it, or decide that those 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 things can be no portion of it, which are contrary to our own 
 received notions. It may be, for instance, that systems of 
 interpretation, which are now almost universally abandoned, 
 are true, however foreign they may be to our notions, or 
 though to us, as being foreign, they must at first needs seem 
 fanciful. It is a vulgar and common-place prejudice, which 
 would measure every thing by its own habits of mind, and 
 condemn things as fanciful, to which itself is unaccustomed, 
 simply because, confined and contracted by treading its own 
 matter-of-fact round, it cannot expand itself to receive them, 
 or has no power to assimilate them to its own previous notions, 
 or adapt its own thought to them. It is the same habit, which 
 would laugh at one who came from a foreign clime, in a garb to 
 which a peasant-eye is unwonted. " He who laughs first," says 
 Dr. Johnson, " is the barbarian." A deeper philosophy sees 
 harmony, where the unobservant sees only discord. There is a 
 deep unity in Creation, though the Manichseans could resolve 
 its phsenomena, only upon the theory of two opposing princi- 
 ples; and that unity is not the less there though he cannot see 
 it. There is a deep unity also in the Primitive Church, God's 
 new Creation, although to those who reject the clue, it may 
 become an entangled labyrinth. It were absurd for the short- 
 sighted and unpractised to deny the existence of what them- 
 selves see not ; what one of practised sight sees, is there, . 
 although such as have been inured all their lives to look on 
 the surface of the ground close before them, see it not. The 
 horses and chariots of fire were round about Elisha, although 
 his servant saw them not, until, at the Prophet's prayer, " the 
 Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw" what 
 the Seer had all along seen". The Angel of the Lord stood 
 three times in the way to withstand Balaam, and the ass saw 
 him, though the prophet saw not, but " smote the ass," who 
 saved him firom being slain, until the Lord, who had " opened 
 the mouth" of the " dumb ass, speaking with man's voice," to 
 " forbid the madness of the prophet," " opened the eyes of 
 = 2 Kings 6, 13—1?. 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 Balaam, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the 
 way, and his sword drawn in his hand." The voice came really 
 from the cloud, although they who had no ears to hear, " said 
 that it thundered." Saul saw Him Whom he was persecuting, 
 and heard His words, although they that were with him heard 
 only an indistinct voice, and saw a light, but they " heard not 
 His voice," and " saw no man^:" or though Festus thought 
 him mad for attesting what he had seen. And not in cases 
 only of extraordinary revelations, but as an universal rule, 
 St. Paul says, " the carnal man cannot know the things of the 
 Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned* ;" he does 
 not simply turn away from them, but being or having become 
 what he is, he cannot see them, because he has not the faculty 
 whereby they are discerned. Nor is that prayer without 
 meaning, " Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold won- 
 drous things out of Thy law'." It may be then that they who 
 mock at the spiritual interpretations of the ancient Church, 
 do so because themselves are carnal; and it is antecedently 
 probable, because they do mock. At any rate, we must not 
 decide in our own cause ; we may not be " our own witnesses." 
 At the same time, in this as in other cases, a distinction 
 must be made between the general principle, (in this instance, 
 what would to most, as being unaccustomed to At, appear an 
 extreme of spiritual interpretation,) and the particular appli- 
 cations of it. The first is Catholic, the second may frequently 
 be individual, although in the details also there is a Catholic 
 system, and fragments of it may frequently be traced. 
 
 The caution, however, of not confounding what is individual 
 with what is Catholic, may be probably needed in the opposite 
 way. The Fathers are indeed, absolutely, no terra incognita 
 which we "have to explore, no sea, to which men are committed 
 without a compass ; rather its bearings have been laid down, 
 and its depths sounded, by our standard Anglo-Catholic 
 divines ; and what remains to be filled up, is in detail only. 
 
 * Acts 9, 7. 22, 9. comp. Dan. = 1 Cor. 2, 14. 
 10, 7. ^ Ps. 119, 18. 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 Still they are relatively unknown ; and it is to be expected 
 that many mistakes might be made by ardent minds, throw- 
 ing themselves at once into the rich and pleasant fields 
 opened to them, if uncautioned. It may then be a necessary, 
 though obvious, caution to the young, to beware of taking up 
 at once, what may be no portion of Catholic Truth, although 
 it occur in some particular Father, whom one with reason 
 venerates, as also of exaggerating the importance of what may 
 be new to any one, or of applying it, before he be sure that 
 he have well grasped it. Catholic truth is indeed a broad, 
 deep, clear, full, all-uniting tide, the unity of the world, which 
 it pervades, penetrates, encompasses, holds together ; yet may 
 it be easily disturbed, so that its face should no longer 
 purely reflect that Heaven, which ordinarily rests and is 
 mirrored on its deep waters. Precipitancy in embracing or 
 refusing truth may alike injure its solid reception; but the 
 former will, by its incongruities, cause the truth itself to be 
 evil spoken of. 
 
 It has been, in part with a view to anticipate such an abuse 
 of the Fathers, that the selection now proposed has been 
 rendered so varied ; no one Father is to be taken as our 
 model, or rule ; for no one mind can embody within itself the 
 whole of the Catholic Faith, in equal depth ; one brings out 
 one portion, another, another, as to each was given ; one exhibits 
 it in one form, another in another; (although each in har- 
 mony with, and subordinate to, the " proportion of Faith,") 
 and whoso accordingly should rest himself upon any one 
 Father, and form himself on him, would risk taking what was 
 peculiar to that Father, the especial hue and tinge which 
 Catholic Truth received in his mind, rather than that full 
 Truth itself^ We dare no longer say, with St. Cyprian of 
 TertuUian, " Da Magistrum," since we are no longer prac- 
 tically surrounded by that Catholic atmosphere, or imbued 
 with that Catholic ^9o;, which should correct to us the ten- 
 dency of such exclusive study. We may not be Augustinians, 
 any more than Calvinists or Lutherans; for though St. Angus- 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 tine made no system, but transmitted Catholic Truth, unsys- 
 tematized, and so unnarrowed, we might readily form a system 
 out of St. Augustine, as indeed the effects of a too exclusive 
 study of St. Augustine manifested themselves, though in 
 unequal degrees, in the Jansenists, and Luther and Calvin ; 
 the Jansenists retaining most of Catholic Truth, as uniting 
 that study with no theories of their own, yet still in a degree 
 narrowing it. Our Church, on the contrary, as it was originally 
 of Greek origin, and then, from the later Augustine, had 
 blended with it more of the character of the Western Church, 
 so, in its reformation and its later divines, has it united for its 
 model. East and West, the Fathers of all Churches, and 
 formed its teaching upon all. And they who would under- 
 stand and carry out her teaching, and teach in her spirit, 
 must, as did our great Divines of the seventeenth century, do 
 the like. 
 
 But besides this, which is a more external caution, there 
 are others even more necessary, as to the habits of mind of 
 those who enter with affection upon this study, and to the 
 end with which it is to be pursued. The end then is not 
 discovery of new truth, for new truth there is none in the. 
 Gospel; not any criticism of their own Church, this were 
 irreverent and ungrateful ; not to see with their own eyes, for 
 they will come to see with their own eyes, but not by making 
 this their object; not to compare ancient and modem systems, 
 and adopt the one or the other, or amalgamate both, taking 
 of each what seems to them truth; this were to subject the 
 truth of God, and the authority which He has placed over 
 them, to their own private judgment; it is not criticism 
 of any sort, no abstract result of any sort, nor even knowledge 
 in itself, but to understand and appreciate better and realize 
 more thoroughly the estate to which God has called them, as 
 members of that Branch of the Church Catholic, into which 
 they were baptized, and in which, perhaps, they have been, or 
 look to be, made His Ministers. They are not, or are not to 
 be, theorists in the Faith, but they are placed in a certain 
 
 c 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 definite practical position, involving practical duties ; their 
 business is not to speculate how things might have been 
 otherwise, but to live up to what they are ; not to set them- 
 selves above their own Church, but rather, if they must 
 discover something, discover how many Catholic points there 
 are in her, which they have not as yet tnown to be such, 
 which they have not realized or filled up. 
 
 This indeed is the great practical end of the study of the 
 Fathers — not to prove any thing, not to satisfy ourselves of 
 any thing, but to bring more vividly home to our own 
 thoughts and, consciousness the rich treasures of doctrine and 
 devotion, which our Church has from their days brought 
 down for us. Our Creeds and the main part and centre of 
 our Liturgy, being an inheritance from the same ages of which 
 the Fathers were " burning and shining lights," must needs 
 receive vividness and life, from being used in the light of 
 those ages, of which they are some of the most precious 
 relics. And whoso, after having imbibed, according to his 
 measure, the spirit of the Fathers, and therewith indeed 
 drunk in the Spirit, which was promised to and dwells in the 
 Church, shall afterwards examine our Liturgy and Offices, 
 our Homilies, Rubrics, nay our very Calendar or our ancient 
 Ecclesiastical Institutions, will be astonished and awed to find 
 by what memorials of primitive ages we are every where sur- 
 rounded, and we " knew it not," and how we have, provided for 
 our use, so soon as we have eyes to discern itjjust what people 
 are now looking for, or feehng after. 
 
 Catholic Antiquity, rightly and devotionally studied, is 
 calculated to satisfy these cravings, to provide a haven for 
 those weary of modern questionings, to fill up Christian 
 belief to its full height and depth, where we (amid what we 
 give out iox practical statements of it, because they are wwdoc- 
 trinal) have often contented ourselves with a mere skeleton, to 
 restore a deeper study of Scripture, a more faithful fulfilment 
 of Scripture duty, a perception of Scripture duty and obliga- 
 tion, where we now see none, and higher duties, where we 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 see only lower, and the privilege of having higher duty, where 
 we think chiefly of the privilege of our unrestrained state. 
 So, by the blessing of Almighty God, may primitive practice 
 and primitive piety flourish again and abound in our Apo- 
 stolic Church ; and she, who unites within herself East and 
 West, and has stretched out her arms and off'shoots into the 
 four quarters of the world, and furnishes a sort of type of the 
 Church Catholic, may realize to herself the treasures which 
 she possesses, be a faithful medium of conveying Catholic 
 Tmth wherever God has planted her, and avoid the penalty 
 of planting " strange slips," which, not being "planted" by her 
 Heavenly " Father, shall be rooted up," and " the harvest be 
 a heap in the day of grief and sorrow incurable *^." 
 
 The " Confessions" themselves have ever been a favourite 
 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 afiections 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^." And again, " what of my smaller works could be 
 more widely known or give greater pleasure than my Confes- 
 sions''.'" He further states their object, Ep. ad Darium, Ep. 
 231. " Accept the books of my Confessions, which you 
 wished for. There see me, and praise me not more than I 
 deserve; there believe, not others about me, but myself; there 
 mark me, and see what I was in myself, by myself; and if 
 aught in me please thee, there praise with me, Whom, and 
 not myself, I wished to be praised for me. For He ' made us, 
 and not we ourselves;' but we had destroyed ourselves; and 
 Who made, re-made us. But when you have then learnt what 
 I am, pray for me, that I fall not away, but be perfected." 
 
 f Is. 17, 11. •> De dono Perseverantise, c. 20, 
 
 B Retract. 1. ii. c. 6. 
 
 c 2 
 
xx PREFACE. 
 
 In modern times, they have been translated again and 
 again into almost every European language, and in all loved. 
 One may quote two sayings, prefixed to a French edition, 
 and which bear evident marks of sincerity : " O how I wish 
 the Confessions were familiar to all who hear me, that they 
 would read and re-read them unceasingly. For there is no 
 book in the world more capable to take away the human 
 heart from the vain, passing, perishable things, which the world 
 presents, and to cure self-love. I have known it but too late, 
 and cease not to grieve thereat." Another says, " The Con- 
 fessions of St. Augustine are, of all his works, that which is 
 most filled with the fire of the love of God, and most cal- 
 culated to kindle it in the heart; the most full of unction, 
 and most capable to impart it; and where one best sees how 
 faithfully and carefully this holy man recorded all the bless- 
 ings which he had received from the mercy of God." 
 
 The Confessions seemed also well calculated to commence 
 this " Library," as bringing to our acquaintance, through his 
 own reflections on his natural character and former self, one 
 of the most remarkable men, whom God has raised up as a 
 teacher in His Church. And, whatever we might beforehand 
 expect, or whatever some may have imagined to themselves 
 of early " corruptions of Christianity," the Fathers of this 
 period, have more which is akin to the turn of mind of these 
 later ages, than those of the earlier, St. Cyprian, perhaps, 
 alone excepted. As, on the one hand, the remains of this 
 period are larger, so also has the character of subsequent 
 ages been far more influenced and more directly formed by 
 them. Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Basil, Athanasius, 
 Jerome, have left a much deeper impress, and moulded suc- 
 ceeding periods in their own character far more than the 
 Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, or Ter- 
 tullian. These acted upon, and the peculiarities of some were 
 modified in, those who are to us intervening links, as Tertul- 
 lian in St. Cyprian, Origen in St. Ambrose. And the later 
 Fathers have in these cases preserved more especially what 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 is Catholic in their predecessors, free from that which 
 belonged to their individual character. The influence of 
 St. Augustine, especially, is very visible in Prosper of Aqui- 
 taine, Gregory the Great, and, in conj unction with the latter and 
 St. Jerome, in the Schoolmen , and so has, through the Reformers, 
 descended to us and our Church. It is plain, for instance, 
 that our Articles, in some cases, express Catholic truth through 
 the medium of the language of St. Augustine. And it is 
 remarkable, that a favourite work of modern times has borne 
 the title of " Meditations of St. Augustine," and people have 
 mistaken a compilation of an Abbot of Fescamp in France at 
 the end of the twelfth century, for that of a great Father of 
 the African Church in the fourth. So long has his light shone, 
 and so many, in after ages, has it kindled. But this being 
 the case, it seemed most natural to begin with those, by whom 
 ourselves had been — if, in these last days, imperceptibly, yet 
 — most directly formed, and through them to ascend to the 
 former ages and the writers, who had guided them in the 
 understanding of the common source of all knowledge, the 
 Holy Scriptures. 
 
 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, and Priscillianists. Such, not an autobio- 
 graphy, is the object of the Confessions; a praise and confes- 
 sion of God's unmerited goodness, but of himself only so 
 much, as might illustrate out of what depth God's mercy had 
 raised him. His proposed subject apparently was God's 
 protection and guidance through all his infirmities and errors, 
 to Baptism, wherein all his transgressions were blotted out ; 
 that so others who were in the same state in which he had 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 been, might " not sleep in despair, and say, ' I cannot ' ;' " 
 and, accordingly, his Confessions would close, according to 
 his own view, at the end of the ninth book ; the only events, 
 which he relates, subsequent to his conversion and baptism, 
 being those connected with his mother's death, to whose 
 prayers he had been given. It is evidently not without 
 reluctance, that in the tenth book, in compliance with the 
 importunity of some of the brethren, he enters at all into the 
 subject, " what he then was" at the interval of ten years ; nor 
 does he enter upon it, without much previous questioning, 
 and lingers upon an enquiry into the nature of memory, 
 which is only in part connected with his immediate question, 
 "By what faculty he came to know God," and not at all 
 with the subject proposed to him. He seems to have glided 
 into it, on occasion of his praise of God, and then to have 
 dwelt upon it, partly through that habit of exactness of mind, 
 which leads him to examine every question thoroughly, partly, 
 it should seem, as keeping him from a subject upon which 
 he had no inclination to enter. When moreover he does come 
 to it, he confines himself to such temptations as are common 
 to all, and so would lead to remarks which would be useful 
 to all, specially such as would increase vigilance, and omits 
 altogether such as are peculiar to himself. Thus, of the 
 trials, which beset his Episcopal office, love of praise is the 
 only one which he mentions, and that, incidentally only as 
 connected with that office. Meanwhile, his standard is mani- 
 festly (as appears, indeed, throughout) a very high one; in that 
 he felt vividly that account was to be given of all to God, and 
 neither eyes nor ears, the purest of the senses, were to be 
 allowed so to be distracted by temporal objects as to turn 
 the mind from its habitual contemplation of eternal. His 
 observations on " curiosity," here and elsewhere, would pro- 
 bably open to most in modem times, a class of duties and 
 dangers, of which they had little notion. Yet deeply as he 
 had been acquainted with sin, previous to his conversion and 
 
 i Conf. b. X. §. 4. 
 
PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 baptism, and now with the experience of ten years of purity 
 and duty, he felt it Christianly inexpedient to enter into 
 details. The same reserve is still more observable at the 
 beginning of the eleventh book. The question there had 
 apparently occurred to him, whether he should mention by 
 what means he was brought into Holy Orders : but after just 
 alluding " to the exhortations, terrors, comforts, guidances of 
 God" herein, he peremptorily cuts off the question, alleging 
 that his time was " too precious to him ;" and, as is known, 
 occupies the three remaining books of the Confessions, with 
 the exposition of the history of the Creation, (in part with 
 reference to Manichaean cavils,) and enquiries connected 
 therewi.h. His remaining writings contain very little to 
 supply this, and that little chiefly in an extorted vindication 
 of himself and his clergy k. 
 
 The same delicacy which dictated this selection of subjects, 
 is observable also in the previous books of the Confessions ; 
 here, indeed, the case was diflerent ; for this was the history 
 of a former self, a self which had been washed away by the 
 waters of Baptism, which was not the same self, and with 
 which he had no more to do, except to praise God, that it 
 was no longer he". In speaking of this self, which he was 
 not, there were not the same grounds for reserve, as in the 
 other ; yet here also, in one remarkable instance, which may 
 serve as a specimen, he alludes to a heinous act, aggravated 
 by having been committed in the house of God, and on which 
 God entailed punishment, but he does not even give a hint of 
 what nature that act was™. Although his subject is God's 
 mercies to himself, himself is the subject which he least likes 
 to dwell upon ; and most, probably, upon analyzing the Con- 
 fessions, would be surprised to find the comparative paucity of - 
 details, which they contain. For his principle being not to 
 convey notices of himself, but to praise God on occasion of 
 what bad happened to him or in him, he does not accumulate 
 
 k See p. 225, 6. note a. ■» B. iii. c. 3. p. 31. 
 
 1 See p. 223, note at the end of book x. 
 
xxiT PREFACE. 
 
 instances of his own wickedness, but rather singles out parti- 
 cular acts as instances or specimens of a class, and as furnish- 
 ing occasion to enquire into the nature of, or temptations to, 
 such acts. The " Confessions" then rather contain a general 
 sketch of his unconverted life, illustrated by some particular 
 'instances, than a regular biography. The details, on the 
 other hand, which he gives as to his friend Alypius", remark- 
 ably illustrate this absence of egotism, as does the brief 
 sentence in which he relates his conversion, " Alypius, who 
 always difiFered much from me for the better, without much 
 turbulent delay, joined me"." 
 
 This perhaps is it (next to the vivid account of his con- 
 version, or \he beautiful history of the last days of his mother) 
 which has given such an abiding interest to the Confessions. 
 With extreme naturalness, (as one to whom absence of self 
 had become nature,) he passes at once from the immediate 
 subject or fact to the principles with which it is connected, 
 thus giving instruction as to man, or rising to the reverent, 
 though eloquent, or rather to the eloquent, because reverent, 
 praise of God. Thus his youthful sin in robbing the pear 
 tree gives the occasion of enquiring into the nature of sins, 
 committed without apparent temptation'; the loss of his 
 friend, into the nature and real cure of grief'; his dedication 
 of an early work to one known by reputation only, into the 
 interest we bear to persons so known'; the effect produced 
 by the jollity of a drunken beggar, into the nature of joy" 
 and the like ; yet on all occasions ending not in these inqui- 
 ries, but naturally rising up to God, Who Alone can explain 
 what is mysterious, satisfy our longings, restore what is 
 defective, fill up what is void, or rather viewing every thing 
 habitually in God's sight and in His light, and so, from time 
 to time leading the reader more sensibly into His Presence, in 
 which himself unceasingly lived and thought. 
 
 » B.ti. c. 7—10. 1 B.iv. 
 
 • B. viii. ult. ■■ B. iv. 
 
 P B. ii. ■ B. yi. 
 
PREFACE. xxY 
 
 The same reference to principles gives interest to his 
 allusions, to the Manichseans, whom, as being at that time 
 formidable to the unstable, though now a forgotten heresy, he 
 never notices without furnishing opposite and corrective 
 principles. The value of these continues, as lying at the root of 
 the difficulty or temptation, which then gained proselytes to 
 Manicheism ; the inward bane and antidote being the same 
 in different ages, though Satan disguises his temptatipns dif- 
 ferently according to the varying characters of ages, people, 
 and climate. The principles upon which St. Augustine 
 meets the Manichsean cavils against the Old Testament, may 
 be of use in this day to a class which appears in a form out- 
 wardly very different ; as may the observations, (founded in 
 part upon his own experience,) on the effect of any one in- 
 dulged error to prevent the reception of other truth. 
 
 The last books are of a different character, being employed 
 upon a subject wholly different, though with the same tacit 
 reference to Manichsean errors and cavils ; this being a part of 
 the practical character of St. Augustine's mind, continually to 
 bear in mind the heresies by which his hearers were liable to 
 be entangled, and, not in a formal way, but in a word or the 
 turn of an expression, to convey the corrective. By those who 
 have been chiefly interested in the former part as biography, 
 these have been generally passed over ; and to persons un- 
 accustomed to abstract thought, the discussions on the nature 
 of time will be little attractive, nor may it altogether be 
 desirable for one, averse to typical interpretation, and who 
 has read Holy Scripture hitherto with modem eyes only, at 
 once to plunge into an exposition, which necessarily exhibits 
 the system of the ancient Church in so condensed and strong 
 a light. Yet to others, both may be of great use ; the abstract 
 discussionSj in that they shew how St. Augustine's acute and 
 philosophic mind saw things to be difficulties, which people 
 now-a-days think that they understand, because tbey know 
 certain rules, to which they have been subjected ; that, because 
 they can refer them to a certain class of objects, therefore they 
 
xxvi PREFACE. 
 
 understand the things themselves, and their common prin- 
 ciple, (as, because people can refer the tides or the solar 
 system, &c. to a principle of gravitation, that therefore they 
 understand what is the principle of gravitation, or why bodies 
 should possess this principle of attraction,) or because the 
 things themselves are plain and common things, and open to 
 observation, that therefore the hidden sources are plain and 
 open ; or because they are regular and men know the rules, 
 that therefore they know upon what the rule is founded. In 
 this age then of experimental and physical science, these dis- 
 cussions may be eminently useful, because by accumulating 
 facts we are hiding from ourselves our ignorance of prin- 
 ciples, and employing our knowledge as food for vanity, 
 instead of a ground of humility; all knowledge having two 
 sides, and each accession of knowledge discovering to us not 
 only something new, which we may know, but something 
 also which we cannot know, just as our chemical analysis, as 
 far as it has yet been carried, has at one and the same time 
 shewn that the elements are not elements, and that there are 
 many more elements than before; i. e. the further we carry 
 our researches, and the more we explain, the more are things 
 multiplied upon us which we cannot resolve or explain. Our 
 age, however, has contrived to fix its attention on the one 
 side, the things discovered, and thus, practically to persuade 
 itself that it is making progress towards discovering all which 
 is discoverable ; whereas these are infinite; and so, discoveries, 
 which may be numbered, can bear no ratio to them ; and on 
 the other hand, we are multiplying to ourselves the things 
 undiscoverable. To this habit of mind, it may be beneficial to 
 see how St. Augustine toiled in discovering what to many, and 
 to himself in a popular way, would seem so plain, as " what 
 is time ;" nor less interesting are his results, that it has no 
 existence of which we can take account, except in the human 
 mind, and that it has no relation whatever to eternity ; eternity 
 being no extension of time, and time being but a creature of 
 God, an incident only in eternity, which once was not, as it 
 
PREFACE. xxvii 
 
 shall once cease to be. Not that any thing would be by 
 this explained, but that it would appear that questions, which 
 the human mind is fond of raising, upon the supposition that 
 eternity is but lengthened time, are inexplicable, — that it has 
 not the data, upon which even to form them. 
 
 But these results are not the only reward of the study ; for 
 in the midst of investigations, abstract and to many dry, will 
 occur those golden sayings, which may at once shew how his 
 mind, amid every thing, burst upward towards his God, and 
 may teach how things abstract may be studied devotionally. 
 So also, amid the interpretations of Holy Scripture, even 
 those, to whom the analogy between the spiritual and moral 
 creation is less apparent than it was to the Fathers of the 
 Church, may still find what will be instructive to them, (e. g. 
 the distinction between " fruit" and a " gift',") as may the 
 interpretations themselves be, if, without attempting to force 
 themselves to receive what at first goes against them, they do 
 not yet, on its account, reject what even to them may seem 
 probable or natural, but, receiving this, are content to remain 
 in suspense and undecided as to any further points to which 
 they cannot yet familiarize themselves, until they become 
 more acquainted with these also, and have seen them presented 
 from different points of view, and associated and harmonizing 
 with others. For these interpretations are but fragments of a 
 gigantic system, with which we have been too little acquainted, 
 and of whose symmetry and mutual harmony we can form no 
 notion from a first view of a detached portion. This willing- 
 ness to remain in suspense for a time, receiving what seems 
 to be true, even though it involve apparently the truth of 
 other things which we cannot see, is a most important habit 
 of mind, a valuable corrective of the impatience of the present 
 day, and often the condition of our attaining to the truth 
 at all. 
 
 A pious mind cannot be wanting in real delicacy, and, on 
 this ground also, as well as from the indications of refinement 
 
 ' B. xiii. §. 39—42. 
 
xxviii PREFACE. 
 
 of mind, above pointed out, it will readily be anticipated, that 
 so devotional a mind as St. Augustine's, would not be wanting 
 in delicacy in alluding to the worst sins of his unregenerate 
 state. And so it in fact is ; he specifies only two periods of 
 sin, sin, which, alas! under a softened name, is familiarly 
 spoken of, by those who would be esteemed refined and " deli- 
 cate women." St. Augustine, on the contrary, uses strong 
 terms; he speaks of his sin in language which will be plain 
 to those, who, in Heathen antiquity, have been accustomed to 
 the like, but which is there made subservient to sin and vanity. 
 But to those, who, themselves pure, have skimmed lightly over 
 these subjects in Heathen antiquity or Christian heathenism, 
 these passages will convey no notion, except that he was 
 guilty of sin, which to himself afterwards was disgusting and 
 revolting. These two periods of sin alluded to he is compelled 
 to speak of, not merely as sources of sorrow and degradation, 
 but as the chief impediments to his conversion, the latter, 
 also, as a proof of his own exceeding weakness and slavery 
 to sin, in that, though separated from his former mistress, apd 
 with the prospect of marriage after two years, he still relapsed 
 into his former habits, and took to him a new concubine. 
 There is then no gratuitous mention of sin ; nor will any one 
 here learn any thing of sin ; and while modem descriptions of 
 penitence, veiled in language, are calculated to produce an 
 unhealthy excitement, and may rather prepare people to 
 imitate the sin, with the hope that they may afterwards 
 imitate the repentance, St. Augustine, in unveiled language, 
 creates the loathing which himself felt at the sin. Moderns 
 have an outward purity of language ; the ancient Church, with 
 the Bible, a fearless plainness of speech which belongs to 
 inward purity. This has been here and there modified in 
 the translation, in consequence of our present condition ; yet 
 it must be, with the protest, that the purity of modem times 
 is not the purity of the Gospel ; it is the purity of those who 
 know and have delighted in evil as well as good ; it is often 
 the hypocritical purity, which would willingly dwell upon 
 
PREFACE. xxix 
 
 " things which ought not to be named," so that it does but 
 not name them : it is a veiled impurity ; and, what is in itself 
 pure and speaks purely of things impure, it associates with 
 its own impurity and calls impure, because itself thinks 
 impurely. And so the very Bible has become to them, what 
 they call " improper," i. e. " unbefitting them," verifying herein 
 the awfiil Apostolic saying, " unto the pure all things are 
 pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is 
 nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled"." 
 Thus much must be said, because it is easy to foresee that an 
 age of spurious delicacy, i. e. of real indelicacy, will raise 
 charges of indelicacy against passages in the Fathers, (as it 
 does, though in a lower murmuring tone, against the Bible,) 
 when the fault is in itself. And would that there were not 
 occasion for the warnings of St. Augustine, and that many in 
 Christian England did not imitate the unbaptized Cartha- 
 ginians, or require his earnest language against being ashamed 
 of being innocent". 
 
 For it must never be lost sight of, in reference to this 
 whole story of St. Augustine, that he himself was, during the 
 whole period, not a Christian, for he was not baptized ; his 
 mother had been given in marriage to one, who was alto- 
 gether a heathen, until long after Augustine's birth, (for in 
 his sixteenth year his father was but recently a Catechumen, 
 b. ii. §. 6.) and, as a heathen, lived in heathenish sin; and 
 himself, although in infancy made a Catechumen, had fallen 
 into a sect, which could in no way be called Christian. 
 Christianity, as now in India, was then every where sur- 
 rounded by Heathenism, which it was gradually leavening, 
 and there was consequently a mixed race, born of inter- 
 marriages with the heathen, or of parents who had not made 
 up their minds to become wholly Christians, (like the " mixed 
 multitude," which went up with Israel out of Egypt',) and 
 who were in a sort of twilight state, seeing Christianity but 
 
 " Tit. 1, 15. 1 Ex. 12, 38. Num. 11, 4. 
 
 * See p. 22. 
 
XXX PREFACE. 
 
 very imperfectly, although the grossness of their own darkness 
 was much mitigated. This should be borne in mind, lest 
 any should think that St. Augustine's descriptions of himself 
 and his comrades furnish any representation of the then state 
 of the Christian Church, and that consequently it even then 
 partook of the state of degradation, in which it is at this day. 
 It also accounts for St. Augustine's mode of speaking of his 
 past sins in terms of strong condemnation, yet, personally, of 
 unconcern ; as shocking and loathsome in themselves, but as 
 what he had no more to do with, in that he had condemned 
 them, and they had been washed away by Baptism'. 
 
 It now remains only to add a few words upon this and former 
 translations of the Confessions. Into our own language they 
 have been three times translated in whole or in part. The 
 first was by a Romanist, T. M. (Sir Tobias Matthews,) 1624. 
 The object of this was, apparently, to make the Confessions 
 (by aid of notes) to subserve the cause of Romanism. It was 
 also very inaccurately done'; many of the errors were pointed 
 out in the second translation by Rev. W. Watts, D.D. 1650. 
 This, however, which frequently retained the former translation, 
 retained also a good many faults ; and, with some energy, it 
 had many vulgarisms, so that, though it was adopted as the 
 basis of the present, the work has in fact been retranslated. 
 The third was a translation of the biographical portions only, 
 with a continuation from Possidius and notices of St. Augus- 
 tine's life derived from his own writings by Abr. Woodhead 
 of University College, " a most pious, learned, and retired 
 person''." The former translation was used as its basis, but 
 it is more diffuse. Copious extracts of the Confessions have 
 also been given in Milner's Church History. The former 
 translations, however, were become scarce; and the work 
 seemed no inappropriate commencement of the translations 
 
 * Comp. his frequent reference to his its hadness, is given in the Biogr, Brit., 
 
 Baptism, B. i. c. 11. B. ii. u. 7. B. v. with some account of the author. 
 
 §, 15, 16. B. vi. c. 13. b See Ath. Ox. t. ii. p. 456. 
 
 » A saying of the time, indicative of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 from St. Augustine, in that it gives the main outlines of the 
 first thirty-four years of his life, until a little after his conver- 
 sion and baptism. 
 
 It has been the object of the present translation to leave 
 the Confessions to tell their own tale ; a few of the notes of 
 the former edition have been retained, which seemed to con- 
 vey useful information; most have been omitted, as being 
 employed in censuring the translation or notes of his pre- 
 decessor, and that often in undesirable language. The 
 present translation has been illustrated with notes, beyond 
 what was contemplated for this undertaking generally, partly 
 on account of the miscellaneous character of the work, in that 
 it contained allusions to many things, which had been spoken 
 of more expressly elsewhere ; partly as being the first work 
 of this remarkable man, made accessible to ordinary readers ; 
 partly also because tliis plan of illustrating St. Augustine 
 out of himself, had been already adopted by M. Dubois in his 
 Latin edition, though not in his translation, of the Confessions 
 (Paris 1 776) ; and it seemed a pity not to use valuable materials 
 ready collected to one's hand. The far greater part of these 
 illustrations are taken from that edition. Reference has, of 
 course, been every where made to the context in the original 
 work. 
 
 With regard to the principles of translation, the object 
 of all translation must be to present the ideas of the author as 
 clearly as may be, with as little sacrifice as may be of what is 
 peculiar to him; the greatest clearness with the greatest faith- 
 ftdness. The combination or due adjustment of these two is a 
 work of no slight difficulty, since in that re-production, which 
 is essential to good translation, it is very difiicult to avoid 
 introducing some slight shade of meaning, which may not be 
 contained in the original. The very variation in the collo- 
 cation of words may produce this. In the present work the 
 translator desired both to preserve as much as possible the 
 condensed style of St. Augustine, and to make the translation 
 as little as might be of a commentary; that so the reader 
 
xxxii PREFACE. 
 
 might be put, as far as possible, in the position of a student 
 of the Fathers, unmodified and undiluted by the intervention 
 of any foreign notions. The circumstances of the times, 
 moreover, render even a somewhat rigid adherence to the 
 original, (even though purchased by some stiffness,) the safer 
 side, as it is that which most recommended itself to the 
 translator. This common object of a strict faithfulness, must, 
 of course, in a variety of hands, be attained in different 
 degrees ; and different ways will be taken to obtain the same 
 result. If, in parts of the present work, a more rigid style has 
 been adopted, than will perhaps generally occur in this 
 " Library," it was still hoped, that the additional pains, which 
 might be requisite to imderstand it, would be rewarded by the 
 greater insight into the author's uncommented meaning which 
 that very pains would procure, and by the greater impression 
 made by what has required some thought to understand; 
 and it was an object to let St. Augustine speak as much as 
 possible for himself, without bringing out by the translation, 
 truths which he wrapped up in the words, for those who 
 wish to find them. With the same view, the plan adopted 
 by the Benedictine editors and others, of marking out for 
 observation the golden sayings, with which the Confessions 
 abound, has not been followed ; it was thought that they 
 would be read better in the context; that they would be even 
 more impressive, if attention were not called to them, but 
 rather left to be called out hy them, by being read, as St. Au- 
 gustine himself thought them, and as they arose j for florilegia 
 do not make the impression, which is expected from them ; 
 the mind is put in an unnatural position by being called upon 
 to admire, from without, rather than from within. But 
 chiefly, holy and solemn thoughts are not to be exhibited for 
 admiration, like a gallery of pictures, which the eyes wander 
 over, but whereby the heart is distracted and unsatisfied • 
 rather they are to be gazed at, and to be copied ; and they 
 shine most brightly, when most naturally, amid the relief of 
 thoughts on ordinary subjects, which they illumine. So also 
 
PREFACE. xxxiii 
 
 may we be taught how to sanctify things common, by first 
 sanctifying the vessel, wherein they are received, our own 
 hearts ; which, as it has been for fourteen centuries the fruit 
 of this work of St. Augusifine in our Western Church, so may 
 it, by His mercy, again in this our portion of it. 
 
 E. B. P. 
 
 Oxford, 
 Feast of St. Bartholomew, 
 1838. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK. 
 
 Confessions of the greatness and unseaichableness of God, of God's 
 
 mercies in infancy and boyhood, and human wilfulness ; of his own 
 
 sins of idleness, abuse of his studies, and of God's gifts up to his 
 
 fifteenth year. page 1 
 
 THE SECOND BOOK. 
 
 Object of these Confessions. Further ills of idleness developed in his 
 sixteenth year. Evils of ill society, which beti-ayed him into theft. 19 
 
 THE THIRD BOOK. 
 
 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 Mani- 
 chseans. 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. 29 
 
 THE FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug.'s life from nineteen to eight and twenty ; himself a Manichsean, 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; 
 i-eflections on grief, on real and unreal friendship, and love of fame ; 
 writes on " the fair and fit," yet cannot rightly, though God had 
 given him great talents, since he entertained wrong notions of God ; 
 and so even his knowledge he applied ill. 45 
 
 d 
 
XXXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 THE FIFTH BOOK. 
 
 S. Aug.'s twenty-ninth year. Faustus, a snare of Satan to many, made 
 an instrument of deliverance to S. Aug., by shewing the ignorance of 
 the Manichees on those things, wherein they professed to have divine 
 knowledge. Aug. gives up all thought of going further among the 
 Manichees : is guided to Rome and Milan, where he hears S. Ambrose, 
 leaves the Manichees, and becomes again a Catechumen in the Church 
 Catholic. 65 
 
 THE SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 Arrival of Monnica at Milan; her obedience to S. Ambrose, and his 
 value for her ; S. Ambrose's habits ; Aug.'s gradual abandonment of 
 error ; finds that he has blamed the Church Catholic wrongly ; desire 
 of absolute certainty, but struck with the contrary analogy of God's 
 natural Providence; how shaken in his worldly pursuits; God's 
 guidance of his friend Alypius ; Aug. debates with himself and his 
 friends about their mode of life ; his inveterate sins, and dread of 
 judgment. 85 
 
 THE SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug.'s thirty-first year ; gradually extricated from his errors, but still 
 with material conceptions of God; much aided by an argument of 
 Nebridius ; sees that the cause of sin lies in free-will, rejects the Mani- 
 chaean heresy, but cannot altogether embrace the doctrine of the 
 Church ; recovered from the belief in Astrology, but miserably per- 
 plexed about the origin of evil ; is led to find in tire 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 
 S. Paul. 107 
 
 THE EIGHTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug.'s thirty-second year. He consults Simplicianus ; from him hears 
 the history of the conversion of Victorinus, afid longs to devote 
 himself entirely to God, but is mastered by his old habits; is still 
 further roused by the history of S. Antony, and of the conversion of 
 two courtiers; during a severe struggle, hears a voice from heaven, 
 opens Scripture, and is converted, with his friend Alypius. His 
 mother's visions fulfilled. I33 
 
CONTENTS. XXXT 
 
 THE NINTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug. determines to devote his life to God, and to abandon his profession 
 of Rhetoric, quietly however ; retires to the country to prepare himself 
 to receive the grace of Baptism, and is baptized with Alypius, and his 
 son Adeodatus. At Ostia, in his way to Africa, his mother Monnica 
 dies, in her fifty-sixth year, the thirty-third of Augustine. Her life 
 and character. 155 
 
 THE TENTH BOOK. 
 
 Having in the former books spoken of himself before his receiving the 
 grace of Baptism, in this Aug. confesses what he then was. But first, 
 he enquires 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 pre- 
 scribes as to each. On Christ the Only Mediator, who heals and will 
 heal all infirmities. 182 
 
 THE ELEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug. 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 V Inquiry into the 
 nature of Time. 225 
 
 THE TWELFTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug. proceeds to comment on Gen. 1,1. 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 his words, does, in fact, lie con- 
 cealed in them. 249 
 
XXXVl CONTENTS. 
 
 THE THIRTEENTH BOOK. 
 
 Continuation of the exposition of Gen. 1 ; it contains the mystery of the 
 Trinity, and a type of the formation, extension, and support of the 
 Church. 276 
 
THE 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF S. AUGUSTINE, 
 
 BISHOP OF HIPPO. 
 
 IN THIRTEEN BOOKS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Confessions of the greatness and unsearchableness of God, of God's mercies 
 in infancy and boyhood, and human wilfulness ; of his own sins of idle- 
 ness, abuse of his studies, and of God's gifts up to his fifteenth year. 
 
 [I.] 1. Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; f^' 145, 
 great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee 5'. 
 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, O God, resistest the proud: yet jas.4,6. 
 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 Rom.io. 
 whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe^*- 
 without a preacher? And they that seek the Lord shall Ps. 22, 
 praise Him. For they that seek shall find Him, and they^^- 
 that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling 7/ ' ' 
 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 Thy Preacher ''- 
 
 [II.] 2. And how shall I call upon my God, my God and 
 Lord, since, when I caU for Him, I shall be calling Him into 
 
 2 " Our rational nature ia so great a 1> S. Ambrose ; from whom were the 
 
 good, that there is no good wherein we beginnings of his conversion, and bj- 
 
 can he happy, save God." Aug. de Nat. whom he was baptized. 
 Boni, c. 7. 
 
2 Difficulties in conceiving of God. 
 
 CONF.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 
 shouldest enter into me, who were not, wert Thou not in me ? 
 Why? Because I am not gone down in hell, and yet Thou 
 
 Ps. 139, 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 
 
 Bom. Thou not in me ; or, rather, unless I were in Thee, qf 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 
 
 Jer. 23, should come into me, who hath said, / fill the heaven and 
 
 ^*- the earth ? 
 
 [III.] 3. Do"^ the heaven and earth then contain Thee, since 
 Thou fiUest them ? or dost Thou fill them and yet overflow, 
 since they do not contain Thee ? And whither, when the heaven 
 and the earth are filled, pourest Thou forth the remainder of 
 Thyself? Or hast Thou no need that aught contain Thee, who 
 containest all things, since what Thou fillest Thou fillest by 
 containing it? For the vessels which Thou fillest uphold 
 Thee not, since, though they were broken, TTiou wert not 
 
 Acts 2, poured out. And when Thou axt poured out on us. Thou art 
 not cast down, but Thou upliftest us ; Thou art not dissipated, 
 but Thou gatherest us. But Thou who fillest all things, 
 fillest Thou them with Thy whole self? or, since all things 
 cannot contain Thee wholly, do they contain part of Thee ? 
 and all at once the same part? or each its own part, the 
 greater more, the smaller less? And is, then, one part of 
 Thee greater, another less ? or, art Thou wholly every where, 
 while nothing contains Thee wholly ? 
 
 [IV.] 4. What art Thou then, my God ? What, but the 
 
 Pa. 18, Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God 
 
 31. 
 
 ^ " Thou oalleist on, whatever thou thee." Aug. in Pb. 85. 
 Invest ; thou cailest on, whatever thou ■= Against the Manichees. See 1. vii. 
 eallest[invitest]intothyself; thou callest c. 1. §. 2. 
 on, whatever thou wishest to come unto 
 
God's attributes to men contradictory. 3 
 
 save our Ood? 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 thejoh9, 
 proud'', and they know it not; ever working, ever^t rest; still ^J^^ 
 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 ; re- 
 ceivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose ; never 
 in need, yet rejoicing in gains ; never covetous, yet exacting Matt, 
 usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest^*' ^1 
 owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payestrogatur 
 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 
 wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may 
 forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good ! What art 
 Thou to me i In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am 
 I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and, if I give it not, 
 art wroth with me, and threatenest me with grievous woes ? 
 Is it then a slight woe to love Thee not? Oh! for Thy 
 mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto 
 me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. So speak, thatPs-35,3. 
 I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is before Thee ; open 
 Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am thy salva- 
 tion. After this voice let me haste, and take hold on Thee. 
 Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die" — lest I die — only 
 let me see Thy face. 
 
 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 
 
 '' " Everyman, who foUoweth his own ' i. e. Let me see the face of God, 
 
 spirit, is proud." Aug. in Ps. 141. 4. though I die, (Ex. 33, 20.) since if I 
 
 " When the soul delighteth in itself, it see it not, but it be turned away, I 
 
 is proud; making itself the chief object, must needs die, and that " the second 
 
 which God is." Id. Ep, 55. §. 18. death." 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Qod's mercies in infancy. 
 
 coNF.cry, save Thee ? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and 
 
 ^•^- spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy". T believe, 
 
 12.11: and therefore da I speak. Lord, Thou knowest. Have I 
 
 P'- ^^^' not confessed against my self my transgressions unto Thee, and 
 
 Ps.32,5. Thou, my God, hast forgiven the iniquity of my heart ? I 
 
 Job 9. 3. contend ncM in judgment with Thee, who art the truth ; I fear 
 
 Ps. 26, to deceive myself; lest mine iniquity lie unto itself. There- 
 
 ip^-Yg'f-fore I contend not in judgment with Thee; for if Thou, 
 
 3.'' ' Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, Lord, who shall abide it ? 
 
 [VI.] 7. Yet suffer me to speak unto Thy mercy, me, dust and 
 
 Gen.i8. ashes. Yet suffer me *o speak, since I speak to Thy mercy, 
 
 ^■'- and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, 
 
 Jer. 12, yet wilt Thou return a'u FT ave compassion upon me. For what 
 
 *^- would I say, Lord my C?od, but that I know not whence 
 
 I came into this dying life (shall I call it ?) or living death. 
 
 Then immediately did the comforts of Thy compassion take 
 
 me up, as I heard (for I remember it not) from the parents 
 
 of my flesh, out of whose substance Thou didst sometime 
 
 fashion me. Thus there received me the comforts of woman's 
 
 milk. For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own 
 
 breasts for me ; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy 
 
 through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou 
 
 distributest Thy riches through the hidden springs of all 
 
 things. Thou also gavest me to desire no more than Thou 
 
 gavest ; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou 
 
 gavest them. For they, with an heaven-taught affection, 
 
 willingly gave me, what they abounded with from Thee. For 
 
 this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, 
 
 from them was it, but through them ; for from Thee, O God, 
 
 are all good things, zxiAfrom my Ood is all my health. This 
 
 I since learned, Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me 
 
 and without, proclaiming Thyself unto me. For then I knew 
 
 but to suck; to repose in what pleased, and cry at what 
 
 offended my flesh ; nothing more. 
 
 8. Afterwards I began to smile ; first in sleep, then waking : 
 
 <1 So the Greek Versions and Vulg. one from one's self, the other from the 
 
 rendering Dnt as CSnt, as it else- persuasion ofothers; to which the prophet 
 
 where signiiies " the proud," not" proud refers, I suppose, whenhesays, ' Cleanse 
 
 presumptuous sins." They interpret it me from my secret faults, and ah alienis 
 
 of sins forced on a person by the ^P^re Thy servant.' " S. Aug. de Lib. 
 
 Ettemy. " There are two sources of sins ; ^^^- '■ '"• e. 10. 
 
Wilfulness qf infancy. 5 
 
 for so it was told me of myself, and I believed it ; for we see 
 the like ia other infants, though of myself I remember it not. 
 Thus, little by little, I became conscious where 1 was ; and 
 to have a wish to express my wishes to those who could 
 content them, and I could not j for the wishes were within 
 me, and they without ; nor could they by any sense of theirs 
 enter within my spirit. So I flung about at random limbs 
 and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, 
 like, though in truth very little like, what I wished. And 
 when I was not presently obeyed, (my wishes being hurtful 
 or unintelligible,) then I was indignan,^ with my elders for not 
 submitting to me, with those ov'ng me no service, for not 
 serving me ; and avenged mysel py ;|hem by tears. Such 
 have I learnt infants to be from observing them ; and, that I 
 was myself such, they, all unconscious, have shewn me better 
 than my nurses who knew it. 
 
 9. And| lo ! my infancy died long since, and I live. But 
 Thou, Lord, who for ever livest, and in whom nothing dies : 
 for before the foimdation of the worlds, and before all that 
 can be called " before," Thou art, and art God and Lord of 
 all which Thou hast created: in Thee abide, fixed for ever, the 
 first causes of all things unabiding ; and of all things change- 
 able, the springs abide in Thee unchangeable : and in Thee 
 live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and tem- 
 poral. Say, Lord, to me. Thy suppliant ; say. All-pitying, to me. 
 Thy pitiable one ; say, did my infancy succeed another age of 
 mine that died before it? Was it that which I spent within 
 my mother's womb ? for of that I have heard somewhat, and 
 have myself seen women with child ? and what before that 
 life again, O God my joy, was I any where or any body? 
 For this have I none to tell me, neither father nor mother, 
 nor experience of others, nor mine own memory. Dost Thou 
 mock me for asking this, and bid me praise Thee and acknow- 
 ledge Thee, for that I do know ? 
 
 10. I acknowledge Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, and 
 praise Thee for my first rudiments of being, and my infancy, 
 whereof I remember nothing ; for Thou hast appointed that 
 man should firom others guess much as to himself; and 
 believe much on the strength of weak females. Even then I 
 had being and life, and (at my infancy's close) I could seek 
 for signs, whereby to make known to others my sensations. 
 
6 Siiifulness in infants without actual sin. 
 
 CONF. Whence could such a being be, save from Thee, Lord ? Shall 
 
 — 1— ^ any be his own artificer ? Or can there elsewhere be derived 
 any vein, which may stream essence and life into us, save 
 from Thee, O Lord, in whom essence and life are one ? for 
 
 Mai. 3, Thou Thyself art supremely Essence and Life. For Thou art 
 most high, and art not changed, neither in Thee doth To-day 
 come to a close ; yet in Thee doth it come to a close ; 
 because all such things also are in Thee. For they had no 
 way to pass away, unless Thou upheldest them. And since 
 
 Ps. 102, Thy years fail not. Thy years are one To-day. How many 
 of ours and our fathers' years have flowed away through Thy 
 ' to-day,' and from it received the measure and the mould of 
 such being as they had ; and still others shall flow away, 
 
 Ibid, and so receive the mould of their degree of being. But Thou 
 art still the same, and all things of to-morrow, and all beyond, 
 and all of yesterday, and all behind it. Thou wilt do in this 
 To-day, Thou hast done in this To-day. What is it to me, 
 though any comprehend not this ? Let him also rejoice and say, 
 
 Ex.16, What thing is this? Let him rejoice even thus; and be 
 content rather by not discovering to discover Thee, than by 
 discovering not to discover Thee. 
 
 [VII.] 1 1 . Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin ! So saith man, 
 and Thou pitiest him ; for Thou madest him, but sin in him 
 Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my 
 
 Job 25, infancy ? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the 
 
 *• infant whose life is hut a day upon the earth. Who remindeth 
 me? Doth not each little infant, in whom I see what of 
 myself I remember not \ What then was my sin ? Was it 
 that I hung upon the breast and cried ? For should I now so 
 do for food suitable to my age, justly should I be laughed at 
 and reproved. What 1 then did was worthy reproof; but 
 since I could not understand reproof, custom and reason 
 forbade me to be reproved. For those habits, when grown, 
 we root out and cast away. Now no man, though he 
 
 John 15, prunes, wittingly casts away what is good. Or was it 
 then good, even for a while, to cry for what, if given, would 
 
 <• " Let us thus conceive of God, if without change in Himself, forming 
 
 we can, as far as we can, — good, things subject to change, and liable to 
 
 without quality; great, without size; no evil. Whoso thus thinks of God, 
 
 Creator, with no need ; presiding, with- although he cannot yet find out what 
 
 out site; contriving all things, without God is, yet, as far as he may, piously 
 
 relation thereto; wholly every where, avoids thinking any thing of Him, which 
 
 without place; Eternal, without time; He is not," Aug. de Trin. v. 1. 
 
Irifant malice and God's goodness. 7 
 
 hui't? bitterly to resent, that persons free, and its own 
 elders, yea, the very authors of its birth, served it not? that 
 many besides, wiser than it, obeyed not the nod of its good 
 pleasure ? to do its best to stride and hurt, because commands 
 were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its hurt? The 
 weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence. 
 Myself have seen and known even a baby envious ; it could 
 not speak, yet it turned pale and looked bitterly on its foster- 
 brother. Who knows not this ? Mothers and nurses tell you, 
 that they allay these things by I know not what remedies. Is 
 that too innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing in rich 
 abundance, not to endure one to share it, though in extremest 
 need, and whose very life as yet depends thereon ? We bear 
 gently with all this, not as being no or slight evils, but 
 because they will disappear as years increase; for, though 
 tolerated now, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable 
 when found in riper years. 
 
 12. Thou, then, O Lord my God, who gavest life to this 
 my infancy, furnishing thus with senses (as we see) the frame 
 Thou gavest, compacting its limbs, ornamenting its propor- 
 tions, and, for its general good and safety, implanting in it 
 all vital functions, Thou commandest me to praise Thee in 
 these things, to confess unto Thee, and sing unto Thy name, Ps.92,l 
 Thou most Highest. For Thou art God, Almighty and Good, 
 even hadst Thou done nought but only this, which none 
 could do but Thou : whose Unity is the mould of all things ; 
 who out of Thy own fairness makest all things fair; and 
 orderest all things by Thy law. This age then, Lord, whereof 
 I have no remembrance, which I take on others' word, and 
 guess from other infants that I have passed, true though the 
 guess be, I am yet loth to count in this life of mine which I 
 live in this world. For no less than that which I spent in 
 my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of 
 forgetfulness. But if I was shapenin iniquity, and in sin c^Jc^Ps.51,7. 
 my mother conceive me, where, I beseech Thee, O my God, 
 where, Lord, or when, was I Thy servant guiltless ? But, lo ! 
 that period I pass by ; and what have I now to do with that, 
 of which I can recal no vestige ? 
 
 [VIII.] 13. Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, 
 or ratheritcame to me, displacing infancy. Nor did that depart, 
 - — (for whither went it ?) — and yet it was no more. For I was no 
 
8 Learning to speak — boyish prayer. 
 
 CONF. longer a speechless infant, Ijut a speaking boy. This I re- 
 — '—^ member ; and have since observed how I learned to speak. 
 It was not that my elders taught me words (as, soon after, 
 other learning) in any set method ; but I, longing by cries and 
 broken accents and various motions of mj' limbs to express 
 my thoughts, that so I might have my will, and yet unable to 
 express all I willed, or to whom I willed, did myself, by 
 the understanding which Thou, my God, gavest me, practise 
 the sounds in my memory. When they named any thing, and 
 as they spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered that 
 they called what they would point out, by the name they 
 uttered. And that they meant this thing and no other, was 
 plain from the motion of their body, the natural language, as 
 it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances 
 of the eye, gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice, indi- 
 cating the affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, 
 rejects, or shuns. And thus by constantly hearing words, as 
 they occurred in various sentences, I collected gradually fdr 
 what they stood ; and having broken in my mouth to these 
 signs, I thereby gave utterance to my will. Thus I exchanged 
 with those about me these current signs of our wills, and so 
 launched deeper into the stormy intercourse of human life, 
 yet depending on parental authority and the beck of elders. 
 
 [IX.] 14. O God my God, what miseries and mockeries did 
 I now experience, when obedience to my teachers was pro- 
 posed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I 
 might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should 
 serve to the " praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next 
 I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) 
 knew not what use there was ; and yet, if idle in learning, I 
 was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; 
 and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us 
 weary paths, through which we were fain to pass ; multiply- 
 ing toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, Lord, we 
 found that men called upon Thee, and we learnt from them to 
 think of Thee (according to our powers) as of some great 
 One, who, though hidden from our senses, couldst hear and 
 help us. For so I began, as a boy, to pray to Thee, my aid 
 and refuge ; and broke the fetters of my tongue to call on 
 Thee, praying Thee, though small, yet with no small earnest- 
 ness, that I might not be beaten at school. And when Thou 
 
Childish griefs great to children. Inconsistency to them. 9 
 
 heardest me not, [not thereby giving me over to folly*,) my Ps.21,3. 
 elders, yea, my very parents, who yet wished me no ill,^"'^' 
 mocked my stripes, my then great and grievous ill. 
 
 15. Is there, Lord, any of soul so great, and cleaving to 
 Thee with so intense affection, (for a sort of stupidity will in 
 a way do it) ; but is there any one, who, from cleaving de- 
 voutly to Thee, is endued with so great a spirit, that he can 
 think as lightly of the racks and hooks and other torments, 
 (against which, throughout all lands, men call on Thee with 
 extreme dread,) mocking at those by whom they are feared 
 most bitterly, as our parents mocked the torments which we 
 suffered in boyhood from our masters ? For we feared not our 
 torments less ; nor prayed we less to Thee to escape them. 
 And yet we sinned, in writing or reading or studying less than 
 wass exacted of us. For we wanted not, O Lord, memory or 
 capacity, whereof Thy will gave enough for oiu* age ; but our 
 sole delight was play; and for this we were punished by 
 those who yet themselves were doing the like. But elder 
 folks' idleness is called " business ;" that of boys, being really 
 the same, is punished by those elders ; and none commise- 
 rates either boys or men. For will any of sound discretion 
 approve of my being beaten as a boy, because, by playing at 
 ball, I made less progress in studies which I was to learn, 
 only that, as a man, I might play more unbeseemingly ? And 
 what else did he, who beat me ? who, if worsted in some 
 trifling discussion with his fellow-tutor, was more embittered 
 and jealous than I, when beaten at ball by a play-fellow? 
 
 [X.] 16. And yet, I sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator 
 and Orderer " of all things in nature, of sin the Orderer only, O 
 
 <• " Many cry in troul^le and are not nified sin." In Ps. 7. t. fin. " God, 
 
 heard ; but to their salvation, not (to as He is of good natures the All-good 
 
 give them) to foolishness. Paul cried, Creator, so of evil wills the All-just 
 
 that the thorn in the flesh might he Orderer." De Civ. Dei, ii. 17. " Light 
 
 taken from him, and he was not heard alone was approved by the Creator ; the 
 
 that it should be so taken ; and it was darkness of the [evil] angels, although 
 
 said to him, My grace is \sufficient for to be ordered, was not therefore to be 
 
 thee; My strength is made perfect in approved." c. 20. " Neither doth the 
 
 weakness. So then he was not heard ; evil will, because it would not obey the 
 
 yet not to foolishness, but to wisdom." order of nature, therefore escape the 
 
 S. Aug. ad loc. laws of the just God, Who ordereth all 
 
 ' Ordinator. This distinction often things well." o. 21. " It is in thepower 
 
 occurs in S. Augustine. " He said not, of the evil to ain. But in sinning to 
 
 ' Let there be darkness, and there was effect this or that by their evil, is not in 
 
 darkness,' and yet He ordered them, their power, but of God, Who divideth 
 
 The one He made and ordered; the the darkness, and ordereth it." De Freed, 
 
 other He did not make, yet this also Sanct. o. 16. 
 He ordered. But by ' darkness' is sig- 
 
10 Baptism wrongly deferred ; on what grounds. 
 
 CONF.Lord my God, I sinned in transgressing the commands of my 
 — '—^ parents and those my masters. For what they, with whatever 
 motive, would have me learn, I might afterward have put to 
 good use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but from 
 love of play, loving the pride of victory in my contests, and 
 to have my ears tickled with lying fables, that they might 
 itch the more; the same curiosity flashing from my eyes 
 more and more, for the shows and games of my elders. Yet 
 those who give these shows are in such esteem, that almost all 
 wish the same for their children, and yet are very willing that 
 they should be beaten, if those very games detain them from 
 the studies, whereby they would have them attain to be the 
 givers of them. Look with pity. Lord, on these things, and 
 deliver us who call upon Thee now ; deliver those too who 
 call not on Thee yet, that they may call on Thee, and Thou 
 mayest deliver them. 
 
 [XL] 17. As a boy, then, I had already heard of an eternal 
 life, promised us through the humility of the Lord our God 
 stooping to our pride''; and even from the womb of my mother, 
 who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of 
 His cross and salted with His salt'- Thou sawest. Lord, how 
 while yet a boy, being seized on a time with sudden op- 
 pression of the stomach, and like near to death — Thou 
 sawest, my God, (for Thou wert my keeper,) with what eager- 
 ness and what faith I sought, from the pious care of my 
 mother and Thy Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of 
 Thy Christ my God and Lord. Whereupon the mother of 
 my flesh, being much troubled, (since, with a heart pure in 
 Gal. 4, "phy faith, she even more lovingly travailed in birth of my sal- 
 vation,) would in eager haste have provided for my consecration 
 and cleansing by the healthgiving sacrameifts, confessing Thee, 
 Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, unless I had suddenly 
 recovered. And so, as if I must needs be again polluted 
 should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the defile- 
 ments of sin would, after that washing, bring greater and more 
 perilous guilt. I then already believed ; and my mother, and 
 
 * " That the cause of all disease, i. e. admission as a Catechumen, previous to 
 
 pride, might be cured, the Son of God Baptism, denoting the purity and uu- 
 
 came dovra and humbled Himself. For corruptedness and discretion required of 
 
 pride doth its own will ; humility the Christians. See S. Aug. de Catechiz. 
 
 will of God." Aug. Tr. 24. in Joh. rudib. c. 26. Concil. Carth. 3. can. 5 ; 
 
 = A rite in the Western Churches, on and Liturgies in Assem. Cod. Liturg. t. i. 
 
Aug. compelled to learn; God's wisdom herein. 11 
 
 the whole household, except my father : yet did not he pre- 
 vail over the power of my mother's piety in me, that as he 
 did not yet believ^e, so neither should I. For it was her 
 earnest care, that Thou my God, rather than he, shouldest 
 be my father; and in this Thou didst aid her to prevail over 
 her husband, whom she, the better, obeyed, therein also obey- 
 ing Thee, Who hast so commanded. 
 
 18. I beseech Thee, my God, I would fain know, if so 
 Thou wiliest, for what purpose my baptism was then deferred ? 
 Was it for my good that the rein was laid loose, as it were, 
 upon me, for me to sin ? or was it not laid loose ? If not, 
 why does it still echo in our ears on all sides, " Let him 
 alone, let him do as he will, for he is not yet baptized .?" but 
 as to bodily health, no one says, " Let him be worse wounded, 
 for he is not yet healed." How much better then, had I been 
 at once healed ; and then, by my friends' diligence and my 
 own, my soul's recovered health had been kept safe in Thy 
 keeping who gavest it. Better truly. But how many and 
 great waves of temptation seemed to hang over me after 
 my boyhood ! These my mother foresaw ; and preferred to 
 expose to them the clay whence I might afterwards be 
 moulded, than the very cast, when made '. 
 
 [XII.] 19. In boyhood itself, however, (so much less dreaded 
 for me than youth,) I loved not study, and hated to be forced 
 to it. Yet I was forced ; and this was well done towards me, 
 but I did not well ; for, unless forced, I had not learnt. But 
 no one doth well against his will, even though what he doth, 
 be well. Yet neither did they well who forced me, but what 
 was well came to me from Thee, my God. For they were 
 regardless how I should employ what they forced me to learn, 
 except to satiate the insatiate desires of a wealthy beggary, 
 and a shamefirl glory. But Thou, hy whom the very hairs q/'Matt. 
 our head are numbered, didst use for my good the error of all ^"^ ^^' 
 who urged me to learn ; and my own, who would not learn, 
 Thou didst use for my punishment — a fit penalty for one, so 
 small a boy and so great a sinner. So by those who did not 
 well, Thou didst well for me ; and by my own sin Thou didst 
 justly punish me. For Thou hast commanded, and so it is, 
 that every inordinate affection should be its own punishment. 
 
 ^ His unregenerate nature, on which the image of God was not yet impressed, 
 rather than the regenerate. 
 
12 Poetry a vanity to the unregenerate. 
 
 CONF. [XIII.] 20. But why did 1 so much hate the Greek, which 
 ' I studied as a boy .? I do not yet iiilly know. For the Latin 
 I loved ; not what my first masters, but what the so-called 
 grammarians taught me. For those first lessons, reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and 
 penalty as any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but 
 
 Ps. 78, from the sin and vanity of this life, because / was flesh, and 
 a breath that passeth away and cometh not again? For 
 those first lessons were better certainly, because more certain; 
 by them I obtained, and still retain, the power of reading 
 what I find written, and myself writing what I will ; whereas 
 in the others, I was forced to learn the wanderings of one 
 iEneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for dead Dido, 
 because she killed herself for love ; the while, with dry eyes, 
 I endured my miserable self dying among these things, far 
 from Thee, O God my life. 
 
 21. For what more miserable than a miserable being who 
 commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for 
 love to ^neas, but weeping not his own death for want of 
 love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my heart. Thou bread of 
 my inmost soul. Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, 
 who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed 
 fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating 
 
 Jas. 4,4. there echoed " Well done ! well done !" for the friendship of 
 this world is fornication against Thee'; and " Well done! 
 well done !" echoes on till one is ashamed not to be thus a 
 man. And all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido slain, 
 and " seeking by the sword a stroke and wound extreme," 
 myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and 
 lowest of Thy creatures, having forsaken Thee, earth passing 
 into the earth. And if forbid to read all this, I was grieved 
 that I might not read what grieved me. Madness like this is 
 thought a higher and richer learning, than that by which I 
 learned to read and write. 
 
 22. But now, my God, cry Thou aloud in my soul ; and 
 let Thy truth tell me, " Not so, not so. Far better was that 
 first study." For, lo, I would readily forget the wanderings 
 of ^neas and all the rest, rather than how to read and 
 
 *' " To forsake that One Good for the commit fornication against God." Aug. 
 multitude of pleasures, the love of the Serm. 142. 2. 
 world, and earthly corruption, is to 
 
Irksomeness qf learning tempered by God to good. 13 
 
 write. But over the entrance of the Grammar School is 
 a vaiP drawn! true; yet is this not so much an emblem 
 of aught recondite, as a cloke of error. Let not those, whom 
 I no longer fear, cry out againt me, while I confess to 
 Thee, my God, whatever my soul will, and acquiesce in the 
 condemnation of my evil ways, that I may love Thy good 
 ways. Let not either buyers or sellers of grammar-learning 
 cry out against me. For if I question them whether it be 
 true, that ^neas came on a time to Carthage, as the Poet 
 tells, the less learned will reply that they know not, the more 
 learned that he never did. But should I ask with what letters 
 the name " .iEneas" is written, every one who has learnt this 
 will answer me aright, as to the signs which men have con- 
 ventionally settled. If, again, I should ask, which might be 
 forgotten with least detriment to the concerns of life, reading 
 and writing or these poetic fictions ? who does not foresee, what 
 all must answer who have not wholly forgotten themselves ? 
 I sinned, then, when as a boy I prefen-ed those empty to those 
 more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and hated the 
 other. " One and one, two ;" " two and two, four ;" this 
 was to me a hateful sing-song: "the wooden horse lined with 
 armed men," and " the burning of Troy," and " Creusa's ^n. 2. 
 shade and sad similitude," were the choice spectacle of my 
 vanity. 
 
 [XIV.] 23. Why then did I hate the Greek classics, which 
 have the like tales ? For Homer also curiously wove the like 
 fictions, and is most sweetly- vain, yet was he bitter to my 
 boyish taste. And so I suppose would Virgil be to Grecian 
 children, when forced to learn him as I was Homer. Diffir 
 culty, in truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as 
 it were, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fable. For not 
 one word of it did I understand, and to make me understand 
 I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments. 
 Time was also, (as an infant,) I knew no Latin ; but this I 
 learned without fear or suffering, by mere observation, amid 
 the caresses of my nursery and jests of friends, smiling and 
 sportively encouraging me. This I learned without any 
 
 gTlie"vair'wasaneniUemofhoiiour, and the school itself, besides being a 
 
 used in places of worship, and subse- mark of dignity, may, as S. Aug. per- 
 
 quently in courts of law. Emperors' haps implies, have been intended to 
 
 palaces, and even private houses. See denote the hidden mysteries taught 
 
 Du Fresne and Hoffmann sub v. That therein, and that the mass of mankind 
 
 between the vestibule, or proscholium, were not fit hearers of truth. 
 
14 Evils in classical study, 
 
 CONF. pressure of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me 
 — '—^ to give birth to its conceptions, which I could only do by 
 learning words not of those who taught, but of those who 
 talked with me; in whose ears also I gave birth to the 
 thoughts, whatever I conceived. No doubt then, that a 
 free curiosity has more force in our learning these things, 
 than a frightful enforcement. Only this enforcement re- 
 strains the rovings of that freedom, through Thy laws, O my 
 God, Thy laws, from the master's cane to the martyr's trials, 
 being able to temper for us a wholesome bitter, recalling us to 
 Thyself from that deadly pleasure which lures us from Thee. 
 [XV.] 24. Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint 
 under Thy discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto Thee 
 aU Thy mercies, whereby Thou hast drawn me out of all my 
 most evil ways, that Thou mightest become a delight to me 
 above all the allurements which 1 once pursued °; that I may 
 most entirely love Thee, and clasp Thy hand with all my 
 affections, and Thou mayest yet rescue me from every tempt- 
 ation, even unto the end. For, lo, O Lord, my King and my 
 God, for Thy service be whatever useful thing my childhood 
 learned ; for Thy service, that I speak — write — read — ^reckon. 
 For Thou didst grant me Thy discipline, while I was learning 
 vanities; and my sin of delighting in those vanities Thou 
 hast forgiven. In them, indeed, I learnt many a useful word, 
 but these may as well be learned in things not vain ; and that 
 is the safe path for the steps of youth. 
 
 [XVI.] 25. But woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom ! 
 Who shall stand against thee .? How long shalt thou not be 
 dried up ? How long roll the sons of Eve into that huge and 
 hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who climb 
 the Cross'? Did not I read in thee of Jove the thunderer and 
 the adulterer ? Both, doubtless, he could not be ; but so the 
 feigned thunder might countenance and pander to real adultery. 
 And now which of our gowned masters, lends a sober ear to 
 one 8 who fi-om their own school cries out, " These were 
 
 <= " For the love of things temporal nor was there any way of passing to 
 
 can only be overcome in us by a certain thy country, unless thou be borne on 
 
 pleasurablenessof things eternal." Aug. the Cross. Himself was made <Ae way 
 
 de Musiea, vi. 16. and that through the sea ; - thou, who 
 
 f " Why was He crucified .' Because canst not, as He, walk on the sea 
 
 the ' wood' of His humility was need- be borne in a ship, be borne on the 
 
 ful for thee. For thou wert swollen wood; believe in the Crucified, and 
 
 through pride, and wert cast out far thou mayest arrive." Aug. in Joan, Tr. 
 
 from that thy country ; and the way was ii. 4. 
 intercepted by the waves of this world, S Cic, Tuscul. 1. i. u. 26. 
 
degrading Qod and man. 15 
 
 Homer's fictions, transferring things human to the gods; 
 would he had brought down things divine to us !" Yet more 
 truly had he said, " These ai-e indeed his fictions ; but attri- 
 buting a divine natme to wicted men, that crimes might be 
 no longer crimes, and whoso commits them might seem to 
 imitate not abandoned men, but the celestial gods." 
 
 26. And yet, thou hellish torrent, into thee are cast the sons 
 of men with rich rewards, for compassing such learning; 
 and a great solemnity is made of it, when this is going on 
 in the forum, within sight of laws appointing a salary beside 
 the scholar's payments ; and thou lashest thy rocks and roarest, 
 " Hence words are learnt ; hence eloquence ; most necessaay 
 to gain your ends, or maintain opinions." As if we should 
 have never known such words as " golden shower," " lap," 
 " beguile," " temples of the heavens," or others in that passage, 
 unless Terence had brought a lewd youth upon the stage, 
 setting up Jupiter as his example of seduction ''. 
 
 Viewing a picture, where the tale was drawn. 
 Of Jove's descending in a golden shower 
 To Danae's lap, a woman to beguile. 
 
 And then mark how he excites himself to lust as by celestial 
 authority ; 
 
 And what God ? Great Jove, 
 
 Who shakes heav'n's highest temples with his thunder. 
 
 And I, poor mortal man, not do the same ! 
 
 I did it, and with all ray heart I did it. 
 
 Not one whit more easily are the words learnt for all this 
 vileness ; but by their means the vileness is committed with 
 less shame. Not that I blame the words, being, as it were, 
 choice and precious vessels ; but that wine of error which is 
 drunk to us in them by intoxicated teachers ; and if we, too, 
 drink not, we are beaten, and have no sober judge to whom 
 we may appeal. Yet, O my God, (in whose presence I now 
 without hurt may remember this,) all this unhappy I learnt 
 willingly with great delight, and for this was pronounced a 
 hopeful boy. 
 
 [XVII.] 27. Bear with me, my God, while I say somewhat 
 of my wit. Thy gift, and on what dotages I wasted it. For a 
 task was set me, troublesome enough to my soul, upon terms 
 h Coleman's Terence, Eunuch, act iii. so. 6. 
 
16 Human knowledge preferred to divine. 
 
 CONF.of praise or shame, and fear of stripes, to speak the words of 
 — '—^ Juno, as she raged and mourned that she could not 
 This Trojan prince from Latium turn. 
 Which words I had heard that Juno never uttered ; but we 
 were forced to go astray in the footsteps of these poetic 
 fictions, and to say in prose much what he expressed in verse. 
 And his speaking was most applauded, in whom the passions 
 of rage and grief were most preeminent, and clothed in the 
 most fitting language, maintaining the dignity of the cha- 
 racter. What is it to me, O my true life, my God, that my 
 declamation was applauded above so many of my own age 
 and class ? Is not all this smoke and wind ? And was there 
 nothing else whereon to exercise my wit and tongue ? Thy 
 praises. Lord, Thy praises might have stayed the yet tender 
 shoot of my heart by the prop of Thy Scriptures ; so had it 
 not trailed away amid these empty trifles, a defiled prey for 
 the fowls of the air. For in more ways than one do men 
 sacrifice to the rebellious angels. 
 
 [XVIII.] 28. But what marvel that I was thus carried away 
 to vanities, and went out from Thy presence, O my God, when 
 men were set before me as models, who, if in relating some 
 action of theirs, in itself not ill, they committed some bar- 
 barism or solecism, being censured, were abashed ; but when 
 in rich and adorned and well-ordered discourse they related 
 their own disordered life, being bepraised, they gloried? 
 These things Thou seest. Lord, and boldest Thy peace; 
 Ps. 86 long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. Wilt Thou 
 15. hold Thy peace for ever ? And even now Thou drawest out 
 of this horrible gulf the soul that seeketh Thee, that thirsteth 
 Ps.27 8. ^*"- '^^y pleasures, whose heart saith unto Thee, I have sought 
 Rom 1 Thyf^^^> Thy face. Lord, will I seek. For darkened affec- 
 21. 'tion is removal from Thee. For it is not by our feet, 
 or change of place, that men leave Thee, or return unto 
 Thee. Or did that Thy younger son look out for horses 
 or chariots, or ships, fly with visible wings, or journey by the 
 motion of his limbs, that he might in a far country waste in 
 riotous living all Thou gavest at his departure ? A loving 
 Father, when Thou gavest, and more loving unto him, when 
 he returned empty. So then in lustfiil, that is, in darkened 
 affections, is the true distance from Thy face. 
 
 29. Behold, O Lord God, yea, behold patiently as Thou 
 
Inconsistent waywardness of his childhood. 17 
 
 art wont, how carefully the sons of men observe the cove- 
 nanted rules of letters and syllables received from those who 
 spake before them, neglecting the eternal covenant of ever- 
 lasting salvation received from Thee. Insomuch, that a 
 teacher or learner of the hereditary laws of pronunciation 
 will more offend men, by speaking without the aspirate, of a 
 " uman being," in despite of the laws of grammar, than if he, 
 a " human being," hate a " human being" in despite of Thine. 
 As if any enemy could be more hurtful than the hatred with 
 which he is incensed against him ; or could wound more 
 deeply him whom he persecutes, than he wounds his own 
 soul by his enmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so 
 innate as the record of conscience, " that he is doing to another 
 what from another he would be loath to suffer." How deep are 
 Thy ways, O God, Thou only great, that sittest silent on high. Is. 33,5. 
 and by an unwearied law dispensing penal blindness to law- 
 less desires. In quest of the fame of eloquence, a man standing 
 before a human judge, surrounded by a human throng, de- 
 claiming against his enemy with fiercest hatred, will take 
 heed most watchfully, lest, by an error of the tongue, he 
 murder the word " human-being;" but takes no heed, lest, 
 through the fury of his spirit, he murder the real human being '- 
 30. This was the world at whose gate unhappy I lay in my 
 boyhood ; this the stage, where I had feared more to commit 
 a barbarism, than having committed one, to envy those who 
 had not. These things I speak and confess to Thee, my God; 
 for which I had praise from them, whom I then thought it all 
 virtue to please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein 
 I was cast away from Thine eyes. Before them what more Ps. 31, 
 foul than I was already, displeasing even such as myself? ' 
 with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my 
 parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows, and 
 restlessness to imitate them ! Thefts also I committed, from my 
 parents' cellar and table, enslaved by greediness, or that I 
 might have to- give to boys, who sold me their play, which all 
 the while they liked no less than I. In this play, too, I often 
 sought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain 
 desire of preeminence. And what could I so ill endme, or, 
 when I detected it, upbraided I so fiercely, as that I was 
 
 * Lit. is careful not to say " inter homlnibus," but takes no care, lest — he destroy 
 " hominem ex hominibus." 
 
18 All admirable in him, but his sin. 
 
 CONF. doing to others ? and for which if, detected, I was upbraided, 
 
 — '—^ I chose rather to quarrel, than to yield. And is this the 
 innocence of boyhood ? Not so, Lord, not so ; I cry Thy 
 mercy, O my God. For these very sins, as riper years 
 succeed, these very sins are transferred from tutors and 
 masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and 
 kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just as severer punish- 
 ments displace the cane. It was the low stature then of child- 
 hood, which Thou our King didst commend as an emblem of 
 
 Matt, lowliness, when Thou saidst, Qf such is the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 19, 14. jjj Yet, Lord, to Thee, the Creator and Governor of the 
 universe, most excellent and most good, thanks were due to 
 Thee our God, even hadsl Thou destined for me boyhood 
 only. For even then I was, I lived, and felt; and had an 
 implanted providence over my own well-being, — a trace of 
 that mysterious Unity'', whence I was derived ; — I guarded by 
 the inward sense the entireness of my senses, and in these 
 minute pursuits, and in my thoughts on things minute, I 
 learnt to delight in truth, I hated to be deceived, had a 
 vigorous memory, was gifted with speech, was soothed by 
 friendship, avoided pain, baseness, ignorance. In so small a 
 creature, what was not wonderful, not admirable ? But all are 
 gifts of my God ; it was not I, who gave them me ; and good 
 these are, and these together are myself. Good, then, is He 
 that made me, and He is my good ; and before Him will I 
 exult for every good which of a boy I had. For it was my 
 sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures — ^myself and others 
 — I sought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell head- 
 long into sorrows, confusions, errors. Thanks be to Thee, 
 my joy and my glory and my confidence, my God, thanks be 
 to Thee for Thy gifts; but do Thou preserve them to me. 
 For so wilt Thou preserve me, and those things shall be en- 
 larged and perfected, which Thou hast given me, and I myself 
 shall be with Thee, since even to be Thou hast given me. 
 
 ^ " To be, is no other than to be one. themselves, because they are one ; but 
 
 In as far, therefore, as any thing attains things compounded, imitate unity by the 
 
 unity, in so far it ' is.' For unity work- harmony of their parts, and, so far as they 
 
 eth congruity and harmony, whereby attain to unity, they are. Wherefore order 
 
 things composite are, in so far as they and rule secure being, disorder tends to 
 
 are: for things uncompounded are in not-being." Aug. de morib. Manioh. c. 6. 
 
THE SECOND BOOK. 
 
 Object of these Confessions. Further ills of idleness developed in his 
 sixteenth year. Qvils of ill society, which betrayed him into theft. 
 
 [T.] 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 ; 
 (Thou sweetness never failing, Thou blissful and assured 
 sweetness ;) and gathering me again out of that my dissipation, 
 wherein I was torn piecemeal, while turned firom Thee, the One 
 Good, I lost myself among a multiplicity of things ° For I even 
 burnt in my youth heretofore, to be satiated in things below ; 
 and I dared to grow wild again, with these various and shadowy 
 loves : my beauty consumed away, and I stank in Thine eyes ; 
 pleasing myself, and desirous to please in the eyes of men. 
 
 [II.] 2. And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, 
 and be beloved? but I kept not the measure of love, of mind 
 to mind, friendship's bright boundary ; but out of the muddy 
 concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists 
 filmed up which beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could 
 not discern the clear brightness of love, from the fog of lust- 
 fiilness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my 
 unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and 
 sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered 
 over me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clank- 
 ing of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the 
 pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou 
 lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and 
 dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou 
 heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy ! Thou then 
 heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and fiirther from 
 
 ^ " For as in a circle, however large, you tate, the greater number of lines 
 there is one middle point, whither all you draw, the more is every thing con- 
 converge, called by Geometricians the fused; so the soul is tossed to and fro 
 centre, andalthoughthepaitsofthe whole by the very vastness of things, and is 
 circumference may be divided innume- crushed by a real destitution, in that its 
 rably, yet is there no other point save own nature compels it every where to 
 thatone, from which allmeasure equally, seek One Object, and the multiplicity 
 and which, by a certain law of evenness, suffers it not." Aug. de Ordine i. 3, 
 hath the sovereignty over all — ^but if inf. ix. c. 4. §. 10. xii* 16 fin. 
 you leave this one point, whatever point 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Man's neglect of youth, and God's care of it. 
 
 CONF.Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows, and 
 
 B II • • 
 
 — '■ — ^a proud dejectedness, and a restless weanness. 
 
 3. Oh ! that some one had then attempered my disorder, and 
 turned to account the fleeting beauties of these, the extreme 
 points of Thy creation ! had put a bound to their pleasurable- 
 ness, that so the tides of my youth might have cast themselves 
 upon the marriage shore, if they could not be calmed, and 
 kept within the object of a family, as Thy law prescribes, 
 
 Lord: who this way formest the off"spring of this our death, 
 being able with a gentle hand to blunt the thorns, which 
 were excluded from Thy paradise ? For Thy omnipotency is 
 not far from us, even when we be far from Thee. Else ought 
 
 1 more watchfully to have heeded the voice from the clouds ; 
 1 Cor. 7. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare 
 ^"r 1 you. And, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. And, 
 ver. 32, he that is unmarried thinketh of the things of the Lord, how 
 
 he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for 
 the things of this world, how he may please his wife. 
 
 4. To these words I should have listened more atten- 
 Mat. i9,tively, and being severed yb/- the kingdom of heaven's sake, 
 *^' had more happily awaited Thy embraces ; but I, poor wretch, 
 
 foamed like a troubled sea, following the rushing of my own 
 tide, forsaking Thee, and exceeded all Thy limits ^ yet I 
 escaped not Thy scourges. For what mortal can } For Thou 
 wert ever with me mercifiilly rigorous, and besprinkling with 
 most bitter alloy all my unlawful pleasures : that I might seek 
 pleasures without alloy. But where to find such, I could not 
 discover, save in Thee, O Lord, who teachest by sorrow^, and 
 
 Deut. woundest us, to heal ; and killest us, lest we die from Thee. 
 
 32, 29. \Yhere ^^s I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of 
 Thy house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when 
 the madness of lust (to which human shamelessness giveth free 
 license, though unlicensed by Thy laws) took the rule over 
 me, and I resigned myself wholly to it? My friends mean- 
 while took no care by marriage to save my fall ; their only 
 care was that I should learn to speak excellently, and be a 
 persuasive orator. 
 
 b Ps. 93, 20. Vulg. Lit. " formest those Thy sons, that they should not be 
 
 trouble in or as a precept." Thou mat- without fear, lest they should love some- 
 
 est to us a precept out of trouble, so that thing else, and forget Thee, their true 
 
 trouble itself shall be a precept to us, i. e. good. S. Aug. ad loc. 
 hast willed so to discipline and instruct 
 
Effects qf idleness — his mother's fears for him. 21 
 
 [III.] 5. For that year were my studies intermitted : whilst 
 after my return from Madaura", (a neighbour city, whither I 
 had journeyed to leam grammar and rhetoric,) the expenses 
 for a further journey to Carthage were being provided for me; 
 and that, rather by the resolution than the means of my father, 
 who was but a poor freeman of Thagaste. To whom tell I 
 this ? not to Thee, my G od ; 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 whoso- 
 ever reads this, may think out qf what depths we are to cry Ps. 130, 
 unto Thee. For what is nearer to Thine ears than a confess- 
 ing heart, and a life of faith ? Who did not extol my father, 
 for that beyond the ability of his means, he would furnish his 
 son with all necessaries for a far journey for his studies' sake.' 
 For many far abler citizens did no such thing for their chil- 
 dren. But yet this same father had no concern, how I grew 
 towards Thee, or how chaste I were; so that I were but 
 copious in speech, however barren I were to Thy culture, 
 O God, who art the only true and good Lord of Thy field, 
 my heart. 
 
 6. But while in that my sixteenth year I Hved with my 
 parents, leaving all school for a while, (a season of idleness 
 being interposed through the narrowness of my parents' 
 fortunes,) the briers of unclean desires grew rank over my 
 head, and there was no hand to root them out. When that 
 my father saw me at the baths, now growing toward manhood, 
 and endued with a restless youthfulness, he, as already hence 
 anticipating his descendants, gladly told it to my mother; 
 rejoicing in that tumult of the senses wherein the world 
 forgetteth Thee its Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy 
 creature, instead of Thyself, through the fiimes of that invisi- 
 ble wine of its self-vsdll, turning aside and bowing down to 
 the very basest things. But in my mother's breast Thou 
 hadst already begun Thy temple, and the foimdation of Thy 
 holy habitation, whereas my father was as yet but a catechu- 
 men, and that but recently. She then was startled with an 
 holy fear and trembling ; and though I was not as yet bap- 
 tized, feared for me those crooked ways, in which they walk, 
 who turn their back to Thee, and not their face. Jer.2,27. 
 
 •> Formerly an episcopal city ; now a "his fathers," in a, letter persuading 
 small village. At this time the inhabit- them to embrace the Gospel. Ep. 232. 
 ants were heaflien. S, Aug, calls them 
 
22 God ^ahe to him through his mother — men ashamed not to sin. 
 
 CONF. 7. Woe is me ! and dare I say that Thou heldest Thy peace, 
 — '- — '- O my God, while I wandered further from Thee ? Didst Thou 
 
 then indeed hold Thy peace to me ? And whose but Thine 
 were these words which by my mother, Thy faithful one. Thou 
 sangest in my ears ? Nothing whereof sunk into my heart, so 
 as to do it. For she wished, and I remember in private with 
 great anxiety warned me, " not to commit fornication ; but 
 especially never to defile another's wife." These seemed to 
 me womanish advices, which T should blush to obey. But 
 they were Thine, and I knew it not: and I thought Thou 
 wert silent, and that it was she who spake ; by whom Thou 
 wert not silent unto me ; and in her wast despised by me, her 
 Ps. 116, son, the son of Thy handmaid. Thy servant. But I knew it 
 not ; and ran headlong with such blindness, that amongst my 
 equals I was ashamed of a less shamelessness, when I heard 
 them boast of their flagitiousness, yea, and the more boasting, 
 the more they were degraded : and I took pleasure, not only 
 in the pleasure of the deed, but in the praise. What is worthy 
 of dispraise but Vice ? But I made myself worse than I was, 
 that I might not be dispraised ; and when in any thing I had 
 not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would say that I had 
 done what I had not done, that I might not seem contempti- 
 ble in proportion as I was innocent ; or of less account, the 
 more chaste. 
 
 8. Behold with what companions I walked the streets of 
 Babylon, and wallowed in the mire thereof, as if in a bed of 
 spices, and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the 
 faster to its very centre, the invisible enemy trod me down, 
 and seduced me, for that I was easy to be seduced. Neither 
 Jer. 51, did the mother of my flesh, (who had now fled out of the 
 ^- centre of Babylon, yet went more slowly in the skirts thereof,) 
 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, (if it could not be pared away to the 
 quick,) what she felt to be pestilent at present, and for the 
 fiittire 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 ; 
 
Aug.'s theft for the mere pleasure qf thieving. 23 
 
 my mother, because she accounted that those usual courses 
 of learning would not only be no hindrance, but even some 
 furtherance towards attaining Thee. For thus I conjecture, 
 recalling, as well as I may, the disposition of my parents. 
 The reins, mean time, were slackened to me, beyond all temper 
 of due severity, to spend my time in sport, yea, even unto dis- 
 soluteness in whatsoever I affected. And in all was a mist, 
 intercepting from me, O my God, the brightness of Thy 
 truth ; and mine iniquity burst out as from very fatness. P^- '3, 
 
 [IV.] 9. Theft is punished by Thy law, O Lord, and " 
 the law written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself 
 eflFaces not. For what thief will abide a thief.? not even a 
 rich thief, one stealing through want. Yet I lusted to thieve, 
 and did it, compelled by no hunger, nor poverty, but through 
 a cloyedness of welldoing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. 
 For I stole that, of which I had enough, and much better. 
 Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft and 
 sin itself. A pear tree there was near our vineyard, laden 
 with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor taste. To shake 
 and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late one 
 night, (having according to our pestilent custom prolonged 
 our sports in the streets till then,) and took huge loads, 
 not for our eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having 
 only tasted them. And this, but to do, what we liked 
 only, because it was misliked. Behold my heart, O God, 
 behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom 
 of the bottomless pit. Now, behold let my heart tell Thee, 
 what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, 
 having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, 
 and I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved mine own 
 fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself 
 Foul soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter destruction ; 
 not seeking aught through the shame, but the shame itself! 
 
 [v.] 10. For there is an attractiveness in beautifiil bodies, 
 in gold and silver, and all things ; and in bodily touch, sym- 
 palJiy hath much influence, and each other sense hath his 
 proper object answerably tempered. Worldly honovu: hath 
 also its grace, and the power of overcoming, and of mastery ; 
 whence springs also the thirst of revenge. But yet, to obtain 
 all these, we may not depart from Thee, O Lord, nor decline 
 from Thy law. The life also which here we live hath its own 
 
24 All sin proposes some end; 
 
 CO NF. enchantment, through a certain proportion of its own, and a 
 
 — '- — '- correspondence with all things beautiful here below. Human 
 
 friendship also is endeared with a sweet tie, by reason of 
 
 the unity formed of many souls. Upon occasion of all these, 
 
 and the like, is sin committed, while through an immoderate 
 
 inclination towards these goods of the lowest order, the better 
 
 and higher are forsaken'', — Thou, our Lord God, Thy truth, 
 
 and Thy law. For these lower thirigs have their delights, 
 
 Ps. 64, but not like my God, who made all things ; for in Him doth 
 
 ***• the righteous delight, and He is the Joy of the upright in 
 
 heart. 
 
 11. When, then, we ask why a crime was done, we be- 
 lieve it not, unless it appear that there might have been 
 some desire of obtaining some of those which we called 
 lower goods, or a fear of losing them. For they are beautiful 
 and comely ; although compared with those higher and 
 beatific goods, they be abject and low. A man hath mur- 
 dered another ; why ? he loved his wife or his estate ; or 
 would rob for his own livelihood; or feared to lose some 
 such thing by him ; or, wronged, was on fire to be revenged. 
 Would any commit murder upon no cause, delighted simply 
 in murdering ? Who would believe it ? For as for that 
 furious and savage man, of whom it is said that he was 
 gratuitously evil and cruel, yet is the cause assigned'; " lest" 
 (saith he) " through idleness hand or heart should" grow in- 
 active." And to what end ? That, through that practice 
 of guilt, he might, having taken the city, attain to honours, 
 empire, riches, and be freed from fear of the laws, and his 
 embarrassments from domestic needs, and consciousness of 
 villanies. So then, not even Catiline himself loved his own 
 villanies, but something else, for whose sake he did them. 
 
 [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 any thing, 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 
 
 •> " We convict the mind of sin, when them." Aug. de Lib. Arb. iii. 1. 
 we convict it of preferring the lower <= Sallust. de Bell. Catil. v. 9. 
 things, forsaking the higher to enjoy 
 
imitates pervertedly some excellence of God. 25 
 
 did my wretched soul desire ; for I had store of better, and 
 those I gathered, only that I might steal. For, when gathered, 
 I flmig 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 the sin. And 
 now, O Lord my God, I enquire what in that theft delighted 
 me ; and behold it hath no loveliness ; I mean not such love- 
 liness 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. 
 
 13. For so doth pride imitate exaltedness ; whereas Thou 
 Alone art God exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, 
 but honours and glory.? whereas Thou Alone art to be 
 honoured above all, and glorious for evermore. The cruelty 
 of the great would fain be feared ; but who is to be feared but 
 God alone, out of whose power what can be wrested or with- 
 drawn ? when, or where, or whither, or by whom ? The ten- 
 dernesses of the wanton would fain be counted love : yet is 
 nothing more tender than Thy charity ; nor is aught loved 
 more healthfully than that Thy truth, bright and beautiful 
 above all. Curiosity makes semblance of a desire of know- 
 ledge ; whereas Thou supremely knowest all. Yea, ignorance 
 and foolishness itself is cloked under the name of simplicity 
 and uninjuriousness ; because nothing is found more single 
 than Thee : and what less injurious, since they are his own 
 works, which injure the sinner''? Yea, sloth would fain be at 
 rest; but what stable rest besides the Lord? Luxury affects 
 to be called plenty and abundance ; but Thou art the fulness 
 and never-failing plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures. 
 Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality: but Thou art 
 the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would 
 possess many things : and Thou possessest all things. Envy 
 
 * After this will come just judgment, God need produce out of Itself that 
 of which he (the Psalmist) so speaks, whereby sins were to he punished ; for 
 thatwemay understand that each man's He so disposeth sins, that what were 
 own sin is the instrument of his punish- delights to man sinning, are the instru- 
 ment, and his iniquity is turned into ys ments of the Lord punishing. S. Aug. 
 torment; that we may not think, that in Ps. 7, 15. 
 that serenity and ineffable light of 
 
26 Men seek in the creature, what is only in the Creator. 
 
 CONF. disputes for excellency: what more excellent than Thou? 
 
 — '■ — '- Anger seeks revenge: who revenges more justly than Thou? 
 Fear startles at things unwonted or sudden, which endanger 
 things beloved, and takes forethought for their safety ; 
 
 Kom. 8,but to Thee what unwonted or sudden, or who separateth 
 from Thee what Thou lovest? Or where but with Thee is 
 unshaken safety ? Grief pines away for things lost, the delight 
 of its desires ; because it would have nothing taken from it, 
 as nothing can from Thee. 
 
 14. Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns 
 from Thee, seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure 
 and untainted, till she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly 
 imitate Thee, who remove far from Thee, and lift themselves 
 up against Thee. But even by thus imitating Thee, they 
 imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature; whence there 
 is no place whither altogether to retire from Thee. What 
 then did I love in that theft? and wherein did I even 
 corruptly and pervertedly imitate my Lord? Did I wish 
 even by stealth to do contrary to Thy law, because by 
 power I could not, so that being a prisoner, I might mimic 
 a maimed liberty by doing with impunity things unpermitted 
 
 Jonah, me, a darkened likeness of Thy Omnipotency'? Behold, 
 
 c.l. ^.rjTjjy. ggryant^ fleeing from his Lord, and obtaining a shadow. 
 
 rottenness, O monstrousness of life, and depth of death ! 
 could I like what I might not, only because I might not ? 
 
 Ps. 116, [VII.] 15. What shall I render unto the Lord, that, 
 ^2. whilst my memory recals these things, my soul is not af- 
 frighted at them? / 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 
 
 1 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 ovra wilfulness, and what by 
 Thy guidance I committed not. What man is he, who, 
 
 ■= Souls in their very sins sect hut a tate God the Father with an impious 
 
 sort of likeness of God, in a proud and pride ; the righteous, with a holy honnti- 
 
 perverted, and, so to say, slavish freedom, fulness." c. Secundin. Man. c. 10. 
 Aug. de Trin. 1. xi. c. 6. " Sinners imi- 
 
Through God alone are men keptjrom, or healed of, any sin. 27 
 
 weighing his own infirmity, daxes to ascribe his purity and 
 innocency 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 reads 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 fi'om such deep consumption of sin, by Him 
 he sees himself to have been from the like consumption of sin 
 preserved. 
 
 [VIII.] 16. What fruit had I then (wretched man !) in Kom. 6, 
 those things, of the remembrance whereqf I am now ' 
 ashamed? Especially, in that theft which I loved for the 
 theft's sake; and it too was nothing', and therefore the more 
 miserable I, who loved it. Yet alone I had not done it : 
 such was I then, I remember, alone I had never done it. 
 I loved then in it also the company of the accomplices, 
 with whom I did it.'' I did not then love nothing else 
 but the theft, yea rather I did love nothing else ; for that 
 circumstance of the company was also nothing. What is, 
 in truth ? who can teach me, save He that enlighteneth my 
 heart, and discovereth its dark comers.? What is it which 
 hath come into my mind to enquire, and discuss, and 
 consider ? For had I then loved the pears I stole, and wished 
 to enjoy them, I might have done it alone, had the bare 
 commission of the theft suflSced to attain my pleasure ; nor 
 needed I have inflamed the itching of my desires, by the 
 excitement of accomplices. But since my pleasure was not 
 in those pears, it was in the offence itself, which the company 
 of fellow-sinners occasioned. 
 
 [IX.] 17. What then was this feeling? For of a truth it 
 was too foul : and woe was me, who had it. But yet what 
 was it .? Who can understand his errors ? It was the sport, Ps. 19, 
 
 12.' 
 
 « " Love Him not little, as though have ! For whosoever from the outset 
 
 He had forgiven thee little, hut rather remaineth chaste, is governed hy Him ; 
 
 love Him mach, Who hath given thee and whoso from unchaste hecometh 
 
 much. For if he'loveth, to whom it chaste, is amended by_Him ; and whoso 
 
 hath been forgiven, that he have not to to the end is unchaste is forsaken by 
 
 repay, how much more oughf he to love, Him." Aug. de S. Virginit. c. 42. 
 
 to whom it hath been given,, that he ' See iii. 7. vii. 12. (old Ed.) 
 
28 Man not strong enough to hear ill society. 
 
 CONF. which, as it were, tickled our hearts, that we beguiled, those 
 — : — 1 who little thought what we were doing, and much misliked it. 
 Why then was my delight of such sort, that I did it not alone ? 
 Because none doth ordinarily laugh alone ? ordinarily no one ; 
 yet laughter sometimes masters men alone and singly when 
 no one whatever is with them, if any thing very ludicrous 
 presents itself to their senses or mind. Yet I had not done 
 this alone ; alone I had never never done it. Behold my 
 God, before Thee, the vivid remembrance of my soul ; alone, 
 I had never committed that theft, wherein what I stole 
 pleased me not, but that I stole ; nor had it alone liked me to 
 do it, nor had I done it. O friendship too unfriendly ! thou 
 incomprehensible inveigler of the soul, thou greediness to do 
 mischief out of mirth and wantonness, thou thirst of others' 
 loss, without lust of my own gain or revenge : but when it 
 is said, " Let's go, let's do it," we are ashamed not to be 
 shameless. 
 
 [X.] 18. Who can disentangle that twisted and intricate 
 knottiness? Foul is it: I hate to think on it, to look on it. 
 But Thee I long for, O Righteousness and Innocency, beau- 
 tifiil and comely to all pure eyes, and of a satisfaction un- 
 sating. With Thee is rest entire, and life imperturbable. 
 Matt. Whoso enters into Thee, enters into the Joy of his Lord: 
 ' ' and shall not fear, and shall do excellently in the All- Excel- 
 lent. I sank away from Thee, and I wandered, O my God, 
 too much astray from Thee my stay, in these days of my 
 youth, and I became to myself a barren land. 
 
THE THIRD BOOK. 
 
 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. Re- 
 futation 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. 
 
 [I.] 1. 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 be- 
 cause filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed 
 it. For this cause ray 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, r defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship vsdth 
 the filth of concupiscence, 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 sweet- 
 ness? 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 burn- 
 ing rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers^ 
 and quarrels. 
 
 [II.] 2. 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 
 
30 Difference between false and real sympathy; 
 
 CONF. as a spectator to feel sorrow at them, and this very sorrow 
 ?iiJi in 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 uses to be styled misery : when he hath fellow-suf- 
 fering, 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. 
 
 3. Are griefs then too loved? Verily all desire joy. Or 
 whereas no man likes to be miserablej 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 
 wilfiilly changed and transformed, being of its own will preci- 
 pitated 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 
 Song of the guardianship of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to 
 ChT^ Se/Jraisec? and exalted above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. 
 dren, J'or 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 missing 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 
 
 ^ " Misericordia" [mweWcorrfe, whence which is said to bubble out a pitehy 
 
 our ' mercy'] " is so called, because it slime, into which other rivers running, 
 
 maketh the heart to suffer [' miserum' are there lost in it. And like the lake 
 
 facit ' cor'] through grief at another's itself, remain unmoveable: wherefore it 
 
 ill." Aug. de mor. Eccl. k. 27. is called the Dead Sea. (old Ed.) See 
 
 1 He alludes to the sea of Sodom, Tacit, Hist. 1. t. 
 
injury qf unreal sympathy. 3 1 
 
 charity ; yet had he, who is genuinely compassionate, rather 
 there were nothing for him to grieve for. For if 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 al- 
 lowed, none loved. For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who 
 lovest souls far more purely than we, and hast more incor- 
 ruptibly pity on them, yet art wounded with no sonrowfulness. 
 And who is sufficient for these things ? le'""'^' 
 
 4. 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 putrified 
 sore. My life being such, was it life, O my God ? 
 
 [III.] 5. 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 
 fi"uits, for which Thou scourgedst me with grievous punish- 
 ments, though nothing to my fault, O Thou my exceeding 
 mercy, my God, my refiige 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. 
 
 6. 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 re- 
 
32 Philosophy made the beginnings qf his conversion. 
 
 CONF. moved from the subvertiugs 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 ma- 
 licious 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 alto- 
 gether perverted first, the deceiving spirits secretly deriding 
 and seducing them, wherein themselves delight to jeer at, 
 and deceive others. 
 
 [IV.] 7. 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 vain glorious end, a joy in 
 human vaiiity. 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. 
 
 8. How did I burn then, my God, how did I bum to 
 re-mount from earthly things to Thee, nor knew I what Thou 
 wouldest 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 
 
 ' Eveisores. This appears to have below, 1. 5. c. 12, whence they seem to 
 
 been a name which a pestilent and sa- have consisted mainly of Carthaginian 
 
 vage set of persons gave themselves, students, whose savage life is mentioned 
 
 licentious alike in speech and action, again, ib. c. 8. He refers to them in 
 
 Aug. names them again, de Vera Eelig. the de Catechiz. Rudib. u. 1 1 . 
 e. 40. Ep. 185. ad Bonifao. c. 4 ; and 
 
Aug.^s love of the name of Christ, but distaste for Scripture. 33 
 
 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 hook 
 censured and set forth: there also is made plain that whole- 
 some advice of Thy Spirit, by Thy good and devout servant ; 
 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain Col. 2, 
 deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the ' 
 world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily. 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. 
 
 [V.] 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 TuUy : 
 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, swoln with pride, took myself to be a 
 great one. 
 
 [VI.] 10. Therefore 1 fell among men ° proudly doting, exceed- 
 
 "In the Preface to the boot " On the me among those men, waa their profes- 
 
 Benefit of Believing," S. Aug. speaks sion, that, setting aside the terrors of 
 
 further on the errors which betrayed him authority, they would lead such as would 
 
 to the Maniohees. He is writing to Ho- listen to them, to God by the pl^in and 
 
 noratus, who was still detained among simple way of reason, and would rescue 
 
 them, on the benefits of belioTing before them from all errors. For what else led 
 
 we can see. " Thou knowest, Hono- me, for nearly nine years, despising the 
 
 ratus, that the circumstance which led religion which was in my boyhood in- 
 
2,4, 
 
 34 Aug.\i love of truth, while he fell into errm'. 
 
 CONF. ing 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, 
 1 John yet it was not in them : 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 Thy- 
 Jam. 1 self, the Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of 
 !''• turning : yet they still set before me in those dishes, glit- 
 tering 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 
 
 grafted into me by my parents, to follow and held me in the class of ' Hearers,' 
 and be a diligent hearer of those men, as they term it, so that I let not go the 
 but that they alleged that we were terri- hopes and cares of this world, but that I 
 fied by superstition, and that faith was observedthatthey were rather fluent and 
 enjoined to us before reason, while they copious in refuting others, than solid and 
 urged no one to believe, until the truth settled in establishing their own views ?" 
 hadbeensifted and cleared? Who would •> See note A at the end ; §. iii. 
 not be attracted by such promises, espe- " " Ifell amongmen,who heldthatthat 
 oiaUy such as they then found me, an light which we see with our eyes, is to be 
 youthful mind, longing for truth, but worshipped as a chief objeotofreverence. 
 puffed up and prating by aid of the dis- I assented not; yet thought that under 
 putes of some even learned men in the this covering they veiled something of 
 school, despising things as old wives' great account, which they would after- 
 fables, and longing to drink in and retain wards lay open." Aug. de vita Beata, 
 the open and unmixed ti-uth which they Prasf. See fiirther, note A at the end ; 
 promised P But what again recalled me |. i. and iii, b. 
 from being altogether fixed among them. 
 
Erroneous heliqf in God nourishes not. 35 
 
 emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them, but exhausted 
 rather. Food in sleep shews 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 fleshly 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 conjec- 
 ture 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, that I may ps. 69, 
 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 chief- 
 est 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 ai-e, are far more cer- 
 tain, and more certain still the bodies themselves, which yet 
 Thou art not; no, noryetthesoul,whichis 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. 
 
 11. Where then wert Thou then to me, and how far fromme ? 
 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 I toiling and turmoiling through want of Prov. 9, 
 
 18. 
 * See note A at the end; §. i. b. ing phrensy." Aug. meant in moctery, 
 
 e Of this passage S. Aug. is prohably that by verses he could get his bread ; 
 
 speaiking, when he says, " Praises be- his calumniator seems to have twisted the 
 
 stowed on breadin simplicity of heart, let word to signify a loye-potion. u. lit. Peti- 
 
 him (Petilian) defame, if he wiU, by the Hani, 1. iii. c. 16. 
 
 ludicrous title of poisoning and corrupt- 
 
 d2 
 
36 God, sought wrongly, is not found. 
 
 CONK. Truth, since I sought after Thee, my God, (to Thee I confess 
 ~ ^ it, who hadst mercy on me, not as yet confessing,) not accord- 
 ing to the understanding of 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 highesf*. I lighted upon 
 
 Prov. 9, that bold woman, simple and knoiveth 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: 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. 
 
 [VII.] 12.For other than this, that which really is Iknew not; 
 and was, as itwere through sharpness of wit, persuaded to assent 
 to foolish deceivers, when they asked me, " whence is eviP?" 
 " is God bounded by a bodily shape, and has hairs and 
 nails?" " are they to be esteemed righteous, who had many 
 
 1 Kings wives at once, and did kill men, and sacrificed living creatures?" 
 ' ■ At which I, in my ignorance, was much troubled, and depart- 
 ing 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 
 
 John 4, God to be a Spirit, 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 
 
 Gen. 1, to be after the Image of God, I was altogether ignorant. 
 
 13. 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 
 
 <1 See below, b. vii. e. 12 and 16. sueh heaps of empty fables, that unless 
 
 ^ EvOD. Tell me whence we do evil ? my love of finding the truth had ob- 
 
 Atro.Youstart a question, which, when talned for me the Divine aid, I could 
 
 rather young, greatly harassed me, and never have come out thence, or have 
 
 drove and oast me headlong and worn breathed even so freely, as to be able 
 
 among the heretics. Through which fall to enquire at all. Aug. de Lib. Arb. 1. i. 
 
 I was so broken and overwhelmed by |. 4. 
 
 27. 
 
GoiPs law in itself the same, in application varies, 37 
 
 were disposed, according to those times and places; itself 
 meantime being the same always and every where, not one 
 thing in one place, and another in another; according to 
 which Abraham, and Isaac, and 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, and measuring by their own l Cor. 
 petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race. As if ' 
 in 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 : or 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 per- 
 mitted out 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 hear 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 righteous- 
 ness: 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 job 14, 
 are few upon the earth, for that by their senses' they cannot^' 
 harmonize 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. 
 
 ' " In this world ofsense, we must very again, what, aa a part, offends, does, in 
 
 earnestly consider the force of time and the judgment of one well-skilled, only 
 
 place; so as to understand, that what as offend, hecanse the whole is not seen, 
 
 a part, whether of time or place, gives wherevrith that part admirably harmo- 
 
 pleasure, is, as a whole, far better ; and nizes." Aug. de Ordine, 1. ii. §. 61. 
 
3 8 Actions of Patriarchs prophetic. 
 
 CONF. 14. 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 diiFer- 
 ently in different metres; nor even in any one metre the 
 self-same foot in all places. Yet the art itself, by which I in- 
 dited, had not different principles for these different cases, but 
 comprised all in one. Still 1 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*. 
 Mat. 22, [VIII.] 15. Can it at anytime or place be unjust to love 
 ^9- Qod with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his 
 mind; and his neighbour as himself? 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 intercom'se which should be between God and us 
 is violated, when that same nature, of which He is Author, 
 is polluted by the 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 
 
 £ As in typical actions of the Patri- Aug. c. Faust. 1. xxii. o. 24. " God so 
 
 arohs. "OntMs[thecaluiiuiiesagainstthe accounted of these men, and at that time 
 
 Patriarchs]Iwouldiirstsay,thatnottheir made them such heralds of His Son, that 
 
 words only, but their Hfe was prophetic ; not only in what they said, but in what 
 
 andthatthewholekingdomoftheHebrew they did, or what happened to them, 
 
 nation was one great prophet, because Christ is sought, Christis found. AWTiat- 
 
 the prophet of one Great One. Where- ever Scripture saith of Abraham, both 
 
 forein those among therajWhowej-efoM^A^ happened and is a prophecy." Id. Serm. 
 
 within by tlie Wisdom of God, (Ps. 89, 2. de Tentat. Abr. %.1. " We know that 
 
 12. Vulg.) we must, not in what they said prophecy was given as in words, so in 
 
 only,hutalsoin what they did, search for deeds. But in deeds and words is the 
 
 prophecy of the Christ who was to come, resurrection preachedbeforehand." Ter- 
 
 and His Church; but in the rest of that tail, de Kesurr. Camis, c. 28. 
 nation, coUeetivelyinthosethings, which 1> " Forwhenitwasthecustom, it was 
 
 were done in them or to them by God. not an oflfenee ; and now it is therefore 
 
 For all these things, as the Apostle says, an offence, because it is not a custom : 
 
 were our ensamples." (1 Cor. 10, 6.) for some offences are sins against nature, 
 
God to he obeyed in human laws or against them. 39 
 
 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 harmo- 
 nizeth not with its whole, is offensive. But when God com- 
 mands a thing to be done, against the customs or compact 
 of any people, though it were never by them done heretofoi-e, 
 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 
 God, in all which He commands, the Ruler of all His crea- 
 tures! For as among the powers in man's society, the greater 
 authority is obeyed in preference to the lesser, so must God 
 above all. 
 
 16. So in acts of violence', where there is a wish to hurt, 
 whether by reproach or injury ; and these either for revenge, 
 as one enemy against another ; or for some proJ^t belonging 
 to another, as the robber to the traveller; or to avoid some 
 evil, as towards one who is feared ; or through envy, as one 
 less fortunate to one more so, or one well thriven in any thing, 
 to him whose being on a par with himself he fears, or grieves 
 at, or for the mere pleasure at another's pain, as spectators 
 of gladiators, or deriders and mockers of others. These be 
 the heads of iniquity, which spring from the lust of the flesh, i john 
 of the eye, or of rule^, either singly, or two combined, or all to- ^' ^^■ 
 gether; and so do men live ill against the three, and seven ""j 
 
 some against custom, some against po- f " What unbridled desire doeth to 
 
 sitive commands." Aug. o. Faust, xxii. corrupt a person's own mind and body 
 
 47. "This being so, whatever heretics, is called ' foulness,' [flagitium,] what it 
 
 Manichees or others, censure the fathers doth to injure another is called an act 
 
 of the Old Testament for having more of violence, [facinus.] And these two 
 
 than one wife, are more than sufficiently include all sorts of sins ; but acts of 
 
 answered ; if they can but understand, foulness come first. And when these 
 
 that that is no sin, which is not committed have exhausted the mind, and reduced 
 
 against nature, in that they took these it to a state of emptiness, then it rushes 
 
 wives with a view to posterity only ; into deeds of violence to remove the 
 
 nor against custom, in that it was the impediments, or obtain appliances, to 
 
 practice of those times; nor against any the acts of foulness." Aug. de Doctr. 
 
 positive command, in that they were Christiana, iii. 16. 
 
 forbidden by no law." Aug. de Bono g See below, 1. x. o. 30. and note. 
 
 Conjug. t. 25. S. Augustine (Qusest. in Exod. 1. ii. 
 
40 Self-will and self-love source of all sin. 
 
 CONF. that psaltery of ien strings, Thy Ten Commandments, O God, 
 pTTij^niost high, and most sweet. But what foul offences can 
 9. there be against Thee, who canst not be defiled ? or what 
 acts of violence against Thee, who canst not be harmed ? 
 But Thou avengest what men commit against themselves, 
 seeing also when they sin against Thee, they do wickedly 
 Ps. 26, against their own souls, and iniquity gives itself the lie, by 
 yjj con-upting and perverting their nature, which Thou hast 
 created and ordained, or by an immoderate use of things 
 Rom. 1. allowed, or in burning in things unallowed, to that use which is 
 against nature ; or are found guilty, raging with heart and 
 Acts 9, tongue against Thee, kicking against the pricks ; or when, 
 bursting the pale of human society, they boldly joy in ?elf- 
 willed combinations or divisions, according as they have any 
 object to gain or subject of offence. And these things are 
 done when Thou art forsaken, O Fountain of Life, who art 
 the only and true Creator and Governor of the Universe, and 
 by a self-willed pride, any one false thing is selected there- 
 from and loved ''. So then by a humble devoutness we return 
 to Thee ; and Thou cleansest us from our evil habits, and art 
 Ps. 102 merciful to their sins who confess, and hearest the groaning. 
 20. qf the prisoner, and loosest us firom the chains which we made 
 
 qu. 71.) mentions the two modes of divid- could be truer than ,tha,t coKeto2MMe«« ?> 
 
 ing the Ten Commandments, into three the root of all evil, 1 Tim. 6, 10. i. e. 
 
 and se^en, or four and six, and gives desiring more than is reqwsite. For 
 
 what appear to have been his own pri- whatis requisite isin each class of things 
 
 Tate resisons for preferring the first. Both so much as is necessary to maintain 
 
 commonly existed in his day, but the well-being. For covetousnesa is to be 
 
 Anglican mode appears to have been the understood not of gold and money only, 
 
 most usual. It occurs in Origen, Greg, but of all things immoderately desired^ 
 
 Naz., Jerome, Ambrose, Chrys. S. Aug. in whatsoever things any desireth more 
 
 alludes to his division again, Serm. 8.9. than is requisite." Aug. de Lib. Arbit. 
 
 de X chordis, and S. 33 on this Psalm, iii. §. 4S. " This is it which Adam 
 
 " To the first Commandment there be- and Eve were persuaded to, so that 
 
 long three strings, because God is Trine, loving too much to be at their own dis- 
 
 To the other, i. e. the love of our neigh- posal, when they would be equal with 
 
 hour, seven strings. These let ns join to God, they used amiss, i. «. against the 
 
 those three, which belong to the love of law of God, that middle state, wherein 
 
 God, if we would on the psaltery of tea they were subjected to God, and had 
 
 strings sing a new song. If ye do it out their own bodies in subjection, and thus 
 
 of love, ye sing a new song j if ye do it lost that which they had received, in 
 
 from fear, but still do it, ye bear indeed that they sought to, obtain that which 
 
 the psaltery, but do not yet sing ; but if they had not received." Aug. de Gen. 
 
 ye do not even this, ye cast away the c. Man. ii. §. 22. 
 
 psaltery itself. Better even to bear, than ■> " Man's true honor is the image and 
 
 cast away ; but again, better with joy to likeness of God, which is only retained 
 
 sing, than to bear as burthensome. Butto by reference to Him by whom it is im- 
 
 ' sing a new song,' he must be a new pressed. Men cleave then the more to 
 
 man,'' God, the less they love any thing of their 
 
 ' " Beyfare thou think not any saying own." Aug. de Trin. xii. 11. 
 
Who speak against Truth, fall into gross 6rror. 41 
 
 for ourselves, if we lift not up against Thee horns of an 
 unreal liberty, suffering the loss of all, through covetousness 
 of more, by loving more our own private good, than Thee, the 
 Good of all. 
 
 [IX.] 17. Amidst these offences of foulness and violence, and 
 so many iniquities, are sins of men, who are on the whole mak- 
 ing proficiency ; which by those that judge rightly, are, after the 
 rule of perfection, discommended, yet the persons commended, 
 upon hope of future fruit, as in the green blade of growing 
 com. And there are some, resembling offences of foulness or 
 violence, which yet are no sins ; because they offend neither 
 Thee, our Lord God, nor human society; when, namely, 
 things fitting for a given period are obtained for the service 
 of life, and we know not whether out of a lust of having ; 
 or when things are, for the sake of correction, by constituted 
 authority punished, and we know not whether out of a lust 
 of hurting. Many an action then which in men's sight is 
 disapproved, is by Thy testimony approved: and many, by 
 men praised, are (Thou being witness) condemned: because 
 the shew of the action, and the mind of the doer, and the 
 unknown exigency of the period, severally vary. But when 
 Thou on a sudden commandest an unwonted and unthought- 
 of thing, yea, although Thou hast sometime forbidden it, and 
 still for the time hidest the reason of Thy command, and it be 
 against the ordinance of some society of men, who doubts 
 but it is to be done', seeing that society of men is just which 
 serves Thee ? But blessed are they who know Thy com- 
 mands .'' For all things were done by Thy servants" ; either to 
 shew forth something needful for the present, or to foreshew 
 things to come. 
 
 [X.] 18. These things I being ignorant of, scoffed at those 
 
 ' " What then doth Faustus object to Moses might do no other than God had 
 thespoilingofthe Egyptians, notknowing said, so that with the Lord should be the 
 whathesaith? IndoingwhichMosesso counsel to command, with the servant 
 far from sinned, that he had sinned had the obedience to perform." Aug. u. 
 he not done it. For Grod had com- Faust. 1. xxii. c. 71. " We may not 
 manded it, who knoweth not merely from believe of Samson but that he was com- 
 men'a actions, but from their thoughts, manded by Gfofl to destroy himself. But 
 what each should suffer and by whom." — when Gfod commands, and intimates 
 And after assigning a reason, "iheremay clearly and explicitly that He does corn- 
 have been other mosthiddenieasons, why mand, who shall criminate obedience ? 
 this people should have been enjoined who accuse the service of piety?" De 
 this by God, but to Divine commands Civ. Dei, I. i. c. 26. 
 we must yield by obeying, not resist by ■• The Patriarchs. See note on c. 7. 
 disputing. — This Istedfastly affirm, that p. 38. 
 
42 Aug.'s conversion foretold to his Mother in a dream. 
 
 CONF. Thy holy servants and prophets. And what gained I by 
 — '- scoffing at them, but to be scoffed at by Thee, being in- 
 sensibly and step by step drawn on to those follies, as to 
 believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked', and the 
 tree, its mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding 
 (plucked by some other's, not his own, guilt') had some (Mani- 
 chsean) saint' eaten, and mingled with his bowels', he should 
 breathe out of it angels, yea, there shall burst forth particles 
 of divinity', at every moan or groan' in his prayer, which 
 particles of the most high and true God had remained bound 
 in that fig, unless they had been set at liberty by the teeth 
 or belly of some " Elect"' saint ! And I, miserable, believed 
 that more mercy was to be shewn to the finits of the earth, 
 than men, for whom they were created". For if any one an 
 hungered, not a Manichsean, should ask for any, that morsel 
 would seem as it were condemned to capital punishment, 
 which should be given him". 
 Ps.144, [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 fi-om 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' imder her eyes 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 firom, abhorring and detesting the blas- 
 phemies 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) enquired 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 
 
 1 On tiie Manichsean errors here al- v. fin. 
 luded to, see note A at the end ; §. iii. " He alludes here to that devout man- 
 
 a and h. ner of the Eastern anciente, who used to 
 
 •n See note A at the end; §. iii. b. lie flaton their faces In prayer. [Old Ed.] 
 
Heretics qften not to be argued with, but prayed for. 43 
 
 when she looked, she saw nie 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, 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 foresignified. For almost nine years passed, in 
 which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit, and the dark- 
 ness 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 movurning, ceased 
 not at all hours of her devotions to bewail my case unto Thee. 
 And her prayers entered into Thy presence ; and yet Thou Ps, 88, 
 sufferest me to be yet involved and reinvolved in that dark- *• 
 ness. 
 
 [XII.] 21. Thou gavest her meantime another answer, 
 which I call to mind ; for much I pass by, hasting to those 
 things which more press me to confess unto Thee, and much 
 I do not remember. Thou gavest her then another answer, 
 by a Priest of Thine, a certain Bishop brought up in Thy 
 Church, and well studied in Thy books. Whom when this 
 woman had entreated to vouchsafe to converse with me, 
 refute my errors, unteach me ill things, and teach me good 
 things, (for this he was wont to do, when he found persons 
 fitted to receive it,) he refused, wisely, as I afterwards per- 
 ceived. For he answered, that I was yet unteachable, being 
 puffed up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already 
 
44 Unceasing prayers and tears never fail. 
 
 CONF. perplexed divers unskilful persons with captious questions", 
 — .: — ' as she had told him : " but let him alone a while," (saith he,) 
 " only pray God for him, he will of himself by reading 
 find what that eiTor is, and how great its impiety." At the 
 same time he told her, how himself, when a little one, had 
 by his seduced mother been consigned over to the Manichees, 
 and had not only read, but frequently copied out almost all, 
 their books, and had (without any argument or proof from 
 any one) seen how much that sect was to be avoided ; and 
 had avoided it. Which when he had said, and she would 
 not be satisfied, but urged him more, with intreaties and 
 many tears, that he would see me, and discourse with me ; 
 he, a little displeased at her importunity, saith, " Go thy ways, 
 and God bless Thee, for it is not possible that the son of 
 these tears should perish." Which answer she took (as she 
 often mentioned in her conversations with me) as if it had 
 sounded firom heaven. 
 
 " " Two things principally , whiclirea^ tained, either by my own powers, (what- 
 
 dily captivate that unguarded age, over- ever they were,) or by other reading, I 
 
 came me ; one, intimacy, creeping round readily Eiscribed to them alone. So from 
 
 me with a sort of semblance of good, their discourses there was daily excited 
 
 entwining itself, like a twisted chain, in me an ardent love for contests, and 
 
 manifoldly round the neck. The other, from the result of the contests, a love 
 
 that I had frequently gained a pernicious for them. Thus it happened, that what- 
 
 victory in disputing with unskilful Chris- ever they said, I strangely assented to 
 
 tians, who yet would strive eagerly to as true, not because I knew it, but 
 
 defend their faith as best they might, because I wished it to be true. And so. 
 
 And this success being very frequent, the although step by step, and cautiously, 
 
 excitement of youth gained ground, and yet long did I follow men, who preferred 
 
 recklessly pressed on its energies towards a shining straw to a living soul." (See 
 
 the great evil of obstinacy. And having note A at the end ; iii. b. v. fin.) Aug. 
 
 commenced this sort of disputing, after de duab. Anim. c. Manjch. c. 9. 
 I had heard them, whatever ability I at- 
 
THE FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug.'s life from nineteen to eight and twenty; himself a Manichaean, 
 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 ; reflections on grief, on real and unreal friendship, and love of 
 fame; writes on " the fair and fit," yet cannot rightly, though God 
 had given him great talents, since he entertained wrong notions of 
 God ; and so even his knowledge he applied ill. 
 
 [I.] 1. For this space of nine years then (from my nine- 
 teenth year, to my eight and twentieth) we lived seduced and 
 seducing, deceived and deceiving, in divers lusts; openly, 
 by sciences which they call liberal; secretly, with a false 
 named religion ; here proud, there superstitious, every where 
 vain! Here, hunting after the emptiness of popular praise, 
 down even to theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and 
 strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies of shows, and the 
 intemperance of desires. There, desiring to be cleansed 
 from these defilements, by carrying food to those who were 
 called " elect" and " holy," out of which, in the workhouse of 
 their stomachs, they should forge for us Angels and Gods, by 
 whom we might be cleansed'. These things did I follow, and 
 practise with my iriends, deceived by me, and with me. Let 
 the arrogant mock me, and such as have not been, to their soul's 
 health, stricken and cast down by Thee, O my God; but I 
 would still confess to Thee mine own shame in Thy praise. 
 Suffer me, I beseech Thee, and give me grace to go over in my 
 present remembrance the wanderings of my forepassed time, 
 and to offer unto Thee the sacrifice qf thanksgiving. For what Ps. 49, 
 am I to myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own down- 
 fall''? or what am I even at the best, but an infant sucking 
 the milk Thou givest, and feeding upon Thee, the food that^o^'^^, 
 perisheth not? But what sort of man is any man, seeing he 
 
 * See note A at the end ; §. iii. a. without superintendence, belongs to God 
 
 •> " To be happy, by his own power, only." Aug. de Gen. c. Manioh. ii. 5. 
 
46 Sin restrained, but without fixed principle. 
 
 CONF. is but a man ? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh 
 
 ' ' at us, but let us poor and needy confess unto Thee. 
 21. ' [II.] 2. In those years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome 
 by cupidity, made sale of a loquacity to overcome by. Yet 
 I preferred (Lord, Thou knovrest) honest scholars, (as they are 
 accounted,) and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not 
 to be practised against the life of the guiltless, though some- 
 times for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar 
 Is. 42, perceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and amid 
 j2 20 ' Kiuch smoke sending out some sparks of faithfulness, which I 
 Ps. 4, 2. shewed in that my guidance of such as loved vanity, and 
 sought after leasing, myself their companion. In those years 
 I had one, — not in that which is called lawful marriage, but 
 whom I had found out in a wayward passion, void of under- 
 standing; yet but one, remaining faithful even to her; in 
 whom I in my own case experienced, what difference there is 
 betwixt the self-restraint of the marriage- covenant, for the 
 sake of issue, and the bargain of a lustful love, where children 
 are bom against their parents' will, although, once bom, they 
 constrain love. 
 
 3. 1 remember also, that when I had settled to enter the 
 lists for a theatrical prize, some wizard asked me what I 
 would give him to win : but I, detesting and abhorring such 
 foul mysteries, answered, " Though the garland were of impe- 
 rishable gold, I would not suffer a fly to be killed to gain me 
 it." For he was to kill some living creatures in his sacrifices, 
 and by those honours to invite the devils to favour me. 
 But this ill also I rejected, not out of a pure love" for Thee, O 
 
 ' " He alone is truly pure, who wait- loveth ; if it love aught beside, it is no 
 
 eth on God, and keepeth himself to Him pure love. You depart from the immortal 
 
 alone."Aug.devitaheata,§. 18. "Whoso flame, yoa wiU be chilled, corrupted, 
 
 seeketh God, is pure, because the soul Do not depart; itwill be thy corruption, 
 
 hath in God her legitimate Husband, will be fornication in thee." Aug. in Ps. 
 
 Whosoever seeketh of God any thing 72. §. 32. " The pure fear of the Lord 
 
 besides God, doth not love God purely. (Ps.l9,9.)isthat,vrherewiththeChnrch, 
 
 If a wife loved her husband, because the more ardently she loveth her Hus- 
 
 he is rich, she is not pure, for she band, the more diligently she avoids of- 
 
 loveth not her husband, but the gold fending Him, and therefore love when 
 
 of her husband." Aug. Serm. 137. perfected casteth not out this fear, but it 
 
 "Whoso seeks from God any other remainethforeverandever." Aug. inloc. 
 
 reward but God, and for it would serve " Under the name of pure fear, is signi- 
 
 God, esteems what he wishes to receive, fied that will, whereby we must needs 
 
 more than Him from whom he would be averse from sin, and avoid sin, not 
 
 receive it. What then? hath God no re- through the constantanxiety of infiirmity, 
 
 w ard ? None, save Himself. The re- but through the tranquillity of affection." 
 
 ward of God is God Himself. This it De Civ. Dei, xiv. §. 65. 
 
No real love of Ood, without sound faith. 47 
 
 God of my heart; for I knew not how to love Thee, who knew 
 not how to conceive aught beyond a material brightness''. 
 And doth not a soul, sighing after such fictions, commit forni- 
 cation against Thee, trust in things unreal', and feed the hos. 12, 
 wind? Still I would not forsooth have sacrifices offered to^- 
 devils for me, to whom I was sacrificing myself by that 
 superstition. For, what else is it to feed the wind, but to 
 feed them, that is, by going astray to become their pleasure 
 and derision ? 
 
 [III.] 4. Those impostors then, whom they style Mathema- 
 ticians, I consulted without scruple ; because they seemed to 
 use no sacrifice, nor to pray to any spirit for their divinations : 
 which art, however. Christian and true piety consistently re- 
 jects and condemns. For, it is a good thing to confess unto Ps. 41, 
 Thee, and to say. Have mercy upon me, heal my soul, for I 
 have sinned against Thee ; and not to abuse Thy mercy for a 
 license to sin, but to remember the Lord's words. Behold, Johq 5, 
 thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come 
 unto thee. All which wholesome advice they labour to 
 destroy, saying, " The cause of thy sin is inevitably deter- 
 mined in heaven;" and " This did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars:" 
 that man, forsooth, flesh and blood, and proud corruption, 
 might be blameless ; while the Creator and Ordainer of 
 heaven and the stars is to bear the blame. And who is He but 
 our God? the very sweetness and well-spring of righteousness, 
 who renderest to every man according to his works: and a Rom. 2, 
 broken and contrite heart wilt Thou not despise. J5 27.' 
 
 5. There was in those days a wise man^, very skilful inP|-5i' 
 physic, and renowned therein, who had with his own pro- 
 consular hand put the Agonistic garland upon my distempered 
 head, but not as a physician : for this disease Thou only curest, 
 who resistest the proud, and givest grace to the humble. But 1 Pet. 5, 
 didst Thou fail me even by that old man, or forbear to heal my jjn,_ 4 
 soul ? For having become more acquainted with him, and hang- 6. 
 
 * See note A at the end; §. i. a,. sometliing unreal. And if this be, it will 
 
 « " Who loves what he knows not? no longer be love out of a pure conscience 
 
 and what is to know God but to behold, andfaith unfeigned." Aug. de Trin. viii. 
 
 and firmly to perceive Him ? But we 66. 
 
 must beware, lest the mind believing ' Vindioianus, named below, 1. vii. 
 
 that it does not see, feign to itself some- c. 6. S. Aug. Ep. 138. §. 3. calls him 
 
 thing which is not, and hope and love " the great physician of our times." 
 
48 Absolute proof even qf vanity of Divination hard to find. 
 
 CONF. ing assiduously and fixedly on his speech, (for though in simple 
 — : — '. terms, it was vivid, lively, and earnest,) when he had gathered 
 by my discourse, that I was given to the books of nativity- 
 casters, he kindly and fatherly advised me to cast them away, 
 and not fruitlessly bestow a care and diligence, necessary for 
 useful things, upon these vanities ; saying, that he had in his 
 earliest years studied that art, so as to make it the profession 
 whereby he should live, and that, understanding Hippo- 
 crates, he could soon have understood such a study as this ; 
 and yet he had given it over, and taken to physic, for 
 no other reason, but that he found it utterly false ; and he, a 
 grave man, would not get his living by deluding people. 
 " But thou," saith he, " hast rhetoric to maintain thyself by, 
 " so that thou foUowest this of free choice, not of necessity : 
 " the more then oughtest thou to give me credit herein, who 
 " laboured to acquire it so perfectly, as to get my living by 
 '• it alone." Of whom when I had demanded, how then could 
 many true things be foretold by it, he answered me (as he 
 could) " that the force of chance, diffused throughout the 
 " whole order of things, brought this about. For if when a 
 " man by hap-hazard opens the pages of some poet, who 
 " sang and thought of something wholly different, a verse 
 " oftentimes fell out, wondrously agreeable to the present 
 " business : it were not to be wondered at, if out of the soul 
 " of man, unconscious what takes place in it, by some higher 
 " instinct an answer should be given, by hap, not by art, 
 " corresponding to the business and actions of the demander." 
 6. And thus much, either from or through him, Thou 
 conveyedst to me, and tracedst in my memory, what I might 
 hereafter examine for myself But at that time neither he, 
 nor my dearest Nebridius, a youth singularly good and of a 
 holy fear^, who derided the whole body of divination, could 
 persuade me to cast it aside, the authority of the authors 
 swaying me yet more, and as yet I had found no certain 
 proof (such as I sought) whereby it might without all doubt 
 appear, that what had been truly foretold by those consulted 
 was the result of hap-hazard, not of the art of the star-gazers. 
 [IV.] 7. In those years when I first began to teach rhe- 
 toric in my native town, I had made one my friend, but too 
 S See above, §. 3. not 
 
He jests at his friend'' s baptism, and is reproved. 49 
 
 dear to me, from a community of pursuits, of mine own age, 
 and, as myself, in the first opening flower of youth. He had 
 grown up of a child with me, and we had been both school- 
 fellows, and play-fellows. But he was not yet my friend as 
 afterwards, nor even then, as true friendship is; for true it 
 cannot be, unless in such as Thou cementest together, 
 cleaving unto Thee, by that love which is shed abroad in our'B.om. s, 
 hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Yet was ' 
 it but too sweet, ripened by the warmth of kindred studies : for, 
 from the true faith (which he as a youth had not soundly and 
 throughlyimbibed,) Ihadwarpedhim also to those superstitious 
 and pernicious fables, for which my mother bewailed me. 
 With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be with- 
 out him. But behold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy 
 fugitives, at once God of vengeance, and Fountain of mercies, Ps. 94, 
 turning us to Thyself by wonderful means; Thou tookest ' 
 that man out of this life, when he had scarce filled up one 
 whole year of my friendship, sweet to me above all sweetness 
 of that my life. 
 
 8. Who can recount all Thy praises, which he hath felt in Ps. 106, 
 his one self? What diddest Thou then, my God, and how 
 unsearchable is the abyss of Thy judgments ? For long, sore Ps. 36, 
 sick of a fever, he lay senseless in a death-sweat; and his 
 recovery being despaired of, he was baptized, unknowing; 
 myself meanwhile little regarding, and presuming that his 
 soul would retain rather what it had received of me, not what 
 was wrought on his unconscious body. But it proved far 
 otherwise : for he was refreshed, and restored. Forthwith, as 
 soon as I could speak with him, (and I could, so soon as he 
 was able, for I never left him, and we hung but too much 
 upon each other,) I essayed to jest° with him, as though he 
 
 • The Maniolijeans, which S. Aug. " The Maniehseans say that the washing 
 then was, could not hut reject Baptism, of regeneration, i. e. the water itself, is 
 or any rite employing a material suh- superfluous , and with a profane mind 
 stance. They purified matter, not mat- contend that it profits nothing The Ma- 
 ter them. (See note A at fte end ; iii. nichaeans destroy the visible element; the 
 b.) S. Aug. speaks again of his " mock- Pelagians also the invisible mystery, (c. 
 ing" at Baptism in his own case. 2. Epp. Pelag. ii. 2.) " What avails it 
 L. T. §. 16. " They hold ttiat Bap- them (the Pelagians) to confess that bap- 
 tism in water contributes nothing to tism is necessary for all ages, which the 
 the salvation of any, nor do they &ink Manichaeanssayiesuperfluousinall."(ib. 
 that any of those whom they. deceive, iv.4.) " He knows not, or feigns he knows 
 should be baptized." (Aug. de HEeres.) not, that among them [the Maniehseans] 
 
50 God's mercy in the baptism and death of his friend. 
 
 CONF. would jest with me at that baptism which he had received, 
 -— — '- when utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now imder- 
 stood that he had received. But he so shrunk from me, as 
 from an enemy; and with a wonderful and sudden freedom 
 bade me, as I would continue his friend, forbear such lan- 
 guage to him. I, all astonished and amazed, suppressed all 
 my emotions till he should grow well, and his health were 
 strong enough for me to deal with him, as T would. But he 
 was taken away from my phrensy, that with Thee he might 
 be preserved for my comfort; a few days after, in my absence, 
 he was attacked again by the fever, a,nd so departed. 
 
 9. At this grief my heart was utterly darkened ; and 
 whatever I beheld was death. My native country was a 
 torment to me, and my father's house a strange unhappiness ; 
 and whatever I had shared with him, wanting him, became a 
 distracting torture. Mine eyes sought him every where, but 
 he was not granted them ; and I hated all places, for that 
 they had not him ; nor could they now tell me, " he is 
 coming," as when he was alive and absent. I became a 
 Ps. 42, great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul, why she was so 
 sad, and why she disquieted me sorely: but she knew not 
 what to answer me. And if I said. Trust in God, she very 
 rightly obeyed me not ; because that most dear friend, whom 
 she had lost, was, being man, both truer and better, than that 
 phantasm *" she was bid to trust in. Only tears were sweet to 
 me, for they succeeded my friend, in the dearest of my affec- 
 tions. 
 
 [V.] 10. And now, Lord, these things are parsed by, and 
 time hath assuaged my wound. May I learn from Thee, who 
 
 the name Catechumens does not imply thereby implying that the Manichaeans 
 
 that any Baptism is in store for them." nsed this mystery. "What was needed 
 
 c.litt. Petil.iii. 17. These statements are for his argument was, that the Catholics 
 
 30 distinct, thatm/ere«ee«from others can used it. The same argument is used by 
 
 hare no weight. Moreover, in the deMor. Faustus, 1. xxir. and Manes himself, 
 
 Cath. c. 35. S. Aug. is plainly speaking Ep. ad Menoeh ap. Aug. Op. Imp. 
 
 of Christians; in the Acta c. Fel. i. 19, iii. 107, although there more plainly as 
 
 Felix the Manichsean is speaking com- an argumentum ad hominem. It may 
 
 municative ; " If there is no adversary he, in part, on this account, as a mercy 
 
 againstGod,whyarewebaptized? "Why to S. Augustine, that God Ahnighty 
 
 is there an Eucharist, why Christianity, made His sacrament administered to 
 
 if there is nothing against God.'" He is his unconscious friend, the instrument 
 
 arguing from conceded facts, and speaks, of his miraculous conversion, 
 
 generally, in the first person, in the name b See note A at the end ; §. i. a. 
 of the whole body of Christians, without 
 
Av^. loathes life and dreads death. 5t 
 
 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 every where, cast 
 away our misery far from Thee ? And Thou abidest in Thy- 
 self, 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 f Doth this 
 sweeten it, that we hope Thou hearest ? This is true of 
 prayer, for therein is a longing to approach unto Thee. But 
 is it 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 yet he 
 lost them. So was it then with me ; I wept most bitterly, and 
 foimd 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, as is related (if not 
 feigned) of Pylades and Orestes, that they would gladly have 
 died for each other or together, not to live together being 
 to them worse than death. But 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 sup- 
 pose, the more I loved him,, the more did I hate, and fear 
 (as a most cruel enemy) death, which had bereaved me 
 
 b " Were any to say, I had rather to be. Give thanks then for that thou 
 
 die than he unhappy, I should answer, art, which thou dost will, that so what 
 
 ' Thou speakest false.' For ;now thou thou art against thy will maybe removed * 
 
 art unhappy, andwiUest not to die, for no from thee. For willingly thou art, but 
 
 other cause than to be ; so then, though unwillingly art unhappy," Aug. deLib. 
 
 you will not to be unhappy, you do will Arb. iii. §. 10. 
 
 E 2 
 
62 Misery increased by distraction. 
 
 CONF. of him : and I imagined it would speedily make an end of 
 — ^^ — ^all men, since it had power over him. Thus was it with 
 me, I remember. Behold my heart, my God, behold 
 and see into me ; for well I remember it, O my Hope, who 
 cleansest me from the impurity of such affections, directing 
 Ps. 25, mine eyes towards Thee, and plucking my feet out of the snare. 
 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 1 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 per- 
 chance ° I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved, 
 should die wholly. 
 
 [VII.] 12. O madness, which knowest not how to love men, 
 like men ! O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently 
 the lot of man ! I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted ; 
 had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered 
 and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet 
 where to repose it, I found not. Not in calm groves, not 
 in games and music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious 
 banquettings, nor in the pleasures of the bed and the 
 couch; nor (finally) in books or poesy, found it repose. All 
 things looked ghastly, yea, the very light; whatsoever was 
 not what he was, was revolting and hateful, except groaning 
 and tears. For in those alone found I a little refreshment. 
 But when my soul was withdravra from them, a huge load 
 of misery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought 
 to have been raised, for Thee to lighten; I knew it; but 
 neither could nor would; the more, since, when I thought of 
 Thee, Thou wert not to me any solid or substantial thing. 
 For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom', and my error 
 was my God. If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that it 
 might rest, it glided through the void, and came rushing down 
 
 *" Hor. Carm. 1. i. od. 3. chance I feared," &e. which seems to me 
 
 "1 Ovid. Trist. 1. ir. Eleg. It. 72. rather an empty declamation than a grave 
 
 e In confessing the misery of my mind confession, although this folly in it may 
 
 at the death of my friend, saying, that be somewhat tempered by the addition of 
 
 our soul was, as it were, made out of ' perchance.' Aug. Ketract. 1. ii. c. 6. 
 
 two, one, I said, " and therefore per- f See Note A at the end; §. i, a. 
 
The world cures grief by sources qf fresh grief. 53 
 
 again on me ; and 1 had remained to myself a hapless spot, 
 where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For whither 
 should my heart flee from my heart ? Whither should I flee 
 from myself? Whither not follow myself? And yet I fled 
 out of my country; for so should mine eyes less look for him, 
 where they were not wont to see him. And thus from 
 Thagaste, I came to Carthage. 
 
 [VIII.] 1 3. Times lose no time ; nor do they roll idly by ; 
 through our senses they work strange operations on the 
 mind. Behold, they went and came day by day, and by 
 coming and going, introduced into my mind other imagin- 
 ations, and other remembrances ; and little by little patched 
 me up again with my old kind of delights, unto which that my 
 sorrow gave way. And 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 re- 
 freshed 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, look- 
 
 S See above, i. 1. below e. 10. 12. §. 18. vi. 16. 
 
54 Amid the changes qfthe creature, rest only in the Creator. 
 
 CONF. ing 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 
 
 Gen. 2, lost. And who is tlus but our God, the God that made 
 
 24 
 
 Jer. 23 heaven and earth, and Jilleth them, because by filling then* 
 2*- He created them".? Thee none loseth, but who leaveth. And 
 who leaveth Thee, whither goeth or whither fleeth he, but 
 from Thee well-pleased, to Thee displeased ? For where doth 
 Ps^ii9,he not find Thy law in his own punishment? And Ttiy law 
 John 14 ** truth, and truth Thou. 
 
 6- [X.] 15. Turn us, O God of Hosts, shew us Ttiy counte- 
 
 19.' ' nance, and we shall be whole. For whithersoever the soul 
 of man turns itself, unless towards Thee, it is rivetted upon 
 sorrows', yea though it is rivetted on things beautiful. And 
 yet they, out of Thee,- and out of the soul, were not, unless they 
 were from Thee. They rise, aind set; and by rising, they begin 
 as it were to be; they grow, that they may be perfected ; aiwl 
 perfected, they wax old and wither; and all grow not old, 
 but all wither. So then when they rise and tend to be, the 
 more quickly they grow that they may be, so much the more 
 they haste not to be. This is the law of them. Thus much 
 hast Thou allotted them, because they are portions of things, 
 which exist not all at once, but by passing away and succeed- 
 ing, they together complete that universe, whereof they are 
 portions. And even thus is our speech completed by signs 
 giving forth a sound : but this again is not perfected unless 
 one word pass away when it hath sounded its part, that 
 another may succeed. Out of all these things let my soul 
 praise Thee, O God, Creator of all ; yet let not my soul 
 be rivetted unto these things with the glue of love, through 
 the senses of the body. For they go whither they were to 
 go, that they might not be ; and they rend her with pestilent 
 longings, because she longs to be, yet loves to repose in what 
 she loves ". But in these things is no place of repose ; they 
 
 h See above i. 2 and 3. ^ In this life men, with much toil, 
 
 > See above |. 13. seek test and freedom from care, but 
 
God invites us to Him, by the changes around us. 55 
 
 abide not, they flee; and who can follow them with the 
 senses of the flesh ? yea, who can grasp them, when they are 
 hard by? For the sense of the flesh is slow, because it is the 
 sense of the flesh; and thereby is it bounded. It sufficeth 
 for that it was made for ; but it sufficeth not to stay things 
 running their course from their appointed starting place to 
 the end appointed. For in Thy Word, by which they are 
 created, they hear their decree, " hence and hitherto." 
 
 [XI.] 16. Be not foolish, O my soul, nor become deaf in the 
 ear of thine heart with the tumult of thy folly. Hearken 
 thou too. The Word Itself calleth thee to return : and 
 there is the place of rest imperturbable, where love is not 
 forsaken, if itself forsaketh not. Behold, these things pass 
 away, that others may replace them, and so this lower universe 
 be completed by all his parts. But do I depart any whither ? 
 saith the Word of God. There fix thy dwelling, trust there 
 whatsoever thou hast thence, O my soul, at least now thou 
 art tired out with vanities. Entrust Truth, whatsoever thou 
 hast from the Truth, and thou shalt lose nothing ; and thy 
 decay shall bloom again, and all thy diseases be healed, and Ps. io3, 
 thy mortal parts be re-formed and renewed, and bound around ' 
 thee : nor shall they lay thee whither themselves descend ; 
 but they shall stand fast with thee, and abide for ever before 
 God, who abideth and standeth fastybr ever. i Pet. i, 
 
 17. Why then be perverted and follow thy flesh? Be it con- 
 verted and follow thee. Whatever by her thou hast sense 
 of, is in part ; and the whole, whereof these are parts, thou 
 knowest not; and yet they delight thee. But had the sense of 
 thy flesh a capacity for comprehending the whole, and not itself 
 also, for thy punishment, been justly restricted to a part of the 
 whole, thou wouldest, that whatsoever existeth at this present, 
 should pass away, that so the whole might better please thee '. 
 For what we speak also, by the same sense of the -flesh thou 
 hearest ; yet wouldest not thou have the syllables stay, but fly 
 away, that others may come, and thou hear the whole'". And 
 
 through perverse longings they find it Aug. de Catechiz. Bad. §. 14. 
 
 not. They wish to find rest in things ' See belovr on 1. xiii. c. 18. 
 
 whichrest and abidenot, and these, since "For the beauty of the whole discourse 
 
 they are withdrawn by time and pass is notfrom the single letters, or syllables, 
 
 away, harass them with fears and sor- but from the whole. Aug. de Gen. o. 
 
 rows, and will not let them be at rest. Manich. i. 21, 
 
56 All things are in God and so to be loved in God. 
 
 CONF. so ever, when any one thing is made up of many, all of which 
 — — ^ do not exist together, all collectively would please more than 
 they do severally, could all be perceived collectively. But far 
 better than these, is He who made all ; and He is our God, 
 nor doth He pass away, for neither doth aught succeed 
 Him. 
 
 [XII.] 18. If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion 
 of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker "■ ; lest in 
 these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls 
 please thee, be they loved in God : for they too are mutable, 
 but in Him are they firmly stablished ; else would they pass, 
 and pass away. In Him then be they beloved; and carry 
 unto Him along with thee what souls thou canst, and say 
 to them, " Him let us love. Him let us love : He made these, 
 nor is He far off. For He did not make them, and so depart, 
 but they are of Him, and in Him". See there He is, where truth 
 - is" loved. He is within the very heart, yet hath the heai-t 
 strayed from Him. Go back into your heart", ye transgressors, 
 and cleave fast to Him that made you. Stand with Him, and ye 
 shall stand fast. Rest in Him, and ye shall be at rest. Whither 
 go ye in rough ways ? Whither go ye ? The good that you 
 love is from Him '' ; but it is good and pleasant '' through 
 
 ■" Wherever you turn, He speateth their hearts, but because thou wert 
 
 totheebytraeeSjWhiehHehasimpressed strayed, as a vagabond, from thy ovm 
 
 upon His works, and by the very forms of heart, so He, who is every where, laid 
 
 outward things recalls thee, when sink- hold on thee, and recalled thee to thine 
 
 ing down to things outward. — Woe to own inward self. What then does the 
 
 them who leave Thee as their guide, and written law cry aloud to such as have 
 
 go a-stray in the traces of Thee, who, for forsaken the law written in their hearts .' 
 
 Thee, lovetheseintimationsofThee, and "return to your hearts, ye transgres- 
 
 forgetwhatThouintimatest! O Wisdom, sors." — What then thou wouldest not 
 
 Thou most sweet light of the cleansed have done to thee, do not to another, 
 
 mind; for Thou ceasest not to intimate Thou decidest it to be evil, in that thou 
 
 to us what and how great Thou art, and wouldest not endure it, and the inward 
 
 these intimations ofThee is the universal law, written in thy very heart, forces 
 
 beauty of creation. Aug. de Lib. Arb. ii. thee to know this. Thou didst it, and 
 
 16 . men groaned at thy hands ; how art thou 
 
 " This Good is not placed far from forced to " go back into thy own heart," 
 
 every one of us ; for in Him we live and when thou endurest it at the hands of 
 
 move and are. But by love must we others. Aug.- in Ps. 57. §. 1. 
 
 hold and cleave to Him, that we may P Shame we, since other things are 
 
 enjoy Him present with us, from, whom only loved as being good, by cleaving 
 
 we are, who, were He absent, we could to them to cease to love Him, through 
 
 not even be. Aug. de Trin. viii. §. 5, 6. whom they are good. Aug. de Trin. 
 
 "Because men seeking things without, viii. 3. 
 
 become strange even to themselves, the 1 Men revolt not to evil things but in 
 
 written law also was given them ; not an evil way, i. e. not to evil natures, but 
 
 because it was not already written in tberefore in an evil way, because agains.t 
 
The Son qf Qodhwmbled, that we being htcmbled, might rise. 57 
 
 reference to Him, and justly shall it be embittered', because 
 unjustly is any thing loved which is from Him, if He be 
 forsaken for it. To what end then would ye still and still 
 walk these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest, 
 where ye seek it. Seek what ye .seek; but it is not there 
 where ye seek. Ye seek a blessed life in the land of death ; 
 it is not there. For how should there be a blessed life, where 
 life itself is not?" 
 
 19. " But our true Life came down hither, and bore our 
 death, and slew him, out of the abundance of His own life: 
 and He thundered, calling aloud to us to return hence to 
 Him into that secret place, whence He came forth to us, first 
 into the Virgin's womb, wherein He espoused the human 
 creation, our mortal flesh, that it might not be for ever mortal, 
 and thence like a bridegroom coming out 0/ his chamber, rejoic- Ps. 19, 
 ing as a giant to run his course. For He lingered not, but 
 ran, calling aloud by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascen-r 
 sion; crying aloud to us to retiu-n unto Him. And He 
 departed from our eyes, that we might return into our 
 heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and lo. He is 
 here. He would not be long with us, yet left us not; for He 
 departed thither, whence He never parted, because the icorld John 1, 
 was made by Him. And in this world He was, and into this , L 
 world He came to save sinners, unto whom my soul confesseth, 1, 15. 
 and He healeth it, for it hath sinned against Him. O ye sons Ps. 41, 
 0/ men, how long so slow of heart ? Even now, after the descent p . „ 
 of Life to you, will ye not ascend and live ? But whither Vulg! 
 ascend ye, when ye are on high, and set your mouth against ^^- ''3, 
 the heavens? Descend, that ye may ascend', and ascend to 
 
 the natural order, they go from Him, deserting that whereto the mind should 
 
 who is the Highest, to things which in a cleave as to its first principle, would 
 
 lesser degree are. Aug. de Civ. Dei, become and he, asitwere,afirstprinoiple 
 
 xii. 8. to itself. — There is then, strange to say, 
 
 ' What so unjust as that good should something in humility, which raises the 
 
 be with him who deserteth what is good? heart upwards, and something in clarion, 
 
 Nor can it be. But sometimes the evil which sinks it downwards. — A reverent 
 
 of the loss of the higher good is not felt, humility makes one subject to him who is 
 
 through the possession of the lower good, higher ; butnothing is higher than God; 
 
 which men love. But it is the law of and so humility, which makes subject to 
 
 Divine justice, that whoso hath with his God, exalts. But a faulty elation, in 
 
 good-wiU lost what he ought to love, thatitrejects this subjection, sinks down 
 
 shall with sorrow lose what he hath from Him, than whom nothing is higher, 
 
 loved. Aug. de Gen. ad litt. viii. 14. and thereby becomes lower. Aug. de 
 
 » It is a perverted loftiness, when men Civ. Dei, xiv. 13. 
 
58 Ai^. appreciates the beautiful,though not understanding God. 
 
 CONF. God. For ye have fallen, by ascending against Him'." Tell 
 ' ' them this, that they may weep in the valley of tears, and so 
 
 6." ' carry them up with thee unto God; because out of His 
 Spirit thou speakest thus unto them, if thou speakest, burning 
 with the fire of charity. , 
 
 [XIII.] 20. These things I then knew not, and I loved 
 these lower beauties, and I was sinking to the very depths, 
 and to my friends I said, " do we love any thing but the beau- 
 tiful ? What then is the beautiful ? and what is beauty ? 
 What is it that attracts and wins us to the things we love ? 
 for unless there were in them a grace and beauty, they could 
 by no means draw us unto them." And I marked and per- 
 ceived that in bodies themselves, there was a beauty, from 
 their forming a sort of whole, and again, another from apt and 
 mutual correspondence, as of a part of the body with its whole, 
 or a shoe with a foot, and the like. And this consideration, 
 sprang up in my mind, out of my inmost heart, and I wrote 
 " on the fair and fit," I think, two or three books. Thou 
 knowest, O Lord, for it is gone from me; for I have them not, 
 but they are strayed from me, I know not how. 
 
 [XIV.] 21. But what moved me, O Lord my God, to 
 dedicate these books unto Hierius, an orator of Rome, whom 
 I knew not by face, but loved for the fame of his learning 
 which was eminent in him, and some words of his I had 
 heard, which pleased me ? But more did he please me, for 
 that he pleased others, who highly extolled him, amazed that 
 out of a Syrian, first instructed in Greek eloquence, should 
 afterwards be formed a wonderful Latin orator, and one most 
 learned in things pertaining unto philosophy. One is com- 
 mended, and, unseen, he is loved: doth this love enter the 
 heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commender ? Not 
 so. But by one who loveth is another kindled. For hence 
 he is loved, who is commended, when the commender is 
 believed to extol him with an unfeigned heart ; that is, when 
 one that loves him, praises him. 
 
 • By the lowliness of repentance the the whole mortal nature of man was 
 
 soul recovers her high estate. Aug. de swelled with pride. — Lest then men 
 
 Lib. Arh. iii. 5. He made a way for us should disdain to follow a humble man, 
 
 through humility; because through pride God humbled Himself; that even the 
 
 we had departed from God, we could pride of the human race might not dis- 
 
 not return but through humility, and one dain to follow the traci of God. Aug. in 
 
 to take as a pattern we had not. For Ps. 33. Enarr. 1. §. 4. 
 
Man a riddle to himself — sees not the truth justhef ore him. 59 
 
 22. For so did I then love meu, 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 theatre, 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 com- 
 mended 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, jvho 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, Mat. 10, 
 and they fall not to the ground ivithout 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 that orator was of that sort whom I loved, as wishing 
 to be myself such ; and I en*ed through a swelling pride, and 
 
 was tossed about with every wind, but yet was steered byEpb. 4, 
 Thee, Hiough 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 selfsame 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 fi-om 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 labours should be 
 known to that man: which should he approve, I were the 
 more kindled; but if he disapproved, my empt/ heart, void of 
 
60 One error hinders from seeing other truth, 
 
 CONF. Thy solidity, had been wounded. And yet the " fair and 
 — : — '- fit," whereon I wrote to him, I dwelt on with pleasure, and 
 surveyed it, and admired it, though none joined therein. 
 [XV.] 24. But I saw not yet, whereon this weighty matter 
 Ps. 106, tvimed in Thy wisdom, O Thou Omnipotent, who only doest 
 wonders ; and my mind ranged through corporeal forms ; and 
 "fair," I defined and distinguished what is so in itself, and "fit," 
 whose beauty is in correspondence to some other thing : and 
 this I supported by corporeal examples. And I turned to 
 the nature of the mind, but the false notion which I had of 
 spiritual things, let me not see the truth. Yet the force of 
 truth did of itself fiash into mine eyes, and I turned away my 
 panting soyl from incorporeal substance to lineaments, and 
 colours, and bulky magnitudes. And not being able to see 
 these in the mind, I thought 1 could not see my mind. And 
 whereas in virtue I loved peace, and in viciousness I abhorred 
 discord ; in the first I observed an unity, but in the other, a 
 sort of division. And in that unity, I conceived the rational 
 soul, and the nature of truth and of the chief good to consist : 
 but in this division I miserably imagined there to be some un- 
 known substance of irrational life, and the nature of the chief 
 evil, which should not only be a substance", but real life also, 
 and yet not derived from Thee, my God, of whom are all 
 things. And yet that first I called a Monad, as it had been 
 a soul without sex"; but the latter a Duad; — anger, in deeds of 
 violence, and in flagitiousness, lust ; not knowing whereof I 
 spake. For I had not known or learned, that neither was 
 evil a substance, nor our soul that chief and unchangeable 
 good '. 
 
 25. For as deeds of violence arise, if that emotion of the 
 soul be corrupted, whence vehement action springs, stirring 
 itself insolently and unrulily ; and lusts, when that affection of 
 the soul is ungovemed, whereby carnal pleasures are drunk 
 in, so do errors and false opinions defile the conversation, 
 
 " See Note A at the end; §. i. b. " violence" as implying strength may 
 
 ^ Or " an unintelligent soul;" very be looked on as the male, " lust" was, 
 
 good MSS. reading " sensu," the majo- in mythology, represented as female; 
 
 rity, it appears, " sexu ;" if -we read if we take " sensu," it will express the 
 
 " sexu," the absolute unity of the first living, but unintelligent, soul of the 
 
 principle, or Monad, may be insisted world, in the Manicheean, as a Panthe- 
 
 upon, and in the inferior principle, di- istio, system, 
 vided into " violence" and " lust," y See note A at the end; §. ii. a. 
 
for Qod repels proud, though earnest, search. 61 
 
 if the reasonable soul itself be corrupted ; as it was then 
 in me, who knew not that it must be enlightened by another 
 light, that it may be partaker of truth, seeing itself is not 
 thaf nature of truth. For Thou shall light my candle, O Ps. 18, 
 Lord my God, Thou shall enlighten my darkness: and of Thy^^' 
 fulness have we all received, for Thou art the true Light that le. 9. ' 
 Ughteth every man thai cometh into the world; for in Tliee^^- ^' 
 there is no variableness, neither shadow of change. 
 
 26. But I pressed towards Thee, and was thrust from Thee, 
 
 that I might taste of death : for Thou resistest the proud, i Pet. 5, 
 But what prouder, than for me with a strange madness to4'g ""' 
 maintain myself to be that by nature' which Thou art.? For 
 whereas I was subject to change, (so much being manifest to 
 me, my very desire to become wise, being the wish, of worse 
 to bepome better;) yet chose I rather to imagine Thee subject 
 to change, than myself not to be that which Thou art. There- 
 fore I was repelled by Thee, and Thou resistedst my vain stiff- 
 neckedness, and I imagined corporeal forms, and — myself flesh, 
 I accused flesh''; and, a wind that passeth away, I returned Ps. 78, 
 not to Thee, but I passed on and on to things which have no 
 being, neither in Thee, nor in me, nor in the body. Neither 
 were they created for me by Thy truth,butbymy vanity devised 
 out of things corporeal. And I was wont to ask Thy faithful 
 little ones, my fellow-citizens, (from whom, unknown to myself, 
 I stood exiled,) I was wont, prating and foolishly, to ask 
 them, " Why then doth the soul err which God created ?" 
 But I would not be asked, " Why then doth God err?" And 
 I maintained, that Thy unchangeable substance did err upon 
 constraint, rather than confess that my changeable substance 
 had gone astray voluntarily, and now, in punishment, lay in 
 error. 
 
 27. I was then some six or seven and twenty years old 
 when I wrote those volumes ; revolving within me corporeal 
 fictions, buzzing in the ears of my heart, which I turned, O 
 sweet truth, to thy inward melody, meditating on the " fair and 
 
 fit," and longing to stand and hearken to Thee, and to rejoice John 3, 
 greatly at the Bridegroom^ voice, but could not ; for by the ^^' 
 voices of mine own errors, I was hurried abroad, and through 
 the weight of ray own pride, I was sinking into the lowest pit. 
 1 See Note A at the end; §. ii. a. 
 
62 Oreat quickness, when relied upon, a hindrance. 
 
 CONF. For Thou didst not make me to hear joy and gladness, nor 
 p " ' did the hones exult which were not yet humbled. 
 8. ' [XVI.] 28. And what did it profit me, that scarce twenty 
 years old, a book of Aristotle, which they call the ten Predica- 
 ments, falling into my hands, (on whose very name I hung, as 
 on something great and divine, so often as my rhetoric master 
 of Carthage, and others, accounted learned, mouthed it with 
 cheeks bursting with pride,) I read and understood it unaided.? 
 And on my conferring with others, who said that they scarcely 
 understood it with very able tutors, not only orally explaining 
 it, but drawing many things in sand, they could tell me no 
 more of it than I had learned, reading it by myself And the 
 book appeared to me to speak very clearly of substances, such 
 as " man," and of their qualities, as the figure of a man, of what 
 sort it is ; and stature, how many feet high ; and his relation- 
 ship, whose brother he is ; or where placed ; or when bom ; 
 or whether he stands or sits ; or be shod or armed ; or does, 
 or suffers any thing; and all the innumerable things which 
 might be ranged under these nine Predicaments", of which 
 I have given some specimens, or under that chief Predi- 
 cament of Substance. 
 
 29. What did all this further me, seeing it even hindered 
 me } when, imagining whatever was, was comprehended under 
 those ten Predicaments, I essayed in such wise to understand, 
 
 my God, Thy wonderful and unchangeable Unity also, as if 
 Thou also hadst been subjected to Thine own greatness or 
 beauty ; so that (as in bodies) they should exist in Thee, 
 as their subject: whereas Thou Thyself art Thy greatness and 
 beauty ; but a body is not gi'eat or fair in that it is a body, 
 seeing that, though it were less great or fair, it should not- 
 withstanding be a body. But it was falsehood which of 
 Thee I conceived, not truth ; fictions of my misery, not the 
 realities of Thy Blessedness. For Thou hadst commanded, 
 and it was done in me, that the earth should bring forth 
 briars and thorns to me, and that in the sweat of my brows 
 
 1 should eat my bread. 
 
 30. And what did it profit me, that all the bopks I could 
 
 * All the relations of things were these with that wherein they might he 
 
 comprised by Aristotle under nine heads ; found, or " suhstance," make up the ten 
 
 quantity ,quality,relation,aotion,passion, qategories or predicaments, 
 whfire, when, situation, clothing; and 
 
Piety, not knowledge or talents, enlightens. 63 
 
 procure of the so-called liberal arts, I, the vile slave of vile 
 affections, read by myself, and understood ? And I delighted in 
 them, but knew not whence came all, that therein was true or 
 certain. For I had my back to the light, and my face to the 
 things enlightened ; whence my face, with which I discerned 
 the things enlightened, itself was not enlightened. Whatever 
 was written, either on rhetoric, or logic, geometry, music, and 
 arithmetic, by myself without much difficulty or any instructor, 
 I understood. Thou knowest, O Lord my God ; because both 
 quickness of understanding, and acuteness in discerning, is 
 Thy gift: yet did I not thence sacrifice to Thee. So then 
 it served not to my use, but rather to my perdition, since I 
 went about to get so good a portion of my substance into my Luke 15. 
 own keeping; and I kept not my strength for Thee, butj'^*^^' 
 wandered from Thee into a far country, to spend it upon Vulg. 
 harlotries. For what profited me good abilities, not em- 
 ployed to good uses? For I felt not that those arts were 
 attained with great difficulty, even by the studious and ta- 
 lented, until I attempted to explain them to such ; when he 
 most excelled in them, who followed me not altogether slowly. 
 31. But what did this further me, imagining that Thou, 
 O Lord God, the Truth, wert a vast and bright body, and I 
 a fragment of that body*? Perverseness too great! But such 
 was I. Nor do I blush, O my God, to confess to Thee Thy 
 mercies towards me, and to call upon Thee, who blushed not 
 then to profess to men my blasphemies, and to bark against 
 Thee. What profited me then my nimble wit in those 
 sciences and all those most knotty volumes, unravelled by 
 me, without aid from human instruction; seeing I erred 
 so foully, and with such sacrilegious shamefulness, in the 
 doctrine of piety ? Or what hindrance was a far slower wit to 
 Thy little ones, since they departed not far from Thee, that in 
 the nest of Thy Church they might securely be fledged, and 
 nourish the wings of charity, by the food of a sound faith. 
 O Lord our God, under the shadow of Thy icings let us hope ; 
 protect us, and carry us. Thou wilt carry us both when little, 
 and even to hoar hairs wilt Thou carry us; for our firmness, is. 46, 
 when it is Thou, then is it firmness; but when our own,"*' 
 it is infirmity. Our good ever lives with Thee ; from which 
 * See Note A at the end ; §. i. zi. ii. a. 
 
64 Qod unchangeable, therefore man may return to Him. 
 
 CONF. when we turn away, we are turned aside. Let us now, O 
 ^' ^^' Lord, return, that we may not be overturned, because with 
 Thee our good lives without any decay, which good art Thou ; 
 nor need we fear, lest there be no place whither to return, be- 
 cause we fell from it : for through our absence, our mansion 
 fell not — Thy eternity. 
 
THE FIFTH BOOK. 
 
 S. Aug/s twenty-ninth year. Faustus, a snare of Satan to many, made an 
 instrument of deliverance to S. Aug., by shewing the ignorance of the 
 Manichees on those things, wherein they professed to have divine 
 knowledge. Aug. gives up all thought of going further among the 
 Manichees : is guided to Rome and Milan, where he hears S. Ambrose, 
 , leaves the Manichees, and becomes again a Catechumen in the Church 
 Catholic. 
 
 [I.] 1. Acceptthe sacrifice of my confessions from the ministry 
 of my tongue, which Thou hast formed and stirred up to con- 
 fess unto Thy name. Heal Thou all my bones, and let them Ps. 35, 
 say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee ? For he who confesses 
 to Thee, doth not teach Thee what tates place within him ; 
 seeing a closed heart closes not out Thy eye, nor can man's 
 hard-heartedness thrust back Thy hand : for Thou dissolvest 
 it at Thy will in pity or in vengeance, and nothing can hide7&. I9, 
 itself from Thy heat. But let my soul praise Thee, that it ' 
 may love Thee ; and let it confess Thy own mercies to Thee, 
 that it may praise Thee. Thy whole creation ceaseth not, 
 nor is silent in Thy praises ; neither the spirit of man with 
 voice directed unto Thee, nor creation animate or inanimate, by 
 the voice of those who meditate thereon : that so our souls may 
 from their weariness arise towards Thee, leaning" on those 
 things which Thou hast created, and passing on to Thyself, 
 who madest them wonderfully ; and there is refreshment and 
 true strength. 
 
 [II.] 2. Let the restless, the godless, depart and flee from 
 Thee ; yet Thou seest them, and dividest the darkness. And 
 
 * " On whatever place a man have i. c. the eyes, ears, and other senses of 
 
 fallen, thereon he mustlean, that he may the body. These sensible or corporeal 
 
 rise. Therefore we must lean on those forms children mast of necessity cling to 
 
 very sensible forms, whereby we are held and love ; the yomig almost of necessity ; 
 
 back, that we may know those, which thenceforward as age goes on, it is no 
 
 sense tells us not of. Sensible I call, what longer necessary." Aug. de vera Relig. 
 
 can be perceived through the senses, u. 24. 
 
66 The wicked, thxmgh they obey not, must serve Ood. 
 
 CONF. behold, the universe with them is fair, though they are foul ''. 
 
 — '—^- And how have they injured Thee'? or how have they disgraced"* 
 Thy government, which, from the heaven to this lowest earth, 
 
 Ps. 139, is just and perfect? For whither fled they, when they fled 
 from Thy presence ? Or where dost not Thou find them ? 
 
 Gen. 16, But they fled, that they might not see Thee seeing them, 
 
 wisd. and, blinded, might stumble against Thee ; (because 7%OM_/or- 
 
 '^' ^^- salcest nothing Thou halt made;) that the unjust, I say, might 
 stumble upon Thee, and justly be hurt; withdrawing them- 
 selves from Thy gentleness, and stumbling at Thy uprightness, 
 and falling upon their own ruggedness. Ignorant, in truth, that 
 Thou art every where. Whom no place encompasseth ! and Thou 
 
 Ps. 73, alone art near, even to those that remove far from Thee. Let 
 them then be turned, and seek Thee ; because not as they have 
 forsaken their Creator, hast Thou forsaken Thy creation. Let 
 them be turned and seek Thee ; and behold, Thou art there in 
 their heart, in the heart of those that confess to Thee, and 
 cast themselves upon Thee, and weep in Thy bosom, after 
 all their rugged ways. Then dost Thou gently wipe away 
 their tears, and they weep the more, and joy in weeping; 
 even for that Thou, Lord, — not man of flesh and blood, but 
 — Thou, Lord, who madest them, re-makest and comfortest 
 them. But where was I, when I was seeking Thee ? And 
 Thou wert before me, but I had gone away from Thee ; nor 
 did I find myself, how much less Thee ! 
 
 [III.] 3. I would lay open before my God that nine and 
 twentieth year of mine age. There had then come to Car- 
 thage, a certain Bishop of the Manichees, Faustus" by name, 
 
 •> " As a picture, wherein a black co- and order of the universe should in any 
 
 louringoceurs in its proper place,sois the way be deformed, since to their wills of 
 
 universe beautiful, if any could survey it, whatever sort, though evil, certainfitting 
 
 notwithstanding the presence of sinners, bounds are assigned to their power, and 
 
 although, talien by themselves, their the due measure to their deserviugs, so 
 
 proper deformity makes them hideous." that even with them, thus placed under 
 
 Aug. de Civ. Dei, xi. 23. the fitting and due order, the universe is 
 
 ' " Persons are in Scripture called the fair." Aug. de Gen. ad Lit. 1. xi. o. 21. 
 enemies of God, who, not by nature hut « " Faustus, of African origin, born at 
 
 by sins, oppose His government ; able to Milevis, of a sweet discourse and clever 
 
 injure, not Him, but, themselves. For wit." Aug. c. Faust. 1. i. init. S. Aug. 
 
 they are enemies through the will to speaks again of his talent, (whence Aug. 
 
 resist, not through the power to hurt." the more suspected that he saw through 
 
 ib. xii. 3. thefallaoyofhisowuarguments,)ib.xvi. 
 
 ^ " Nor by their wickedness do they 26. and (whereas he claimed exclu- 
 
 effect that under the rule, power, and sively for the Manichees the Evangelical 
 
 wisdom ofthe All-ruling God, the beauty blessings on poverty and self-denial,) 
 
Discoveries (^science do not lead to God. 67 
 
 a great snare of the Devil, and many were entangled by him 
 through that lure of his smooth language : which though I 
 did commend, yet could I separate from the truth of the 
 things which I was earnest to learn : nor did Ii so much regard 
 <fce service of oratory, as the science which this Fauslus, so 
 praised among them, set before me to feed upon. Fame had 
 before bespoken him most knowing in all valuable learning, 
 and exquisitely skilled in the liberal sciences. And since I 
 had read and well remembered much of the philosophers, 
 I compared some things of theirs with those long fables of 
 the Manichees, and found the former the more probable'; even 
 although they could only prevail so far as to make judgment WnA. 
 of this lower world, the Lord of it they could by no means ' ' 
 find out. For Thou art great, O Lord, and hast respect unto Ps. 138, 
 the humble, but the proud Thou beholdest afar off. Nor dost " 
 Thou draw near, but to the contrite in heart, nor art found by Ps. 34, 
 the proud, no, not though by curious skill they could number ' 
 the stars and the sand, and measure the starry heavens, and 
 track the courses of the planets. 
 
 4. For witli their understanding and wit, which Thou 
 bestowedst on them, they search out these things ; and much 
 have they found out; and foretold, many years before, eclipses 
 of those luminaries, the sun and moon, — what day and 
 hour, and how many digits, — nor did their calculation fail ; 
 and it came to pass as they foretold; and they wrote down 
 the rules they had found out, and these are read at this 
 day, and out of them do others foretell in what year, and 
 month of the year, and what day of the month, and what 
 hour of the day, and what part of its light, moon or sun is to 
 be eclipsed, and so it shall be, as it is foreshewed. At these 
 things men, that know not this art, marvel and are astonished, 
 and they that know it, exult, and are puffed up ; and by an 
 ungodly pride departing from Thee, and failing of Thy light, 
 they foresee a failure of the sun's light, which shall be, so 
 long before, but see not their own, which is. For they search 
 not religiously whence they have the wit, wherewith they 
 
 his luxury, as being notorious to all the as a Maniehee, banished to an island by 
 
 " Hearers" of the Manichees, especially the proconsul, the Christians however 
 
 at Rome, (ib. v. 7.) while he despised the interceding for him. (ib. i;. 8.) 
 poverty of his parents, (ib. c. 5.) He was, 
 
 f2 
 
68 Self inust be sacrificed, that we may know Qod. 
 
 CONF. search out this. And finding that Thou madest them, they 
 — '- — '- give not themselves up to Thee, to preserve what Thou madest, 
 nor sacrifice to Thee", what they have made themselves; nor 
 slay their own soaring imaginations, as fowls of the air', nor 
 Ps. 8, 7. tlieir own diving curiosities, (wherewith, like \he fishes of the 
 sea, they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss,) nor 
 ?«"'•■*, their own luxuriousness, as beasts of the field, that Thou, 
 Lord, a consuming fire, mayest bum up those dead cares of 
 theirs, and re-create themselves immortally. 
 Joh.1,3. 5. But they knew not the way. Thy Word, by Whom Thou 
 madest these things which they number, and themselves who 
 number, and the sense whereby they perceive what they num- 
 ber, and the understanding, out of which they number; or 
 Ps, 147, that of Tliy wisdom there is no number. But the Only 
 I'cor 1 Begotten is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteous- 
 30. ness, and sanctification, and was numbered among us, and 
 ili.ax.n,paid tribute unto Ccesar. They knew not this Way ^ whereby 
 to descend to Him from themselves, and by Him ascend unto 
 Is. 14, Him. They knew not this way, and deemed themselves ex- 
 ReV 12 ^^^^^ amongst the stars and shining ; and behold, they fell 
 "t. upon the earth, and their foolish heart was durkened. They 
 
 21. " ' discourse many things truly concerning the creature ; but 
 Truth, Artificer of the creature, they seek not piously, and 
 therefore find Him not; or if they find Him, knowing Him to be 
 lb. God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful, but 
 become vain in their imaginations, and profess themselves to 
 be «<;2se, attributing to themselves what is Thine; and thereby 
 with most perverse blindness, study to impute to Thee what 
 is their own, forging lies of Thee who art the Truth, and 
 Ver. 23. changing the glory of the uncorruptible God, into an image 
 
 f " The beasts of the field are most aptly these three sorts of sins, i. e. pleasure of 
 
 understood of men rejoicing in carnal the flesh and pride and curiosity, include 
 
 pleasures, who mount up to nothing ar- all sins." Aug. ad loc. -vid. sup. iii. 8. inf. 
 
 duous, nothing laborious. The birds of x. 30 sqq. 
 
 the air, the proud, of whom it is said, E " He is the home whither we go, He 
 
 " they have set their face in the heaven." the way whereby we go ; go we by Him 
 
 Behold again the fishes of the sea, i. e. to Him and we shall not go astray. Aug. 
 
 the carnally curious, who walk through Serm. 92. Christ, as God, is the home 
 
 the paths of the seas, i. e. in the depths whither we go; Christ, as man, is the 
 
 of this world search out the things of way whereby we go. lb. 123. Christ 
 
 time ; which, like paths in the sea, vanish carrieth us on , as a leader, carrieth us in 
 
 and perish as soon as the water is min- Him, as the way, carrieth us up to Him, 
 
 gled together again, afteryielding a pas- as our home." Aug. in Ps. 60. §. 4. 
 sage to what has peissed through. For 
 
Knowledge of God the happiness of all happiness. 69 
 
 made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed 
 beasts, and creeping things, changing Thy truth into a lie, 
 and worshipping and serving the creature more than the 
 Creator. 
 
 6. Yet many truths concerning the creature retained I 
 from these men, and saw the reason thereof from calculations, 
 the succession of times, and the visible testimonies of the 
 stars; and compared them with the saying of Manichaeus, 
 which in his phrenzy he had written most largely on these 
 subjects ; but discovered not any account of the solstices, or 
 equinoxes, or the eclipses of the greater lights, nor what- 
 ever of this sort I had learned in the books qf secular phi- 
 losophy. But I was commanded to believe ; and yet it cor- 
 responded not with what had been established by calculations 
 and my own sight, but was quite contrary. 
 
 [IV.] 7. Doth then, O Lord God of truth, whoso knoweth 
 these things, therefore please Thee .? Surely unhappy is he who 
 knoweth all these, and knoweth not Thee : but happy whoso 
 knoweth Thee, though he know not these". And whoso 
 knoweth both Thee and them, is not the happier for them, 
 but for Thee only, if, knowing Thee, he glorifies Thee as Rom. 1, 
 God, and is thankful, and becomes not vain in his imagin- 
 ations. For as he is better off, who knows how to possess 
 a tree, and returns thanks to Thee for the use thereof, although 
 he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it 
 spreads, than he that can measure it, and count all its boughs, 
 and neither owns it, nor knows or loves its Creator: so a 
 believer, whose all this world of wealth is, and who having 2 Cor. 
 nothing, yet possesseth all things, by cleaving unto Thee, ' ' 
 whom all things serve, though he know not even the circles 
 of the Great Bear, yet is it folly to doubt but he is in a better 
 state than one who can measure the heavens, and number the 
 
 k " More praiseworthy is the mind, he closes, " Be not much concerned 
 
 which knoweth its very wesukaess, than though thou knowest not the circuits of 
 
 that which, regarding it not, searches the stars, or the numbers of bodies 
 
 out the paths of the stars, yea though it celestial or terrestrial. Behold the heaviy 
 
 shall, or doth already, know them, not of the world, and praise the counsels of 
 
 knowing by what path he may enter the Creator. Behold what He made; 
 
 upon his own salvation and abiding praise Him who made; hold this 
 
 strength." Aug. de Trin. iv. 1. S.Aug, chiefly ; love Him who made ; for thee 
 
 has the same train of thought, as in also, who lovest Him, He made in His 
 
 these sections, Serm. 68. §. 1, 2, which own image." 
 
70 The vanities of heretics orderedtobeawarhing tothefaithful. 
 
 CONF. stars, and poise the elements, yet neglecteth Thee who hast 
 ' , made all things in number, weight, and measure. 
 
 11,20. [v.] 8. But yet who bade that Manichaeus write on these 
 things also, skill in which was no element of piety ? For 
 
 Job 28, Thou hast said to man, Behold, piety and wisdom ; of which 
 
 L XX. he might be ignorant, though he had perfect knowledge of 
 these things ; but these things, since, knowing not, he most 
 impudently dared to teach, he plainly could have no know- 
 ledge of piety. For it is vanity to make profession of these 
 worldly things even when known ; but confession to Thee is 
 piety. Wherefore this wanderer to this end spake much of these 
 things, that cMivicted by those who had truly learned them, 
 it might be manifest what understanding he had in the other 
 abstruser things. For he would not have himself meanly 
 thought of, but went about to persuade men, " That the Holy 
 Ghost, the Comforter and Enricher of Thy faithful ones, was 
 with plenary authority personally within him '." When then 
 he was found out to have taught falsely of the heaven and 
 stars, and of the motions of the sun and moon, (although these 
 things pertain not to the doctrine of religion,) yet his sacri- 
 legious presumption would become evident enough, seeing 
 he delivered things which not only he knew not, but which 
 were falsified, with so mad a vanity of pride, that he sought 
 to ascribe them to himself, as to a divine person. 
 
 9. For when I hear any Christian brother ignorant of these 
 things, and mistaken on them, I can patiently behold such a 
 man holding his opinion; nor do I see that any ignorance as 
 to the position or character of the corporeal creation can injure 
 him, so long as he doth not believe any thing unworthy of 
 Thee, O Lord, the Creator of all. But it doth injure him, if 
 hfi imagine it to pertain to the form of the doctrine of piety, 
 and will yet affirm that too stiffly whereof he is ignorant. And 
 yet is even such an infirmity, in the infancy of faith, bome by 
 Eph. 4, our mother Charity, till the new-bom may grow up unto a 
 ■ ' perfect man, so as not to be carried about with every wind of 
 doctrine. But in him, who in such wise presumed to be the 
 teacher, source, guide, chief of all whom he could so persuade, 
 that whoso followed him, thought that he followed, not a 
 mere man, but Thy Holy Spirit; who would not judge that 
 ' See Note A ; §. It. 
 
Truth not to be valued nor suspected for its outward garb. 71 
 
 so great madness, when once convicted of having taught any 
 thing false, were to be detested and utterly rejected ? But I 
 had not as yet clearly ascertained, whether the vicissitudes of 
 longer and shorter days and nights, and of day and night 
 itself, with the eclipses of the greater lights, and whatever 
 else of the kind I had read of in other books, might be 
 explained consistently with his sayings ; so that, if they by 
 any means might, it should still remain a question to me, 
 whether it were so or no ; but I might, on account of his 
 reputed sanctity ", rest my credence upon his authority. 
 
 [VI.] 10. And for almost all those nine years, wherein with 
 unsettled mind I had been their disciple, I had longed but too 
 intensely for the coming of this Faustus. For the rest of the 
 sect, whom by chance I had lighted upon, when unable to solve 
 my objections about these things, still held out to me the 
 coming of this Faustus, by conference with whom, these and 
 greater difficulties, if I had them, were to be most readily and 
 abundantly cleared. When then he came, I found him a man 
 of pleasing discourse, and who could speak fluently and in 
 better terms, yet still but the self-same things which they were 
 wont to say. But what availed the utmost neatness of the cup- 
 bearer to my thirst for a more precious draught ^ Mine ears 
 were already cloyed with the like, nor did they seem to me 
 therefore better, because better said ; nor therefore true, 
 because eloquent; nor the soul therefore wise, because the 
 face was comely, and the language graceful. But they who 
 held him out to me, were no good judges of things ; and 
 therefore to them he appeared understanding and wise, 
 because in words pleasing. I felt however that another sort 
 of people were suspicious even of truth, and refused to assent 
 to it, if delivered in a smooth and copious discourse. But 
 Thou, O my God, hadst already taught me by wonderful and 
 secret ways, and therefore I believe that Thou taughtest me, 
 because it is truth, nor is there besides Thee any teacher of 
 truth, where or whencesoevev it may shine upon us '. Of Thyself 
 therefore had I now learned, that neither ought any thing to 
 seem to be spoken truly, because eloquently ; nor therefore 
 
 ^ On ManicliBean asceticism, see to Maues himself, unless this passage 
 Note A ; §. iii. a. It does not appear be a proof, 
 elsewhere that any was specially ascribed ' See below on 1. vii. §. 15. 
 
72 Faustus' superficialness how disguised to the many. 
 
 CONF. falsely, because the utterauce 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 coimtry vessels ; either kind 
 of meats may be served up in either kind of dishes. 
 
 11. That greediness then, wherewith I had of so long time 
 expected that man, was delighted verily with his action and 
 feeling when disputing, and his choice and readiness of words 
 to clothe his ideas. I was then delighted, and, with many 
 others and more than they, did I praise and extol him. It 
 troubled me, however, that in the assembly of his auditors, I 
 was not allowed to put in, and communicate'" those questions 
 that troubled me, in familiar converse with him. Which when 
 I might, and with my friends began to engage his ears at such 
 times as it was not unbecoming for him to discuss with me, 
 and had brought forward such things as moved me ; I found 
 him first utterly ignorant of liberal sciences, save grammar, 
 and that but in an ordinary way. But because he had read 
 some of TuUy's Orations, a very few books of Seneca, some 
 things of the poets, and such few volumes of his own sect, 
 as were written in Latin and neatly, and was daily practised 
 in speaking, he acquired a certain eloquence, which proved 
 the more pleasing and seductive, because under the guidance 
 of a good wit, and with a kind of natural gracefulness. Is it 
 not thus, as I recall it, O Lord my God, Thou Judge of my 
 conscience ? Before Thee is my heart, and my remembrance, 
 Who didst at that time direct me by the hidden mystery of 
 Ps. 50, Thy providence, and didst set those shamefiil errors of mine 
 before my face, that I might see and hate them. 
 
 [VII.] 12. For after it was clear, that he was ignorant of 
 those arts in which I thought he excelled, I began to despair 
 of his opening and solving the difficulties which perplexed 
 me ; (of which indeed however ignorant, he might have held 
 the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee.) For their 
 books are fraught with prolix fables", of the heaven, and stars, 
 
 " This was the old fashion of the East; did our Saviour with the Doctors. (Luke 
 
 where the scholars had liherty to ask 2, 46.) So it is still in some European 
 
 questions of their masters, and to move Universities. (Old Ed.) See e. g. Statuta 
 
 doubts as the professors were reading, or Oxon. Tit. iv. Sect. ii. §. 4. 
 
 as soon as the lecture was done. Thus " See Note A ; §. iii. b. 
 
Aug. loosed from his snare by what was a snare to others. 73 
 
 sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satis- 
 factorily to decide what I much desired, whether, on com- 
 parison of these things with the calculations I had elsewhere 
 read, the account given in the books of Manichseus were 
 preferable, or at least as good. Which when I proposed to 
 be considered and discussed, he, so far modestly, shrunk from 
 the burthen. For he knew that he knew not these things, 
 and was not ashamed to confess it. For he was not one of 
 those talking persons, many of whom I had endured, who 
 undertook to teach me these things, and said nothing. But 
 this man had a heart, though not right towards Thee, yet 
 neither altogether treacherous to himself. For he was not 
 altogether ignorant of his own ignorance, nor would he 
 rashly be entangled in a dispute, whence he could neither 
 retreat, nor extricate himself fairly. Even for this I liked 
 him the better. For fairer is the modesty of a candid mind, 
 than the knowledge of those things which I desired"; and 
 such I found him, in all the more difficult and subtile 
 questions. 
 
 13. 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 re- 
 nowned 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 teach- 
 ing 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 ad- 
 vance in that sect, upon knowledge of that man, came utterly 
 to an end; not that I detached myself from tjiem alto- 
 gether, 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 
 
 " Man must not blush to confess he on himself never to know. Aug. Ep. 
 knows not what he doth not know, lest 190. §. 16. 
 while he feigns that he knoweth, he bring 
 
74 Aug. led to Rome, for his salvation, by otiiers' vanities and his own. 
 
 CONF. soul ; and out of my mother's heart's blood, through her 
 ■.tears night and day poured out, was a sacrifice oifered for 
 
 Joel 2, me unto Thee : and Thou didst deal with me by wondrous 
 
 26 
 
 Ps. 37, ways. Thou didst it, O my God : for the steps of a man 
 
 23. are ordered hy the Lord, and He sJiall dispose his way. Or 
 how shall we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re-making 
 what It made } 
 
 [VIII.] 14. 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 peimission. 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 esta- 
 blished 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, as- 
 Ps. 142, sured me that the like was not done. But Thou, my refuge 
 *• atid my portion in the land of the living, 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 
 f See above, 1. iii. §. 6. 
 
His mother's prayers heard, by being denied. 75 
 
 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 iay own perverseness. 
 For both they who disturbed my quiet, were blinded with a 
 disgraceful phrenzy, and they who invited me elsewhere, 
 savoured of earth. And I, who here detested real misery, 
 was there seeking unreal happiness. 
 
 15. But why I went hence, and went thither. Thou knew- 
 est, O God, yet shewedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, 
 who grievously bewailed my journey, and followed me as far 
 as the sea. But T 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 mercifiilly 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 wouldest 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 with- 
 drew the shore firom 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 
 
 9 The waters of baptism. (Old Ed.) (de Civ. Dei, xxii. 10.) where he says, 
 ' Such [churches] as were built over " We do not build temples to our Mar- 
 the grave of any Martyr, or called by his tyrs as Gods, but only memorials of them, 
 name to preserve the memory of him, as dead men, whose spirits still live with 
 had usually the distinguishing title of God, nor do we erect altars to them in 
 Martyrium, or Confessio, or Memoria those memorials, or offer saeriiice there- 
 given them. The Latins instead of Mar- on to our Martyrs, but to the only God, 
 tyrium commonly use thename of Memo- both theirs and ours." Bingham, Antiq. 
 ria Martyrium for such Mnd of churches, b. viii. c. 1. 1. 8. 
 As in that noted passage of St. Austin, 
 
76 Belief in the Cross not saving, jf other faith unsound. 
 
 CONF. through my desires, Thou wert hurrying me to end all desire, 
 — '■ — '— and the eailhly part of her affection to me was chastened by 
 the allotted scoui'ge 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 j therefore did she weep and 
 waU, 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 hardheart- 
 edness, she betook herself again to intercede to Thee for me, 
 went to her wonted place, and I to Rome. 
 
 [IX.] 16. 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 my- 
 self, and others, many and grievous, over and above that 
 1 Cor. bond of original sin, whereby we all die in Adam. . For 
 15, 22. 'j'jjQ^ hadst not forgiven me any of these things in Christ, 
 nor had He abolished hy 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, every 
 where present, heardest her where she was, and, where I was, 
 hadst compassion upon me ; that I should recover the health 
 of my body, though phrenzied 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 1 had 
 grown up to my own shame, and I madly scoffed' at the 
 
 ' S. Aug. substitutes "by His Cross" His Cross, him who believed not in His 
 
 for "by His flesh;" (Eph.2,,14.) since, flesh." See Note A; §. iii. 
 as a Manichee, he had not the true faith "See ibid. 
 in the Incarnation of Christ, neither '" See above, b. i. §. 10. 
 did his belief in the Cross avail him. ^ See note on b. iv. c. 8. 
 " Christ," he would say, " saved not by 
 
Monnica's devotions and visions. 77 
 
 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 Gal. 4,9. 
 in the spirit, than at her childbearing in the flesh. 
 
 17. 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 un- 
 ceasing prayers, unintermitting to Thee alone? But wouldest 
 Thou, God of mercies, despise the contrite and humbled heart ps. 51, 
 of that chaste and sober widow, so frequent in almsdeeds, so ^'^* 
 full of duty and service to Thy saints, no day intermitting 
 the oblation at Thine altar, twice a day, morning and evening, t Tim. 
 without any intermission, coming to Thy church, not for idle ' "" 
 tattlings and old wives fables ; 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 
 any 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 eridureth for ever, vouchsafest 
 to those to whom Thou forgivest all their debts, to become 
 also a debtor by Thy promises. 
 
 [X.] 18. 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 
 
 y See atove, 1. iii. o. 11, 12. " See Note A at the end; §. iii. a. 
 
 ^ L. iii. u. 12. beg. ' 
 
78 Risk qf scepticism in parting from error. 
 
 CONF. 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, 
 Ps. 41, that Thou mighfest heal my soul because it had sinned against 
 Thee: 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 T, 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 my- 
 Ps. 141, self of Thee to salvation. Not as yet then hadst Thou set 
 ^' f' a watch iefore 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 ini- 
 quity: and, therefore, was I still united with their Elect". 
 
 19. But now despairing to make proficiency in that false 
 doctrine, even those things (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 
 every thing, and laid down that no truth can be compre- 
 hended 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 
 
 I* lb. |. ii. a. and of the mind. But now there is such 
 
 ' FromtheLXX. S.Aug, applies the shrinking from toil, and carelessness of 
 
 passage to the Manichees at length in valuable studies, that as soon as it ig 
 
 his Comm. See Note A, and Lat. Ed. noised abroad, that very acute philoso- 
 
 <1 The ordinary opinion as to the Aoa- phers thought that nothing could be 
 
 demies, was that they were universal grasped, men let their minds loose, and 
 
 sceptics ; S. Aug. states his conviction close up the truth for ever." (Ep. 1.) 
 
 that they held, concealed, positive truth, In the other, he gives the historical ae- 
 
 but publicly contented themselves with count, though not confidently ; the ac- 
 
 refuting the opposed errors. The grounds count is necessarily abridged. "Plato 
 
 of this he states in two places: " The believed that there were two worlds; 
 
 various sects were then so rife, that what one spiritual, wherein truth itself dwelt, 
 
 was most to he feared, was, lest men the other, this of ours, tangible to sense, 
 
 should adopt error. And when any was The former then he held to be true, this 
 
 driven by argument from what he had latter like to truth, and formed after the 
 
 held as firm and unshaken, he sought the image of the other. And thus, that the 
 
 more carefully and steadily somewhat truth, as to thatformer world, wascleared 
 
 else in proportion to the greater perse- and unclouded to a mind which knew 
 
 verauceoftheir character, and their con- itself; but that in the minds of the 
 
 viction that truth lay most deeply and vulgar there could be produced not a 
 
 Tootedly involved in the nature of things certain but a conjectural knowledge of 
 
Aiig.retainedinerrorbypreconceivednotionsQfCatholictruth.79 
 
 discourage that host of mine from that over-confidence which 
 I perceived him to have in those fables, which the books of 
 Manichees are full of. Yet I lived in more familiar friend- 
 ship 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 harbour- 
 ing 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 very unseemly to believe Thee to have 
 the shape of human flesh, and to be bounded by the bodily 
 lineaments df 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 eiTor. 
 
 20. For hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of 
 substance, and to have its own foul, and hideous bulk ; whether 
 
 this latter. Whatever then was done in 
 this worhi, through those which he called 
 eiTil virtues, being resemblances of other 
 true viiines, known only to the few wise, 
 could only be called like to truth. These 
 and the like appear tohave been preserved 
 and kept as mysteries by his successors 
 as far as they could. For that they were 
 not easily understood, except by those, 
 who, cleansing themselves from all stains, 
 have risen to a more than human con- 
 versation, and whoever should knowingly 
 teach them to persons of all sorts, would 
 be very blameable. So then when Zeno, 
 chief of the Stoics, having heard and re- 
 ceived some things, came to the school 
 left by Plato, then under Polemo, I 
 imagine he was looked on with suspicion, 
 and not thought fit to have those reve- 
 renced Platonic principles entrusted and 
 laid open to him, until he should have 
 unlearned, what he had derived from 
 others, and brought with him into this 
 school. Polemo dies and Arcesilas suc- 
 ceeds him, a fellow-disciple of Zeno, but 
 under Polemo. Zeno then being taken 
 with notions of his own about the world, 
 and specially the soul, (over which true 
 philosophy jealously watches,) afi&rming 
 the soul to be mortal, and that there was 
 nothing but this world of sense, and in it 
 
 all was corporeal, (for he thought God 
 Himself a Are,) Arcesilas seems to me 
 to have done very wisely and carefully, 
 in that (the evil spreading widely) he hid 
 altogether the doctrine of the Academy, 
 and buried it as treasure to be found by 
 posterity. So then the vulgar being apt 
 to go headlong into error, and, from 
 being conversant with bodies, naturally 
 but mischievously to think every thing 
 bodily, this most acute and right-minded 
 man, settled rather to unteach those who 
 were ill-taught, than to teach those whom 
 he did not think teachable. Hence arose 
 those habits attributed as a peculiarity 
 to the new Academy, because the old 
 had no occasion for them." Cont. 
 Academ. 1. iii. c. 17. With the scep- 
 ticism imputed to them, and which was 
 then suggested to him, he contrasts the 
 Christian's faith even on things not 
 known. " The city of God altogether 
 rejects such doubting as madness, hav- 
 ing, of those things which by the mind 
 and reason she comprehends, though 
 (by reason of the corruptible body, which 
 passeth down the ' mind,' since, as the 
 Apostle says, ' we know in part,') a 
 slight, yet a most certain, knowledge." 
 De Civ, Dei, xix. 18. 
 
 e See above on b. iii. c, 12. p. 43. n. h. 
 
80 07ie wrong doctrine the parent of others. 
 
 CoNF. 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 one where the mass of evil was opposed to Thee, I was 
 constrained to confess Thee bounded 6; 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. 
 
 f See Note A ; §. i. b. is not penetrated ? So then it is the more 
 
 g See Note A ; §. i. proved that the Son of God could not be 
 
 h lb. §. iii. b. defiled by the Virgin's womb, in that He 
 
 i An undefilable substance is not was born of a woman, than if He had 
 
 therefore undefiled, because it toucheth not been born of a woman, and had 
 
 nothing, but because, whatever it touch- avoided that contact ; for He might seem 
 
 eth, it remaineth in its purity. For in like to have known that He could be defiled 
 
 way do we call a body invulnerable or thereby, and so he considered by us less 
 
 impenetrable, which is not struck by undefilable. Euod. de fide c. 24.in App. 
 
 steel, or rather that, which being struck, ad Aug. 0pp. t. viii. 
 
Manichees againstScripture, becauseScriptureagainstthem. 81 
 
 [XI.] 21. 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 Mani- 
 chees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he 
 had produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily with- 
 stood, 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 Testa- 
 ment 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, con- 
 ceiving 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 breathe it pure and untainted. 
 
 [XII.] 22. 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 AMca. True, those 
 " subvertings""' by profligate young men, were not here prac- 
 tised, as was told me : but on a sudden, said they, to avoid 
 paying their master's stipend, a number of youths plot toge- 
 ther, and remove to another; — breakers of faith, who for love 
 of money hold justice cheap. These also my heart hated, Ps. 139, 
 though not with a perfect hatred: 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 firom 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 adxilteress soul of man, when she returns to Thee. And 
 now I hate such depraved and crooked persons, though I love 
 
 ' See above, 1. iii. §. 14. p. 38. at the end. 
 
 * See Note A at the end; v. fin. " See b. iii. c. 3. end. 
 
 • See above, e. 10. p. 79 ; and note A 
 
82 Sources of S. Ambrose's inflvence. 
 
 CONF. them if corrigible, so as to prefer to money the learning, 
 
 — : — :- which they acquire, and to learning, Thee, O God, the truth 
 
 and fulness 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. 
 
 [XIII.] 23. 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 Manichsean 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 plentifiiUy dis- 
 Ps. 4, 7. pense unto Thy people the flour of Thy wheat, the gladness 
 104, 15. Qf rpjjy. Qjj^ g^jj^ ^jjg sober inebriation of Thy wine. To him 
 was I unknowing led by Thee, that by him I might know- 
 ingly be led to Thee. That man of God received me as 
 a father, and shewed me an Episcopal kindness on my com- 
 ing. 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 com- 
 parison ; for the one was wandering amid Manichaean de- 
 lusions, the other teaching salvation most soundly. But 
 Vi.\l9, salvation is far from sinners, such as I then stood before 
 ^^^- him ; and yet was I drawing nearer by little and little, and 
 unconsciously. 
 
 [XIV.] 24. 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 
 
Carnal notions of God and of Scripture A.'s chief difficulties. 83 
 
 into my mind the things which I would reftise ; 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 
 ofttimes " in a figure" which when I imderstood literally, 1 1 Cor. 
 was slain spuitually. Very many places then of those books 1^ '^j 
 having been explained, I now blamed my despair, in 6. 
 believing, that no answer could be given to such as hated and 
 scoflFed ° at the Law and the Prophets. Yet did 1 not therefore 
 then see, that the Catholic way was to be held, because it 
 also could find learned raaintainers, who could at large and 
 with some shew 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 \ilinquished, as still not as yet to be victorious. 
 
 25. 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 sub- 
 stance, all their strong holds had been beaten down, and cast 
 utterly out of my mind ; but I could not. Notwithstanding, 
 concerning the fi-ame 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 every thing, and wavering between aU, 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 
 
 " This was the main weapon of the " See ahove, $. 19. 
 Manichees. See Note A. v. fin. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Aug. returns to the Church, till he should find any thing safer. 
 
 CONF. 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 ''. 
 
 P S. Aug. relates this part of his life c. 28. for the sake of his friend Honora- 
 summarilyinhis " BenefitofBelieving," tus, who was stiU a Manichee. 
 
THE SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 Arrival of Monnica at Milan; Iier obedience to S. Ambrose, and his 
 value for her; S. Ambrose's habits; Aug.'s gradual abandonment of 
 error ; finds that he has blamed the Church Catholic wrongly ; desire 
 of absolute certainty, but struck with the contrary analogy of God's 
 natural Providence ; how shaken in his worldly pursuits ; God's 
 guidance of his friend Alypius ; Aug. debates with himself and his 
 friends about their mode of life; his inveterate sins, and dread of 
 future judgment. 
 
 [I.] 1. O Thou, my hope from, my youth, where wert Thoups.71,5. 
 to me, and whither wert Thou gone ? Hadst not Thou 
 created me, and separated me from the beasts of the field, 
 and fowls of the air ? Thou hadst made me wiser, yet did I 
 walk in darkness, and in slippery places, and sought Thee 
 abroad' out of myself, and found not the God of my heart ; 
 and had come into the depths of the sea, and distrusted and de- 
 spaired of ever finding truth. My mother had now come to me, 
 resolute through piety, following me over sea and land, in all 
 perils confiding in Thee. For in perils of the sea, she com- 
 forted the very mariners, (by whom passengers unacquainted 
 with the deep, use rather to be comforted when troubled,) 
 assuring them of a safe arrival, because Thou hadst by a vision 
 assured her thereof. She found me in grievous peril, through 
 despair of ever finding truth. But when I had discovered 
 to her, that I was now no longer a Manichee, though not yet 
 a Catholic Christian, she was not overjoyed, as at something 
 unexpected ; although she was now assured concerning that 
 part of my misery, for which she bewailed me as one dead, 
 though to be reawakened by Thee, carrying me forth upon 
 the bier of her thoughts, that Thou mightest say to the son ofimkt 7, 
 the widow. Young man, I say unto thee, Arise ; and he ^*' *^" 
 should revive, and begin to speak, and thou shouldest deliver 
 him to his mother. Her heart then was shaken with no 
 tumultuous exultation, when she heard that what she daily 
 
 • Go not abroad, return unto thyself, de vera Kelig. e. 39. See below vii, 
 in the inner man dwelleth truth. Aug. e. f. and 10. 
 
14 
 
 86 Monnica's confident expectations of her son's conversion. 
 
 CONF. with tears desired of Thee, was already in so great part realized ; 
 
 — — - in that, though I had not yet attained the truth, I was rescued 
 from falsehood ; but, as being assured, that Thou, who hadst 
 promised the whole, wouldest one day give the rest, most 
 calmly, and with an heart fall of confidence, she replied to 
 me, " She believed in Christ, that before she departed this 
 life, she should see me a Catholic behever''." Thus much to 
 me. But to Thee, Foimtain of mercies, poured she forth more 
 copious prayers and tears, that Thou wouldest hasten Thy 
 help, and enlighten my darkness ; and she hastened the more 
 eagerly to the Church, and hung upon the lips of Ambrose, 
 
 John 4, praying for the fountain" of that water, which springeth up 
 vnto life everlasting. But that man she loved as an angel of 
 God, because she knew that by him I had been brought for the 
 present to that doubtfiil state of faith I now was in, through 
 which she anticipated most confidently, that I should pass 
 from sickness unto health, after the access, as it were, of a 
 sharper fit, which physicians call " the crisis." 
 
 [II.] 2. When then my mother had once, as she was wont 
 in Afiic, brought to the Churches built in memory of the 
 Saints'", certain cakes, and bread and wine, and was forbidden 
 by the door-keeper; so soon as she knew that the Bishop had 
 forbidden this, she so piously and obediently embraced his 
 
 •> Fidelem Catholicum, one taptized whereas in these thelt monuments offer- 
 
 into the Catholic Faith. ings are made to God, who made them 
 
 = Baptism. [Old Ed.] The text is both men and martyrs, and joined them 
 
 quoted in the prayers for the conseera- in hearenly glory with His holy angels : 
 
 tion of the water of Baptism in the old that by those holy rites we may both 
 
 Koman and Galilean Liturgies. See thank the true God for their victories ; 
 
 Assem. Cod. Liturg. t. ii. p. 6, 7. 33. 35. and by the renewal of their memories, and 
 
 41. imploring His aid, may exert ourselves 
 
 •■ S. Aug. goes over some of these sub- to gain the like crown. Whatever ser- 
 jects in the Civ. Dei, 1. viii. c. 27. It is vices then religious persons may perform 
 addressed to heathens. "Nor do we in these spots, are adomings of the mar- 
 make temples, priestly offices, rites, sacri- tyrs' Churches, not oblations or sacrifices 
 fices, to these same martyrs, since not to the deceased, as though gods. They 
 they, but their God, is our God. We too, who bring their meals thither, (whicli 
 honour the chapels indeed erected in the better sort of Christians does not do, 
 memory of them, as those of holy men and in most countries is no such custom,) 
 of God, who have contended to the death yet they who do it, (and having done it 
 of their bodies for the truth, that the true they pray, and then remove to eat or 
 faith might be spread, the false and give of them to the poor,) seek to have 
 feigned convicted. — But who ever heard them sanctified through flie acceptable- 
 any Christian priest, even when standing ness of the martyrs, in the name of the 
 at the altar bnUt over the holy body of Lord of the martyrs. But that these are 
 a martyr to the honour and worship of not sacrifices to the martyrs, he knoweth, 
 God, say in the prayers, ' I offer to fliee who knows the One Christian Sacrifice, 
 a sacrifice, Peter or Paul or Cyprian,' which also is there offered." 
 
Her ready obedience to 8. Ambrose. 87 
 
 wishes, that I myself wondered how readily she censured her 
 own practice, rather than discuss his prohibition. For wine- 
 bibbing did not lay siege to her spirit, nor did love of wine 
 provoke her to hatred of the truth, as it doth too many, (both 
 men and women,) who revolt at a lesson of sobriety, as men 
 well-drunk at a draught mingled with water. But she, when 
 she had brought her basket with the accustomed festival-food, 
 to be but tasted by herself, and then given away, never joined 
 therewith more than one small cup of wine, diluted according 
 to her own abstemious habits, which for courtesy she would 
 taste. And if there were many Churches of the departed 
 saints, that were to be honoured in that manner, she still car- 
 ried round that same one cup, to be used every where ; and 
 this, though not only made very watery, but unpleasantly 
 heated with carrying about, she would distribute to those 
 about her by small sips ; for she sought there devotion, not 
 pleasure. So soon, then, as she found this custom to be for- 
 bidden by that famous preacher, and most pious prelate, even 
 to those that would use it soberly, lest so an occasion of 
 excess might be given to the drunken^; and for that these, as 
 it were, anniversary funeral solemnities did much resemble 
 the superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly forbare it : 
 and for a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had 
 learned to bring to the Churches of the martyrs, a breast filled 
 with more purified petitions, and to give what she could to the 
 poor : that so the communication ' of the Lord's Body might be 
 there rightly celebrated, where, after the example of His Passion, 
 the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned. But yet it 
 seems to me, O Lord my God, and thus thinks my heart of it 
 in Thy sight, that perhaps she would not so readily have 
 yielded to the cutting off of this custom, had it been forbidden 
 by another, whom she loved not as Ambrose, whom, for my 
 salvation, she loved most entirely ; and he her again, for her 
 most religious conversation, whereby in good works, so fervent 
 in spirit, she was constant at church ; so that, when he saw 
 
 e S.Aug, on the same ground, per- wouldfoUow the example of the chief see. 
 
 suaded the Church of Hippo, hefore he ' The holy Eucharist was always 
 
 became its Bishop, to abandon this prac- celebrated by the whole Church on the 
 
 tice (Ep.29.), and wrote to urge Aurelius, birthday, i. e. day of martyrdom, of the 
 
 Bishop of Carthage, to abolish it in his Martyr. See Bingham 13, 9. 6. and 
 
 see, anticipating that the rest of Africa 20, 7. 7, 8. 
 
88 S. Ambrose's mode of life. 
 
 CONF. me, he often burst forth into her praises ; congratulating me, 
 
 — that I had such a mother ; not knowing what a son she had 
 
 in me, who doubted of all these things, and imagined the way 
 to life could not be found out. 
 
 [III.] 3. Nor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou 
 wouldest help me ; but my spirit was wholly intent on learn- 
 ing, and restless to dispute. And Ambrose himself, as the 
 world counts happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom per- 
 sonages so great held in such honour ; only his celibacy 
 seemed to me a painful course. But what hope he bore 
 within him, what struggles he had against the temptations 
 which beset his very excellencies, or what comfort in adver- 
 sities, and what sweet joys Thy Bread had for the hidden mouth 
 of his spirit, when chewing the cud - thereof, I neither could con- 
 jecture, nor had experienced. Nor did he know the tides of my 
 feelings, or the abyss of my danger. For I could not ask of him, 
 what I would as I would, being shut out both from his ear and 
 speech by multitudes of busy people, whose weaknesses he 
 served. With whom when he was not taken up, (which was 
 but a little time,) he was either refreshing his body with the 
 sustenance absolutely necessary, or his mind with reading. 
 But when he was reading, his eye glided over the pages, and 
 his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue 
 were at rest. Oft-times when we had come, (for no man vras 
 forbidden to enter, nor was it his wont that any who came 
 should be announced to him,) we saw him thus reading to 
 himself, and never otherwise ; and having long sat silent, (for 
 who durst intrude on one so intent ?) we were fain to depart, 
 conjecturing, that in the small interval, which he obtained, 
 free from the din of others' business, for the recruiting of his 
 mind, he was loath to be taken off; and perchance he dreaded 
 lest if the author he read should deliver any thing obscurely, 
 
 S This animal (the swine) is in the law to ruminate P Which whoso doth not, is 
 classed as unclean, as not ruminating, figured by that sort of animals, whence 
 not as heing its fault but its nature. But the very abstaining irom their flesh fore- 
 there are men signified by this animal, warned us to avoid the like fault. For 
 unclean by their fault not by nature, who wisdom herself being such a desirable 
 hearing the words of wisdom gladly, treasure, itis of this cleanness of ruminat- 
 afterwards reflect not thereon. For to ing, and uncleanness of not ruminating, 
 bring back whatever useful thing you that it is written in another place, " The 
 have heard, as it were from the interior desirable treasure resteth in the mouth 
 of the memory to the mouth of reflection, of the wise, but the fool swalloweth it 
 what else is it than after a sort spiritually down." Aug. c. Faust, vi. 7. 
 
Aug.hadcriticisednot Catholicfaith, but his own notions o/it. 89 
 
 some attentive or perplexed hearer should desire him to ex- 
 pound it, or to discuss some of the harder questions ; so that 
 his time being thus spent, he could not turn over so many 
 volumes as he desired ; although the preserving of his voice 
 (which a very little speaking would weaken) might be the 
 truer reason for his reading to himself. But with what 
 intent soever he did it, certainly in such a man it was good. 
 
 4. I however certainly had no opportunity of enquiring what 
 I wished, of that so holy oracle of Thine, his breast, unless the 
 thing might be answered briefly. But those tides in me, to 
 be poured out to him, required his full leisure, and never found 
 it. I heard him indeed every Lord's day, rightly expounding 2 Tim. 
 tlie Word of Truth among the people ; and I was more and ' * 
 more convinced, that all the knots of those crafty calumnies, 
 which those our deceivers had knit against the Divine Books, 
 could be unravelled. But when I understood withal, that 
 " man, created by Thee, after Thine own imaged' was not so 
 understood by Thy spiritual sons, whom of the Catholic Mother 
 Thou hast born again through grace, as though they believed and 
 conceived of Thee as bounded by human shape ; (although 
 what a spiritual substance should be I had not even a faint or 
 shadowy notion ;) yet with joy I blushed at having so many 
 years barked not against the Catholic faith, but against the 
 fictions of carnal imaginations. For so rash and impious had 
 I been, that what I ought by enquiring to have learned, I had 
 pronounced on, condemning. For Thou, Most High, and 
 most near; most secret, and most present; Who hast not 
 limbs some larger, some smaller, but art wholly every where, 
 and no where in space, art not of such corporeal shape, yet 
 hast Thou made man after Thine own image ; and behold, 
 from head to foot is he contained in space. 
 
 [IV.] 5. Ignorant then how this Thy image should subsist, 
 I should have knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was 
 to be believed, not insultingly opposed it, as if believed. 
 Doubt, then, what to hold for certain, the more sharply 
 gnawed my heart, the more ashamed I was, that so long 
 deluded and deceived by the promise of certainties, I had 
 with childish error and vehemence, prated of so many un- 
 certainties. For that they were falsehoods, became clear to 
 me later. However I was certain that they were uncertain, and 
 
90 Belief, not demonstration, the way to divine knowledge. 
 
 CONF. that I had formerly accounted them certain, when with a 
 — : — ^ blind contentiousness, I accused Thy Catholic Church, whom 
 I now discovered, not indeed as yet to teach truly, but at least 
 not to teach that, for which I had grievously censured her. 
 So I was confounded, and converted: and I joyed, O my 
 God, that the One Only Church, the body of Thine Only Son, 
 (wherein the name of Christ had been put upon me as an infant,) 
 had no taste for infantine conceits ; nor in her sound doctrine, 
 maintained any tenet which should confine Thee, the Creator 
 of all, in space, however great and large, yet bounded every 
 where by the limits of a human form. 
 
 6. I joyed also, that the old Scriptures of the Law and the 
 Prophets, were laid before me, not now to be perused with 
 that eye to which before they seemed absurd, when I reviled 
 Thy holy ones for so thinking, whereas indeed they thought 
 not so : and with joy I heard Ambrose in his sermons to the 
 people, oftentimes most diligently recommend this text for a 
 2 Cor. 3, rule. The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life ; whilst he 
 drew aside the mystic veil, laying open spiritually what ac- 
 cording to the letter, seemed to teach something unsound ; 
 teaching herein nothing that oflFended me, though he taught 
 what I knew not as yet, whether it were true. For I kept 
 my heart from assenting to any thing, fearing to fall headlong; 
 but by hanging in suspense 1 was the worse killed. For 
 I wished to be as assured of the things I saw not, as I was 
 that seven and three are ten. For I. was not so mad, as to 
 think that even this could not be comprehended; but I de- 
 sired to have other things as clear as this, whether things 
 corporeal, which were not present to my senses, or spiritual, 
 whereof I knew not how to conceive, except corporeally. 
 And by believing might I have been cured, that so the eye- 
 sight of my soul being cleared, might in some way be directed 
 to Thy truth, which abideth always, and in no part faileth. 
 But as it happens that one, who has tried a bad physician, 
 fears to trust himself with a good one, so was it with the 
 health of my soul, which could not be healed but by believing, 
 and lest it should believe falsehoods, refused to be cured ; 
 resisting Thy hands, who hast prepared the medicines of 
 faith, and hast applied them to the diseases of the whole 
 world, and given unto them so great authority. 
 
Process, whereby Aug, came to believe the Scriptures. 91 
 
 [V.] 7. Being led, however, from this to prefer the Catholic 
 doctrine, I felt that her proceeding was more unassuming and 
 honest, in that she required to be believed things not demon- 
 strated'', (whether it was that they couldin themselves be demon- 
 strated but not to certain persons, or could not at all be,) whereas 
 among the Manichees our credulity was mocked by a promise of 
 certain knowledge, and then so many most fabulous and absurd 
 things were imposed to be believed, because they could not be 
 demonstrated. Then Thou, O Lord, little by little with most 
 tender and most merciful hand, touching and composing my 
 heart, didst persuade me — considering what innumerable things 
 I believed, which I saw not, nor was present while they were 
 done, as so many things in secular history, so many reports of 
 places and of cities, which I had not seen; so many of friends, 
 so many of physicians, so many continually of other men, 
 which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all 
 in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an assurance I believed, 
 of what parents I was bom, which I could not know, had I not 
 believed upon hearsay — considering all this. Thou didst per- 
 suade me, that not they who believed Thy Books, (which 
 Thou hast established in so great authority among almost all 
 nations,] but they who believed them not, were to be blamed; 
 and that they were not to be heard, who should say to me, 
 " How knowest thou those Scriptures to have been imparted 
 " unto mankind by the Spirit of the one true and most true 
 " God ?" For this very thing was of all most to be believed, 
 since no contentiousness of blasphemous questionings, of all 
 that multitude which I had read in the self-contradicting 
 philosophers, could wring this belief from me, " That Thou 
 " art" whatsoever Thou wert, (what I knew not,) and " That 
 " the government of human things belongs to Thee." 
 
 8. This I believed, sometimes more strongly, more weakly 
 other-whiles ; yet I ever believed both that Thou wert, and 
 hadst a care of us ; though I was ignorant, both what was to 
 be thought of Thy substance, and what way led or led back 
 to Thee. Since then we were too weak by abstract reason- 
 ings to find out truth : and for this very cause needed the 
 authority of Holy Writ ; I had now begun to believe, that 
 Thou wouldest never have given such excellency of authority 
 1> See Note A ; ad fin. 
 
92 Benefit of the lowly form and hidden depths of Scripture. 
 
 CONF. to that Writ in all lands, hadst Thou not willed thereby to 
 — — -he believed in, thereby sought. For now what things, soimd- 
 ing strangely in the Scripture, were wont to offend me, having 
 heard divers of them expounded satisfactorily, I referred to 
 the depth of the mysteries, and its authority appeared to me 
 the more venerable, and more worthy of religious credence, 
 in that, while it lay open to all to read, it reserved the majesty 
 of its mysteries within its profounder meaning, stooping to 
 all in the great plainness of its words and lowliness of its style, 
 yet calling forth the intensest application of such as are not 
 light of heart ; that so it might receive all in its open bosom, 
 and through narrow passages waft over towards Thee some 
 few, yet many more than if it stood not aloft on such a height 
 of authority, nor drew multitudes within its bosom by its holy 
 lowliness. These things I thought on, and Thou wert with 
 me ; I sighed, and Thou heardest me ; I wavered, and Thou 
 didst guide me; I wandered through the broad way of the 
 world, and Thou didst not forsake me. 
 
 [VI.] 9. I panted after honours, gains, marriage; and 
 Thou deridedst me. In these desires I underwent most bitter 
 crosses, Thou being the more gracious, the less Thou suf- 
 feredst aught to grow sweet to me, which was not Thou. 
 Behold my heart, O Lord, who wouldest I should remember 
 all this, and confess to Thee. Let my soul cleave unto Thee, 
 now that Thou hast freed it from that fast-holding birdlime 
 of death. How wretched was it ! and Thou didst irritate the 
 feeling of its wound, that forsaking all else, it might be con- 
 verted unto Thee, who art above all, and without whom all 
 things would be nothing; be converted, and be healed. How 
 miserable was I then, and how didst Thou deal with me, to 
 make me feel my misery on that day, when I was preparing 
 to recite a panegyric of the Emperor', wherein I was to utter 
 many a lie, and lying, was to be applauded by those who 
 knew I lied, and my heart was panting with these anxieties, 
 and boiling with the feverishness of consuming thoughts. 
 For, passing through one of the streets of Milan, I observed a 
 
 ' Perhaps Valentinian the younger, Petil. iil. 25.) that " he recited on the 
 
 whose conrt, according to Possidias, was first of January a panegyric to Bauto the 
 
 at Milan, when Aug. was Professor of consul, as required by his then profession 
 
 Ithetoric there. Aug. also writes (c. litt. of Khetoric." (Ed. Ben.) 
 
?%e sight qf a drunken begga/r a lesson in Qocfs hands. 93 
 
 poor beggar, then, I suppose, with a full belly, joking and joy- 
 ous : and I sighed, and spoke to the friends around me, of the 
 many sorrows of our phrenzies ; for that by all such efforts of 
 ovuB, as those wherein I then toiled, dragging along, under 
 the goading of desire, the burthen of my own wretchedness, 
 and, by dragging, augmenting it, we yet looked to arrive only 
 at that very joyousness, whither that beggar-man had arrived 
 before us, who should never perchance attain it. For what 
 he had obtained by means of a few begged pence, the same 
 was I plotting for by many a toilsome turning and winding ; 
 the joy of a temporary felicity. For he verily had not the 
 true joy; but yet I with those my ambitious designs was 
 seeking one much less true. And certainly he was joyous, I 
 anxious; he void of care, I full of fears. But should any 
 ask me, had I rather be merry or fearful ? I would answer, 
 merry. Again, if he asked had I rather be such as he was, 
 or what I then was ? I should choose to be myself, though worn 
 with cares and fears ; but out of wrong judgment ; for, was it 
 the truth ? For I ought not to prefer myself to him, because 
 more learned than he, seeing I had no joy therein, but sought 
 to please men by it ; and that not to instruct, but simply to 
 please. Wherefore also Thou didst break my bones with the 
 staff of thy correction. 
 
 10. Away with those then from my soul, who say to her, 
 " It makes a difference, whence a man's joy is. That beg- 
 gar-man joyed in drunkenness; Thou desiredst to joy in 
 glory." What glory. Lord.? That which is not in Thee. 
 For even as his was no true joy, so was that no true glory: 
 and it overthrew my soul more. He that very night should 
 digest his drunkenness ; but I had slept and risen again with 
 mine, and was to sleep again, and again to rise with it, how 
 many days. Thou, God, knowest. But " it doth make a differ- 
 ence whence a man's joy is." I know it, and the joy of a 
 faithfiil hope lieth incomparably beyond such vanity. Yea, 
 and so was he then beyond me: for he- verily was the 
 happier; not only for that he was throughly drenched in mirth, 
 I disembowelled with cares: but he, by fair wishes, had 
 gotten wine; I, by lying was seeking for empty, swelling 
 praise. Much to this purpose said I then to my friends: and 
 I often marked in them how it fared with me ; and I found it 
 
94 History of Alypius, a friend of Augustine, 
 
 CONF. went ill with me, and grieved, and doubled that very ill; and 
 — — ^if any prosperity smiled on me, 1 was loath to catch at it, 
 for almost before I could grasp it, it flew away. 
 
 [VII.] 11. These things we, who were living as friends 
 together, bemoaned together, but chiefly and most familiarly 
 did I speak thereof with Alypius and Nebridius, of whom 
 Alypius was bom in the same town with me, of persons of 
 chief rank there, but younger than I. For he had studied under 
 me, both when I first lectured in our town, and afterwards at 
 Carthage, and he loved me much, because I seemed to him 
 kind, and learned; and I him, for his great towardliness to 
 virtue, which was eminent enough in one of no greater years. 
 Yet the whirlpool of Carthaginian habits (amongst whom those 
 idle spectacles are hotly followed) had drawn him into the 
 madness of the Circus. But while he was miserably tossed 
 therein, and I, professing rhetoric there, had a public 
 school, as yet he used not my teaching, by reason of some 
 unkindness risen betwixt his father and me. I had found 
 then how deadly he doted upon the Circus, and was deeply 
 grieved that he seemed likely, nay, or had thrown away so 
 great promise : yet had I no means of advising or with a sort 
 of constraint reclaiming him, either by the kindness of a 
 friend, or the authority of a master. For I supposed that he 
 thought of me as did his father; but he was not such; laying 
 aside then his father's mind in that matter, he began to greet 
 me, come sometimes into my lecture-room, hear a little, and 
 be gone. 
 
 12.1 however had forgotten to deal with him, that he should 
 not, through a blind and headlong desire of vain pastimes, 
 undo so good a wit. But Thou, O LOrd, who guidest the 
 course of all Thou hast created, hadst not forgotten him, 
 who was one day to be among Thy children, Priest and 
 Dispenser of Thy Sacrament ; and that his amendment might 
 plainly be attributed to Thyself, Thou effiectedst it through 
 me, but unknowingly. For as one day I sat in my accustomed 
 place, with my scholars before me, he entered, greeted me, 
 sat down, and applied his mind to what I then handled. I 
 had by chance a passage in hand, which while I was ex- 
 plaining, a likeness from the Circensian races occurred to 
 me, as likely to make what I would convey pleasanter 
 
ctired by God, through a chance word of Augustine. 95 
 
 and plainer, seasoned with biting mockery of those whom 
 that madness had enthralled; God, Thou kuowest, that 
 I then thought not of curing Alypius of that infection. But 
 he took it wholly to himself, and thought that I said it simply 
 for his sake. And whence another would have taken occa- 
 sion of offence with me, that right-minded youth took as 
 a ground of being offended at himself, and loving me more 
 fervently. For Thou hadst said it long ago, and put it into 
 Thy book. Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. ButProv. 9, 
 I had not rebuked him, but Thou, who employest all, know* 
 ing or not knowing, in that order which Thyself knowest, 
 (and that order is just,) didst of my heart and tongue make 
 burning coals, by which to set on fire the hopeful mind, thus 
 languishing, and so cure it. Let him be silent in Thy praises, 
 who considers not Thy mercies, which confess unto Thee 
 out of my inmost soul. For he upon that speech, burst out 
 of that pit so deep, wherein he was wilfully plunged, and was 
 blinded with its WTetched pastimes ; and he shook his mind 
 with a strong self-command; whereupon all the filths of the 
 Circensian pastimes flew off from him, nor came he again 
 thither. Upon this, he prevailed with his unwilling father, 
 that he might be my scholar. He gave way, and gave in. 
 And Alypius beginning to be my hearer again, was involved 
 in the same superstition with me, loving in the Manichees 
 that show of continency, which he supposed true and un- 
 feigned. Whereas it was a senseless and seducing continency, 
 ensnaring precious souls, unable as yet to reach the depth of prov. 6, 
 virtue, yet readily beguiled with the surface of what was but^^* 
 a shadowy and counterfeit virtue. 
 
 [VIII.] 13. He, not forsaking that secular course which 
 his parents had charmed him to pursue, had gone before me 
 to Rome, to study law, and there he was carried away 
 incredibly with an incredible eagerness after the shows of 
 gladiators. For being utterly averse to and detesting such 
 spectacles, he was one day by chance met by divers of his 
 acquaintance and fellow-students coming from dinner, and 
 they with a familiar violence haled him, vehemently refusing 
 and resisting, into the Amphitheatre, during these cruel and 
 deadly shows, he thus protesting ; " Though you hale my 
 " body to that place, and there set me, can you force me 
 
96 Alypius betrayed by self-confidence to love bloodshed, 
 
 CONF. " also to turn my mind or my eyes to those shows ? I shall 
 — '■ — -■ " then be absent while present, and so shall overcome both 
 " you and them." They hearing this, led him on neverthe- 
 less, desirous perchance to try that very thing, whether he 
 could do as he said. When they were come thither, and had 
 taken their places as they could, the whole place kindled with 
 that savage pastime. But he, closing the passages of his eyes, 
 forbade his mind to range abroad after such evils ; and would 
 he had stopped his ears also ! For in the fight, when one 
 fell, a mighty cry of the whole people striking him strongly, 
 overcome by curiosity, and as if prepared to despise and be 
 superior to it whatsoever it were, even when seen, he opened 
 his eyes, and was stricken with a deeper wound in his soul, 
 than the other, whom he desired to behold, was in his body ; 
 and he fell more miserably than he, upon whose fall that 
 mighty noise was raised, which entered through his ears, and 
 unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and beating 
 down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker, in 
 that it had presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on 
 Thee. For so soon as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk 
 down savageness ; nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drink- 
 ing in phrenzy, unawares, and was delighted with that guilty 
 fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. Nor was he 
 now the man he came, but one of the throng he came unto, 
 yea, a true associate of theirs that brought him thither. 
 Why say more ? He beheld, shouted, kindled, carried thence 
 with him the madness which should goad him to return not 
 only with them who first drew him thither, but also before 
 them, yea and to draw in others. Yet thence didst Thou 
 with a most strong and most merciful hand pluck him, and 
 taughtest him to have confidence not in himself, but in Thee. 
 But this was after. 
 
 [IX.] 14. But this was already being laid up in his memory 
 to be a medicine hereafter. So was that also, that when he 
 was yet studying under me at Carthage, and was thinking 
 over at mid-day in the market-place what he was to say by 
 heart, (as scholars use to practise,) Thou sufferedst him to be 
 apprehended by the officers of the market-place for a thief. 
 For no other cause, I deem, didst Thou, our God, suffer it, 
 but that he, who was hereafter to prove so great a man 
 
God instructs beforehand whom He employs. 97 
 
 should already begin to learn, that in judging of causes, man 
 was not readily to be condemned by man out of a rash credulity. 
 For as he was walking up and down by himself before the 
 judgment-seat, with his note-book and pen, lo, a young man, 
 a lawyer, the real thief, privily bringing a hatchet, got in, 
 unperceived by Alypius, as far as the leaden gratings, which 
 fence in the silversmiths' shops, and began to cut away the 
 lead. But the noise of the hatchet being heard, the silver- 
 smiths beneath began to make a stir, and sent to apprehend 
 whomever they should find. But he hearing their voices, ran 
 away, leaving his hatchet, fearing to be taken with it. Alypius 
 now, who had not seen him enter, was aware of his going, 
 and saw with what speed he made away. And being desirous 
 to know the matter, entered the place; where finding the 
 hatchet, he was standing, wondering and considering it, 
 when behold, those that had been sent, find him alone with 
 the hatchet in his hand, the noise whereof had startled and 
 brought them thither. They seize him, hale him away, and 
 gathering the dwellers in the market-place together, boast of 
 having taken a notorious thief, and so he was being led away 
 to be taken before the judge. 
 
 15. But thus far was Alypius to be instructed. For forth- 
 with, O Lord, Thou succouredst his innocency, whereof Thou 
 alone wert witness. For as he was being led either to prison 
 or to punishment, a certain architect met them, who had the 
 chief charge of the public buildings. Glad they were to meet 
 him especially, by whom they were wont to be suspected of 
 stealing the goods lost out of the market-place, as though 
 to shew him at last by whom these thefts were committed. 
 He, however, had divers times seen Alypius at a certain 
 Senator's house, to whom he often went to pay his respects ; 
 and recognizing him immediately, took him aside by the hand, 
 and enquiring the occasion of so great a calamity, heard the 
 whole matter, and bade all present, amid much uproar and 
 threats, to go with him. So they came to the house of the 
 young man, who had done the deed. There, before the door, 
 was a boy so young, as to be likely, not apprehending any 
 harm to his master, to disclose the whole. For he had 
 attended his master to the market-place. Whom so soon as 
 Alypius remembered, he told the architect : and he shewing 
 
 H 
 
98 Alypitts' unvsual honesty and temptations. 
 
 CONF. the hatchet to the boy, asked him " Whose that was ?" 
 
 R VT 
 
 ■ " Ours," quoth he presently : and being further questioned, 
 
 he discovered every thing. Thus the crime being transferred 
 to that house, and the multitude ashamed, which had begun 
 to insult over Alypius, he who was to be a dispenser of Thy 
 Word, and an examiner of many causes in Thy Church', went 
 away better experienced and instructed. 
 
 [X.] 16. Him then I had found at Rome, and he clave to 
 me by a most strong tie, and went with me to Milan, both 
 that he might not leave me, and might practise something of 
 the law he had studied, more to please his parents, than 
 himself. There he had thrice sat as Assessor with an uncor- 
 ruptness, much wondered at by others, he wondering at 
 others rather, who could prefer gold to honesty. His cha- 
 racter was ti-ied besides, not only with the bait of covetous- 
 ness, but with the goad of fear. At Rome he was Assessor 
 to the Count of the Italian Treasury". ITiere was at that 
 time a very powerful senator, to whose favours many stood 
 indebted, many much feared. He would needs, by his usual 
 power, have a thing allowed him, which by the laws was 
 unallowed. Alypius resisted it : a bribe was promised ; with 
 all his heart he scorned it : threats were held out ; he trampled 
 upon them: all wondering at so unwonted a spirit, which 
 neither desired the friendship, nor feared the enmity of one so 
 great and so mightily renowned for innumerable means of 
 doing good or evil. And the very Judge, whose councillor 
 Alypius was, although also unwilling it should be, yet did not 
 openly refuse, but put the matter off upon Alypius, alleging 
 that he would not allow him to do it: for in truth had the Judge 
 done it, Alypius would have decided otherwise'. With this one 
 thing in the way of learning was he well-nigh seduced, that 
 he might have books copied for him at Praetorian prices'", 
 but consulting justice, he altered his deliberation for the 
 
 'Alypius became Bishop of Thagaste. Henry Spelman's Glossary, " Comes," 
 
 (Aug. de gestis c. Emerit. §. 1 and 5.) who quotes Cassiodor. Var. 1. v. o. 40. 
 
 On the necessity which Bishops were [Old Ed.] 
 
 under of hearing secular causes, and its ' Diseederet, so. in alia omnia. The 
 
 use, see Bingham, 1. ii. c. 7. old Ed. renders " gone off the Bench." 
 
 k The Lord High Treasurer of the " Pretiis Praetorianis, " Pretium re- 
 
 Westem Empire was called Comes Sa- gium" is the privilege of a king or lord 
 
 erarum largUitmnm : he had six other to purchase things at a certain fixed 
 
 treasurers in so many provinces under price." Du Cange. 
 him, whereof he of Italy was one. Sir 
 
Ardent longing after amendment in itself unavailing. 99 
 
 better; esteeming equity whereby he was hindered more 
 gainful than the power whereby he were allowed. These 
 are slight things, but he that is faithful in little, is faithful ^LmYs 
 also in much. Nor can that any how be void, which pro- '^' '"" 
 ceeded out of the mouth of Thy Truth ; If ye have not been Ver. 11. 
 faithful in the unrighteous Mammon, who will commit to^^' 
 your trust true riches ? And if ye have not been faithful in 
 that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is 
 your own ? He, being such, did at that time cleave to me, 
 and with me wavered in purpose, what course of life was to 
 be taken. 
 
 17. Nebridius also, who having left his native country near 
 Carthage, yea and Carthage itself, where he had much lived, 
 leaving his excellent family-estate and house, and a mother 
 behind, who was not to follow him, had come to Milan, for 
 no other reason, but that with me he might live in a most 
 ardent search after truth and wisdom. Like me he sighed, 
 like me he wavered, an ardent searcher after true life, and a most 
 acute examiner of the most difficult questions °. Thus were 
 there the mouths of three indigent persons, sighing out their 
 wants one to another, and waiting upon Thee that Thou Ps. 145, 
 mightest give them their meat in due season. And in all the ^^' 
 bitterness, which by Thy mercy followed our worldly affairs, 
 as we looked towards the end, why we should suffer all this, 
 darkness met us ; and we turned away groaning, and saying. 
 How long shall these things be ? This too we often said ; 
 and so saying forsook them not, for as yet there dawned 
 nothing certain, which, these forsaken, we might embrace. 
 
 [XI.] 18. And I, viewing and reviewing things, most 
 wondered at the length of time from that my nineteenth 
 year, wherein I had begun to kindle with the desire of 
 wisdom, settling when I had found her, to abandon all the 
 empty hopes and lying phrenzies of vain desires. And lo, I 
 was now in my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, 
 greedy of enjoying things present, which passed away and 
 wasted my soul; while I said to myself, " To-morrow I shall 
 find it; it will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it; lo, 
 
 " " Nebridius, my friend, who being a to doctrines of faith, hated exceedingly a 
 most diligent and acute enquirer in diffi- brief answer on a great question." Aug. 
 cult subjects, especially such as related Ep. 98. §. 8. 
 
 h2 
 
100 Review of Aug.^s perplexities and vacillations, 
 
 CONF.Faustus the Manichee will come, and clear every thing! O 
 
 — ^ ^you great men, ye Academicians, it is true then, that no 
 
 certainty can be attained for the ordering of life ! Nay, let 
 us search the more diligentlj', and despair not. Lo, things in 
 the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which 
 sometimes seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken, and 
 in a good sense. I will take my stand, where, as a child, my 
 parents placed me, until the clear truth be found out. But 
 where shall it be sought or when ? Ambrose has no leisure; 
 we have no leisure to read ; where shall we find even the 
 books ? Whence, or when procure them ? from whom 
 "borrow them ? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours 
 be ordered for the health of our soul. Great hope has 
 dawned.? the Catholic Faith teaches not what we thought, 
 and vainly accused it of; her instructed members hold it pro- 
 fane, to believe God to be bounded by the figure of a human 
 body : and do we doubt to " knock," that the rest " may be 
 opened ?" The forenoons our scholars take up ; what do we 
 during the rest ? Why not this ? But when then pay we 
 court to our great fi-iends, whose favour we need? When 
 compose what we may sell to scholars ? When refresh our- 
 selves, unbending our minds from this intenseness of care ?" 
 
 19. " Perish every thing, dismiss we these empty vanities, 
 and betake ourselves to the one search for truth ! Life is 
 vain, death uncertain ; if it steals upon us on a sudden, in what 
 state shall we depart hence ? and where shall we learn what 
 here we have neglected ? and shall we not rather suffer the 
 punishment of this negligence ? What, if death itself cut off 
 and end all care and feeling ? Then must this be ascertained. 
 But God forbid this ! It is no vain and empty thing, that the 
 excellent dignity of the authority of the Christian Faith hath 
 overspread the whole world". Never would such and so great 
 
 o The Church herself addresses you yehavenotseen,aiidsorefusetohelieve. 
 
 in tones of motherly affection, " I whose Look then at this, reflect on this which 
 
 growthandfruitfulnessthroughthewhole you see ; which is neither related to you, 
 
 world so much amazes you, was not being past, nor foretold, being future, 
 
 always what you now behold me. They but pointed out to you as present. Is it 
 
 who at that time were believers in Judsea, in your eyes a slight thing, or without 
 
 taught the miraculous birth of a virgin, meaning ; think you it none or a slight 
 
 the Passion,Kesurrection, and Ascension Divinemiracle,thatthewholehumanrace 
 
 of Christ, all His divine words and deeds, wear the name of One crucified ?" Aug. 
 
 witnesses the things witnessed. These de fide rer. quae non videntur, §. 6 and 7. 
 
ignorant,thatGodgives strength toperform what He requires. 101 
 
 things be by God wrought for us, if with the death of the 
 body, the life of the soul came to an end. Wherefore delay 
 then to abandon worldly hopes, and give ourselves wholly to 
 seek after God and the blessed life ? But wait ! Even those 
 things are pleasant; they have some, and no small sweetness. 
 We must not lightly abandon them, for it were a shame to 
 return again to them. See, it is no great matter now to 
 obtain some station, and then what should we more wish for.? 
 We have store of powerful friends ; if nothing else offer, and 
 we be in much haste, at least a presidentship may be given 
 us : and a wife with some money, that she increase not our 
 charges : and this shall be the bound of desire. Many great 
 men, and most worthy of imitation, have given themselves to 
 the study of wisdom in the state of marriage." 
 
 20. While I went over these things, and these winds 
 shifted and drove my heart this way and that, time passed 
 on, but I delayed to turn to the Lord ; and from day to day 
 deferred to live in Thee, and deferred not daily to die in 
 myself. Loving a happy life, I feared it in its own abode, 
 and sought it, by fleeing from it. I thought I should be too 
 miserable, unless folded in female arms'"; and of the medicine 
 of Thy mercy to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having 
 tried it. As for contiuency, I supposed it to be in our own 
 power, (though in myself 1 did not find that power) being so 
 foolish as not to know what is written. None can Sewisd.s, 
 continent unless Thou give it; and that Thou wouldest give^- ^"'s- 
 it, if with inward groanings I did knock at Thine ears, and 
 with a settled faith did cast my care on Thee. 
 
 [XII.] 21. Alypius indeed kept me from manrying; al- 
 leging, that so could we by no means with undistracted 
 
 P " I was entangled in the life of this observed in the discourses of our Priest 
 
 world, clinging to dull hopes, of a beau- [Ambrose] and sometimes in j'ours [The- 
 
 teous wife, the pomp of riches, the empti- odorus] , that you hadno corporeal notions 
 
 ness of honours, and the other hurtful when you thought of God, or eren of the 
 
 and destructive pleasures." Aug. de soul, which of all things is next to God. 
 
 XJtil. Credendi, §. 3. "After I had But I was withheld, I own, from casting 
 
 shaken off the Manichseans and escaped, myself speedily into the bosom of true 
 
 especially when I had crossed the sea, wisdom,by the alluring hopes of marriage 
 
 the Academics long detained me tossing and honours ; meaning when I had oh- 
 
 in the waves, winds from all quarters tained these, to press (as few singularly 
 
 heating against my helm. And so I came happy had before me) with oar and sail 
 
 to this shore, and there found a pole-star, into that haven, and there rest." Aug, 
 
 to whom to entrust myself. For I often de Vita Beata, §. 4. 
 
102 Dcmgers and course qf curiosity. 
 
 CONF. leisure live together in the love of wisdom, as we had long de- 
 —^ — '- sired. For himself was even then most pure in this point, so 
 that it was wonderful ; and that the more, since in the outset 
 of his youth he had entered into that course, but had not stuck 
 fast therein ; rather had he felt remorse and revolting at it, 
 living thenceforth until now most continently. But I opposed 
 him with the examples of those, who as married men had 
 cherished wisdom, and served God acceptably, and retained 
 their friends, and loved them faithfully. Of whose greatness 
 of spirit I was far short ; and bound with the disease of the 
 flesh, and its deadly sweetness, drew along my chain, dread- 
 ing to be loosed, and as if my wound had been fretted, put 
 back his good persuasions, as it were the hand of one that 
 would unchain me. Moreover, by me did the serpent speak 
 unto Alypius himself, by my tongue weaving and laying in 
 his path pleasurable snares, wherein his virtuous and free feef 
 might be entangled. 
 
 22. For when he wondered that I, whom he esteemed not 
 slightly, should stick so fast in the birdlime of that pleasure, 
 as to protest (so oft as we discussed it) that I could never 
 lead a single life ; and urged in my defence when I saw him 
 wonder, that there was great difference between his momen- 
 tary and scarce-remembered knowledge of that life, which so 
 he might easily despise, and my continued acquaintance where- 
 to if but the honourable name of marriage were added, he 
 ought not to wonder why I could not contemn that course ; 
 he began also to desire to be married ; not as overcome with 
 desire of such pleasure, but out of curiosity. For he would 
 
 1 PauUinus says, that "though he Bishop, Alypius, whom you embrace with 
 
 lived among the people and set over your whole heart ; deservedly : for who- 
 
 them, ruling the sheep of the Lord's fold, soever thinks favourably of that man, 
 
 as a watchful shepherd, with anxious thinks of the great mercy of God, and of 
 
 sleeplessness, yet by renunciation of the the wonderful gifts of God. — Soon, by 
 
 world, and denial of flesh and blood, he the help of God, I shall transfuse Aly- 
 
 had made himself a wilderness, severed plus wholly into your soul ; [PauUinus 
 
 from the many, called among lie few." had asked Alypius to write him his life, 
 
 Ap. Aug. Ep. 24. §. 2. S. Jerome calls and Aug. had at Alypius' request under- 
 
 him " his holy and venerable brother, taken to relieve him, and to do it;] for 
 
 Father (Papa) Alypius." (Ep. 39. ib.) I feared chiefly, lest he should shrink 
 
 Earlier, Aug. speaks of him, as " abiding from laying open all, which the Lordhas 
 
 in union with him, to be an example to bestowed upon him, lest, if read by any 
 
 the brethren who wished to avoid the ordinary person (for it would not be 
 
 cares of this world," (Ep. 22.) and to read by you only), he should seem not so 
 
 PauUinus, (Ep. 27.) [Bomanianus] "is a much to set forth the gifts of God com- 
 
 relation of the venerable and truly blessed mitted to men, as to exalt himself." 
 
Monnica's power qf distinguishing true from false visions. \0^ 
 
 fain Imow, he said, what that should be, without which my 
 life, to him so pleasing, would to me seem not life but a 
 punishment. For his mind, free from that chain, was amazed 
 at my thraldom ; and through that amazement was going on 
 to a desire of trying it, thence to the trial itself, and thence 
 perhaps to sink into that bondage whereat he wondered, 
 seeing he was willing to make a covenant with death ; and, is. 28, 
 he that loves danger, shall fall into it. For whatever honour ^^^\^^ 
 there be in the office of well-ordering a married life, and a 3, 27, 
 family, moved us but slightly. But me for the most part the 
 habit of satisfying an insatiable appetite tormented, while it 
 held me captive; him, an admiring wonder was leading 
 captive. So were we, until Thou, Most High, not forsaking 
 our dust, commiserating us miserable, didst come to our help, 
 by wondrous and secret ways. 
 
 [XIII.] 23. Continual effort was made to have me married. 
 I wooed, I was promised, chiefly through my mother's pains, 
 that so once married, the health-giving baptism might cleanse 
 me, towards which she rejoiced that I was being daily fitted, 
 and observed that her prayers, and Thy promises, were being 
 fulfilled in my faith. At which time verily, both at my 
 request and her own longing, with strong cries of heart 
 she daily begged of Thee, that Thou wouldest by a vision 
 discover unto her something concerning my future marriage ; 
 Thou never wouldest. She saw indeed certain vain and phan- 
 tastic things, such as the energy of the human spirit, busied 
 thereon, brought together ; and these she told me of, not with 
 that confidence she was wont, when Thou shewedst her any 
 thing, but slighting them. For she could, she said, through 
 a certain feeling, which in words she could not express, discern 
 betwixt Thy revelations, and the dreams of her own soul. 
 Yet the matter was pressed on, and a maiden asked in 
 marriage, two years under the fit age ; and, as pleasing, was 
 waited for. 
 
 [XIV.] 24. And many of us friends conferring about, and 
 detesting the turbulent turmoils of human life, had debated 
 and now almost resolved on living apart from business and 
 the bustle of men ; and this was to be thus obtained ; we 
 were to bring whatever we might severally procure, and make 
 one household of all ; so that through the truth of our friend- 
 
104 A fair plan baffled, to make way for those of God. 
 
 CONF. ship nothing should belong especially to any ; but the whole 
 
 — ^thus derived from all, should as a whole belong to each, 
 
 and all to all. We thought there might be some ten persons 
 in this society; some of whom were very rich, especially 
 Romanianus"' our townsman, from childhood a very familiar 
 friend of mine, whom the grievous perplexities of his affairs 
 had brought up to court ; who was the most earnest for this 
 project ; and therein was his voice of great weight, because 
 his ample estate far exceeded any of the rest. We had settled 
 also, that two annual officers, as it were, should provide all 
 things necessary, the rest being undisturbed. But when we 
 began to consider whether the wives, which some of us 
 already had, others hoped to have, would allow this, all that 
 plan, which was being so weU moulded, fell to pieces in our 
 hands, was utterly dashed and cast aside. Thence we betook 
 
 Mat. 7, us to sighs, and groans, and our steps to follow the broad and 
 beaten ways of the world; for many thoughts were in our 
 
 Ps. 33, heart, but Thy counsel standeth for ever. Out of which 
 counsel Thou didst deride ours, and preparedst Thine own ; 
 
 Ps. 145, purposing to give us meat in due season, and to open T7iy 
 
 *^" '®" hand, and to Jill our souls with blessing. 
 
 [XV.] 25. Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and 
 my concubine being torn from my side as a hindrance to my 
 marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded 
 and bleeding. And she returned to Afric, vowing unto Thee 
 
 1 Komanianus was a relation of Aly- now enjoy, that I have escaped the bonds 
 pins, (Aug. Ep. 27. ad Paulin.) of of useless desires, that, laying aside the 
 talent, which astonished Aug. himself, weightof dead cares, I breathe, recover, 
 (c. Acad. i. 1. ii. 1.) " surrounded by af- return to myself, thatwith all earnestness 
 fluence from early youth, and snatched I am seeking the truth, [Aug. wrote this 
 by what are thought adverse circum- the year before his baptism,] that I am 
 stances from the absorbing whirlpools of attaining it, that I trust whoUy to arrive 
 life." (lb.) Aug. fretjuently mentions at it,you encouraged, impelled, effected." 
 his great wealth, as also this vexatious (c. Acad. ii. 2.) Aug. had " cast him 
 suit, whereby he washarassed,(c. Acad, headlong with himself," (as so many 
 i. 1. ii. 1, 2.) and which so clouded his other of his friends) into the Manichsean 
 mind, that his talents were almost un- heresy, (ib. i. §. 3.) and it is to be hoped 
 known; (c. Acad. ii. 2.) as also his very that he extricatedhim with himself, bat 
 great kindness to himself, when " as a we only learn positively that he con- 
 poor lad, setting out to foreign study, he tinned to be fond of the works of Aug. 
 had received him in his house, supported, (Ep. 27.) whereas in that which he dedi- 
 and (yet more) encouraged him ; when catedtohim,(c.Acad.)ATJg. writesvery 
 deprived of his father, comforted, ani- doubtingly to him, and afterwards recom- 
 mated, aided him; when returning to mends him to Paulinus " to be cured 
 Carthage, in pursuit of a higher employ- wholly or in part by his conversation." 
 ment, supplied him with all necessaries" (Ep. 27.) 
 — " lastly,"says Aug. " whatever ease I 
 
Fear qf death and judgment checks to Aug.'s worst career. 105 
 
 never to know any other man, leaving with me my son by 
 her. But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, 
 impatient of delay, inasmuch as not till after two years was I to 
 obtain her I sought, not being so much a lover of marriage, 
 as a slave to lust, procured another, though no wife, that so 
 by the servitude of an enduring custom, the disease of my 
 soul might be kept up and carried on in its vigor or even 
 augmented, into the dominion of marriage. Nor was that 
 my wound cured, which had been made by the cutting away 
 of the former, but after inflammation and most acute pain, 
 it mortified, and my pains became less acute, but more 
 desperate'. 
 
 [XVI.] 26. To Thee be praise, glory to Thee, Fountain of 
 mercies. I was becoming more miserable, and Thou nearer. 
 Thy right hand was continually ready to pluck me out of the 
 mire, and to wash me throughly, and I knew it not; nor did 
 any thing call me back from a yet deeper gulf of carnal 
 ■pleasures, but the fear of death, and of Thy judgment to 
 come ; which amid all my changes, never departed from my 
 breast. And in my disputes with my friends Alypius and 
 Nebridius, of the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus 
 had in my mind won the palm, had I not believed, that after 
 death there remained a life for the soul, and places of requital 
 according to men's deserts, which Epicurus would not believe. 
 And I asked, " were we immortal, and to live in perpetual 
 bodily pleasure, without fear of losing it, why should we not 
 be happy, or what else should we seek ?" not knowing that 
 great misery was involved in this very thing, that, being thus 
 sunk and blinded, I could not discern that light of excellence 
 and beauty, to be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of 
 flesh cannot see, and is seen by the inner man. Nor did 
 I, unhappy, consider from what source it sprung, that even 
 on these things, foul as they were, I with pleasure discoursed 
 
 ' Pain which some think a primary is useful, when to the worse, useless. — 
 
 evil, whether of mind or body, cannot But evils without pain are worse ; for it 
 
 even exist except in bodies retaining is worse torejoiceininiquity, than to feel 
 
 some soundness. For that which offers pain for corruption. — So in the body a 
 
 resistance, so as to suffer, after a manner wound with pain is better than putre- 
 
 refuses to cease to be what it was, having faction without pain, which especially is 
 
 been to a degree good ; but when it is entitled mortification [corruption.] Aug. 
 
 constrained to somethingbetter, the pain de Natura Boni Manich. e. 20. 
 
106 No rest, save in God. 
 
 CONF. with my friends, nor could I, even according to the notions 
 
 — -^ — ■' I then had of happiness, be happy without friends, amid what 
 
 abundance soever of carnal pleasiu^es. And yet these friends 
 
 I loved for themselves only, and I felt that I was beloved of 
 
 them again for myself only. 
 
 O crooked paths ! Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped, 
 by forsaking Thee, to gain some better thing! Turned it 
 hath, and turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, yet all 
 was painful', and Thou alone rest. And behold. Thou art 
 at hand, and deliverest us from our wretched wanderings, and 
 placest us in Thy way, and dost comfort us, and say, " Run ; 
 I will carry you ; yea I will bring you through ; there also 
 will I carry you." 
 
 * How great a good God is, is chiefly one who forsaketh Him. Aug. de Gen. 
 set forth by this, liat it is well with no ad Lit. 1. xv. e. 5. 
 
THE SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug.'s thirty-first year j gradually extricated from his errors, but still 
 with material conceptions of God; much aided by an argument of 
 Nebridius ; sees that the cause of sin lies in free-will, rejects the Mani- 
 cheean heresy, but cannot altogether embrace the doctrine of the 
 Church ; recovered from the belief in Astrology, but miserably per- 
 plexed 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 
 S. Paul. 
 
 [I.] 1. Deceased was now that my evil and abominable youth, 
 and I was passing into early manhood ; the more defiled by 
 vain things as I grew in years, who could not imagine any sub- 
 stance, but such as is wont to be seen with these eyes. I thought 
 not of Thee, O God, under the figure of an human body ; since 
 I began to hear aught of wisdom, I always avoided this ; 
 and rejoiced to have foimd 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 
 
108 Aug. unintelligible to himself would understand Ood. 
 
 CONF. preferred before the corruptible, and injurable, and change- 
 
 — : able) as being in space, whether infused into the world, or 
 
 diffused infinitely without it. Because whatsoever I con- 
 ceived, deprived of this space, seemed to me nothing, yea 
 altogether nothing, not even a void, as if a body were taken 
 out of its place, and the place should remain empty of any 
 body at all, of earth and water, air and heaven, yet would it 
 remain a void place, as it were a spacious nothing. 
 
 2. I then being thus gross-hearted, nor clear' even to my- 
 self, whatsoever was not extended over certain spaces, nor 
 diffused, nor condensed, nor swelled out, or did not or could not 
 receive some of these dimensions, I thought to be altogether 
 nothing. For over such forms as my eyes are wont to range, 
 did my heart then range : nor yet did I see that this same 
 notion of the mind, whereby I formed those very images, was 
 not of this sort, and yet it could not have formed them, had 
 not itself been some great thing. So also did I endeavour to con- 
 ceive of Thee, Life of my life, as vast, through infinite spaces, 
 on every side penetrating the whole mass of the universe, and 
 beyond it, every way, through unmeasurable boundless spaces ; 
 so that the earth should have Thee, the heaven have Thee, 
 all things have Thee, and they be bounded in Thee, and Thou 
 bounded no where. For that as the body of this air which is 
 above the earth, hindereth not the light of the sun from passing 
 through it, penetrating it, not by bursting or by cutting, but 
 by filling it wholly : so I thought the body not of heaven, 
 air, and sea only, but of the earth too, pervious to Thee, so 
 that in all its parts, the greatest as the smallest, it should 
 admit Thy presence, by a secret inspiration, within and 
 without, directing all things which Thou hast created. So I 
 guessed, only as unable to conceive aught else, for it was 
 false. For thus should a greater part of the earth contain a 
 greater portion of Thee, and a less, a lesser : and all things 
 should in each sort be fiiU of Thee, that the body of an 
 elephant should contain more of Thee than that of a sparrow, 
 by how much larger it is, and takes up more room ; and thus 
 shouldest Thou make the several portions of Thyself present 
 
 ' " By what understanding shall man would fain comprehend Him .'" Aug. de 
 comprehend God, when he comprehend- Trin. y. §. 2. 
 eth not his very intellect, whereby he 
 
An argument, never answered by the Manichees. 109 
 
 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. 
 
 [II.] 3. It was enough for me. Lord, to oppose to those 
 deceived deceivers, and dumb praters, since Thy word sounded 
 not out of them; — that was enough which long ago, while we 
 were yet at Carthage, Nebridius used to propound, at which 
 all we that heard it, were staggered ; " That said'' nation of 
 darkness, which the Manichees are wont to set as an opposing 
 mass, over against Thee, what could it have done unto Thee, 
 hadst Thou refused to fight with it ? For, if they answered, 
 " it would have done Thee some hurt," then shouldest Thou 
 be subject to injury and corruption: but if " it could do Thee 
 no hurt," then was no reason brought for Thy fighting with 
 it; and fighting in such wise, as that a certain portion or 
 member of Thee, or offspring of Thy very Substance, should 
 be mingled with opposed powers", and natures not created by 
 Thee, and be by them so far corrupted and changed to the 
 worse, as to be turned from happiness into misery"", and need 
 assistance, whereby it might be extricated and purified'; and 
 that this offspring of Thy Substance was the soul, which 
 being enthralled, defiled, corrupted. Thy Word, free, pure, 
 and whole, might relieve'; that Word Itself being still cor- 
 ruptible, because It was of one and the same Substance '. So 
 then, should they afiirm Thee, whatsoever Thou art, that is. 
 Thy Substance whereby Thou art, to be incorruptible, then 
 were all these sayings false and execrable ; but if corruptible, 
 the very statement sljewed it to be false, and revolting." This 
 argument then of Nebridius sufficed against those, who de- 
 served wholly to be vomited out of the overcharged stomach ; 
 for they had no escape, without horrible blasphemy of heart 
 and tongue, thus thinking and speaking of Thee. 
 
 h See Note A at the end. S. Aug. error, and turn, or rather return, to the 
 
 frequently uses this argument againstthe Catholic faith, through His mercy, who 
 
 Manichees,(e. g. de Morib. Manich.c.l2. allowed me not to be held fast for ever in 
 
 c. Secundin. M. c. 20. de fide e. Man. c. these deceits." Disp. 2. i;. Fortun. Ma- 
 
 18 and 35.) and when in the conference nich. v. fin. 
 with Fortunatus, the latter had nothing ' See Note A. §. ii. 
 to answer to it, Aug. subjoins, " I knew ■• lb. ii. a. 
 that you had nothing to say, and when I ' lb. iii. a. b. 
 was a " hearer" among you, I could f lb. iii. 
 never discover what to say ; and this was E lb. §. ii. 
 to me a warning from God to leave that 
 
110 Consciousness offree-agency and 
 
 ^ONF- [III.] 4. But I also as yet, although I held and was 
 
 — ^firmly persuaded, that Thou our Lord the true God, who 
 
 madest not only our souls, but our bodies, and not only our 
 souls and bodies, but all beings, and all things, wert unde- 
 filable and unalterable, and in no degree mutable; yet under- 
 stood 1 not, clearly and without difficulty, the cause of evil. 
 And yet whatever it were, I perceived it was in such wise to 
 be sought out, as should not constrain me to believe the 
 immutable God to be mutable, lest I should become that evil 
 I was seeking out. I sought it out then, thus far free from 
 anxiety, certain of the untruth of what these held, from 
 whom I shrunk with my whole heart: for I saw, that through 
 enquiring the origin of evil, they were filled with evil, in that 
 they preferred to think that Thy substance did suflfer ill than 
 their own did commit it. 
 
 5. And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free- 
 will was the cause of our doing ill, and Thy just judgment, 
 of our suffering ill *. But I was not able clearly to discern it. 
 So then endeavouring to draw my soul's vision out of that 
 deep pit, I was again plunged therein, and endeavouring 
 often, I was plunged back as often. But this raised me a little 
 into Thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will, as that I 
 lived: when then I did will or nill any thing, I was most 
 sure, that no other than myself did will and nill : and I all 
 but saw that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did 
 against my will, I saw that I suffered rather than did, and 
 I judged not to be my fault, but my punishment ; whereby 
 
 ' " Evil is of two sorts, one which a Who neither wills to be able, nor is able 
 man doth, the other which he suffers, to will, to sin." But on this Manichsens 
 ■What he doth, is sin ; what he suffereth, proceeds, " If evil arose out of the free- 
 punishment. The Providence of God will of the rational nature, whence that 
 governing and controlling all things, man numerous tribe of evils, with which we 
 doth ill which he wills, so as to suffer iU see that they are bom, who have not yet 
 which he wills not." Aug. c. Adim. the free exercise of will ?" — We answer, 
 C.26. We answer the Manichees, " Evil " These evils also are derived from the 
 is' not out of (ex) God, nor cosetemal wiU of human nature, which greatly sin- 
 with God ; but evil arose out of the free ning, was corrupted and condemned with 
 vrill of our rational nature, which was its o&pring. Wherefore those so varied 
 created good by Him who is good ; but natural goods of this nature, come from 
 his goodness is not equal to the goodness the workmanship of God, the evils from 
 of his Creator, since he is not of His His judgments, which evils, they do not 
 nature [as the Manichees taught] but see, cannot be natures or substances, but 
 Hiswortmanship;thereforehe was under are therefore called natural, because men 
 thepossibility,notthenecessityofsinning. are bom with them, the original stock, 
 But he had not even been under the pos- as it were, being corrapted." Aug. Op. 
 sibiUty, had he had the nature of God, Imp. c. Julian, Pelag. vi. 5. 
 
perception qf God's perfection lighten Aug.' s difficulties. Ill 
 
 however, holding thee to be just, I speedily confessed myself 
 to be not unjustly punished. But again I said, Who made 
 me ? Did not my God, who is not only good, but goodness 
 itself? Whence then came I to will evil and nill good, so 
 that I am thus justly punished ? who set this in me, and in- 
 grafted into me this plant of bitterness, seeing I was wholly 
 formed by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, 
 whence is that same devil ? And if he also by his own per- 
 verse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence, again, 
 came in him that evil will, whereby he became a devil, seeing 
 the whole nature of angels was made by that most good 
 Creator? By these thoughts I was again sunk down and 
 choked ; yet not brought down to that hell of error, (where Ps. 6, 6. 
 no man confesseth unto Thee,) to think rather that Thou dost 
 suffer ill, than that man doth it. 
 
 [IV.] 6. For I was in such wise striving to find out the 
 rest, as one who had already found, that the incorruptible 
 must needs be better than the corruptible : and Thee there- 
 fore, whatsoever Thou wert, I confessed to be incorruptible. 
 For never soul was, nor shall be, able to conceive any thing 
 which may be better than Thou, who art the sovereign and 
 the best good. But since most truly and certainly, the 
 incorruptible is preferable to the corruptible, (as I did now 
 prefer it,) then, wert Thou not incorruptible, I could in 
 thought have arrived at something better than my God. 
 Where then I saw the incorruptible to be preferable to the 
 corruptible, there ought I to seek for Thee, and there observe 
 " wherein evil itself was ;" that is, whence corruption comes, 
 by which Thy substance can by no means be impaired. For 
 corruption does no ways impair our God ; by no will, by no 
 necessity, by no unlooked-for chance : because He is God, and 
 what He wills is good, and Himself is that good ; but to be 
 corrupted is not good. Nor art Thou against Thy will con- 
 strained to any thing, since Thy will is not greater than Thy 
 power. But greater should it be, were Thyself greater than 
 Thyself. For the will and power of God, is God Himself. 
 And what can be unlooked-for by Thee, who knowest all 
 things ? Nor is there any nature in things, but Thou knowest 
 it. And what should we more say, " why that substance 
 
1 12 Aug.'s speculations on Ood and the world. 
 
 CONF. which God is, should not be corruptible," seeing if it were so, 
 
 — : :it should not be God ? 
 
 [v.] 7. And I sought, " whence is evil," and sought in an 
 evil way ; and saw not the evil in my very search. I set now 
 before the sight of my spirit, the whole creation, whatsoever 
 we can see therein, (as sea, earth, air, stars, trees, mortal 
 creatures ;) yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the 
 firmament of heaven, all angels moreover, and all the spiritual 
 inhabitants thereof. But these very beings, as though they 
 were bodies, did my fancy dispose in place, and I made one 
 great mass of Thy creation, distinguished as to the kinds of 
 bodies ; some, real bodies, some, what myself had feigned for 
 spirits. And this mass I made huge, not as it was, (which I 
 could not know,) but as I thought convenient, yet every way 
 finite. But Thee, O Lord, I imagined on every part environ- 
 ing and penetrating it, though every way infinite : as if there 
 were a sea, every where, and on every side, through unmea- 
 sured space, one only boundless sea, and it contained within 
 it some sponge, huge, but bounded ; that sponge must needs, 
 in all its parts, be filled from that unmeasurable sea : so con- 
 ceived I Thy creation, itself finite, full of Thee, the Infinite; 
 and I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created ; 
 and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better 
 than all these : but yet He, the Good, created them good ; 
 and see how He environeth and fuU-fils them. Where is evil 
 then, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, 
 and what its seed ? Or hath it no being ? Why then fear we 
 and avoid what is not.? Or if we fear it idly, then is that very 
 fear evil, whereby the soul is thus idly goaded and racked. Yea, 
 and so much a greater evil, as we have nothing to fear, and yet 
 do fea:r. Therefore either is that evil which we fear, or else evil 
 is, that we fear. Whence is it then ? seeing God, the Good, 
 hath created all these things good. He indeed, the greater 
 and chiefest Good, hath created these lesser goods; still both 
 Creator and created, all are good. Whence is evil .? Or, was 
 there some evil matter of which He made, and fonned, and 
 ordered it, yet left something in it, which He did not convert 
 into good } Why so then ? Had He no might to turn and 
 change the whole, so that no evil should remain in it, seeing 
 
Aug., guided bj) notions, though vague, qf Catholic truth. 113 
 
 He is All-mighty ? Lastly, why would He make any thing at 
 all of it, and not rather by the same AUmightiness cause 
 it not to be at all ? Or, could it then be, against His will ? 
 Or if it were from eternity, why sufTeted He it so to be for 
 infinite spaces of times past, and was pleased so long after to 
 make something out of it ? Or if He were suddenly pleased 
 now to effect somewhat, this rather should the Allmighty have 
 effected, that this evil matter should not be, and He alone be, 
 the whole, true, sovereign, and infinite Good. Or if it was not 
 good that He who was good, should not also frame and create 
 something that were good, then, that evil matter being taken 
 away and brought to nothing, He might form good matter, 
 whereof to create all things. For He should not be All- 
 mighty, if He might not create something good without the 
 did of that matter which Himself had not created. These 
 thoughts I revolved in my miserable heart, overcharged with 
 most gnawing cares, lest I should die ere I had found the 
 truth ; yet was the faith of Thy Christ our Lord and Saviour, 
 professed in the Church Catholic, firmly fixed in my heart, 
 in many points, indeed, as yet unformed, and fluctuating from 
 the rule of doctrine ; yet did not my mind utterly leave it, but 
 rather daily took in more and more of it. 
 
 8. By this time also had I rejected the lying divinations 
 and impious dotages of the astrologers. Let Thine own Ps. 106, 
 mercies, out of my very inmost soul, confess unto Thee for ' ^' 
 this also, O my God. For Thou, Thou altogether, (for who 
 else calls us back from the death of all errors, save the Life 
 which cannot die, and the Wisdom which needing no light 
 enlightens the minds that need it, whereby the universe is 
 directed, down to the whirling leaves of trees ?) Thou madest 
 provision for my obstinacy wherewith I struggled against 
 Vindicianus', an acute old man, and Nebridius, a young man 
 of admirable talents ; the first vehemently affirming, and the 
 latter often (though Avith some doubtfulness) saying, " That 
 there was no such art whereby to foresee things to come, but 
 that men's conjectures were a sort of lottery, and that out of 
 many things, which they said should come to pass, some 
 actually did, unawares to them who spake it, who stumbled 
 upon it, through their oft speaking." Thou providedst then 
 ' See b. Iv. v. 3, 
 I 
 
114 Tale, whereby Aug. is cured of belief in Astrology. 
 
 COTfF. a friend for me, no negligent consulter of the astrologers; nor 
 -^ ^yet well skilled in those arts, but (as I said) a curious con- 
 sulter with them, and yet knowing something, which he said 
 he had heard of his father, which how far it went to overthrow 
 the estimation of that art, he knew not. This man then, 
 Firminus by name, having had a liberal education, and well 
 taught in Rhetoric, consulted me, as one very dear to him, what, 
 according to his so-called constellations, I thought on certain 
 affairs of his, wherein his worldly hopes had risen, and I, who 
 had herein nowbegun to incline towardsNebridius' opinion, did 
 not altogether refuse to conjecture, and tell him what came 
 into my unresolved mind ; but added, that I was now almost 
 persuaded, that these were but empty and ridiculous follies. 
 Thereupon he told me, that his father had been very curious 
 in such books, and had a friend as earnest in them as himself, 
 who with joint study and conference fanned the flame of their 
 affections to these toys, so that they would observe the 
 moments, whereat the very dumb animals, which bred about 
 their houses, gave birth, and then observed the relative position 
 of the heavens, thereby to make fresh experiments in this so- 
 called art. He said then that he had heard of his father, 
 that what time his mother was about to give birth to him, 
 Firminus, a woman-servant of that friend of his father's, was 
 also with child, which could not escape her master, who took 
 care with most exact diligence to know the births of his very 
 puppies. And so it was, that (the one for his wife, and the 
 other for his servant, with the most careful observation, 
 reckoning days, hours, nay, the lesser divisions of the 
 hours,) both were delivered at the same instant ; so that both 
 were constrained to allow the same constellations, even to the 
 minutest points, the one for his son, the other for his new- 
 bom slave. For so soon as the women began to be in labour, 
 they each gave notice to the other what was fallen out in their 
 houses, and had messengers ready to send to one another, so 
 soon as they had notice of the actual birth, of which they had 
 easily provided, each in his own province, to give instant 
 intelligence. Thus then the messengers of the respective 
 parties met, he averred, at such an equal distance from either 
 house, that neither of them could make out any difference in 
 the position of the stars, or any other minutest points; and 
 
Aug. 's reflections thereon. 115 
 
 yet Firminus, born in a high estate in his parents' house, 
 ran his course through the gilded paths of life, was increased 
 in riches, raised to honours ; whereas that slave continued 
 to serve his masters, without any relaxation of his yoke, as 
 Firminus, who knew him, told me. 
 
 9. Upon hearing and believing these things, told by one of 
 such credibility, all that my resistance gave way ; and first I 
 endeavoured to reclaim Firminus himself from that curiosity, 
 by telling him, that upon inspecting his constellations, I 
 ought, if I were to predict truly, to have seen in them, 
 parents eminent among their neighbours, a noble family in 
 its own city, high birth, good education, liberal learning. 
 But if that servant had consulted me upon the same con- 
 stellations, since they were his also, I ought again (to tell 
 him too truly) to see in them a lineage the most abject, a 
 slavish condition, and every thing else, utterly at variance 
 with the former. Whence then if I spake the truth, I should, 
 from the same constellations, speak diversely, or if I spake 
 the same, speak falsely: thence it followed most certainly, that 
 whatever, upon consideration of the constellations, was spoken 
 truly, was spoken not out of art, but chance ; and whatever 
 spoken falsely, was not out of ignorance in the art, but the 
 failure of the chance. 
 
 10. An opening thus made, ruminating with myself on the 
 like things, that no one of those dotards (who lived by such 
 a trade, and whom I longed to attack, and with derision to 
 confute) might urge against me, that Firminus had informed 
 me falsely, or his father him ; I bent my thoughts on those 
 that are born twins, who -for the most part come out of the 
 womb so near one to other, that the small interval (how much 
 force soever in the nature of things folk may pretend it to 
 have) cannot be noted by human observation, or be at all 
 expressed in those figiures which the Astrologer is to inspect, 
 that he may pronounce truly. Yet they cannot be true : for 
 looking into the same figures, he must have predicted the 
 same of Esau and Jacob, whereas the same happened not to 
 them. Therefore he must speak falsely ; or if truly, then, 
 looking into the same figures, he must not give the same 
 answer. Not by art, then, but by chance, would he speak truly. 
 For Thou, O Lord, most righteous Ruler of the Universe, 
 
 I 2 
 
116 No man knows another's sorrows, but God only. 
 
 CONF. while consulters and consulted know it not, dost by Thy 
 
 -I : hidden inspiration effect that the consulter should hear what 
 
 according to the hidden deservings of souls, he ought to hear, 
 out of the unsearchable depth of Thy just judgment, to Whom 
 let no man say. What is this ? Why that ? Let him not so say, 
 for he is man. 
 
 [VII.] 11. Now then, O my Helper, hadst Thou loosed me 
 from those fetters : and I sought " whence is evil," and found 
 no way. But Thou sufferedst me not by any fluctuations of 
 thought to be carried away from the Faith whereby I believed 
 Thee both to be, and Thy substance to be unchangeable, 
 and that Thou hast a care of, and wouldest judge men, and 
 that in Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, and the holy Scriptures, 
 which the authority of Thy Catholic Church pressed 'upon 
 me. Thou hadst set the way of man's salvation, to that life 
 which is to be after this death. These things being safe 
 and immoveably settled in my mind, I sought anxiously 
 " whence was evil.?" What were the pangs of my teeming 
 heart, what groans, O my God ! yet even there were Thine 
 ears open, and I knew it not : and when in silence I vehe- 
 mently sought, those silent contritions of my soul were strong 
 cries unto Thy mercy. Thou knewest what I suffered, and 
 no man. For, what was that which was thence through my 
 tongue distilled into the ears of my most familiar friends ? 
 Did the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor 
 utterance sufficed, reach them ? Yet went up the whole to 
 Thy hearing, all which I roared out from the groanings of 
 Ps. 37, my heart ; and my desire was before Thee, and the light 
 ^1„ ■ of mine eyes was not with me ; for that was within, I with- 
 out : nor was that confined to place, but I was intent on 
 things contained in place, but there found I no resting-place, 
 nor did they so receive me, that I could say, " It is enough," 
 " it is well :" nor did they yet suffer me to turn back, where it 
 might be well enough with me. For to these things was I supe- 
 rior, but inferior to Thee ; and Thou art my true joy when sub- 
 jected to Thee, and Thou hadst subjected to me, what Thou 
 createdst below me. And this was the true temperament^, 
 
 S " Let the soul, then, reflecting upon to be subjected, above the things over 
 herself, seek her own place in conformiiy which she is to be placed; under Him, 
 to her nature, under Him to Whom she is by Whom she ought to be ruled, above 
 
Sufy'ection to God the condition of self-mastery. 117 
 
 and middle region of my safety, to remain in Thy 
 Imaged and by serving Thee, rule the body. But when I 
 rose proudly against Thee, and ran against the Lord with Job 15, 
 my neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, even these 
 inferior things were set above me, and pressed me down, and 
 no where was there respite or space of breathing. They met 
 my sight on all sides by heaps and troops, and in thought the 
 images thereof presented themselves unsought, as I would 
 return to Thee, as if they would say unto me, " Whither goest 
 thou, unworthy and defiled ?" And these things had grown 
 out of my wound ; for Thou " humbledst the proud like one Ps. 88, 
 that is wounded," and through my own swelling was I sepa- yiig. 
 rated'' fi-om Thee; yea, my pride-swollen face closed up mine 
 eyes. 
 
 [VIII.] 12. But Thou, Lord, abidest for ever, yet not for 
 ever art Thou angry with us ; because Thou pitiest our dust 
 and ashes, and it was pleasing in Thy sight to reform my 
 deformities ; and by inward goads didst Thou rouse me, that 
 I should be ill at ease, until Thou wert manifested to my 
 inward sight. Thus, by the secret hand of Thy medicining, 
 was my swelling abated, and the troubled and bedimmed eye- 
 sight of my mind, by the smarting anointings of healthful 
 sorrows, was from day to day healed. 
 
 [IX.] 1 3. And Thou, willing first to shew me, how Thou Jam. 4, 
 resistest the proud, but givest grace unto the humble, and by g' g *'" 
 how great an act of Thy mercy Thou hadst traced out to 
 men the way of humility, in that Thy Word was made flesh, 
 and dwelt among men : — Thou procuredst for me, by means 
 of one puffed up with most imnatural pride, certain books 
 of the Platonists', translated firom Greek into Latin. And 
 
 the things which she ought to rule." he whose good is God, would be his own 
 
 Aug. de Trin. 1. x. u. 5. " For so is she good to himself, as God is to Himself P" 
 
 ordered, in the order not of place but of Aug. de Lib. Arb. iii. 24. 
 existences, that above her should be no * This was likely to be the Book of 
 
 one but Him." lb. 1. xiv. c. 14. " It is Amelius the Platonist, who hath indeed 
 
 expedient that the inferior should be sub- this beginning of S. John's Gospel, caU- 
 
 jected to the superior, that so he who ing the Apostle a Barbarian. Euseb. 
 
 wishes to have what is inferior to him Praep. Evang. 1. i. c. 10. [Old Ed.] 
 
 subjected to him, should himself be sub- " When I had read a very few hooks of 
 
 jected to what is superior to him." Aug. Plato, whom I hear that you study ea- 
 
 in Ps. 143. S^rly, and had compared with them, as 
 
 h " For pride renders averse to wisdom far as I could, their authoritative state- 
 
 — but whence this averseness, but that ment, who have delivered to us the Di- 
 
118 Knowledge of the Divinity qf the Word without 
 
 CONF. therein'' I read, not indeed in the very words, but to the very 
 
 — 1- — ■ same purpose, enforced by many and divers reasons, that In the 
 
 ]_5. ' beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 
 the Word was God: the Same was in the beginning ivith 
 
 God : all things were made by Him, and without Him was 
 
 nothing made : that which was made by Him is life, and the 
 
 life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness, 
 
 and the darkness comprehended it not. And that the soul of 
 
 man', though it bears witness to the light, yet itself is not that 
 
 Ver. 9. light; but the Word of God, being God, is i/«a^ ^rwe %A< Ma# 
 
 Ver. 10. lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And that He 
 
 was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the 
 
 Ver. 1 1. world knew Him not. But, that He came unto His own, and His 
 
 Ver. 12. own receifcd Him not; but as many as received Him, to them 
 
 gave He power to become the sons qf God, as many as believed 
 
 in His name ; this I read not there. 
 
 Ver. 13. 14. Again I read there, that God the Word was born not of 
 
 flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of 
 
 W^T.U.the flesh, but of God". But that i/ie Word was madeflesh, and 
 
 dwelt among us, I read not there. For I traced in those 
 
 Phil. 2, books, that it was many and divers ways said, that the Son 
 
 was in the form of the Father, and thought it not robbery to 
 
 Tine mysteries, I was so kindled, that I Who made the world, hy Whom also 
 
 wished to break away from all those an- itself was made ; and that those superior 
 
 chors which held me, but for the influence beings deriTO their blessed life, and light 
 
 of certain persons." Aug. de Vita Beata, of understanding the truth, from no other 
 
 §. 4. source than we ; in harmony with the 
 
 k All the following contrasts turn on Gospel, where it is written, ' There was 
 this, that the Platonists had auction of a a man sent by God — he was not that 
 Divine Eternal Word or Logos, (believ- light.' (John 1, 6 sqq.) By which con- 
 ing Him however to be in no sense dis- trast it sufficiently appears, that the ra- 
 tinct from God the Father,) but of His tional or intellectual soul, such as it was 
 humiliation in becoming man, none. in John, cannot be a light to itself, but 
 
 ■ " Plotinus explaining the meaning shinesbytheparticipationofanothertrue 
 
 of Plato asserts, that not even that soul light. This John himself eonfesses,when 
 
 of the universe, whose existence they 'hearing Him witness,' he saith,' Of His 
 
 believe, derives its happiness from any fulness have we all received.' " Aug.de 
 
 other source than ours, i. c. that light Civ. Dei, i. 2. comp. Tert. de Testim. 
 
 which itself is not, but by which it was animse. 
 
 created, whereby, being intellectually il- " " Natus est" for " nati sunt." This 
 
 lumined, it giveth out its intellectual (in- reading occurs in Irenseus, 1. iii. c. 18 and 
 
 telligibiliter)light — ThisgreatPlatonist 21. (in a third place, he understands the 
 
 then says, that the rational, or rather passage of the Christian new birth 1. v. 
 
 perhaps intellectual soul, (whereto, he c. 2.) Tertull. de Carne Christi, c. 19 
 
 conceiveSjthat the souls of the immortals and 24. Ambros. Praef. in Ps. 37: but 
 
 and the blessed belong, who he doubteth thereceivedreadingocoursinotherplaces 
 
 not dwell in the heavenly mansions,) bothof S.Ambrose and S. Aug. as in the 
 
 hath no nature above it, save that of God, other fathers. See Sabatier ad loc. 
 
 6—11. 
 
His humiliation, and His Vicarious sufferings, injures. 1 19 
 
 be equal with God, for that naturally He was the Same Sub- 
 stance. But that* He emptied himself, taking the form of a 
 servant, being made in the lik eness of men, and found in 
 fashion as a man, humbled Himself, and became obedient ^nto 
 death, and that the death of the cross; wherefore God 
 exalted Him from the dead, and gave Him a name above every 
 name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
 things in heaven, and things in earth, and things binder the 
 earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord 
 Jesus Christ is in the gloi-y of God the Father; those books 
 have not. For that before all times and above all times Thy 
 Only-Begotten Son remaineth unchangeably, co^etemal with 
 Thee, and that of his fulness souls receive, that they may be John i, 
 blessed ; and that by participation of wisdom abiding in them, 
 they are renewed, so as to be wise, is there. But that in due Eom. 5, 
 time He died for the ungodly : and that Thou sparedst «o< j{, 3 
 Thine Only Son, but deliveredst Him for us all, is not there. 32. 
 For Thou hiddest these things from the wise, and revealedst^^*'^^> 
 them to babes ; that they that labour and are heavy laden, 29. 
 might come unto Him, and He refresh them, because He is 
 meek and lowly in heart : and the meek He directeth in judg- Ps,2S,9. 
 ment, and the gentle He teacheth His ways, beholding our ver. 18. 
 lowliness and trouble, and forgiving all our sins. But such 
 as are lifted up in the lofty walk of some would-be sublimer 
 learning, hear not Him, saying. Learn of Me, for I am wieeA Mat. 11, 
 and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls. ' 
 Although they knew God, yet they glorify Him not as God, nor Rom. i , 
 are thankful, but wax vain in their thoughts; and their 
 foolish heart is darkened; professing that they were wise, 
 they became fools. 
 
 15. And therefore did I read there also, that they had 
 changed the glory of Thy incorruptible nature into idols and Ver. 23. 
 divers shapes, into the likeness of the image of corruptible 
 man, and birds, and beasts, and creeping things ; namely into 
 that Egyptian food", for which Esau lost his birth-right, Gen. 25, 
 
 00. o4. 
 
 " We find the lentile to be an Egyp- the Egyptian food, lost his birth-right, 
 
 tian food, for in Egypt it abounds; So ulso the people of the Jews, of whom 
 
 whence the Alexandrian lentile is highly it is said, " In their heart they turned 
 
 prized, (cp. Num. 11,5.) andis brought back into Egypt," after a sort longed for 
 
 even to our country, as if the lentile did the lentiles, and so lost their birth-right, 
 
 not grow here. Esau, then, by desiring Aug. in Ps. 46. §. 6. [ed. Ben.] 
 
120 All truth, wherever found, is from God. 
 
 CONF.for that Thy first-born people worshipped the head of a fouv- 
 
 „ ' „„ • ' footed beast instead of Thee ; turning in heart back towards 
 
 i_6. ligypt ; and bowing Thy image, their own soul, before, the 
 
 Ps. 106, image of a calf that eateth hay. These things found I here, 
 
 but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take 
 
 Kom. 9, away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder 
 
 should serve the younger : and Thou calledst the Gentiles into 
 
 Thine inheritance. And I had come to Thee firom among the 
 
 Exod. 3, Gentiles ; and I set my mind upon the gold which Thou 
 
 ■ '' 'willedst Thy people to take from Egypt, seeing Thine it was, 
 
 wheresoever it were. And to the Athenians Thou saidst by 
 
 Acts 17, Thy Apostle, that in Thee we live, move, and have our 
 
 being, as one of their own poets had said. And verily these 
 
 books came from thence. But I set not my mind on the 
 
 Hos. 2, idols of Egypt, whom they served with Thy .gold, who 
 
 Rom 1 cJ^o^nged the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and 
 
 25. served the creature more than the Creator. 
 
 [X.] 16. And being thence admonished to return to myself, 
 I entered even into my inward self, Thou being my Guide : 
 and able I was, for Thou wert become my Helper. And I 
 entered and beheld with the eye of my soul, (such as it was,) 
 
 " Let every good and true Christian and avoid, but it also containeth liberal 
 understand that truth, wherever he finds arts, fitter for the service of truth, and 
 it, belongs to his Lord." Aug. de Dootr. some most useful moral precepts : as 
 Christ. 1. ii. c. 18. " By whomsoever also there are found among them some 
 truth is said, it issaid through His teach- truths concerningthe worship of the One 
 ingWho is The Truth." Aug. Ep. 166. God Himself, as it were their gold and 
 §. 9. " Whatever those called philo- silver,whichtheydidnotthemselvesform, 
 sophers, and especially the Platonists, but drew from certain veins of Divine 
 may have said true and conformable to Providence running throughout, and, 
 our faith, is not only not to be dreaded, which they perversely and wrongfully 
 but is to be claimed from them, as abuse to the service of daemons. These 
 unlawful possessors, to our use. For the Christian, when he severs himself 
 as the Egyptians not only had idols and from their wretched fellowship, ought to 
 heavy burthens, which the people of take from themfortherightuseofpreach- 
 Israel were to abhor and avoid, but also ing the Gospel. — For what else have 
 vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, many excellent members of our faith 
 and apparel, which that people, at its doneP See we not how richly laden with 
 departure from Egypt, privily assumed gold and silver and apparel, that most 
 for a better use, not on its own authority, persuasive teacher and most blessed mar- 
 but at the command of God, the very tyr Cyprian departed out of Egypt ? or 
 Egyptians unwittingly furnishing the Lactantius? or Victorinas,Optatus, Hi- 
 things, which themselves used not well; lary, not to speak of the living P and 
 so all the teaching of the Gentiles not Greeks innumerable ? And this, Moses 
 only hath feigned and superstitious de- himself,ihatmostfaithfulservantofGod, 
 vices, and heavy burdens of an useless first did, of whom it is written, that ' he 
 toil, which we severally, as, under the was learned in all the wisdom of the 
 leading of Christ, we go forth out of the Egyptians.'" de Doctr. Christ. 1. ii. 
 fellowship of the Gentiles, ought to abhor c. 40. 
 
God gives glimpses of Himself to him who enters into himself. 121 
 
 above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light 
 Unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all flesh may 
 look upon", nor as it vrere a greater of the same kind, as 
 though the brightness of this should be manifold brighter, 
 and with its greatness take up all space. Not such was this 
 light, but other, yea, far other from all these. Nor was it 
 above my soul, as oil is above water, nor yet as heaven above 
 earth: but above to my soul, because It made me; and I 
 below It, because I was made by It. He that knows the 
 Truth, knows what that Light is ; and he that knows It, knows 
 eternity. Love knoweth it. O Truth Who art Eternity ! and 
 Love Who art Truth ! and Eternity Who art Love"! Thou art 
 my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day. Thee when I first 
 knew. Thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was what I 
 might see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And Thou - 
 didst beat back the weakness of my sight, streaming forth Thy 
 beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trembled with 
 love and awe : and I perceived myself to be far off from 
 Thee, in the region of unlikeness'', as if I heard this Thy 
 voice from on high : " I am the food of grown men ; grow, and 
 thou shall feed upon Me; nor shalt thou convert Me, like the 
 food of thy flesh, into thee, but thou shalt be converted into 
 Me." And I learned, that Thou for iniquity chastenest man, Ps. 39, 
 and Thou madest my soul to consume away like a spider. ' *' 
 And I said, " Is Truth therefore nothing because it is not 
 difiused through space finite or infinite?" And Thou criedst 
 to me from afar ; " Yea verily, / AM that I AM." And I Exod. 3, 
 heard, as the heart heareth, nor had I room to doubt, and *' 
 I should sooner doubt that I live, than that Truth is not, 
 which is clearly seen being understood by those things which Rom. l, 
 are made. ^^' 
 
 " As he had thought, aa a Manichee. 28. " For the Essence of God, whereby 
 
 Vid. sup. 1. iii. §. 10 and 12. and 1. It. He Is, hath in it nothing mutable, whe- 
 
 §. 3. and vii. §. 2. " Grod is light, not ther in Eternity, or in Truth, or in Will; 
 
 such as these eyes see, but as the heart for there Truth is eternal, Love eternal ; 
 
 seeth,whenthouhearest, 'HeisTruth.'" and there Love is true. Eternity true ; 
 
 Aug. de Trin. viii. 2. and there Eternity is loving. Truth 
 
 P " We were created in the image of loving." Aug. de Trin. iv prooem. 
 our Creator, Whose is True Eternity, 1 ',' By becoming unlike, thou hast 
 
 Eternal Truth, Eternal and True Love, gone far away ; by becoming like, thou 
 
 and He is the Eternal and True and drawest near." Aug. Prsef. Serm. ad 
 
 Loving Trinity, neither ' confounded' Ps. 99. 
 nor ' divided.' " Aug. de Civ. Dei, xi. 
 
122 Things are, in the degree that they are good. 
 
 CONF. [XI.] 17. And I beheld the other things below Thee, and 
 
 — -■ I perceived, that they neither altogether are, nor altogether 
 
 are not, for they are, since they are from Thee, but are not, 
 because they are not, what Thou art. For that truly is, which 
 Ps. 73, remains unchangeably'. It is good then for me to holdfast 
 unto God; for if I remain not in Him, I cannot in myself; but 
 Wisd. 7, He remaining in Himself, renewelh all things. And TIioii art 
 Ps. 16 ^^^ Lord my God, since Thou standest not in need of my 
 I . goodness. 
 
 [XII.] 18. Audit was manifested unto me, that those things 
 be good, which yet are corrupted; which neither were they 
 sovereignly good, nor unless they were good, could be 
 corrupted : for if sovereignly good, they were incorruptible, 
 if not good at all, there were nothing in them to be corrupted. 
 For corruption injures, but unless it diminished goodness, it 
 could not injure. Either then corruption injm-es not, which 
 cannot be; or which is most certain, all which is corrupted is 
 deprived of good. But if they be deprived of all good, they 
 shall cease to be. For if they shall be, and can now no 
 longer be corrupted, they shall be better than before, because 
 they shall abide incorruptibly. And what more monstrous, 
 than to affirm things to become better by losing all their 
 good ? Therefore, if they shall be deprived of all good, they 
 shall no longer be. So long therefore as they are, they are 
 good : therefore whatsoever is, is good. That evil then which 
 I sought, whence it is, is not any substance : for were it a 
 substance, it should be good. For either it should be an 
 incorruptible substance, and so a chief good : or a corruptible 
 substance; which unless it were good, could not be corrupted. 
 I perceived therefore, and it was manifested to me, that Thou 
 madest all things good, nor is there any substance at all, 
 which Thou madest not; and for that Thou madest not all 
 things equal, therefore are all' things; because each is good, 
 
 ' For that is chiefly to he said to Be, did our God aay to Hie servant, I AM 
 
 which always exists in one and the same that I am, and " thou shalt say to the 
 
 way ; which is every way like itself; children of Israel, I am hath sent me 
 
 which can in no way be injured or unto you ;" for He truly Is, because He 
 
 changed ; which is not subject to time ; is unchangeable ; for all change causes 
 
 which cannot at one time be other than that which was, not to Be. He then truly 
 
 at another. For this is what is most Is, who is unchangeable. Aug. de Nat. 
 
 truly said to Be. Aug. de mor. Manich. Boni, c. 19. 
 
 e. 1. Magnificently then and divinely • And not one only ; goodness is the 
 
All created things harmonize. 123 
 
 and altogether very good, because our God made all things Geo.}, 
 very good. agi^lf 
 
 [XIII.] 19. And to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil: yea, 
 not only to Thee, but also to Thy creation as a whole, 
 because there is nothing without, which may break in, and 
 corrupt that order which Thou hast appointed it. But in the 
 parts thereof some things, because unharmonizing with other 
 some, are accounted evil: whereas those veiy things har- 
 monize' with others, and are good; and in themselves are 
 good. And all these things which harmonize not together, do 
 yet with the inferior part, which we call Earth, having its own 
 cloudy and windy sky harmonizing with it. Far be it then that 
 I should say, " These things should not be:" for should I see 
 nought but these, I should indeed long for the better; but 
 still must even for these alone praise Thee ; for that Thou art 
 to be praised, do shew from the earth, dragons, and allPs. 148, 
 deeps, Jlre, hail, snow, ice, and stormy wind, which fulfil ~ 
 Tliyword; mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all 
 cedars; beasts, and all cattle, creeping things, and flying 
 fowls ; kings of the earth, and all people, princes, and all 
 judges of the earth ; young men and maidens, old men and 
 young, praise Thy Name. But when, from heaven, these 
 praise Thee, praise Tfiee, our God, in the heights, all Thy 
 angels, all Tliy hosts, sun and moon, all the stars and light, 
 the Heaven of heavens, and the waters that he above the 
 heavens, praise Thy Name ; I did not now long for things 
 better, because I conceived of all : and with a sounder 
 judgment I apprehended that the things above were better 
 than these below, but all together better than those above by 
 themselves. 
 
 [XIV.] 20. There is no soundness in them, whom aught 
 of Thy creation displeaseth : as neither in me, when much 
 which Thou hast made, displeased me. And because my 
 soul durst not be displeased at my God, it would fain not 
 account that Thine, which displeased it. Hence it had gone 
 into the opinion of two substances, and had no rest, but 
 talked idly. And returning thence, it had made to itself 
 
 essence of things, diversity of goodness things invisible to things visible, some 
 
 their difference. " Sinceno nature what- thingsare better than other, being good ; 
 
 ever is evil, and the name [evil] belong- being unequal to this end, that they all 
 
 eth only to privation of good, but from might be." Aug. de Civ. Dei, ii. W. 
 things earthly to things heavenly, from ' See above, 1, v. c. 1. and note. 
 
124 Evil not a substance, but a perversion. 
 
 CONF. a God, through infinite measures of all space ; and thought 
 
 — :it to be Thee, and placed it in its heart; and had again 
 
 become the temple of its own idol, to Thee abominable. 
 But after Thou hadst soothed my head, unknown to me, and 
 Ps. 119, closed mine eyes that they should not behold vanity, I ceased 
 somewhat of my former self, and my phrenzy was lulled to 
 sleep ; and I awoke in Thee, and saw Thee infinite, but in 
 another way, and this sight was not derived from the flesh. 
 
 [XV.] 21. And I looked back on other things; and I saw 
 that they owed their being to Thee; and were all bounded in 
 Thee: but in a difierent way; not as being in space; but 
 because Thou containest all things in Thine hand in Thy 
 Truth ; and all things are true so far as they be ; nor is there 
 any falsehood, unless when that is thought to be, which is 
 not. And I saw that all things did harmonize, not with their 
 places only, but with their seasons. And that Thou, who 
 only art Eternal, didst not begin to work after innumerable 
 spaces of times spent; for that all spaces of times, both 
 which have passed, and which shall pass, neither go nor 
 come, but through Thee, working, and abiding °- 
 
 [XVI.] 22. And I perceived and found it nothing strange, 
 that bread which is pleasant to a healthy palate, is loathsome 
 to one distempered : and to sore eyes light is oflfensive, which 
 to the sound is delightfiil. And Thy righteousness dis- 
 pleaseth the wicked; much more the viper and reptiles, 
 which Thou hast created good, fitting in with the inferior 
 portions of Thy Creation, with which the very wicked also 
 fit in; and that the more, by how much they be unlike 
 Thee; but with the superior creatures, by how much they 
 become more like to Thee. And I enquired what iniquity 
 was, and foimd it to. be no substance, but the perversion of 
 the wiU, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, 
 towards these lower things, and casting out his bowels ", and 
 pufied up outwardly. 
 
 " See below, 1. xi. o. 13 and 20. Wherefore to swell with pride, this is to 
 
 » "'Why is earth and ashes proud? — pass off into outermost things, and, so to 
 
 while he liyeth he casteth away his speak, to empty itself and so less and less 
 
 bowels.' Eccli. 10, 9. Since the soul in to be. But to pass off into outermost 
 
 itself is nothing, but whatever is life in things, what is this other than to ccutoul 
 
 it, is from God, while it abides in its its innermost parts, i. e. to remove itself 
 
 assigned place, it is sustained in mind and far from God, not by distance of space, 
 
 conscience by the presence of God Him- but by the affections of the mind ?" Aug. 
 
 self. This then is its innermost good, de Mus. 1. vi. §. 40. 
 
Things of sense to be removed, to behold God. 125 
 
 [XVII.] 23. And I wondered that I now loved Thee, and 
 no phantasm for Thee. And yet did I not press on to 
 enjoy my God; but was borne up to Thee by Thy beauty, 
 and soon borne down from Thee by mine own weight, 
 sinking with sorrow into these inferior things. This weight 
 was carnal custom. Yet dwelt there with me a remembrance 
 of Thee ; nor did I any way doubt, that there was One to 
 Whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet such as to 
 cleave to Thee : for that tJie body which is corrupted, presseth Wisd.Q, 
 down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the 
 mind that museth upon many things. And most certain 
 I was, that Tliy invisible works from the creation of the Rom. i , 
 world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that^^' 
 are made, even Thy eternal power and Godhead. For 
 examining, whence it was that I admired the beauty of 
 bodies celestial or terrestrial ; and what aided me in judging 
 soundly on things mutable, and pronouncing, "This oughttobe 
 thus, this not;" examining, I say, whence it was that I so 
 judged, seeing I did so judge, I hadfound the unchangeable and 
 true Eternity of Truth, above my changeable mind. And thus 
 by degrees, I passed from bodies to the soul, which through 
 the bodily senses perceives ; and thence to its inward' faculty, 
 to which the bodily senses represent things external, whitherto 
 reaches the faculties of beasts; and thence again to the reason- 
 ing faculty, to which what is received from the senses of the 
 body, is referred to be j udged. Which finding itself also to be 
 in me a thing variable, raised itself up to its own under- 
 standing, and drew away my thoughts from the power of 
 habit, withdrawing itself from those troops of contradictory 
 phantasms*; that so it might find what that light was, whereby 
 it was bedewed", when, without all doubting, it cried out, 
 
 y Vid. sup. c. 10. init. Itself, whereby it is so enlightened, that 
 
 * " Phantasms" are nothing else than itmay behold all things, whether in itself 
 
 figments drawn by the bodily senses from or in Him, understanding them truly. 
 
 bodily forms ; which, to commit to me- For that Light is God Himself ; but the 
 
 mory, as they hare been received, to soul, although rational and intellectual, 
 
 divide, mnltiply, contract, enlarge, order, is a creature made afterHis image,which, 
 
 disarrange, or in any other way image in when it endeavours to behold that Light, 
 
 the mind by thinking, is very easy ; but quivers through weakness, and is unable, 
 
 to avoid and escape, where truth is Yet still thence is derived whatever it 
 
 sought, difficult." Aug. de vera Kelig. understands, as it is able. When then 
 
 u. 10. it is borne away thither, and withdrawn 
 
 » Distinct from the soul is that Light from the bodily senses, it is placed more 
 
126 ChriuVs humiliation exalls only the humble. 
 
 CONF. " That the unchangeable was to be preferred to the change- 
 
 — '- able ;" whence also it knew That Unchangeable, which, 
 
 unless it had in some way known, it had had no sure ground 
 to prefer it to the changeable. And thus with the flash of one 
 trembling glance it arrived at That Which Is. And then I 
 
 Rom. 1, saw Thy invisible things understood by the things which are 
 made. But I could not fix my gaze thereon; and my 
 infirmity being struck back, I was thrown again on my 
 wonted habits, canying along with me only a loving memory 
 thereof, and a longing for what I had, as it were, perceived 
 the odour of, but was not yet able to feed on. 
 
 [XVIII.] 24. Then I sought a way of obtaining strength, 
 sufficient to enjoy Thee; and found it not, until I embraced 
 
 iTim.i.that Mediator bettvixt God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, 
 
 Rom. 9 '"'^^ ** ''^^'' '^^^i ^°^ blessed for evermore, calling unto me, 
 
 5. and saying, / am the way, the truth, and the life, and 
 
 6. 'mingling that food which I was imable to receive, with our 
 lb. 1,14. flesh. For the Word was made flesh, that Thy wisdom, 
 
 whereby Thou createdst aU things, might provide milk for 
 our infant state. For I did not hold to my Lord Jesus Christ, 
 I humbled to the Humble ; nor knew I yet whereto His 
 infirmity would guide us. For Thy Word, the Eternal Truth, 
 far above the higher parts of Thy Creation, raises up the 
 subdued'' unto Itself: but in this lower world built for Itself 
 a lowly habitation of our clay, whereby to abase from them- 
 selves such as would be subdued, and bring them over to 
 Himself; allaying their swelling, and fomenting their love; 
 to the end they might go on no further in selt-confidence, but 
 rather consent to become weak, seeing before their feet the 
 Gen. 3, Divinity weak by taking our coats of skin' ; and wearied, 
 
 expresslyin the presence of That Vision, mortal, were dismissed from paradise ; 
 
 then, not in local space, bnt in a way of but to denote their mortality, they were 
 
 its own, it sees even above itself That, clothed with "coats of skins;" — but skins 
 
 whereby being aided it sees also what- are not taken bnt from dead animals ; 
 
 ever, by understanding, it does see in therefore by the name of skins, that mor- 
 
 itself." Ang. de Gen. ad Litt. xii. 31. tality was figured." Aug. Enarr. in Ps. 
 
 >> " He exalts those who follow hum- 103. s. 1. §. 8. " Those, who ashamed 
 
 bly, who shrunk not from descending to of their nakedness, had made themselves 
 
 them when lying prostrate." Aug. de aprons, He clothed with coats also, 
 
 Sancta Virpnitate, c. 32. therefore of skin, that the death now 
 
 <= " A ' skin' denotes mortality ; where- attached to their corruptible bodies might 
 
 fore our first parents, the authors of the be thereby figured." Op. Imp. c. Julian, 
 
 sin of the human race, — having become iv. 37. 
 
Aug. "perceives Christ to he very man, not Very God. 127 
 
 might cast themselves down upon It, and It rising, might 
 lift them up. 
 
 [XIX.] 25. But I thought otherwise; conceiving only of 
 my Lord Christ, as of a man of excellent wisdom, whom 
 no one could be equalled unto ; especially, for that being 
 wonderfully born of a Virgin, He seemed, in conformity 
 therewith, through the Divine care for us, to have attained 
 that great eminence of authority, for an ensample of despising 
 things temporal for the obtaining of immortality. But what 
 mystery there lay in, " The Word was made flesh" I could not 
 even imagine. Only I had learnt out of what is delivered to 
 us in writing of Him, that He did eat, and drink, sleep, walk, 
 rejoice in spirit, was sorrowful, discoursed; that, flesh did 
 not cleave by itself unto Thy Word, but with the human 
 soul and mind. All know this, who know the imchangeable- 
 ness of Thy Word, which I now knew, as far as I could, nor 
 did I at all doubt thereof. For, now to move the limbs of the 
 body by will, now not, now to be moved by some affection, 
 now not, now to deliver wise sayings through human signs, 
 now to keep silence, belong to soul and mind subject to 
 variation. And should these things be falsely written of Him, 
 all the rest also would risk the charge, nor would there 
 remain in those books any saving faith for mankind. Since 
 then they were written truly, I acknowledged a perfect man'' to 
 be in Christ ; not the body of a man only, nor, with the body, 
 a sensitive soul without a rational, but very man ; whom, not 
 only as being a form" of Truth, but for a certain great excellency 
 of human nature and a more perfect participation of wisdom, 
 I judged to be preferred before others. But Alypius imagined 
 the Catholics to believe God to be so clothed with flesh, 
 that besides God and flesh, there was no soul at all in Christ, 
 and did not think that a human mind was ascribed to Him. 
 And because he was well persuaded, that the actions recorded 
 of Him, could only be performed by a vital and a rational 
 creature, he moved the more slowly towards the Christian 
 Faith. But understanding afterwards, that this was the error 
 of the Apollinarian' heretics, he joyed in and was conformed 
 
 "> " The Word, the rational soul, and e As the Manichees thought, 
 the flesh all together is Christ." Aug. f " — The faithful, I say, who believes 
 Serm. 253. o. 4. and confesses in the Mediator, a real 
 
ICor. 
 II. 19. 
 
 128 Benefit of heresies to the Church — the Apollinarian. 
 
 CONF. to the Catholic Faith. But somewhat later, I confess, did I 
 
 — -* learn, how in that saying, The Word was made flesh, the 
 
 Catholic Truth is distinguished from the falsehood of Pho- 
 tinus'. For the rejection of heretics makes the tenets of Thy 
 Church and sound doctrine to stand out more clearly. For 
 there must also he heresies, that the approval may he made 
 manifest among the weak. 
 
 [XX.] 26. But having then read those books of the Plato- 
 nists, and thence been taught to search for incorporeal truth, 
 Rom. 1,1 saw Thy invisible things, understood hy those things tvhich 
 are made ; and though cast back, I perceived what that was, 
 which through the darkness of my mind I was hindered from 
 contemplating, being assured, " That Thou wert, and wert 
 infinite, and yet not diffused in space, finite or infinite ; and 
 
 human, i. e. our, nature, although God 
 the Word taking it in a singular manner, 
 sublimated it into the Only Son of God, 
 so that He who took it, and what He 
 took, was One Person in the Trinity. 
 For, after man was assumed, there be- 
 came not a Quatemity, hut remained 
 the Trinity, that assumption making in 
 an ineffable way, the truth of One Person 
 in God and man. Since we do not say 
 that Christ is only God, as do the Mani- 
 chaean heretics, nor only man, as the 
 Photinian heretics, nor in such wise man 
 as not to have any thing, which certainly 
 belongs to human nature, whether the 
 soul, or in the soul itself, the rational 
 mind, or theflesh nottaken of the woman, 
 but made of the Word converted and 
 changed into flesh, which three false and 
 vain statements made three several di- 
 visions of the Apollinarian heretics ; but 
 we say that Christ is true Grod, bom of 
 God the Father, without any beginning 
 of time, and also true man, bom of a 
 human mother in the fulness of time ; and 
 that His humanity, whereby He is in- 
 ferior to the Father, does not derogate 
 from His Divinity, whereby He is eqaal 
 to the Father." Aug. de dono Persev. §. 
 ult. " There was formerly a heresy, its 
 remnants perhaps still exist, of some 
 called Apollinarians. Some of them said 
 that that man, whom the Word took, 
 when " the Word was made flesh," 
 had not the human, (i. e. rational) mind, 
 but was only a soul without human in- 
 telligence, bat that the very Word of 
 God was in that man instead of a mind. 
 They were east out; the Catholic Faith 
 
 rejected them, and they made a heresy. 
 It was established in the Catholic Faith, 
 that that man, whom the Wisdom of 
 God took, had nothing less than other 
 men, with regard to the integrity of man's 
 nature, but as to the excellency of His 
 Person, had more than other men. For 
 other men may be said to be partakers of 
 the Word of God, having the Word of 
 God, but none of them can be called the 
 Word of God, which He was called when 
 it is said. The Word was made flesh." 
 (Aug. in Ps. 39. Enarr. 2. §. 2.) " Bnt 
 when they reflected, thatif theirdoctrine 
 were true, they must confess, that the 
 Only-Begotten Son of God, the Wisdom 
 and Word of the Father, by Wham all 
 things were made, is believed to have 
 taken a sort of brute with the figure of a 
 huma.n body, they were dissati^ed with 
 themselves, yet not so as to amend, and 
 confess that the whole man was assumed 
 by. the Wisdom of God, without any di- 
 minution of nature ; but still more boldly, 
 denied to Him the soul itself, and every 
 thing of any worth in man, and said that 
 He only took human flesh." (De 83 Div. 
 Qnaest. qu. 80.) " These too the Catho- 
 lic Church rejected, and expelled them 
 from the sheep, and from the simple and 
 true faith ; and it was the more settled, 
 that that Man, the Mediator, had every 
 thing of men, save sin." (Aug. in Ps, 
 1. c.) 
 
 t " The Photinians ascribe to the Son 
 of God a beginning from the virgin's 
 womb, and vrill not believe that He was 
 before." Aug. Ep. 147. c. 7. See also 
 note e. 
 
Heathen truth a guide or a rival to t?ie Gospel. 129 
 
 that Thou truly art who art the same ever'', in no part nor 
 motion, varying ; and that all other things are from Thee, on 
 this most sure ground alone, that they are. Of these things 
 I was assured, yet too unsure to enjoy Thee. I prated as one 
 well skilled; but had I not sought Thy way in Christ our 
 Saviour, I had proved to be, not skilled, but killed ''. For now I 
 had begun to wish to seem wise, being filled with mine own 
 punishment, yet I did not mourn, but rather scorn ', puffed up i Cor. 
 with knowledge. For where was that charity building upon ' 
 iAvQ foundation of humility, which is Christ Jesus? or whenib.3,11. 
 should these books teach me it? Upon these, I believe. Thou 
 therefore willedst that I should fall, before I studied Thy 
 Scriptures, that it might be imprinted on my memory, how 
 I was affected by them ; and that afterwards when my spirits 
 were tamed through Thy books, and my wounds touched by 
 Thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish between 
 presumption and confession; between those who saw whi- 
 ther they were to go, yet saw not the way", and the way that 
 leadeth not to behold only but to dwell in the beatific country. 
 For had I first been formed in Thy Holy Scriptures, and hadst 
 Thou, in the familiar use of them, grown sweet unto me, and 
 had I then fallen upon those other volumes, they might perhaps 
 have withdrawn me from the solid ground of piety, or, had I 
 continued in that healthfiil frame which I had thence imbibed, 
 I might have thought, that it might have been obtained by the 
 study of those books alone. 
 
 [XXI.] 27. Most eagerly then did I seize that venerable 
 writing of Thy Spirit ; and chiefly the Apostle Paul. Where- 
 upon those difliculties vanished away, wherein he once seemed 
 to me to contradict himself, and the text of his discourse not 
 
 8 " For to Be has chiefly reference to he know not how he is to go, what avails 
 
 abiding ;- therefore that which is said in it to know whither he is to go ?" Aug. 
 
 the highest and greatest sense to Be, is de Civ. Dei, I. xi. c. 2. " For what 
 
 so called from its abiding in itself." Aug. furthers it one, exalting himself, and so 
 
 de Mor. Manich. c. 6. See above c. xi. ashamed to embark on the wood [of the 
 
 h Non peritus, sed peritums. Cross] , to see from afar his home beyond 
 
 ' Non flebam sed inflabar. the sea P Or what hinders it the humble, 
 
 ''"For thereby is He a Mediator, that at so great a distance he sees it not, 
 
 whereby He is man, thereby also He is while he is drawing nigh it on that wood, 
 
 the way. Since if between him, who whereontheotherdisdainstobecarried.P" 
 
 goeth, and the place, whither he goes, Aug. de Trin. iv. 15. See also Tract. 2. 
 
 there be the medium of a way, he has a in Joh. Evang. 
 
 hope of arriving ; but if there be not, or 
 
130 Christian truth, not light only but strength. 
 
 CONF. to agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets. 
 
 — ■ And the face of that pure word appeared to me one and the 
 
 Ps.Z.H.same; and I learned to rejoice with trembling. So 1 began; 
 
 and whatsoever truth I had read in those other books, I 
 
 found here amid the praise of Thy Grace'; that whoso sees, 
 
 1 Cor. may not so glory as if he had not received, not only what he 
 
 ' ■ sees, but also that he sees, [for what hath he, which he hath not 
 
 received?) and that he may be not only admonished to behold 
 
 Thee, Who art ever tlie same, but also healed, to hold Thee ; 
 
 and that he who cannot see afar off, may yet walk on the way, 
 
 whereby he may arrive, and behold, and hold Thee. For, 
 
 Kom. 7, though a man he delighted with the law of God after the 
 
 Yet.'i'iinner man, what shall he do with that other law in his 
 
 members uliich warreth against the law of his mind, and 
 
 bringeth him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his 
 
 Song of members f For, Thou art righteous, O Lord, but we have 
 
 !?L-? sinned and committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and 
 
 dren, 4 Thy hand is grown heavy upon us, and we are justly deli- 
 
 ^''' vered over unto that antient sinner, the king of death ; because 
 
 he persuaded our will to be like his will, whereby he abode not 
 
 KoDi. 7, in Thy truth. What shall wretched man do f who shall deliver 
 
 him from the body of this death, but only Tliy Grace, through 
 
 Jesus Christ our Lord, whom Thou hast begotten coetemal, 
 
 Prov. 8, and formedst "" in the beginning of Ttiy ways, in whom the 
 
 1 " By a most deep and healthful mys- reference to the ' form of God,' it is said, 
 tery, the whole face, and (so to speak) 'beforethehillsHebegatMe,'i.e.before 
 countenance of Holy Scriptnre is &mid all the highest of creation, and, ' before 
 to admonish those who duly behold it, the Morning star I begat Thee,' i. e. be- 
 that whoso glorieth stwuld glory in the fore all times and things of time ; but 
 Lord." Ang. Enchirid. c. 98. withreference ' to the form of a servant,' 
 
 ■» Creasti, from the LXX, ?«««. S. it is said, ' The Lord formed Me in fhJe 
 Ang. understands the passage (as is beginning of His ways.' For as to the 
 implied in this place) of the human na- form of God He said, ' I am the Truth,' 
 rare of our Lord, and ' the beginning of as to the form of a servant, ' I am the 
 Hisways,'of the beginning of coming to Way.' For because as the ' First-hegot- 
 Him. " He who was plesised to give ten from the dead,' He made a way for 
 Himself not only as the possession of His Church to the Mngdom of God to 
 those who should come to the end, but life eternal, being its Head for flie im- 
 also as the way to those who would come, mortality of the body also, therefore He 
 was pleased t» tate upon Him flesh ; was ' formed in the beginning of the 
 whence also is that saying, ' The Lord ways of God towards His worts.' For 
 createdMeinthebeginningof his ways,' as to the form of God, He is ' the Be- 
 that they should begin thence, who wished ginning who also speatethuntoos,' ( Joh. 
 to come — from whom all must set off and 8, 25.j in which ' Beginning God made 
 
 begin their journey, who desire to come heaven and earth.' As to the form of 
 
 to the truth and abide in Eternal Life." God, ' He is the first-begotten of all cre- 
 
 Aug. de Doctr. Christ, i. §. 38. " With aSon.' " De Trin. i. §. 24. " Thesame 
 
Platonism has no reference to marCs wants. 
 
 131 
 
 prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet killed 
 he Him"; and the handwriting, which was contrary to us, 
 was blotted out ? This those writings contain not. Those 
 pages present not the image of this piety, the tears of confes- 
 sion. Thy sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite 
 heart,the salvation of the people, the Bridal City, the earnest 
 of the Holy Ghost, the Cup of our Redemption. No man sings 
 there, Shall not my soul be submitted unto God? for of Him 
 
 Wisdom which was begotten of God, 
 deigned also to he created among men. 
 Whereto belongeth, ' The Lord created 
 Me, '&c. for ' the hegiiming of His ways ' is 
 the Head of the Church, which is Christ 
 clothed with man, through whom an en- 
 sample of lifemight be given us, whereby 
 to arriTe at God." De fide et Symb. §.6. 
 S. Athanas. in like way, Orat. ii. c. 
 Ariann. §.47'. " The Lord knowing His 
 own Nature to he the Only-Begotten 
 Wisdom, and Production of the Father, 
 and other than things of a produced and 
 created nature, says in His love to man, 
 * The Lord &c.' as if He had said, the 
 Father ' prepared Me a body,' and cre- 
 ated Me formanforAe salvation of man. 
 For as when we hear John say ' the 
 Word became flesh,' we do not imder- 
 stand that the whole Word was flesh, 
 but that it clothed itself with flesh and be- 
 came man, or when we hear that ' Christ 
 became a curse for us,' and that' He 
 made Him who knew no sin to be sin for 
 us,' that He became wholly a curse and 
 a sin, but that He todc upon Him our 
 curse and bore our sins, (Gal. 3, 13. Is. 
 B3, 4. 1 Pet. 2, 24.) so when we hear 
 in the Proverbs the word ' created,' we 
 may not think that the Word is wholly 
 a creature, but that God created Him 
 ' having prepared for Him,' as is written, 
 a created ' body,' that in Him we might 
 be capable of being renewed and dei- 
 fied." (Comp. de Decret. Nic. Syn. §. 
 14i) With regard to the difference of 
 rendering ixr/n (»' Syr. Ch.) and i»T>j- 
 <r«Ta (Aq. Theod. Symm. Jer.) it is in 
 appearance more than in reality, for as 
 S. Athanas. argues, (c. Arian. Orat. ii. 
 §. 48. comp. Bionysius ap. Athanas. 
 de Deeret. Nic. Syn. §. 26. Hilar, de 
 Synodis, §. 17.) since ' creating,' in the 
 sense of ' making,' is inconsistent with 
 the fact of Sonship, therefore it must be 
 taken in some other sense consistent with 
 it, (as in Ps. 101, 19. n'fiO, 12. Eph.2,15. 
 Eph. 4, 24. Jer. 21, 22.) Wisdom is 
 not here called a creature, though it is 
 
 said God formed It," (ib. ) that the ques- 
 tion does not turn on words, " that the 
 word is a thing indifferent, if the Nature 
 be agreed upon, for words do not destroy 
 the Nature,but rather the Nature draws 
 over and changes the words into itself, 
 for words were not before the natures 
 hut the reverse," (ib. §. 3.) " that things 
 created and made are external to the 
 maker, but a son not so, but from the 
 father who begat him; and a man forms 
 (KTiga) a house, but begets a son, and 
 one could not convert these and say that 
 the house or ship were begotten by the 
 maker, but the son formed and made by 
 him;" (de deer. Nic. Syn. §. 13.) and 
 " of human sons, if they be confessed to 
 be sons, it matters not whether the word 
 lyivtvre, (Job 1, 2.) or ixTtiff^/AViv, (Gen. 
 4, 1.) or 'urawa, (Is. 38, 19. ^.) be 
 used, for the nature of the case and 
 the truth draw the meaning over to itself. 
 Wherefore if any enquire, whether the 
 Lord is a creature or made, you must 
 first ask ' is He a Son and Word and 
 Wisdom ?' for if this be shewn, then all 
 notion of a creature is cast out at once 
 and at rest." Orat. ii. c. Arian. §. 5. 
 The passages then in which the Son is 
 said to be ' begotten,' would be, in any 
 case, a key to the meaning of ixriiri in 
 this. This argument will equally hold, 
 if as Hilary (de Trin. xii. §. 36.) seems 
 to do, the passage be interpreted of the 
 Coming forth (*;oiXnmf) of the Son t» 
 create the worlds. And so one may ad- 
 mit without scruple that iMp has a sense 
 whiohmay he represented by t'xTws,'form- 
 ed, produced' (not simply ' possessed;') 
 corresponding with *r)77in v. 24, 25. 
 ' brought forth' and in distinct contrast 
 with ' His works' (V^JDD). The mo- 
 dified meaning of ixrm, (as of course all 
 words used of Divine truths must be 
 modified) in S. Athanas. corresponds best 
 with that of Hip, which is not one of 
 the words used oi proper creation. 
 " See below 1. 135. |. 36. and note. 
 
 John 14, 
 32. 
 
 Col. 2, 
 14. 
 
 Ps. 51, 
 17. 
 
 Rev.21, 
 2. 
 
 2 Cor. 
 5,5. 
 Ps. 116, 
 12. 
 
 k2 
 
CONF. 
 B. VII. 
 
 P». 62, 
 1.2. 
 
 Mat. 11, 
 28. 
 Ver. 29, 
 
 Deut. 
 32, 49. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 15,9. 
 
 132 Heathenism at best only sees, cannot teach, the way to Ood. 
 
 Cometh my salvation. For He is my God and my salvation, 
 my guardian, I shall no more be moved. No one there hears 
 Him call, Come unto Me all ye that labour. They scorn to 
 learn of Him, because He is meek and lowly in heart ; for 
 these things hast Tliou hid from the wise and prudent, and 
 hast revealed them unto babes. For it is one thing, from the 
 mountain's shaggy top to see the land of peace, and to find no 
 way thither ; and in vain to essay through ways unpassable, 
 opposed and beset by fugitives and deserters, under their 
 captain the lion and the dragon : and another to keep on the 
 way that leads thither, guarded by the host of the heavenly 
 General ; where they spoil not who have deserted the heavenly 
 army ; for they avoid it, as very torment. These things did 
 wonderfully sink into my bowels, when I read that least of 
 Thy Apostles°, and had meditated upon Thy works, and 
 trembled exceedingly. 
 
 ° In giving an account of this period 
 to Ms friend and patron Komanianus, S. 
 Ang. seems to have blended together 
 this and the history of his completed con- 
 version, which was also wrought in con- 
 nection with words in the same Apostle, 
 but the account of which he uniformly 
 suppresses, for fear probably of injuring 
 the individual to whom he was writing, 
 (see below onb. ix. §. 4.) " Since that ve- 
 hement flame, which was about to seize 
 me, asyet was not,I thought thatbywhich 
 I was slowly kindled, was the very great- 
 est. Whenlo! certain books — when they 
 had distilled a very few drops of most 
 precious unguent on that tiny flame, it is 
 past belief, Romanianus, past belief, and 
 perhaps past what even you believe of 
 me, (and what could I say more?) nay 
 to myself also is it past belief, what a con- 
 flagration of myself they lighted. What 
 ambition, what human show, what empty 
 love of fame, or, lastly, what incitement 
 or band of this mortal life could hold 
 me then P I turned speedily and wholly 
 
 back into myself. I cast but a glance, I 
 confess, as one passing on, upon that 
 religion which was implanted into us, as 
 boys, and interwoven with our very in- 
 most selves ; but she drew me unknow- 
 ing to herself. So then stumbling, hur- 
 rying, hesitating, I seized the Apostle 
 Paul; 'for never,' saidlj'could they have 
 wrought such things,or lived as it is plain 
 they did live, if their writings and argu- 
 ments were opposed to this so high 
 good. I read the whole most intenfly 
 and carefiilly. But then, never so little 
 light having now been shedthereon,such 
 a countenance of wisdom gleamed upon 
 me, that if I could exhibit it, — I say not 
 to you, who ever hungeredst after her 
 though unknown — but to your very ad- 
 versary, (see on b. vi. §. 24. p. 104. n. q.) 
 casting aside and abandoning whatever 
 now stimulates him so keenly to whatso- 
 ever pleasures, he would, amazed, pant- 
 ing, enkindled, fly to her Beauty." (e. 
 Acad. ii. §. 6.) 
 
THE EIGHTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug.'s thirty-second year. He consults Simplicianus, from him hears 
 the history of the conversion of Victorinus, and longs to devote 
 himself entirely to God, hut is mastered hy his old hahits; is still 
 further roused by the history of S. Antony, and the conversion of 
 two courtiers ; during a severe struggle, hears a voice from heaven, 
 opens Scripture, and is converted, with his friend Alypius. His 
 mother's vision fulfilled. 
 
 [I.] O my God, let me, with thanksgiving, remember, and 
 confess unto Thee Thy mercies on me. Let my hones be Ps. 35, 
 bedewed with Thy love, and let them say unto Thee, Who is^^' jjg 
 like unto Tliee, O Lord? Thou hast broken my bonds in^s. 17. 
 sunder, I will offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. 
 And how Thou hast broken them, I will declare ; and all who 
 worship Thee, when they hear this, shall say, " Blessed be the 
 Lord, in heaven and in earth, great and wonderful is His name." 
 Thy words had stuck fast in my heart, and / was hedged round Job 1, 
 about on all sides by Thee. Of Thy eternal life I was now '"' 
 certain, though I saw it in a figure and as through a glass. \ cor. 
 Yet I had ceased to doubt that there was an incorruptible ^^' ^'^• 
 substance, whence was all other substance ; nor did I now 
 desire to be more certain of Thee, but more stedfast in 
 Thee. But for my temporal life, all was wavering, and my \ Cor. 
 heart had to be purged from the old leaven. The Way, the j'7- ,. 
 Saviour Himself, well pleased me, but as yet I shrunk from 6. 
 going through its straitness. And Thou didst put into my 
 mind, and it seemed good in my eyes, to go to Simplicianus", 
 
 » Simplicianus ' became a sueces- brose mentions bis ' having traversed the 
 
 sor of the most blessed Ambrose, Bishop whole world, for the sake of the Faith 
 
 of the Church of Milan.' (Aug. Ketraot. and of acquiring Divine knowledge and 
 
 ii. 1.) To him S. Aug. wrote two books having given the whole period of this life 
 
 ' de diversis quaestionibus,' (0pp. t. vi. to daily reading, night and day ; that he 
 
 p. 82 sqq.) and calls him ' father,' (ib.) had an acute mind, whereby he took in 
 
 speaks of his fatherly affection from his intellectual studies, and was in the habit 
 
 most benevolent heart not recent or sud- of proving how far the books of philoso- 
 
 den, but tried and known," (Ep. 37.) phy were gone astray from the truth.' 
 
 requests his ' remarks and corrections of Ep. 65. §. 5. p. 1052. ed. Ben. See also 
 
 any books of his, which might chance to Tillemont H. E. t. 10. Art. S. Simpli- 
 
 fall into his holy hands.' (ib.) S. Am- cien. 
 
134 Holding hack in one point keeps back a man in all. 
 
 CONF. who seemed to me a good servant of Thine ; and Thy grace 
 
 -: ' shone in him. I had heard also, that from his very youth he 
 
 had lived most devoted unto Thee. Now he was grown into 
 years ; and by reason of so great age spent in such zealous 
 following of Thy ways, he seemed to me likely to have learned 
 much experience; and so he had. Out of which store, I 
 wished that he would tell me (setting before him my anxieties) 
 which were the fittest way for one in my case to walk in Thy 
 paths. 
 
 2. For, I saw the church full ; and one went this way, 
 and another that way. But I was displeased, that I led 
 a secular life; yea now that my desires no longer inflamed 
 me, as of old, with hopes of honour and profit, a very 
 grievous^ burthen it was to undergo so heavy a bondage. 
 Ps.26,8. For, in comparison of Thy sweetness, and the beauty of Thy 
 house which I loved, those things delighted me no longer. 
 But still I was enthralled with the love of woman ; nor did the 
 Apostle forbid me to marry, although he advised me to some- 
 \ Cor. thing better, chiefly wishing that all men were as himself was. 
 ' ' But I being weak, chose the more indulgent place ; and 
 because of this alone, was tossed up and down in all beside, 
 faint and wasted with withering cares, because in other 
 matters, I was constrained against my will to conform myself 
 to a married life, to which I was given up and inthraJled. 
 Mat 19, 1 had heard from the mouth of the Truth, that there were 
 *^" some eunuchs, which had made themselves eunuchs for the 
 kingdom of heaven's sake : but, saith He, let him who can 
 Wisd. receive it receive it. Surely vain are all men who are igno- 
 '3' '• rant of God, and could not out of the good things which are 
 seen, find out Him who is good. But T was no longer in 
 that vanity ; I had surmounted it ; and by the common wit- 
 ness of aUThy creatures, had found Thee our Creator, and Thy 
 Word, God with Thee, and together with Thee one God, by 
 whom Thou createdst all things. There is yet another kind 
 Kom. 1, of ungodly, ivho knowing God, glorified Him not a^ God, 
 Ps". 18, neither were thankful. Into this also had I fallen, but Thy 
 35. right hand upheld me, and took me thence, and Thou placedst 
 28. ' me where I might recover. For Thou hast said unto man, 
 Prov. 3, Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and. Desire not to 
 
 Kom. \,seem wise; because they who affirmed themselves to be wise, 
 82. 
 
Skill of Simplicianus. 136 
 
 became fools. But I had now found the goodly pearl, which, Mat. 13, 
 selling all that I had, I ought to have bought, and I hesitated. ^^' 
 
 [II.] 3. To Simplicianus then I went, the father of Ambrose 
 (a Bishop now) in receiving Thy grace'', and whom Ambrose 
 truly loved as a father. To him I related the mazes of my 
 wanderings. But when I mentioned that I had read certain 
 books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, sometime Rhetoric 
 Professor of Rome, (who had died a Christian, as I had heard,) 
 had translated into Latin, he testified his joy that I had not 
 fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, full oi fallacies Co\.l,6. 
 and deceits, after the rudiments of this world, whereas the 
 Platonists ° many ways led to the belief in God and His 
 Word. Then to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden M3.t.\\, 
 from the wise, and revealed to little ones, he spoke of 
 Victorinus'' himself whom while at Rome he had most in- 
 timately known : and of him he related what I will not 
 conceal. For it contains great praise of Thy grace, to be 
 confessed unto Thee, how that aged man, most learned and 
 skilled in the liberal sciences, and who had read, and weighed 
 so many works of the philosophers; the instructor of so 
 many noble Senators, who also, as a monument of his excel- 
 lent discharge of his office, had (which men of this world 
 esteem a high honour) both deserved and obtained a statue 
 in the Roman Forum ; he, to that age a worshipper of idols, 
 
 b S. Ambrose so ends a letter to him, dwelt among us.' " Aug. de Civ. Dei, 
 ' Farewell, and cherish us with a parent's x. 29 
 
 affection, as you do.' (Arahr. Ep. 65. ad ■• " " 
 Simplic.) ' I recognize therein the feel- taught 
 
 ■1 " Victorinus, by birth an African, 
 light rhetofic at Borne under Constan- 
 
 ings'of ancient friendship, and which is tins, and in extreme old age, giving him- 
 
 more, the affection of fatherly goodness.' self up to the Faith of Christ, wrote some 
 
 (Id, Ep. 36.) Some conjecture that he hootsagainstAriusdialeotically [andso] 
 
 so terms him, as having been prepared very obscure, which are not understood 
 
 by him for Baptism; S. Aug.'s words but by the learned, and a commentary on 
 
 lead rather to think that he baptized, and the Apostle" [Paul]. Jerome de Viris 
 
 ' so begat him in the Gospel.' 111. c. 101. It is of the same probably 
 
 ■= " Which beginning of the holy Gos- that Gennadius speaks (de Viris 111. c. 
 
 pel, named after S. John, a certain Pla^ 60.) " that he commented in a Christian 
 
 tonist, (as we were wont to hear from and pious strain, but 'inasmuch as he 
 
 the aged saint, Simplician, who after- was a man taken up with secularlitera- 
 
 ward presided as Bishop over the Church tare, and not trained in the divine 
 
 of Milan,) said, ought to be written in Scriptures by any teacher, he produced 
 
 letters of gold, and put up in the most what was comparatively of little weight.' 
 
 conspicuous places in all Churches. But Comp. Jerome Prsef. in Comm. in Gal. 
 
 that God was therefore disregarded as a and see TiUemont 1. c. p. 170 sqq. Some 
 
 teacher by the proud [philosophers] be- of his works are extant, 
 cause ' the "Word was made flesh and 
 
136 Uncompromisingness of Simplician effects 
 
 CONF. and a partaker of the sacrilegious rites, to which almost all the 
 
 — : -■ nobility of Rome were given up, and had inspired the people 
 
 with the love of 
 
 Anubis, barking Deity, and all 
 
 The monster Gods of every kind, who fought 
 
 'Gainst Neptune, Venus, and Minerva": 
 
 whom Rome once conquered, now adored, all which the 
 aged Victorinus had with thundering eloquence so many 
 years defended; — he now blushed not to be the child of Thy 
 Christ, and the new-born babe of Thy fountain ; submitting 
 his neck to the yoke of humility, and subduing his forehead 
 to the reproach of the Cross. 
 
 Ps. 144, 4. O Lord, Lord, Which hast bowed the heavens and come 
 
 *■ down, touched the mountains and they did smoke, by what 
 
 means didst Thou convey Thyself into that breast ? He used 
 to read (as Simplicianus said) the holy Scriptures, most stu- 
 diously sought and searched into all the Christian writings, 
 and said to Simplicianus, (not openly, but privately and as 
 a friend,) " Understand that I am already a Christian." 
 Whereto he answered, " I will not believe it, nor will I rank 
 you among Christians, unless I see you in the ChiKch of 
 Christ." The other, in banter, replied, " Do walls then make 
 Christians ?" And this he often said, that he was already a 
 Christian ; and Simplicianus as often made the same answer, 
 and the conceit of the " walls" was by the other as often 
 renewed. For he feared to offend his friends, proud daemon- 
 worshippers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as 
 
 Ps.29,5.from cedars of Lihanus, which the Lord had not yet broken 
 down, he supposed the weight of enmity would fall upon him. 
 But after that by reading and earnest thought he had ga- 
 
 Luke 9, thered firmness, and feared to be denied by Christ before the 
 holy angels, should he now be afraid to confess Mm before 
 men, and appeared to himself guilty of a heavy offence, in 
 being ashamed of the Sacraments of the humility of Thy 
 Word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of 
 those proud daemons, whose pride he had imitated and their 
 rites adopted, he became bold-faced against vanity, and 
 shame-faced towards the truth, and suddenly and unex- 
 <= jEn. viii. 698—700. Trapp, 1. 886. 
 
complete conversion of Victorinus. 
 
 137 
 
 pectedly said to Simplicianus, (as himself told me,) " Go we to 
 the Church ; T wish to be made a Christian." But he, not 
 containing himself for joy, went with him. And having been 
 admitted to the first Sacrament and become a Catechumen, 
 not long after he further gave in his name, that he might be 
 regenerated by baptism, Rome wondering, the Church re- 
 joicing. The proud saw, and were wroth; they gnashedPs. 112, 
 with their teeth, and melted away. But the Lord God was pj'^j g 
 the hope of Thy servant, and he regarded not vanities and 4". &c. 
 Iging madness. 
 
 5. To conclude, when the hour was come for making pro- 
 fession of his faith, (which at Rome they, who are about to 
 approach to Thy grace, deliver, from an elevated place, in the 
 sight of all the faithful, in a set form of words ' committed to 
 memory,) the presbyters, he said, offered Victorinus^ (as was 
 done to such, as seemed likely through bashfulness to be 
 alarmed) to make his profession more privately : but he chose 
 
 ' The Apostles' Creed, whict was de- 
 lirered orally to the Catechumens to 
 commit to memory, and by them ' deli- 
 vered back,' i. e. publicly repeated be- 
 fore they were baptized. " The Symbol 
 [Creed] bearing hallowed testimony, 
 which ye have together received, and are 
 this day severally to give back, are the 
 words in which the faith, of our mother 
 the Church is solidly constructed on a 
 stable foundation, which is Christ the 
 Lord. ' For other foundation can no man 
 lay,' &c. Ye have received then and 
 given back what ye ought to retain in 
 heart and mind, what ye should repeat in 
 your beds, think on inthestreets, andfor- 
 get not in your meals, and while sleeping 
 in body, in heart watch therein. For 
 this is the faith, and the rule of salvation, 
 that ' We believe in God, the Father 
 Almighty, &c.' " (.Aug. Serm. 215, in 
 redditione Symboli.) " On the Sabbath- 
 day [Saturday] , when we shall keep a 
 vigil through the mercy of God, ye will 
 give back not the [Lord's] prayer, but 
 the Creed." (Id. -Serm. 58, §. ult.) 
 " What ye have briefly heard, ye ought 
 not only to believe, but to commit to 
 memory in so many words, and utter 
 with your mouth." (Serm. 214, intradit. 
 Symb. 3. §. 2.) "Nor, in order to retain 
 the very words of the Creed, oughtye any 
 wise to write it, but to learn it thoroughly 
 by hearing, nor, when ye have learnt it, 
 ought ye to write it, but always to keep 
 
 and refresh it in your memories ' This 
 
 is My Covenant which I will make with 
 them after those days,' saith the Lord, 
 ' I will place My law in their minds, and 
 in their heart wiU I write it.' To con- 
 vey this, the Creed is learnt by hearing ; 
 and not written on tables or any sub- 
 stance, but on the heart." (Serm. 212. 
 §. 2.) See the Roman Liturgy, (Assem. 
 Cod. Liturg. t. i. p. 11 sqq. 16.) and 
 the Gothic and Galilean, (p. 30 sqq. p. 
 38 sc[. 40 sq. &c.) 
 
 s Here he divers particulars of the 
 primitive fashion, in this story of Victo- 
 rinus. First being converted, he was to 
 take some well-known Christian (who 
 was to be his godfather) to go with him 
 to the Bishop: who upon notice of it, 
 admitted him a Catechumenus, and gave 
 him those six points of Catechistical 
 Doctrine, mentioned Heb.6, 1. 2. When 
 the time of baptism drew near, the young 
 Christian came to give in his heathen 
 name, which was presently registered; 
 submitting himself to examination. On 
 the eve, was he in a set form, first to re- 
 nounce the devil, and to pronounce, I 
 confess to thee, O Christ ; repeating the 
 Creed with it, in the form here recorded. 
 The time for giving in their names, must 
 be within the two first weeks of Lent : 
 and the solemn day to renounce upon, 
 was Maundy Thursday. So bids the 
 Council of Laodicea, Can. 45, 46. [Old 
 Ed.] 
 
138 Joy, by one universal law, 
 
 CONF. rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy 
 
 _:_ — 'multitude. " For it was not salvation that he taught in rhe- 
 toric, and yet that he had publicly professed. How much 
 less theu ought he, when pronouncing Thy word, to dread 
 Thy meek flock, who, when delivering his own words, had 
 not feared a mad multitude !" When, then, he went up to make 
 his profession, all, as they knew him, whispered his name one 
 to another with the voice of congratulation. And who there 
 knew him not ? and there ran a low murmur through all the 
 mouths of the rejoicing multitude, Victorinus! Victorinus! 
 Sudden was the burst of rapture, that they saw him ; sud- 
 denly were they hushed that they might hear him. He pro- 
 nounced the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all 
 wished to draw him into their very heart : yea by their love 
 and joy they drew him thither ; such were the hands where- 
 with they drew him. 
 
 [III.] 6. Good God ! what takes place in man, that he 
 should morei 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, 
 
 LukelS, mercifiil 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 
 
 Ver. 5. joy the sheep which had strayed, is hr ought hack upon the 
 shepherd's shoulder, and the groat is restored to Thy treasury, 
 the neighbours rejoicing with the woman who found it ; and 
 the joy of the solemn service of Thy house forceth to tears, when 
 in Thy house it is read of Thy younger son, that he was dead, 
 and lived again; had been lost, and is found. For Thou re- 
 joicest in us, and in Thy holy angels, holy through holy charity. 
 For Thou art ever the same ; for all things which abide not the 
 same nor for ever, Thou for ever knowest in the same way. 
 
 7. What then takes place in the soul, when it is more 
 delighted at finding or recovering the things it loves, than if 
 it had ever had them ? yea, and other things witness here- 
 unto ; and all things are full of witnesses, crying out, " so is 
 it." The conquering commander triumpheth ; yet had he not 
 conquered, unless he had fought; and the more peril there 
 was in the battle, so much the more joy is there in the triumph. 
 The storm tosses the sailors, threatens shipwreck; all wax 
 
in proportion to past fear. 139 
 
 pale at jipproaching death; sky and sea are calmed, and 
 they are exceeding joyed, as having been exceeding afraid. 
 A friend is sick, and his pulse threatens danger ; all who long 
 for his recovery, are sick in mind with him. He is restored, 
 though as yet he walks not with his former strength ; yet 
 there is such joy, as was not, when before he walked sound 
 and strong. Yea, the very pleasures of human life men ac- 
 quire by difficulties, not those only which fall upon us un- 
 looked for, and against our wills, but even by self-chosen, and 
 pleasure-seeking trouble. Eating and drinking have no plea- 
 sure, unless there precede the pinching of hunger and thirst. 
 Men, given to drink, eat certain salt meats, to procure a trouble- 
 some heat, which the drink allaying, causes pleasure. It is also 
 ordered, that the affianced bride should not at once be given, 
 lest as a husband he should hold cheap whom, as betrothed, 
 he sighed not after. 
 
 8. This law holds in foul and accursed joy; this in per- 
 mitted and lawful joy ; this in the very purest perfection of 
 friendship ; this, in him who was dead, and lived again ; had 
 been lost, and was found. Every where the greater joy is 
 ushered in by the greater pain. What means this, O Lord 
 my God, whereas Thou art everlastingly joy to Thyself, and 
 some things around Thee evermore rejoice in Thee""? What 
 means this, that this portion of things thus ebbs and flows 
 alternately displeased and reconciled ? Is this their allotted 
 measure .? Is this all Thou hast assigned to them, whereas from 
 the highest heavens to the lowest earth, from the beginning of 
 the world to the end of ages, from the angel to the worm, from 
 the first motion to the last. Thou settest each in its place, and 
 realizest each in their season, every thing good after its kind ? 
 Woe is me ! how high art Thou in the highest, and how deep 
 in the deepest! and Thou never departest, and we scarcely 
 return to Thee. 
 
 [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 blind- Cant. i, 
 ness than Victorinus, return to Thee, approach, and are en- ■*■ 
 lightened, receiving that Light, which they who receive, receive John l, 
 power from Thee to become Thy sons ? But if they be less 
 h See below, 1. xii. §. 12. 1. xiii. §. il. 
 
140 Greater joy in conversion of the great, iwell-founded. 
 
 CONF. known to the nations, even they that know them, joy less for 
 — ." them. For when many joy together, each also has more exube- 
 rant joy ; for that they are kindled and inflamed one by the 
 other. Again, because those known to many, influence the 
 more towards salvation, and lead the way with many to follow. 
 And therefore do they also who preceded them, much rejoice 
 in them, because they rejoice not in them alone. For far be 
 it, that in Thy tabernacle the persons of the rich should be 
 accepted before the poor, or the noble before the ignoble; 
 1 Cor. seeing rather Thou hast chosen the weak things of the world, 
 1,27.28. ff^ confound the strong ; and the base things of this world, 
 and the things despised hast Thou chosen, and those things 
 which are not, that Tliou mightest bring to nought things that 
 1 Cor. are. And yet even that least of Thy apostles, by whose 
 ' ' tongue Thou soundedst forth these words, when through his 
 warfare, Paulus the Proconsul, his pride conquered, was made 
 to pass under the easy yoke of Thy Christ, and became a pro- 
 vincial of the great King ; he also for his former name Saul, 
 was pleased to be called Paul', in testimony of so great a vic- 
 tory. For the enemy is more overcome in one, of whom he 
 hath more hold ; by whom he hath hold of more. But the 
 proud he hath more hold of, through their nobility ; and by 
 them, of more through their authority. But how much the 
 more welcome then the heart of Victorinus was esteemed, 
 which the devil had held as an impregnable possession, the 
 tongue of Victorinus, with which mighty and keen weapon 
 he had slain many ; so much the more abundantly ought Thy 
 Mat. 12, sons to rejoice, for that our King hath bound the strong man, 
 ^^•. and they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and 
 22. 24. ' made meet for Thy honour, and become serviceable for the 
 Lord, unto every good work. 
 
 [v.] 10. But when that man of Thine, Simplicianus, related to 
 
 '"As Scipio, after the conquest of Apostlehad originally two names, (Prsef. 
 Africa, took the name of Africanus, — so in Comm. in Ep. ad Rom.) which as a 
 Saul also, being sent to preach to the E.oman may very well hare been, and 
 Gentiles, brought back his trophy out of yet that he made use of his Roman name 
 the first spoils won by the Church, the Paul, first in connection with the con- 
 Proconsul Sergius Paulus, and set up his version of the Proconsul; Chrysostom 
 banner, in that for Saul he was called says that it was doubtless changed at the 
 Paul." Jerome, Comm. in Ep. ad Phi- command of God, which is to be sup- 
 lem. init. Origen mentions the same opi- posed, but still may have been at this 
 nion, (which is indeed suggested by the time, 
 relation in the Acts,) but tMnks that the 
 
 2 Tim. 
 2,121. 
 
Evil habits formed by slight acts, but bind as iron. 141 
 
 me this of Victorinus, I was on fire to imitate him ; for for this 
 very end had he related it. But when he had subjoined also, how 
 in the days of the Emperor Julian, a law was made, whereby 
 Christians were forbidden to teach the liberal sciences or ora- 
 tory ; and how he, obeying this law, chose rather to give over 
 the wordy school, than Thy Word, by which Thou makest wisd. 
 eloquent the tongues of the dumb; he seemed to me not more ' ' 
 resolute than blessed, in having thus found opportunity to wait 
 on Thee only. Which thing I was sighing for, bound as I was, 
 not with another's irons, but by my own iron will. My will the 
 enemy held, and thence had made a chain for me, and bound 
 me. For of a 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 wilful- 
 ness, 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 Gal. S, 
 against the flesh. Myself verily either way'; yet more myself, 
 in that which I approved in myself, than in that which in Rom. 7, 
 myself I disapproved. P^or in this last, it was now for the more 
 part not myself, because in much I rather endured against my 
 will, than acted willingly. And yet it was through me, that 
 custom had obtained this power of warring against me, because 
 I had come willingly, whither I willed not. And who has 
 any right to speak against it, if just punishment follow the 
 sinner ? Nor had I now any longer my former plea, that I 
 therefore as yet hesitated to be above the world and serve Thee, 
 for that the truth was not altogether ascertained to me ; for 
 now it too was. But I, still under service to the earth, re- 
 fused to fight under Thy banner, and feared as much to be 
 
 '' Against the Maniehaeans, see above, knowing what is right doth it not, should 
 
 iv. §. 26. V. §. 18. and note A. ii. a. lose the Imowledgewhat is right; and he 
 
 ' " For it is the most just punishment who would not do well when he could, 
 
 of sin, that each should lose what he should lose the power when he would." 
 
 would not use well ; i. c. that he who Aug. de Lib. Arb. v. 18. 
 
142 Conviction powerless against habit. 
 
 B^n ^^^^^ "^ ^ incumbrances, as we should fear to be encumbered 
 
 '■ with it. Thus with the baggage of this present world was I 
 
 held down pleasantly, as in sleep : and the thoughts wherein 
 I meditated on Thee, were like the efforts of such as would 
 awake, who yet overcome with a heavy drowsiness, are again 
 drenched therein. And as no one would sleep for ever, and 
 in all men's sober judgment, waking is better, yet a man for 
 the most part, feeling a heavy lethargy in all his limbs, defers 
 to shake off sleep, and, though half displeased, yet, even after 
 it is time to rise, with pleasure yields to it, so was I assured, 
 that much better were it for me to give myself up to thy cha- 
 rity, than to give myself over to mine own cupidity; but 
 though the former course satisfied me and gained the mas- 
 tery, the latter pleased me and held me mastered". Nor had I 
 
 Eph. 5, any thing to answer Thee calling to me. Awake, thou that 
 steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee 
 light. And when Thou didst on all sides shew me, that 
 what Thou saidst was true, I, convicted by the truth, had 
 nothing at all to answer, but only those dull and drowsy words, 
 " Anon, anon," " presently ;" " leave me but a little." But " pre- 
 sently, presently," had no present, and my " little while" went 
 
 Rom. 7, on for a long while; in vain I delighted in Thy law according 
 to the inner man, when another law in my members, rebelled 
 against the law of my mind, and led me captive under the 
 law of sin which was in my members. For the law of sin is 
 the violence of custom, whereby the mind is drawn and 
 holden, even against its will; but deservedly, for that it 
 
 Ver. 24, willingly fell into it. Who then should deliver me thus 
 wretched from the body of this death, but Thy grace only, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord ? 
 
 [VI.] 13. And how Thou didst deliver me out of the 
 bonds of desire, wherewith I was bound most straitly to 
 carnal concupiscence, and out of the drudgery of worldly 
 things, I will now declare, and confess unto Thy name, O 
 
 Ps. 19, Ijord,my helper and my redeemer. Amid increasing anxiety, 
 I was doing my wonted business, and daily sighing unto 
 Thee. I attended Thy Church, whenever firee from the 
 business under the burden of which I groaned. Alypius was 
 with me, now after the third sitting released from his law 
 ■" Hind placetat et vincebat, hoe libebat et vinciebat. 
 
Pontitianus' relation of S. Antony. 143 
 
 business, and awaiting to whom to sell his counsel, as I sold 
 the skill of speaking, if indeed teaching can impart it. Nebri- 
 dius had now, in consideration of our friendship, consented 
 to teach under Verecundus, a citizen and a grammarian of 
 Milan, and a very intimate friend of us all ; who urgently 
 desired, and by the right of friendship challenged from our 
 company, such faithful aid as he greatly needed. Nebridius 
 then was not drawn to this by any desire of advantage, (for 
 he might have made much more of his learning had he so 
 willed,) but as a most kind and gentle friend, he would not 
 be wanting to a good office, and slight our request. But he 
 acted herein very discreetly, shunning to become known to 
 personages great according to this world, avoiding the dis- 
 traction of mind thence ensuing, and desiring to have it free 
 and at leisure, as many hours as might be, to seek, or read, 
 or hear something concerning wisdom. 
 
 14. Upon a day then, Nebridius being absent, (I recollect 
 not why,) lo, there came to see me and Alypius, one Pon- 
 titianus, our countryman so 'far as being an African, in high 
 office in the Emperor's court. What he would with us, 
 I know not, but we sat down to converse, and it happened 
 that upon a table for some game, before us, he observed a 
 book, took, opened it, and contrary to his expectation, found it 
 the Apostle Paul ; for he had thought it some of those books, 
 which I was wearing myself in teaching. Whereat smihng, 
 and looking at me, he expressed his joy and wonder, that he 
 had on a sudden found this book, and this only before my eyes. 
 For he was a Christian, and baptized, and often bowed him- 
 self before Thee our God in the Church, in frequent and 
 continued prayers. When then T had told him, that I be- 
 stowed very great pains upon those Scriptures, a conversation 
 arose (suggested by his account) on Antony" the Egyptian 
 Monk: whose name was in high reputation among Thy 
 servants, though to that hour unknown to us. Which when 
 
 n He was born A.D. 251 . See his life ally how highly he was esteemed. Aug. 
 
 in S. Athanasius, t.i. p. 793 sqq. Tille- speaks of him, ' as a holy and perfect 
 
 mont H. E. t. vii. p. 46 sqq. History of man, who is extolled as having, without 
 
 S. Antony in British Magazine, t. ix. any knowledge of letters, by hearing 
 
 p. 41, 158, 277. and the testimonies to learnt the Divine Scriptures, and by 
 
 the wort of S. Athanaa. prefixed by the thoughtful reflection understood them.' 
 
 Bened. p. 785 sqq. which shew incident- De Boctr. Christian. Prol. §. 4. 
 
144 History of the conversion 
 
 CONF. he discovered, he dwelt the more upon that subject, informing 
 ■ and wondering at our ignorance of one so eminent. But we 
 
 stood amazed, hearing Thy wonderful works" most fully 
 attested, in times so recent, and almost in our own, wrought 
 in the true Faith and Church Catholic. We all wondered ; 
 we, that they were so great, and he, that they had not reached 
 us. 
 
 15. Thence his discourse turned to the flocks in the 
 Monasteries, and their holy ways, a sweet smelling savour 
 unto Thee, and the fruitful deserts" of the wilderness, where- 
 of we knew nothing. And there was a Monastery at Milan "*, 
 full of good brethren, without the city walls, under the foster- 
 ing care of Arabrose, and we knew it not. He went on with 
 his discourse, and we listened in intent silence. He told us 
 then how one afternoon at Triers, when the Emperor was 
 taken up with the Circensian games, he and three others, 
 his companions, went out to walk in gardens near the city 
 walls, and there as they happened to walk in pairs, one 
 went apart with him, and the other two wandered by them- 
 selves ; and these, in their wanderings, lighted upon a certain 
 Mat. 5, cottage, inhabited by certain of Thy servants, poor in spirit, 
 ^- of whom is the kingdom of heaven, and there they found a 
 
 little book, containing the life of Antony. This one of 
 them began to read, admire, and kindle at it; and as he 
 read, to meditate on taking up such a life, and giving over 
 his secular service to serve Thee. And these two were of 
 those whom they style "■ agents for the public afiairs. Then 
 
 " See Athanas. Vita S. Anton. §. 54, calls it a diversorium. " I saw a lodging 
 
 56 sqq. Tillemont 1. u. art. 7. Brit, of lioly men at Milan, not a few, over 
 
 Mag. 1. c. p. 77 sqq. whom presided one presbyter, a most 
 
 P " Egypt at that time was flourishing learned and excellent man." 
 not only in men, learned in Christian ■■ Agentes in rebus. There was a 
 
 philosophy, but in such also, as abiding society of them still about the court, 
 
 in the vast wilderness, wrought, through Their militia or imployments were, to 
 
 the simplicity of their lives, and the sin- gather in the Emperor's tributes : to 
 
 cerity of their heart. Apostolic signs and fetch in ofienders : to do Palatina ohse- 
 
 prodigies — so that the Apostle's saying quia, ofGices of court, provide com, &c. 
 
 was truly fulfilled, ' where sin abounded, ride of errands like messengers of the 
 
 grace didmuchmore abound.'" Rufiin.H. chamber, lie abroad as spies and intelli- 
 
 £. ii. 8. — " Let them enquire how great gencers; they were often preferred to 
 
 aflockHetherecollecteth, whatanume- places of magistracy in the province; 
 
 rous body of holy men and women He suchwerecalledprincipesormagistriani: 
 
 hath, who wholly despise the world. S. Hierome upon Abdias cap. 1. calls 
 
 That flock has so much increased, that it them messengers : they succeeded the 
 
 hathbanishedsuperstitionseventhenee." frumentarii. Between which two and 
 
 Aug. Serm. 138. §. 10. the curiosi, and the speeulatores, there 
 
 9 Aug. (de morib. Eccl. Cath. c. 33.) was not much difference. [Old Ed.] 
 
of two courtiers. 145 
 
 suddenly, filled with an holy love, and a sober shame, in 
 anger with himself he cast his eyes upon his friend, saying, 
 " Tell me, I pray thee, what would we attain by all these 
 labours of ours ? what aim we at ? what serve we for ? Can 
 our hopes in court rise higher than to be the Emperor's 
 favourites ? and in this, what is there not brittle, and full of 
 perils ? and by how many perils arrive we at a greater peril ? 
 And when arrive we thither ? But a friend of God, if I wish 
 it, I become now at once." So spake he. And in pain with 
 the travail of a new life, he turned his eyes again upon the 
 book, and read on, and was changed inwardly, where Thou 
 sawest, and his mind was stripped of the world, as soon 
 appeared. For as he read, and rolled up and down the waves 
 of his heart, he stormed at himself a while, then discerned, 
 and determined on a better course ; and now being Thine, 
 said to his friend, " Now have I broken loose from those our 
 hopes, and am resolved to serve God ; and this, from this 
 hour, in this place, I begin upon. If thou likest not to 
 imitate me, oppose not." The other answered, he would 
 cleave to him, to partake so glorious a reward, so glorious a 
 service. Thus both being now Thine, were building theLukeU, 
 tower at the necessary cost, the forsaking all that they had, 
 and folloudng Thee. Then Pontitianus and the other with 
 him, that had walked in other parts of the garden, came in 
 search of them to the same place ; and finding them, re- 
 minded them to return, for the day was now far spent. But 
 they relating their resolution and purpose, and how that will 
 was begun, and settled in them, begged 4hem, if they would 
 not join, not to molest them. But the others, though nothing 
 altered from their former selves, did yet bewail themselves, 
 (as he aflSrmed,) and piously congratulated them, recommend- 
 ing themselves to their prayers ; and so,- with hearts lingering 
 on the earth, went away to the palace. But the other two, 
 fixing their heart on heaven, remained in the cottage. And 
 both had affianced brides, who when they heard hereof, also 
 dedicated their virginity unto God. 
 
 [VII.] 16. Such was the story of Pontitianus ; but Thou, 
 O Lord, while he was speaking, didst turn me round towards 
 myself, taking me from behind my back, where I had placed 
 me, unwilling to observe myself ; and setting me before my 
 
 L 
 
146 Review of Aug!' x past life and self-deceptions. 
 CONF.face, that I mieht see how foul I was, how crooked and 
 
 B VIII ' D 7 
 
 — ^defiled, bespotted and ulcerous. And I beheld and stood 
 
 aghast ; and whither to flee from myself I found not. And 
 if 1 sought to turn mine eye from oflF myself, he went on with 
 his relation, and Thou again didst set me over against myself, 
 
 Ps.36,2. 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. 
 
 17. But now, the more ardently I loved those, whose 
 healthful affections I heard of, that .they had resigned them- 
 selves wholly to Thee to be cured, the more did I abhor my- 
 self, when compared with them. For many of my years 
 (some twelve) had now run out with me since my nineteenth, 
 when, upon the reading of Cicero's Hortensius', I was stirred 
 to an earnest love of wisdom ; and still I was deferring to 
 reject mere earthly felicity, and give myself to search out 
 that, whereof not the finding only, but the very search, was 
 to be preferred to the treasures and kingdoms of the world, 
 though already found, and to the pleasures of the body, 
 though spread around me at my will. But I wretched, most 
 wretched, in the very commencement of my early youth, had 
 begged chastity of Thee, and said, " Give me chastity and 
 continency, only not yet." For I feared lest Thou shouldest 
 hear me soon, and soon cure me of the disease of concu- 
 piscence, which 1 wished to have satisfied, rather than ex- 
 tinguished. And I had wandered through crooked ways in a 
 sacrilegious superstition", not indeed assured thereof, but as 
 preferring it to the others which I did not seek religiously, 
 but opposed maliciously. 
 
 18. And I had thought, that I therefore deferred from day 
 to day to reject the hopes of this world, and follow Thee only, 
 because there did not appear aught certain, whither to direct 
 my course. And now was the day come wherein I was to be 
 laid bare to myself, and my conscience was to upbraid me. 
 " Where art thou now, my tongue ? Thou saidst, that for an 
 uncertain truth thou likedst not to cast off the baggage of 
 
 ' Whoso loves himself In his folly, Aug. de Vera Kelig. c. 48. 
 
 will make no progress towards wisdom, • See abore, b. lii. c. 4. 
 
 nor will become such as he wishes to he, " Manicheism. 
 unless he hates himself such as he is. 
 
Self-deceit exhausted, the tvill resists without self 'excuse. 147 
 
 vanity; now, it is certain, and yet that burthen still oppresseth 
 thee, while they who neither have so worn themselves out 
 with seeking it, nor for ten years and more have been think- 
 ing thereon, have had their shoulders lightened, and received 
 wings to fly away." Thus was I gnawed within, and exceed- 
 ingly confounded with an horrible shame, while Pontitianus 
 was so speaking. And he having brought to a close his tale 
 and the business he came for, went his way; and I into my- 
 self. 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. Then in this great contention of my inward 
 dwelling, which I had strongly raised against my soul, in the is. 26, 
 chamber of my heart, troubled in mind and countenance, I? '„ ' 
 turned upon Alypius. " What ails us ?" I exclaim : " what 
 is it.? what heardest thou.? The unlearned start up and 
 take heaven by force, and we with our learning, and without Mat. 6, 
 heart, lo, where we wallow in flesh and blood ! Are we ' 
 ashamed to follow, because others are gone before, and not 
 ashamed not even to follow ?" Some such Words I uttered, 
 and my fever of mind tore me away from him, while he, 
 gazing on me in astonishment, kept silence. For it was not 
 my wonted tone; and my forehead, cheeks, eyes, colour, tone of 
 voice, spake my mind more than the words I uttered. A 
 little garden there was to our lodging, which we had the use 
 T)f, 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 con- 
 tention wherein I had engaged with myself, until it should 
 end as Thou knewest, I knew not. Only I was healthfully 
 distracted and dying, to live; knowing what evil thing I was, 
 and not knowing what good thing I was shortly to become. 
 I retired then into the garden, and Alypius, on my steps. For 
 his presence did not lessen my privacy; or how could he 
 forsake me so disturbed ? We sate down as far removed as 
 might be from the house. I was troubled in spirit, most 
 
 l2 
 
148 How it is that the mind disobeys itself. 
 
 CONF. vehemently indignant that I entered not into Thy will and 
 
 — -■ covenant, O my God, which all my bones cried out unto me 
 
 to enter, and praised it to the skies. And therein we enter 
 not by ships, or chariots, or feet, no, move not so far as I had 
 come from the house to that place where we were sitting. 
 For, not to go only, but to go in thither was nothing else but 
 to will to go, but to will resolutely and thoroughly; not to 
 turn and toss, this way and that, a maimed and half-divided 
 will, struggling, with one part sinking as another rose. 
 
 20. Lastly, in the very fever of my irresoluteness, I made 
 with my body many such motions as men sometimes would, 
 but cannot, if either they have not the limbs, or these be 
 bound with bands, weakened with infirmity, or any other way 
 hindered. Thus, if I tore my hair, beat my forehead, if locking 
 my fingers I clasped my knee ; I willed, I did it. But I might 
 have willed, and not done it, if the power of motion in my 
 limbs had not obeyed. So many things then I did, when " to 
 will" was not in itself " to be ablej" and I did not what both 
 I longed incomparably more to do, and which soon after, 
 when I should will, I should be able to do; because soon 
 after, when I should will, I should will thoroughly. For in 
 these things the ability was one with the will, and to will 
 was to do ; and yet was it not done : and more easily did my 
 body obey the weakest willing of my soul, in moving its 
 limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed itself to accomplish in 
 the will alone this its momentous will. 
 
 [IX.] 21. Whence is this monstrousness ? and to what 
 end? Let Thy mercy gleam that I may ask, if so be the 
 secret penalties of men, and those darkest pangs of the sons 
 of Adam, may perhaps answer me. Whence is this mon- 
 strousness? and to what end? The mind commands the 
 body, and it obeys instantly ; the mind commands itself, and 
 is resisted ^. The mind commands the hand to be moved ; 
 and such readiness is there, that command is scarce distinct 
 from obedience. Yet the mind is mind, the hand is body. 
 The mind commands the mind, its own self, to will, and yet 
 it doth not. Wlience this monstrousness ? and to what end ? 
 It commands itself, I say, to will, and would not command, 
 
 * For this is the punishment requited turn should not be obeyed even by himself, 
 to the disobedient in himself, that he in Aug. c. advers. Leg. et Proph. J. i. c. 14. 
 
Absence ^freemll the punishment qf former sin. 149 
 
 unless it willed, and what it commands is not done. But it 
 willeth not entirely : therefore doth it not command entirely. 
 For so far forth it commandeth, as it willeth: and, so far forth 
 is the thing commanded, not done, as it willeth not. For the 
 will commandeth that there be a will ; not another, but itself. 
 But it doth not command entirely, therefore what it com- 
 mandeth, is not. For were the will entire, it would not even 
 command it to be, because it would already be. It is therefore 
 no monstrousness partly to will, partly to nill, but a disease of 
 the mind, that it doth not wholly rise, by truth up-borne, borne 
 down by custom. And therefore are there two wills, for that one 
 of them is not entire : and what the one lacketh, the other hath, 
 
 [X.] 22. Let them perish from Thy presence, O God, as Ps.es,?. 
 perish vain talkers, and seducers of the soul: who' observing Tit. i, 
 that in deliberating there were two wills, affirm, that there '"• 
 are two minds in us of two kinds, one good, the other evil. 
 Themselves are truly evil, when they hold these evil things ; 
 and themselves shall become good, when they hold the truth, 
 and assent unto the truth, that Thy Apostle may say to them. 
 Ye were sometimes darkness, hut now light in the Lord. ButEph. 6, 
 they, wishing to be light, not in the Lord, but in themselves, " 
 imagining the nature of the soul to be that which God is % 
 are made more gross darkness through a dreadful arrogancy ; 
 for that they went hack farther from Thee, the true Light thatio)\.\,9. 
 enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Take 
 heed what you say, and blush for shame: draw near unto Ps.34,5. 
 Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not he ashamed. 
 Myself when I was deliberating upon serving the Lord my 
 God now, as I had long purposed, it was I who willed, 1 who 
 nilled, I, I myself. I neither willed entirely, nor nilled entirely. 
 Therefore was I at strife with myself, and rent asunder by 
 myself. And this rent befel me against my will, and yet 
 indicated, not the presence of another mind, but the punish- 
 ment of my own". Therefore it was no more I that wrought -g^^ 7 
 it, but sin that dwelt in me; the punishment of a sin more '7. 
 freely committed, in that I was a son of Adam. 
 
 23. For if there be so many contrary natures, as there be 
 conflicting wills ; there shall now be not two only, but many. 
 
 1 The Manichees. * See above, 1. vii. §. 5. p. 110. n, e, 
 
 » See above, b. iv. §. 26. and note A. 
 
160 Two opposing wills in one man do not imply two souls. 
 
 ^^N^. If a man deliberate, whether he should go to their conventicle^ 
 
 — '- or to the theatre ; these Manichees cry out, Behold, here are 
 
 two natures : one good, draws this way ; another bad, draws 
 back that way. For whence else is this hesitation between 
 conflicting wills ? But I say, that both be bad : that which 
 draws to them, as that which draws back to the theatre. But 
 they believe not that will to be other than good, which draws 
 to them. What then if one of us should deliberate, and amid 
 the strife of his two wills be in a strait, whether he should go 
 to the theatre, or to our church ? would not these Manichees 
 also be in a strait what to answer? For either they must 
 confess, (which they fain would not,) that the will which leads 
 to our church is good, as well as theirs, who have received 
 and are held by the mysteries of theirs : or they must suppose 
 two evil natures, and two evil souls conflicting in one man, 
 and it will not be true, which they say, that there is one good 
 and another bad; or they must be converted to the truth, 
 and no more deny, that where one deliberates, one soul fluc- 
 tuates between contrary wills. 
 
 24. Let them no more say then, when they perceive two 
 conflicting wills in one man, that the conflict is between two 
 contrary souls, of two contrary substances, from two contrary 
 principles, one good, and the other bad. For Thou, O true 
 God, dost disprove, check, and convict them ; as when, both 
 wills being bad, one deliberates, whether he should kill a maa 
 by poison, or by the sword; whether he should seize this 
 or that estate of another's, when he cannot both; whether 
 he should purchase pleasure by luxury, or keep his money by 
 covetousness ; whether he go to the circus, or the theatre, 
 if both be open on one day; or, thirdly, to rob another's 
 house, if he have the opportunity ; or, fourthly, to commit 
 adultery, if at the same time he have the means thereof also ; 
 all these meeting together in the same juncture of time, and 
 all being equally desired, which cannot at one time be acted: 
 for they rend the mind amid four, or even (amid the vast variety 
 of things desired) more, conflicting wills, nor do they yet 
 allege that there are so many divers substances. ' So also in 
 wills which are good. For I ask them, .is it good to take 
 pleasure in reading the Apostle ^ ? or good to take pleasure in 
 
 » St. Paul. 
 
Struggle with the flesh and gradual victory. 151 
 
 a sober Psalm ? or good to discourse on the Gospel ? They 
 will answer to each, " It is good." What then if all give equal 
 pleasure, and all at once ? Do not divers wills distract the 
 mind, while he deliberates, which he should rather choose ? 
 yet are they all good, and are at variance till one be chosen, 
 whither the one entire will may be borne, which before 
 was divided into many. Thus also, when, above, eternity 
 delights us, and the pleasure of temporal good holds us dovra 
 below, it is the same soul which willeth not this or that 
 with an entire will; and therefore is rent asmider with 
 grievous perplexities, while out of truth it sets this first, 
 but out of habit sets not that aside. 
 
 [XI.] 25. Thus soul-sick was I, and tormented, accusing 
 myself much more severely than my wont, rolling and turning 
 me in my chain, till that were wholly broken, whereby I now 
 was but just, but still was, held. And Thou, O Lord, press- 
 edst upon me in my inward parts by a severe mercy, re- 
 doubling 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. 
 
 26. The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my 
 ancient mistresses, still held me; they plucked my fleshly 
 garment, and whispered softly, " Dost thou cast us off.? and 
 from that moment shall we no more be with thee for ever ? 
 and from that moment shall not this or that be lawful for 
 thee for ever .'" And what was it which they suggested in 
 ^ Beterins inolitum, quam melius insolitum. 
 
152 Siti, when it dare not openly oppose, secretly hinders. 
 
 B^an *^^ ^ ^^^^'" *^® °'' *^^*'" ^^^* •^'''^ **^^y suggest, O my God? 
 
 Let Thy mercy turn it away from the soul of Thy servant. 
 
 What defilements did they suggest ! what shame ! And now 
 I much less than half heard them, and not openly shewing 
 themselves and contradicting me, but muttering as it were 
 behind my back, and privily plucking me, as I was departing, 
 but to look back on them. Yet they did retard me, so that I 
 hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to 
 spring over whither I was called ; a violent habit saying to 
 me, " Thinkest thou, thou canst live without them ?" 
 
 27. But now it spake very faintly. For on that side whi- 
 ther I had set my face, and whither I trembled to go, there 
 appeared unto me the chaste dignity of Continency, serene, 
 yet not relaxedly gay, honestly alluring me to come, and 
 doubt not ; and stretching forth to receive and embrace me, 
 her holy hands full of multitudes of good examples. There 
 were so many young men and maidens here, a multitude of 
 youth and every age, grave widows and aged virgins; and 
 Continence herself in all, not barren, but & fruitful mother of 
 children of joys, by Thee her Husband, O Lord. And she 
 smiled on me with a persuasive mockeiy, as would she say, 
 " Canst not thou what these youths, what these maidens 
 can .? or can they either in themselves, and not rather in the 
 Lord their God ? The Lord their God gave me unto them. 
 Why standest thou in thyself, and so standest not? Cast 
 thyself upon Him, fear not He will not withdraw Himself 
 that thou shouldest fall; cast thyself fearlessly upon Him, He 
 will receive, and will heal thee." And I blushed exceedingly, 
 for that I yet heard the muttering of those toys, and hung in 
 suspense. And she again seemed to say, " Stop thine ears 
 
 Ps. 1 19, against those thy unclean members on the earth, that they 
 
 VeV. ma.y he mortified. I7iey tell thee of delights, but not as doth 
 the law of the Lord thy GodP This controversy in my heart 
 was self against self only. But Alypius sitting close by my 
 side, in silence waited the issue of my unwonted emotion. 
 
 [XII.] 28. But when a deep consideration had from the 
 secret bottom of my soul drawn together and heaped up aU 
 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 
 
Voice from heaven, which completes Avgh conversion. 153 
 
 from Alypius : solitude was suggested to me as fitter for the 
 business of weeping ; so I retired so far that even his pre- 
 sence 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. Vs. 6, 4. 
 Lord, wilt Thou he angry, for ever ? Remember not our P». 79, 
 former iniquities, for I felt that I was held by them. I sent up *• ^" 
 these sorrowful words; How long? how long, " to-morrow, 
 and to-morrow ?" 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 neighbouring 
 house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft 
 repeating, " Take up and read; Take up and read." Instantly, 
 my countenance altered, I began to think most intently, whether 
 children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words : 
 nor could .1 remember ever to have heard the like. So check- 
 ing 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 re- 
 ceived the admonition, as if what was being read, was spoken 
 to him ; Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and Mat. 19, 
 thou shall 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 Rom. 
 drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife ^^ ' 
 and envying : but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No 
 « See Athanas. Vit. S. Antonii, §. 2, 2. he was then 18, or, at most, 20. 
 
14, I. 
 
 154 Calm coin-crsicm of Alijpius. 
 
 CONF. further would I read: nor needed I : for instantly at the end 
 
 -: -■ of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into 
 
 my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. 
 
 30. Then putting my finger between, or some other mark, 
 I shut the volume, and with a calmed comitenance made it 
 known to Alypius. And what was wrought in him, which 
 I knew not, he thus shewed me. He asked to see what I had 
 
 Rom. read : I shewed him ; and he looked even further than I had 
 read, and I knew not what followed. This followed, him that 
 is weak in the faith, receive ; which he applied to himself, 
 and disclosed to me. And by this admonition was he 
 strengthened ; and by a good resolution and purpose, and 
 most corresponding to his character, wherein he did always 
 very far differ from me, for the better, without any turbulent 
 delay he joined me. Thence we go in to my mother; we tell 
 her; she rejoiceth : we relate in order how it took place ; she 
 
 Epb. 3, leaps for joy, and triumpheth, and blesseth Thee, Who art 
 able to do above that which we ask or think; for she per- 
 ceived that Thou h^adst 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 shewed me unto her in a vision, so many 
 Pi!. 30, years before. And Thou didst convert lier 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. 
 
 20, 
 
 11. 
 
THE NINTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug. determines to devote his life to God, and to abandon his profession 
 of Rhetoric, quietly however ; retires to the country to prepare, himself 
 to receive the grace of Baptism, and is baptized with Alypius, and his 
 son Adeodatus. At Ostia, in his way to Africa, his mother Monnica 
 dies, in her fifty-sixth year, the thirty-third of Augustine. Her life 
 and character. 
 
 [I.] 1. O Lord, I am Thy servant ; I am Thy servant, and Ps. lie, 
 the son of Thy handmaid : Thou hast broken my bonds in ^^' "" 
 sunder. I tcill offer to Thee the sacrifice of 'praise. Let 
 my heart and my tongue praise Thee ; yea let all my bones 
 say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee i Let them say, and 
 answer Thou me, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Pi. 35, 
 Who am I, and what am I? What evil have not been either "" 
 my deeds, or if not my deeds, my words, or if not my words, 
 my will ? But Thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and Thy 
 right hand had respect unto the depth of my death, and from 
 the bottom of my heart emptied that abyss of corruption. 
 And this Thy whole gift was, to nill what I willed, and to 
 will what Thou willedst. But where through all those years, 
 and out of what low and deep recess was my free-will called 
 forth in a moment, whereby to submit my neck to Thy easy Mat.ll, 
 yoke, and my shoulders unto Thy light burthen, O Christ „ ',q . 
 Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer i How sweet did it at once 
 become to me, to want the sweetnesses of those toys! and 
 what I feared to be parted from, was now a joy to part with. 
 For Thou didst cast them forth from me. Thou true and 
 highest sweetness °- Thou castest them forth, and for them 
 enteredst in Thyself, sweeter than all pleasure, though not to 
 flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more hidden 
 than all depths, higher than all honoui', but not to the high 
 
 » " To every one converted to God, the love of things temporal would not be 
 
 his delights and pleasures are changed; expelled, but by some sWeetness of 
 
 for they are not withdrawn, but are things eternal." Aug. de Musica, 1. vj. 
 
 changed." Aug. Eraef. on I^. 74. "For c. 16. 
 
1 56 Groundi on which Aug. gives up hi* profession, 
 
 coi^. in their own conceits. Now was my soul free from the biting 
 
 — — '- cares of canvassing and getting, and weltering in filth, and 
 
 scratching off the itch of lust. And my infant tongue spake 
 
 freely to Thee, my brightness, and my riches, and my health, 
 
 the Lord my God. 
 
 [II.] 2. And I resolved in Thy sight, not tumultuously to 
 tear, but gently to withdraw, the service of my tongue from 
 the marts of lip-labour : that the young, no students in Thy 
 law, nor in Thy peace, but in lying dotages and law-skirmishes, 
 should no longer buy at my mouth arms for their madness. 
 And very seasonably, it now wanted but very few days unto 
 the '■ Vacation of the Vintage, and I resolved to endure them, 
 then in a regular way to take my leave, and having been 
 purchased by Thee, no more to return for sale. Our purpose 
 then was known to Thee; but to men, other than our own 
 friends, was it not known. For we had agreed among our- 
 selves not to let it out abroad to any : although to us, now 
 ascending from the valley of tears, and singing that song of 
 degrees, Thou hadst given sharp arrows, and destroying coals 
 against the subtile tongue ', which as though advising for us, 
 would thwart, and would out of love devour us, as it doth its 
 meat. 
 
 3. Thou hadst pierced our hearts with Thy charity, and 
 we carried Thy words ' as it were fixed in our entrails : and 
 the examples ' of Thy servants, whom for black Thou hadst 
 made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the 
 
 l> In harrest and vintage-time had the very heart, and no one aimeth better at 
 lawyers their vacation. So Minutius the heart than he who shooteth with the 
 Felix. Scholars, their Non Terminus, word. " Destroying coals" are good er- 
 as here : yea, Divinity Lectures and amples ; as if God should begin to urge 
 Catechisings then ceased. So Cyprian, on thee, " Canst thou not this ? Why 
 Ep. 2. The Law Terms gave way also can such an one ? why could such an 
 to the great Festivals of the Church, one ? Women have been able, shall men 
 Theodosius forbade any Process to go not ? The rich and luxurious have been 
 out from fifteen days before Easter till able, shall the poor not ? See then why 
 the Sunday after. For the four Terms, they have been named ' coals !' Because 
 see Caroli Calvi Capitula, act. viii.p. 90. they who are converted to the Lord, are 
 [Old Ed.] alive from the dead. But coals, before 
 
 ' Allusions to Ps. 130. in the old vers, they are kindled, are dead. For coals not 
 
 rendered, " ' what shall be given to thee alight, are called dead, but those alight, 
 
 for the subtile tongue,' i. e. says Aug. ad live, coals. The examples then of many 
 
 loc. ' whereby to defend thyself against ungodly who have been converted to the 
 
 it ?' He answers his own question. Lord, are called coals. What follows ? 
 
 ' sharp arrows,' &c. Sharp arrows of the He puts aside ' the subtile tongue,' and 
 
 mighty are the words of God. God ungodly lips, he goeth up the degree 
 
 knoweth how to shoot arrows into the -[steps], he begins to make progress." 
 
and why quietly; hmc facilitated. 157 
 
 receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our 
 heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss; 
 and they fired us so vehemently, that all the blasts of subtle 
 tongues from gainsayers might only inflame us the more fiercely, 
 not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Thy Name's sake 
 which Thou hast hallowed throughout the earth, this our vow 
 and purpose might also find some to commend it, it seemed 
 like ostentation not to wait for the vacation now so near, but 
 to quit beforehand a public profession, which was before the 
 eyes of all ; so that all looking on this act of mine, and ob- 
 serving how near was the time of vintage which I wished to 
 anticipate, would talk much of me, as if I had desired to 
 appear some great one. And what end had it served me, 
 that people should repute and dispute upon my purpose, and 
 that our good should be evil spoken of? Hom. 
 
 4. Moreover, it had at first troubled me, that in this very ^*' '^' 
 summer my lungs* began to give way, amid too great literary 
 laboiu:, and to breathe deeply with diflSculty, and by the pain 
 in my chest to shew that they were injured, and to refuse 
 any fiill or lengthened speaking ; this had troubled me, for 
 it almost constrained me of necessity, to lay down that 
 burthen of teaching, or, if I could be cured and recover, at 
 least to intermit it. But when the full wish for leisure, that 
 I might see how that Thou art the Lord, arose, and wasps. 46, 
 fixed, in me; my God, Thou knowest, I began even to rejoice '"• 
 that I had this secondary, and that no feigned, excuse, which 
 might something moderate the offence taken by those, who 
 
 ' It appears that the pain in the chest lingering amid idle things, the storm 
 
 was of real use to him, and so, both which was deemed contrary to me, came 
 
 grounds being true, Aug. mentions the to my aid ? So then so great a pain in 
 
 one or the other as the cause of abandon- the chest seized me, that, unable to sup- 
 
 ing his profession, according to the cha- port the toils of that profession, wherein 
 
 racter of the parties concerned. To the I was spreading my sails for the Sirens' 
 
 Milanese he names both ; (inf. c. 5.) to isle, I cast all over and moored, if but a 
 
 Komanianus (see above on 1. vii. c. ult. shattered and gaping Tessel,in the longed> 
 
 p. 132. n. o.) only the pain of his chest, for haven." To Zenobius he writes more 
 
 " These things [this world's goods] were plainly; (de Ord. i. §. 5.) " For when the 
 
 in a way to hold me prisoner, though pain in my chest had compelled me to 
 
 daily discoursing of the vanity of earthly abandon the schools, already prepared, 
 
 things, unless a pain in the chest had as you know , even without any such 
 
 compelled me to abandon my boastful compulsion to betake myself to the study 
 
 profession, and to take refuge in the bo- of wisdom [philosophia] &c." Elsewhere, 
 
 som of Wisdom;" (c. Acad. i. 3.) and (Epp.) he says, that he did this, induced 
 
 to Theodoras de vita beatA, §. 4. " YHiat rather by the desire of devoting all his 
 
 then remained, but that while I was leisure to God. 
 
158 Small kindnesses repaid by God to the faithful. 
 coNf. for their sons' sake, wished me never to have the freedom 
 
 B IX 
 
 — ^ — -■ of Thy sons. Full then of such joy, 1 endured till that 
 interval of time were run; it may have been some twenty days, 
 yet they were endured manfully; endured, for the covetousness 
 which aforetime bore a part of this heavy business, had left 
 me, and I remained alone, and had been overwhelmed, had 
 not patience taken its place. Perchance, some of Thy servants, 
 my brethren, may say, that I sinned in this, that with a 
 heart fully set on Thy service, I suffered myself to sit even 
 one hour in the chair of lies. Nor would I be contentious. 
 But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and 
 remitted this sin also, with my other most horrible and deadly 
 sins, in the holy water ? 
 
 [III.] 5. Verecundus was worn down with care about this 
 our blessedness, for that being held back by bonds, whereby 
 he was most straitly bound, he saw that he should be severed 
 from us. For himself was not yet a Christian, his wife one 
 of the faithful ; and yet hereby, more rigidly than by any 
 other chain, was he let and hindered from the journey which 
 we had now essayed. For he would not, he said, be a 
 Christian on any other terms than on those he could 
 not. However, he offered us couileously to remain at his 
 country-house, so long as we should stay there. Thou, O 
 Lukel4, Lord, shalt reward him in the resurrection of the just, seeing 
 ^*' Thou hast already given him the lot of the righteous. For 
 3."' ' although, in our absence, being now at Rome, he was seized 
 with bodily sickness, and thereia being made a Christian, 
 Phil. 2, and one of the faithful, he departed this life ; yet hadst Thou 
 ^''' mercy not on him only, hut on us also: lest remembering the 
 exceeding kindness of our friend towards us, yet unable to 
 number him among Thy flock, we should be agonized with 
 intolerable sorrow. Thanks unto Thee, our God, we are 
 Thine : Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, Faithful 
 in promises. Thou now requitest Verecundus for his country- 
 house of Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we 
 reposed in Thee, with the eternal freshness of Thy Paradise : 
 for that Thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in that 
 
 « S. Aag's conversion then was com- ginning of September, A. D. 386. He is 
 pleted about the end of August or be- commemorated in our Church Aug. 28. 
 
Abraham's bosom. 159 
 
 rich mountain', that mountain which yieldeth milk, Thine 
 own mountain. 
 
 6. He then had at that time sorrow, but Nebridius joy. 
 For although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen 
 into the pit of that most pernicious error, believing the flesh 
 of Thy Son to be a phantom '^i j^et emerging thence, he be- 
 lieved as we did ; not as yet indued with any Sacraments of 
 Thy Church, but a most ardent searcher out'' of truth. 
 Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by 
 Thy Baptism, being also a faithful member of the Church 
 Catholic, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continence 
 amongst his people in Africa, his whole house having through 
 him first been made Christian, didst Thou release from the 
 flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom'. Whatever 
 that be, which is signified by that bosom, there lives my 
 Nebridius, my sweet friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted 
 of a freed man ; there he liveth. For what other place is 
 there for such a soul ? There he liveth, whereof he asked 
 touch of me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he not 
 his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy 
 fountain, and drinketh as much as he can receive, wisdom in 
 proportion to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think 
 that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget me; seeing 
 Thou, Lord, Whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. So were 
 we then, comforting Verecundus, who sorrowed, as far as 
 
 f " What mountain should we un- ' S. Aug. does not mean that he did 
 
 derstand, but the same Lord Christ, of not know what our Lord intended by the 
 
 whom another prophet says, ' Themoun- title of " Abraham's bosom," but only 
 
 tain of the Lord shall be revealed on the that the nature of its peace and joys 
 
 top of the mountains.' This is the must be hidden from us, while in the 
 
 ' mountain' said to ' yield milk,' (inca- flesh. He uniformly speaks of it in equi- 
 
 aeatus, lit. ' abounding in curds,') on valent terms, as a hidden place of rest 
 
 account of the little ones who are by and joy : " bosom,'- becaiise " detached 
 
 grac3 to be nourished as by milk; the and hidden." Serm. 14. c. 5. Ep. 164. 
 
 ' rich mountain' to strengthen and enrich §. 7. de Gen. adLit.l.xii.^. 63. c. Faust, 
 
 them by the excellence of His gifts ; for xxxvii. as elsewhere, " that just men de- 
 
 this same milk, whence curds are formed, parted are at rest in the hidden abodes 
 
 wonderfully represents grace, in that It of the godly." (de Civ. Dei, e. 13.) 
 
 flows from the rich stores of the mother's The doubt refers to the character of the 
 
 inner self, and with a delighting pity, is joys of the intermediate state, since " it 
 
 poured freely unto the littlp ones." Aug. is certain, that the souls of the faithful 
 
 ad loc. The word nD»3nj in the E. departed live in rest; (de Civ. Dei, xiii. 
 
 V. " high," is rendered by the »' t£t«{«- 19-) and yet the consummation of their 
 
 liitis. by Synom. liTfif'u^s, from a con- J"? is to be after the resurrection. In like 
 
 nected meaning of the root. '"'ay- S. Gregory of Naz. ( Orat. Fun. in 
 
 g ggg Note A. ^' Caisar.)said, "in Abraham's bosom, 
 
 h See above, 1. vi. §. 17. and note. whatever it be, mayest thou rest." 
 
160 Aug^s occupations in the interval before baptism. 
 
 CONF. friendship permitted, that our conversion was of such sort ; 
 
 -: — '- and exhorting him to become faithful, according to his 
 measure, namely, of a married estate ; and awaiting Nebridius 
 to follow us, which, being so near, he was all but doing : 
 and so, lo ! those days rolled by at length ; for long and 
 many they seemed, for the love I bare to the easeful liberty, 
 
 Ps.27,8.that I might sing to Thee from my inmost marrow, My heart 
 hath said unto Thee, I have sought Thy face : Thy face, 
 Lord, tcill I seek. 
 
 [IV.] 7. Now was the day come, wherein I was in deed to 
 be freed of my Rhetoric Professorship, whereof in thought I 
 was already freed. And it was done. Thou didst rescue 
 my tongue, whence Thou hadst before rescued my heart. 
 And I blessed Thee, rejoicing ; retiring with all mine to the 
 villa'. What I there did in writing, which was now enlisted 
 in Thy service, though still, in this breathing-time as it were, 
 panting from the school of pride, my books may witness', 
 as well what I debated with others, as what with myself 
 alone"", before Thee: what with Nebridius, who was 
 absent, my Epistles" bear witness. And when shall I have 
 time to rehearse all Thy great benefits towards us at that 
 time, especially when hasting on to yet greater mercies ? 
 For my remembrance recalls me, and pleasant is it to me, 
 O Lord, to confess to Thee, by what inward goads Thou 
 tamedst me; and how Thou hast evened me, lowering the 
 
 k Of this period, S. Aiig. writes, that cnssions, and the two books, " de Ordine." 
 
 he had formed the habit of spending (Retract, i. 3.) 
 
 "the beginning or end, generally the ""HisSoUloiiuies, twobooks,inwliich, 
 
 half, of the night, in watching and seek- " being alone, he held a dialogue with 
 
 ing out truth," " nor do I allow myself, himself, he and his reason, as though 
 
 by the studies of the young men (his they were two." " In the first book, he 
 
 young friends whom he was instructing), investigated what sort of person he ought 
 
 to be taken away from myself." (de Ord. to be who would apprehend wisdom, and 
 
 i. §. 6.) He states immediately, that "he in the end is an argument, that things, 
 
 prayed God with almost daily weeping, which truly are, are immortal. In Sie 
 
 that his wounds might be healed, but second is a long discussion, in which he 
 
 often upbraided himself as unworthy to comes to no conclusion, on the immor- 
 
 be healed so soon as he wished." lb. tality of the soul." (Retr. i. 4.) As a 
 
 §. 29. supplement to this, he wrote shortly after, 
 
 1 These are, the three disputations at Milan, a book on the Immortality of 
 
 against the Academics, the substance of the soul, (Opp. t. i. p. 387.) which got 
 
 the viva voce discussion of a few days, out against his vrill, and of whose ob- 
 
 shortlv after he had gone into the country, scurity himself complains. (Retr. i. 
 
 (c. Acad. i. %. 4.) His books, de Vita 1.) 
 
 Beata, begun on his birth-day, Nov. 15. " Some, with the Epp. of Nebridius, 
 
 (§. 6.) and finished in three days' dis- are still extant. Ep. iii. xiv. ed. Ben. 
 
Effects of the Psalms on Aug. 161 
 
 mountains and hills of my high imaginations, straightening 
 my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways; and how 
 Thou also subduedst the brother of my heart, Alypius, unto 
 the Name of Thy Only Begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, which he would not at first vouchsafe -to have in- 
 serted in our writings. For rather would he have them 
 savour of the lofty cedars of the Schools, which the Lord Pi.29,5. 
 hath now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the 
 Church, the antidote against serpents. 
 
 8. Oh in what accents spake I unto Thee, my God, when 
 I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, and sounds 
 of devotion, which allow of no swelling spirit, as yet a Cate- 
 chumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, 
 with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in 
 female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, 
 motherly love, Chuistian piety. Oh, what accents did I utter 
 unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled 
 towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through 
 the whole world, against the pride of mankind. And yet 
 they are simg through the whole world, nor can any hide Pa.igfi. 
 himself from Thy heat. With what vehement and bitter 
 sorrow was I angered at the Manichees ! and again I pitied 
 them, for that they knew not those Sacraments, those medi- 
 cines, and were mad against the antidote, which might 
 have recovered them of their madness. How I would they 
 had then been somewhere near me, and without ray knowing 
 that they were there, could have beheld my countenance, 
 and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that 
 time of my rest, and how that Psalm wrought upon me. 
 When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me; in p^ ^ ■ 
 tribulation Thou enlargedst me. Have mercy upon me, OOld 
 Lord, and hear my prayer. Would that what I uttered on 
 these words, they could hear, without my knowing whether 
 they heard, lest they should think I spake it for their sakes ! 
 Because in truth neither should I speak the same things, nor 
 in the same way, if I perceived that they heard and saw me ; 
 nor if I spake them would they so receive them, as when I 
 spake by and for myself before Thee, out of the natural 
 feelings of my soul. 
 
 9. I trembled for fear, and again kindled with hope, and 
 
 M 
 
162 Application of tfie fourth Psalm to himself, 
 
 CONF.with rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father; and all issued forth 
 — : — '- both by mine eyes and voice, when Thy good Spirit turning 
 Ps. 4, 2. unto us, said, O ye sons of men, how long slow of heart ? 
 why do ye lore vanity, and seek after leasing ? For I had 
 Ver. 3. loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And Tftou, O Lord, 
 Eph. 1, hadst already magnified Thy Holy One, raising Him from the 
 Luke24 *^'*'^> ^f***^ setting Him at Thy right hand, whence from on 
 49. John high He should send His promise, the Comforter, the Spirit 
 J7' 'of Truth. And He had already sent Him, but I knew it not; 
 Acts 2, He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising 
 ■ again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till 
 John 7, then,^/te Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet 
 glorified. And the prophet cries out, How long, slow of 
 heart f why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing ? Know 
 this, that the Lord hath magnified his Holy One. He cries 
 out. How long ? He cries out. Know this : and I so long, not 
 knowing, loved vanity, and sought after leasing: and there- 
 fore I heard and trembled, because it was spoken unto such 
 as I remembered myself to have been. For in those phan- 
 toms which I had held for truths, was there vanity and 
 leasing; and I spake aloud many things earnestly and 
 forcibly, in the bitterness of my remembrance. Which 
 would they had heard, who yet love vanity and seek after 
 leasing'. They would perchance have been troubled, and 
 have vomited it up ; and Thou wouldest hear them when they, 
 cried unto Thee ; for by a tnie° death in the flesh did He die 
 Rom. 8, for us, who now intcrcedeth unto Thee for us. 
 ^*' 10. I further read. Be angry, and sin not. And how was I 
 
 26. ' moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry at 
 myself for things past, that I might not sin in time to come ! 
 Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature i" of a 
 people of darkness which sinned for me, as they say who are not 
 Rom. 2, angiy at themselves, and treasure up wrath against the day qf 
 wrath, and of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor were 
 my good things'^ now without, nor sought with the eyes of flesh 
 in that earthly sun "■ ; for they that would have j oy firom without 
 soon become vain, and waste themselves on the things seen, 
 
 ■> See Note A. §. iii. things. 
 
 P See ib. §. ii. a. ' See ih. iii. b. 
 
 S Ver. 6. Who will shew ns good 
 
and sorrow for the Manichees. 163 
 
 and temporal ",andin their famished' thoughts do lick their very 
 shadows. Oh that they were wearied out with their famine", 
 and said, Who will shew us good things? And we would say, Ps.4,6. 
 and they hear. The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon Ibid. 
 MS. For w^e are not that light which enlighteneth every »iaw,John l, 
 but we are enlightened by Thee ; that having been sometimes |' . g g_ 
 darkness, we may be light in Thee. Oh that they could see 
 the eternal Internal, which having tasted, I was grieved that 
 I could not shew It them, so long as they brought me their 
 heart in their eyes, roving abroad from Thee, while they said. 
 Who will shew us good things ? For there, where I was Ps. 4, 6. 
 angry within myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly 
 pricked, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old man and 
 commencing the purpose of a new life, putting my trust in Ver. 5. 
 Thee, — there hadst Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and 
 hadst put gladness in my heart. And I cried out, as I read Ver. 7. 
 this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor would I be multi- 
 plied " with worldly goods ; wasting away time, and wasted by 
 time ; whereas I had in Thy eternal Simple Essence other 
 corn, and wine, and oil. 
 
 11. And with a loud cry of my heart I cried out in the 
 
 ' "While thefair changes of the seasons ''multiplied," so as not to find the " Self- 
 
 aecomplish their order, the forms which Same," i. e. that unchangeahle and One 
 
 men love, forsake them. Aug. de Vera Nature, which reaching after he would 
 
 Bel. c. 20. Space presents us things to not err, and reaching to he would not 
 
 love, time removes the things we love; grieve. Aug. de Vera Kel. e. 21. For 
 
 andleavesinthesoulcrowdsofphantoms, " multiplying" does not always denote 
 
 whereby longing is excited jSrst to one, fulness, hut rather, more often, poverty ; 
 
 then to another. Thus the mind becomes since the soul when given up to temporal 
 
 disquieted and fall of care, in vainstriv- pleasures, is ever inflamed with desire, 
 
 ing to hold the things whereby it is held, nor can he satisfied, but, distracted by 
 
 lb. c. 36. manifold and toilsome thoughts, is not 
 
 • Whose life is nothing else than to permitted to see the Simple Good, as it is 
 
 gaze, to strive, to eat, to drink, to sleep, said, " the earthly habitation presseth 
 
 and in their thoughts but to embrace downthemindthinkingonmanythings." 
 
 pha-ntastic images, which they derive (Wisd. 9.) Such a soul, by the coming 
 
 from that life. lb. c. 54. and going of temporal goods, (i. e. 
 
 " For they who being famished, think " from the time of their corn, wine, and 
 
 that they abound, andbeing most empty, oil,") filled with numberless phantoms is 
 
 think they are full, are not converted, so " multiplied" that it cannot do what is 
 
 Aug. in Ps. 67. commanded, " in simplicity of heart seek 
 
 » For the multiformity of temporal Him." (Wisd. 1, 1.) For that multi- 
 things did by the senses distract fallen plicity is strongly opposed to. this sim- 
 man from the Unity of God, and multiply plicity. For we ought to stand alone 
 his affections through an ever-ohanging and single, i. e. severed from the multi- 
 variety. Thus there arose a toilsome abun- tude and crowd of things bom and de- 
 dance,or,soto6peak,acopiouswant,while caying, lovers of eternity and of unity, if 
 he foUows one thing after another, and we desire to cleave to our One God and 
 none abides with him. Thus " from the Lord. Aug. in Ps. 4, 
 time df his com, wine, and oil, he was 
 
 M 2 
 
164 His faith strengthened hy deliverance from fain on prayer. 
 
 CONF. next verse, O in peace, O for The Self-Same ! O what said he, 
 , " „" / will lay me down and sleeps, for who shall hinder us, when 
 
 Ver, 8. 77 J 
 
 1 Cor. Cometh to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed 
 15, 54. ^^p ^^ mctory ? And Thou surpassingly art the Self-Same, 
 Who art not changed; and in Thee is rest which forgetteth all 
 toil, for there is none other with Thee, nor are we to seek 
 those many other things, which are not what Thou art : but 
 Thou, Lord, alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and 
 kindled ; nor fOund I what to do to those deaf and dead, and 
 whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind 
 bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey 
 of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light : and I was 
 consumed with zeal at the enemies of this Scripture. 
 
 12. When shall I recall all which passed in those 
 holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass 
 over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swift- 
 ness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with 
 pain in my teeth ; which when it had come to such height, 
 that I could not speak', it came into my heart to desire all my 
 friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner 
 of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to 
 read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had 
 bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain ? or 
 how went it away ? I was affrighted, O my liOrd, my God ; 
 for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the 
 power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoic- 
 ing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered 
 me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet 
 forgiven me by Thy baptism. 
 
 [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 
 
 y It is not said, either " I have slept merited with a very sharp pain in my 
 
 and taien my rest," or " I sleep and teeth, which allowed me only to revolve 
 
 take my rest," but " I shall sleep and in my mind things which I had already 
 
 shall take my rest." Then " shall this learnt, hut disabled me wholly from 
 
 corruptible be clothed with incorruption, learning, for which I required the whole 
 
 and this mortal shall be clothed with im- energy of my mind ; yet it seemed to me, 
 
 mortality." " Then shall death be swal- as if, should that effulgence of truth dis- 
 
 lowed up in victory." Id. ib. close itself to my mind, I should either 
 
 ^ Bodily pain I only fear greatly, be- not feel that pain, or bear it as nothing, 
 
 cause it hinders me from investigation. Aug. Soliloq. 1. §. 21. 
 For although in those days I was tor- 
 
Characters of Alypius and Adeodatus. 165 
 
 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 
 foreshewer of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. 
 But I, not understanding the first Lesson in him, and imagine 
 ing the whole to be like it, laid it by to be resumed hereafter, 
 being as yet less versed in these than in the words of our Lord. 
 [VI.] 14. Thence, when the time was come, wherein I was 
 to give in my name*", we left the country and returned to Milan. 
 It pleased Alypius also to be with me born again in Thee, 
 being already clothed with the humility befitting Thy 
 Sacraments j and a most valiant tamer of the body, so as, 
 with unwonted venture, to wear the frozen ground of Italy 
 with his bare feet. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, 
 bom after the flesh, of my sin. Excellently hadst Thou 
 made him. He was not quite fifteen", and in wit surpassed 
 many grave and learned men. I confess unto Thee Thy 
 gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and abundantly able 
 
 * Isaiah, amid the reproof of sin and of the table of the Lord and drink of His 
 commands of righteousness and predic- cup ?' But what is done through the 
 tions of ill to the sinful people, also pro- whole time, in which it has beenwholcr 
 phesied far more than the rest, of Christ somely provided hy the Church, thatthey 
 and the Church, i. e. of the King and who come to the Name of Christ should 
 the city which He founded, so that by be received into the order of Catechu- 
 some He is called an Evangelist rather mens, this is done much more diligently 
 than a Prophet. Aug. de Civ. Dei, and earnestly in these days,during which 
 xviii. 29. they are called Competenbes, after they 
 
 b They were baptized at Easter, and havegivenintheirnamestoreceive Bap- 
 gave up their names before the second tism. " Aug. de fid. et op. §.9. Of him- 
 Sundayin Lent: the rest of which, they self, Aug. there says, " Do we so deny 
 weretospendinfasting,humility,prayer, our own experience, as not to recollect 
 and being examined in the scrutinies, how intent and anxious we ourselves 
 Tertull. lib. de Bapt. cap. 20. Therefore were about the teaching of those who 
 went they to Milan, that the Bishop catechizedus,when we were seeking the 
 might see their preparation. Adjoining sacrament of that fountain, and were 
 to the cathedrals, were there certain hence called Competentes (Seekers)?" 
 lower houses for them to lodge and be <: An answer of his is preserved in the 
 exercised in, till the day of baptism, de Vita Beata, §. 18. " He is truly 
 Euseb. 1.x. c. 4. [Old Ed.] See Bing- chaste (castus, see above,) who waits on 
 ham, 1. X. e. 2. §. 6. " What else do God, and keeps himself to Him only." 
 they the whole time, that they hold the Aug. there says of him, " There was also 
 place and name of Catechumens, but with us, in age the youngest of all, but 
 hear what should be the faith and life of whose talents, if affection deceives me 
 a Christian, that when they have ' ex- not, promise something great, my son 
 amined themselves, they may then eat Adeodatus." ib. §. 6. 
 
\6GChurch-mimchroughttotheW.thro'persecuUonof Ambrose. 
 
 CONF. to reform our deformities : for I had no part in that boy, but 
 
 — '- the sin. For that we brought him up in Thy discipline, it 
 
 was Thou, none else, had inspired us with it. I confess unto 
 Thee Thy gifts. There is a book of ours entitled The Master" ; 
 it is a dialogue between him and me. Thou knowest, that 
 all there ascribed to the person conversing with me, were his 
 ideas, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more 
 admirable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. 
 And who but Thou could be the workmaster of such wonders? 
 Soon didst Thou take his life from the earth: and I now 
 remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his child- 
 hood or youth, or his whole self. Him we joined with us, 
 our contemporary in grace, to be brought up in Thy disci- 
 pline; and we were baptized', and anxiety for our past hfe 
 vanished from us. Nor was I sated in those days with the 
 wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Thy coun- 
 sels 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 afiections of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, 
 and happy was I therein. 
 
 [VII.] 15. Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use 
 this kind of consolation and exhortation, the brethren zeal- 
 ously joining with harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a 
 year, or not much more, that Justina, mother to the Emperor 
 Valentinian, a child, persecuted' Thy servant Ambrose, in 
 favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced by the 
 Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready 
 
 i De Magistro, " in which it is dis- words or works, I have hoth myself ex- 
 
 puted, and sought, and found, that there perienced, and the whole Roman world 
 
 IS no master, who teacheth man know- hesitates not to proclaim with me." Aug, 
 
 ledge, hut God, according to that also c. Julian. Pelagian, i. $. 10. cf. de 
 
 which is written in the Gospel, ' one is Nuptiis et Concnpisc. §. ult. and Ep.l47. 
 
 your Majster, Christ.'" Retract, i. 12. c. 23. 
 It is extant, 0pp. Aug. t. i. f To induce him to give up to the 
 
 « Aug. was haptized by S. Ambrose Arians a Church, the Portian Basilica 
 
 himself. " Hear another excellent stew- without the walls ; afterwards she asked 
 
 ardofGod, whomlvenerateas afather; for the new Basilica within the walls, 
 
 for 'in Christ Jesus he begatme through which was larger. See Ambrose, Epp. 
 
 the Gospel,' and through him,as the min- 20 — 22. Serm. c. Auxentium de Basilicis 
 
 isterof Christ, I received 'the washing of tradendis, pp. 852 — 880. ed. Bened. ep. 
 
 regeneration;' — I mean the blessed Am- TiUemont. Hist. Eccl. S. AmbroiseArt. 
 
 brose, whose graces, constancy, labours, 44 — 48.p. 76—82. Valentinianwasthen 
 
 perils for the Catholic faith, whether in at Milan, See below, p, 168, note k. 
 
Miracles\wrought in his hehalf. 167 
 
 to die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother 
 Thy handmaid, bearing a chief part of those anxieties and 
 watchings, lived for prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat 
 of Thy Spirit, still w^ere stirred up by the sight of the 
 amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first instituted 
 that after the manner of the Eastern Churches*, Hymns and 
 Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint 
 through the tediousness of sorrow : and from that day to this 
 the custom is retained, divers, yea, almost all Thy congre- 
 gations, throughout other parts of the world, following herein. 
 16. Then didst Thou by a vision discover to Thy fore- 
 named Bishop, where the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius'' 
 the martyrs lay hid, (whom Thou hadst in Thy secret treasury 
 stored uncorrupted so many years,) whence Thou mightest 
 seasonably produce them to repress the fury of a woman, but 
 an Empress. For when they were discovered and dug up, and 
 with due honour translated to the Ambrosian Basilica, not 
 only they who were vexed with unclean spirits' (the devUs 
 confessing themselves) were cured, but a certain man, who 
 had for many years been blind", a citizen, and well known to 
 
 E Ignatius, who lived An. Christ. 100, sword; " their head was separated from 
 
 mentionssingingintheEasternChurches. the shoulders." Ambrose, 1. c. 
 
 Epist. ad Rom. 2. vid. Soor. Hist. vi. 8. ' The Arians did not deny this, but 
 
 Quire-men only were to sing in the said that " that venerable man Ambrose 
 
 Church. Anno 364. Concil. Laodic. bribedmentofeign that they were vexed 
 
 Can. 15. [Old Ed.] with unclean spirits." Paullinus (the 
 
 ■ t They were martyrs long before the notary of S. Ambrose), 1. c. §. 15. 
 
 time of S, Ambrose, since he speaks of ^ Ambrose, in a sermon at this time 
 
 " finding two men, of wondrous size, as before a large congregation, dwells at 
 
 was the case in old times." Ep. 22. §. 2. length on this miracle, 1. c. §. 17. 
 
 Aug. says that "it is well known that they " They [the Arians] denythat the blind 
 
 suffered long after the most blessed Ste- man received sight, but he does not deny 
 
 phen." (Serm. 318.) " They lay hid that he was cured. He says ' I have 
 
 under an unhonoured turf," (Ambr. ib.) ceased to be blind,' and proves it by the 
 
 " so that all walked over their bodies, fact. They denythe mercy, who cannot 
 
 who wished to go to the rails, whereby deny the fact. He is a well-known man ; 
 
 the tombs of the mEtrtyrs SS. Nahor and when well, was employed in public ser- 
 
 Felix wereprotectedfrominjury,"(Paul- vices, by name Severus, in office a 
 
 lin. Tit. S. Ambros. §. 14.) until " they butcher. He had laid aside his of&ce 
 
 were made known in a dream to Am- when this hindrance happened. He calls 
 
 brose and found by him." (Aug. de Civ. to witness those, by whose benevolence 
 
 Dei, 1. xxii. e. 8. §. 2.) ' Afterwards, he was before supported; he calls them 
 
 " old men recollected that they had for- as witnesses of his visitation, whom he 
 
 merly read their names andinscriptions." had as witnesses of his blindness. He 
 
 Ambrose, ih. Most suppose that they says aloud, that when he touched the 
 
 suffered under Nero. See Tillemont, H. hempfthegarmentofthemartyrs,where- 
 
 E. t. ii. Art. S. Gervais and S. Protais, with the sacred remains are covered, his 
 
 and notes, ih. They were Roman citi- sight was restored. Is not this like what 
 
 zens, since their martyrdom was by the weread in the Gospel ? — Their obstinacy 
 
168 A blind man restored to sight, and its effects. 
 
 CONF. the city, asking and hearing the reason of the people's con- 
 — : — -■ fused joy, sprang forth, desiring his guide to lead him thither. 
 Led thither, he begged to be allowed to touch with his 
 Ps. 116, handkerchief the bier of Thy saints, whose death is precious- 
 ^^' in Thy sight. Which when he had done, and put to his 
 eyes, they were forthwith opened. Thence did the fame 
 spread, thence Thy praises glowed, shone ; thence the mind 
 of that enemy, though not turned to the soundness of believ- 
 ing, was yet turned back from her fury of persecuting. Thanks 
 to Thee, O my God. Whence and whither hast Thou thus 
 led my remembrance, that I should confess these things also 
 unto Thee } which great though they be, I had passed by 
 Cant.1, in forgetfulness. And yet then, when the odour of Thy oint- 
 ■ ^" ments was so fragrant, did we not run after Thee. There- 
 fore did I more weep among the singing of Thy Hymns, 
 formerly sighing after Thee, and at length breathing in Thee, 
 as far as the breath may enter into this our house of grass. 
 Ps. 68, [VIII.] 17. Thou that makest men to dwell of one mind 
 in one house, didst join with us Euodius also, a young man 
 of our own city. Who being an officer of Court', was 
 before us converted to Thee and baptized : and quitting his 
 secular warfare, girded himself to Thine. We were together "", 
 
 is more detestable than that of the Jews, for his whole life serve in that hasilica, 
 
 They, when they doubted, asked at least where their bodies are. We rejoiced that 
 
 his parents: these en(iuire in secret, in he saw, we left him serving." (Serm. 
 
 public deny ; shewing thereby that they 286. §. 4.) PauUinus, who relates the 
 
 disbelieve not the deed, butits Author." same, says, " To this very time he lives, 
 
 Aug. mentions the same miracle among as areligious,in the same basilica, which 
 
 thoseofhisowndays, which"couldcome is called the Ambrosian, whither the 
 
 to the knowledge of many, because the bodies of the martyrs were removed." 
 
 city is a large one, and the Emperorwas 1. c. §. 14. 
 then there, and it took place in the pre- i See above on 1. viii. o. 15. 
 senceofanemmensemultitude, thronging ^ In this interval, before he returned 
 
 to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and to Africa, S. Aug. wrote the two books, 
 
 Gervasius." (de Civ. Dei, 1. xxii. c. 8. de Moribus Ecclesia CatholicEe, and de 
 
 §.2.) " Of which so great glory of the Moribus Manichseorum, (to repress 
 
 martyrs, I also was a witness. I was the Manichaean boastfulness of a false 
 
 there, was at Milan: Iknewthemiraeles and fallacious continence or abstinence, 
 
 wrought, God bearing witness to ' the wherein, to deceive the unskilful, they 
 
 precious death of His saints,' so that set themselves above true Christians, to 
 
 through those miracles, that ' death was whom they are not to be compared;" 
 
 precious,' now not ' in the sight of the Retr. i. 7.) and the " de Animae Quan- 
 
 Lord' only, but in the sight of men. titate," toproveitincorporeal, (ib. c. 8.) 
 
 A blind man, very well known to the andthefirstof the three books, deLibero 
 
 whole city, ran, caused himself to be led, Arbitrio, to shew that evil had its origin 
 
 returned vrithout one to lead him. We no otherwise than in the free choice of 
 
 have not heard of his death ; perhaps he the will. ib. c. 9. 
 still lives. He made a vow that he would 
 
Death of Aug I" s mother, and her early life. 169 
 
 about to dwell together in our devout purpose. We sought 
 where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together 
 returning 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 sceptre of 
 Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian 
 house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy 
 fear. Yet for her good discipline, was she wont to commend 
 not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain de- 
 crepit maid-servant, who had carried her father when a child, 
 as little ones use to be carried at the backs of elder girls. 
 For which reason, and for her great age, and excellent 
 conversation, was she, in that Christian family, well respected 
 by its heads. Whence also the charge of her master's daugh- 
 ters was entrusted to her, to which she gave diligent heed, 
 restraining them earnestly, when necessary, with a holy 
 severity, and teaching them with a grave discretion. For, 
 except at those hours wherein they were most temperately 
 fed at their parents' table, she would not suffer them, though 
 parched with thirst, to drink even water ; preventing an evil 
 custom, and adding this wholesome advice ; " Ye drink water 
 now, because you have not wine in your power; but when 
 you come to be married, and be made mistresses of cellars 
 and cupboards, you will scorn water, but the custom of 
 drinking will abide." By this method of instruction, and the 
 authority she had, she refrained the greediness of childhood, 
 
 " Aug. thus addressed his mother, de to desire, through thy prayers I shall 
 
 VitaBeata,"You,throughwhoseprayers attain;" and says of her, " chiefly my 
 
 I undoubtingly believe and affiim, that mother, to whom, I believe, I owe all 
 
 God gave me that mind that I should which in me is life," and long after, (de 
 
 prefer nothing to the discovery of truth, Bono Persev. §. 35.) " that to the faithful 
 
 wish,thinkof,love, nought besides. Nor and daily tears of my mother, I was 
 
 do I fail to believe, that this so great granted, that I should not perish." 
 good, which, through thee, I have come 
 
170 One harsh word an instrument of God's mercy to her. 
 
 CONF. and moulded their very thirst to such an excellent moderation, 
 
 — : '- that what they should not, that they would not". 
 
 18. And yet (as Thy handmaid told me her son) there had 
 crept upon her a love of wine. For when (as the manner was) 
 she, as though a sober maiden, was bidden by her parents to 
 draw wine out of the hogshead, holding the vessel under the 
 opening, before she poured the wine into the flagon, she 
 sipped a little with the tip of her lips; for more her in- 
 stinctive feelings refused. For this she did, not out of any 
 desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby 
 it boils over in mirthfiil freaks, which in youthful spirits are 
 wont to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. And 
 Ecclus. thus by adding to that little, daily littles, (for whoso despiseth 
 ' ' Utile things, shall fall hy little and little,) she had fallen into 
 such a habit, as greedily to drink off her little cup brim-full 
 almost of wine. Where was then that discreet old woman, 
 and that her earnest countermanding? Would aught avail 
 against a secret disease, if Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched 
 not over us? Father, mother, and governors absent. Thou 
 present, who createdst, who callest, who also by those set 
 over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls, 
 what didst Thou then, O my God? how didst Thou cure her? 
 how heal her ? didst Thou not out of another soul bring forth 
 a hard and a sharp taunt, like a lancet out of Thy secret store, 
 and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? For a maid- 
 servant with whom she used to go to the cellar, falling to 
 words (as it happens) with her little mistress, when alone 
 with her, taunted her with this fault, with most bitter insult, 
 calling her wine-bibber. With which taunt she, stung to the 
 quick, saw the foulness of her fault, and instantly condemned 
 and forsook it. As flattering friends pervert, so reproachful 
 enemies mostly correct. Yet not what by them Thou doest, 
 but what themselves purposed, dost Thou repay them. For 
 she in her anger sought to vex her young mistress, not to 
 amend her; and did it in private, either for that the time 
 and place of the quarrel so found them ; or lest herself also 
 should have anger, for discovering it thus late. But Thou, 
 Lord, Governor of all in heaven and earth, who turnest to 
 Thy purposes the deepest currents, and the ruled turbulence 
 " Nee liberet, quod non liceret. 
 
Her conduct to her husband. 171 
 
 of the tide of times'", didst by the very unhealthiness of one 
 soul, heal another; lest any, when he observes this, should 
 ascribe it to his own power, even when another, whom 
 he wished to be reformed, is reformed through words of 
 his. 
 
 [IX.] 19. Brought up thus 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. And 
 she so endured the wronging of her bed, as never to have any 
 quarrel with her husband thereon. For she looked for Thy 
 mercy upon him, that believing in Thee, he might be made 
 chaste. But besides this, he was fervid, as in his affections, 
 so in anger : but she had learnt, not to resist an angry husband, 
 not in deed only, but not even in word. Only when he was 
 smoothed and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she 
 would give an account of her actions, if haply he had over- 
 hastily taken offence. In a word, while many matrons, who 
 had milder husbands, yet bore even in their faces marks of 
 shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands' lives, she 
 would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest 
 advice ; " That from the titae they heard the marriage writ- 
 ings read to them, they should account them as indentures, 
 whereby they were made servants ; and so, remembering their 
 condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." 
 And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, 
 marvelled, that it had never been heard, nor by any token 
 perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there 
 had been any domestic difference between them, even for one 
 day, and confidentially asking the reason, she taught them 
 her practice above mentioned. Those wives who observed 
 it found the good, and returned thanks ; those who observed 
 it not, found no relief, and suffered. 
 
 P Many ttings are done by the wicked will, tend to those results or ends which 
 
 against the will of God; but He is of so Himself foreknew to be good and just, 
 
 great wisdom and power, that all things, Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. xxii. c. 2. 
 even those which seem opposed to His 
 
172 Her enduring meekness and peace-making. 
 
 CONF. 20. Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil 
 — — 1 servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance 
 and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own 
 accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues, whereby 
 the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had 
 been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in 
 compliance with his mother, and for the well-ordering of the 
 family, and the harmony of its members, he had with stripes 
 corrected those discovered, at her will who had discovered 
 them, she promised the like reward to any who, to please her, 
 should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her : and, none 
 now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweet- 
 ness of mutual kindness. 
 
 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 shewed herself such a peace- 
 maker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such 
 as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into, 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 wide-spreading 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 com- 
 plain of that in him as a believer, which before he was a 
 believer she had borne from him. She was also the servant 
 of Thy servants; whosoever of them knew her,did in her much 
 praise and honour and love Thee ; for that through the wit- 
 ness of the fruits of a holy conversation "i they perceived Thy 
 
 ■] " Our mother, whose endowments, Tine things, I had hoth hefore perceived 
 and the fervour of her mind towards di- through daily intercourse and careful oh- 
 
Aug.'S last conversation with his mother. 173 
 
 presence in her heart. For she had been ^^e wife of onelTim.s, 
 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 Gal. 4, 
 them swerving irom 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 fo7-th pj,;]. 3^ 
 unto those things which are before, we were enquiring 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 j p^^^ „ 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the 9. 
 heart of man. But yet we gasped with the mouth of our 
 heart, after those heavenly streams of Thy fountain, thefoun- ps_3g 9_ 
 tain of life, which is with Thee ; that being bedewed thence 
 according to our capacity, we might in some soft 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 V' did by degrees pass 
 
 servation, and in a discussion on a matter an answer of hers as to what constituted 
 
 of no small moment, her mind had ap- happiness, " If a man desire what is 
 
 peared to me of so high an order, that good and has it, he is happy ; if evil, 
 
 nothing could be more adapted to the though he have it, he is wretched," de 
 
 study of true wisdom." de Ord. ii. §. 1. Beata Vita, §. 10. 
 
 Aug. speaks there of her " ardent love ' See above, %. 11. 
 of the divine Scriptures," and preserves 
 
174 Gleams offuiure bliss in this life. 
 
 CONF. through all things bodily, even the very heaven, whence 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 
 
 Ps.80,1. never-failing plenty, where Thov feedest Israel for ever 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; 
 
 Rom. 8, 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 has beginning and end. And what is 
 
 Wisd. 7, lite unto Thy Word, our Lord, who endureth in Himself vf'iih- 
 out 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 for ever — 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 a 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 un- 
 like be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and absorb, and wrap 
 
 ' What we cannot conceive, as it is, aside, reject, disown, we know it is not 
 we know not [as we ought] , hut what- this we seek, though of what natuie that 
 ever occurs to our conceptions, we cast is, we know not, Aug. Ep. 130. $.27. 9. v. 
 
Her parting words. 175 
 
 up its beholder amid these inward joys, so that life might 
 be for ever like that one moment of understanding which now 
 we sighed after; were not this, Enter into thy Master's joy ? M^x. ^5, 
 And when shall that be? When we shall all rise again, though j 'q,ox 
 we shall not all he changed ? is. 51. 
 
 26. Such things was I speaking, and even if not in this s^a. 
 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, con- 
 temptible to us, my mother said, " Son, for mine own part I 
 have no further delight in any thing 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 happi- 
 ness, become His servant : what do I here ?" 
 
 [XI.] 27. What answer I made her unto these things, 1 
 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 fi-om 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 enquiringly, " 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 some- 
 thing, 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 savoured such things, and then looking upon me ; " Be- 
 hold," saith she, " what he saith :" and soon after to us both, 
 " Lay," she saith, " this body any where ; 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 1, considering Thy gifts, Thou unseen God, which 
 Thou instillest into the hearts of Thy faithful ones, whence 
 ' His name was Navigius. Aug. de Vita Beata, §. 6. 
 
176 Care about the body absorbed by increased love of God. 
 
 ^°J^- 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 per- 
 mitted to be united beneath the same earth. But when this 
 emptiness had through the fulness 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 dis- 
 coursed 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, the boy Adeodatus 
 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 
 
Funeral rites. Aug's conduct. 177 
 
 testimony of her good conversation and her Jaith un- 
 feigned. 
 
 30. What then was it which did grievously pain me withia, 
 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 honour 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 stilled from weeping, Euodius 
 took up the Psalter, and began to sing, our whole house 
 answering him, the Psalm, / will sing of mercy and judgment Ps. loi. 
 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, dis- 
 coursed upon something fitting the time ; and by this balm 
 
 of truth, assuaged that torment, known to Thee, they un- 
 knowing 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 
 
 ' I suppose they continued to the end called to sing. Chrysost. Horn. 70. ad 
 
 of Psalm 102. This was the piimitiye Antioch. They sung the II 6th Psalm 
 
 fashion :Nazianzensays,thathisspeech- usually. See Chrys. Hom. 4. inc. 2. ad 
 
 less sister Gorgonia's lips muttered the Hebraeos. [Old Ed.] " The Psalms and 
 
 fourth Psalm ; / mil lie down in peace readings of the divine promises are deela- 
 
 andsleep. As S. Austen lay a dying, the ratory ofthosemostblessedahodesofrest, 
 
 company prayed. Possid. That they whereto those who have had a godly end, 
 
 had prayers between the departure and shall eternally be received ; and they are 
 
 the burial, see TertuU. de Anima, u. 51. a holy greeting of him who has fallen 
 
 They used to sing both at the departure asleep ; and are an exhortation to those, 
 
 and burial. Naziazen, Orat. ,10. says, who yet live, to a like end. Dionys. 
 
 The dead Csesarius was carried from Eccl. Hier. c. 7. 
 hymns to hymns. The priests were 
 
178 Aug.^s grief and self-command. 
 
 CONF. 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 (balneum) fi-om the Greek /SaXaveTov, for that it 
 drives sadness from the mind. And this also I confess unto 
 Ps.68,5. Thy mercy. Father of the fatherless, that I bathed, and was 
 the same as before I bathed. For the bitterness of sorrow 
 could not exsude 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, rohing 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; 
 
 ° Here my Popish translator says, that which the Mass is now only meant for. 
 
 the sacrifice of the Mass was offered for [Old Ed.] That the prayers for the dead 
 
 the dead. That the ancients had com- in the ancient Church, so farfi-omfavour- 
 
 munion with their burials, I confess, ing, are opposed to the Bomish doctrine 
 
 But for what ? 1. To testify their dying of Purgatory, see Bp. Bull, Serm. 3. 
 
 in the communi»n of the Church. 2. and " Corruptions of the Church of 
 
 To give thanks for their departure. 3. Rome." Bingham, xv. 3. 16. xxiii. 3. 
 
 To pray God to give them place in His 13. Collyer, EccL Hist, of G. Britain, 
 
 Paradise, 4. And a part in the first part ii. b. 4. p. 257. Usher's Answer to 
 
 resurrection : — ^but not as a propitiatory a Jesnit Field on the Church, p. 750, 1. 
 
 sacrifice to deliver them out of Purgatory, &c. 
 
God crowns in mercy, the graces He gives. 179 
 
 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 towards 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.] 34. But now, with a heart cured of that wound, 
 
 wherein it might seem blameworthy for an earthly feeling, I 
 
 pour out unto Thee, our God, in behalf of that Thy handmaid, 
 
 a far different kind of tears, flowing from a spirit shaken by 
 
 the thoughts of the dangers of every soul that dieth in Adam, i Cor. 
 
 And although she having been quickened in Christ, even ^^' ^^* 
 
 before her release from the flesh, had lived to the praise of 
 
 Thy name for her faith and conversation ; yet dare I not say 
 
 that from what time Thou regeneratedst her by baptism, no Mat. 12, 
 
 word issued from her mouth against Thy Commandment. ' 
 
 Thy Son, the Truth, hath said, Whosoever shall say unto his Mat. 5, 
 
 brother. Thou fool, shall he in danger of hell fire. And woe ' 
 
 be even unto the commendable life of men, if, laying aside 
 
 mercy, Thou shouldest examine it. But because Thou art 
 
 not extreme in inquiring after sins, we confidently hope 
 
 to find some place with Thee. But whosoever reckons up 
 
 his real merits to Thee, what reckons he up to Thee, but " 
 
 Thine own gifts? O that men would know themselves to be 
 
 men; and that he that glorieth, would glory in the Lord. 2 Cor. 
 
 10, 17. 
 
 * See above, J. 17. and below, 1. xiii. this. It appears even from this that 
 
 0. 1. " When Gtod crowns our merits, " merits" has not in the Fathers any 
 
 he does nothing else than crown his own technical sense, but is equivalent to * 
 
 gifts." Ep. 194. $. 19. where is more on " good deeds." 
 
 n2 
 
1 80 Aug. prays for the final forgiveness of all his mother's sins. 
 
 CONF. 35. I therefore, O my Praise and my Life, God of my heart, 
 — — ^laying aside for a while her good deeds, for which I give 
 thanks to Thee with joy, do now beseech Thee for the sins 
 of my mother. Hearken unto me, I entreat Thee, by the 
 Medicine of our wounds, Who hung upon the tree, and now 
 Rom. Z, sitting at Thy right hand maketh intercession to Thee for us. 
 j^j^j ,g I know that she dealt mercifully, and from her hesixt forgave 
 35 ; 6, her debtors their debts ; do Thou also forgive her debts, what- 
 ever she may have contracted in so many years, since the 
 water of salvation. . Forgive her. Lord, forgive, I beseech 
 Ps. 143, Thee; enter not into judgment with her. Let Thy mercy 
 Jam 2 ^^ exalted above Thy justice, since Thy words are true, and 
 13. Tliou hast promised mercy unto the merciful; which Thou 
 Mat. 5, gavest them to be, who wilt have mercy on whom thou wilt 
 ■^^^ g have mercy ; and wilt have compassion, on whom Thou hast 
 15. had compassion. 
 
 36. And, I believe, Thou hast already done what I ask ; 
 Ps. 119, but accept, O Lord, the free-will offerings of my mouth. 
 For she, the day of her dissolution now at hand, took no 
 thought to have her body sumptuously wound up, or em- 
 balmed with spices ; nor desired she a choice monument, or 
 to be buried in her own land. These things she enjoined us 
 not ; but desired only to have her name commemorated at 
 Thy Altar, which she had served without intermission of one 
 day: whence she knew that holy sacrifice to be dispensed. 
 Col. 2, by which the hand-writing that was against us, is blotted 
 ^*' out; through which the enemy was triumphed over, who 
 summing up our offences, and seeking what to lay to our 
 John u, charge, /oMwti nothing in Him, in Whom we conquer. Who 
 ^"^ shall restore to Him the innocent blood .? Who repay Him 
 the price wherewith He bought us, and so take us from 
 Him^? Unto the Sacrament of which our ransom. Thy 
 handmaid bound her soul by the bond of faith. Let none 
 Ps. 91, sever her from Thy protection: let neither the lion nor the 
 
 13. 
 
 1 " Whatis that righteousness where- Whom without debt he slew. This is it 
 
 by the Devil was conquered P What but that we are said to be justified in the 
 
 the righteousness of Jesus Christ P And blood of Christ, for thus that innocent 
 
 how was he conquered? Because when blood was poured out for the remission 
 
 he ' found nothing worthy of death in of our sins. Whence in the Psalms He 
 
 Him,' he yet slew Him. And thus it is calls Himself ' free among the dead;' 
 
 just, that the debtors whom he held for He was the only Bead free from the 
 
 should be set free, believing in Him debt of death." Aug. de Trin. xiii. 14. 
 
Desires that she may be ever commemorated at the Altar. 181 
 
 dragon interpose himself by force or fraud. For she will 
 not answer that she owes nothing, lest she be convicted and 
 seized by the crafty accuser : but she will answer, that her 
 sins are forgiven her by Him, to Whom none can repay that 
 price, which He, Who owed nothing, paid for us. 
 
 37. May she rest then in peace with the husband, before 
 and after whom she had never any ; whom she obeyed, with T-ule 8, 
 patience bringeth 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 aifection 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. 
 
THE TENTH BOOK. 
 
 Having in tlie former books spoken of liimself before his receiving tlie 
 grace of Baptism, in this Aug. confesses what he then was. But first, 
 he enquires 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 pre- 
 scribes as to each. On Christ the Only Mediator, who heals and will 
 heal all infirmities. 
 
 CONF. [I.] ]. Let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest me : let 
 — '■ — '- me know Thee, as I am known. Power of my soul, enter 
 13, 12. into it, and fit it for Thee, that Thou mayest have and hold it 
 Eph. 5, without spot or wrinkle. This is ray hoT^e, therefore do I speak; 
 p and in this hope do I rejoice, when I rejoice healthfully. Other 
 
 10. 'things of this life are the less to be sorrowed for, the more 
 they are sorrowed for ; and the more to be sorrowed for, the 
 Ps.51,6.1ess men sorrow for them. For behold, Thou lovest the 
 John 3, truth, and he that doth it, cometh to the light. This would 
 ^"^ I do in my heart before Thee in confession: and in my 
 
 writing, before many witnesses. 
 Heb. 4, [II-] 2. And from Thee, O Lord, unto whose eyes the 
 13. abyss of man's conscience is naked, what could be hidden in 
 me though I would not confess it ? For I should hide Thee 
 from me, not me from Thee. But now, for that my groaning 
 is witness, that I am displeased with myself. Thou shinest 
 out, and art pleasing, and beloved, and longed for; that I 
 may be ashamed of myself, and renounce myself, and choose 
 Thee, and neither please Thee, nor myself, but in Thee. To 
 Thee therefore, O Lord, am I open, whatever I am ; and with 
 what fruit I confess unto Thee, I have said. Nor do I it 
 with words and sounds of the flesh, but with the words of 
 my soul, and the cry of the thought which Thy ear knoweth. 
 For when I am evil, then to confess to Thee, is nothing else 
 than to be displeased with myself; but when holy, nothing else 
 
Use of his Confessions. 183 
 
 than not to ascribe it to myself: because Thou, O Lord, Ps.5,l2. 
 blessest the godly, but first Thon justijieth him when ungodly. ^°'"" *' 
 My confession then, O my God, in Thy sight, is made silently, 
 and not silently. For in sound, it is silent ; in aflfectiop, it 
 cries aloud. For neither do I utter any thing right unto 
 men, which Thou hast not before heard from me ; nor dost 
 Thou hear any such thing from me, which Thou hast not 
 first said unto me. 
 
 [III.] 3. What then have 1 to do with men, that they 
 should hear my confessions ; as if they could heal all my Ps. 103, 
 infirmities? A race, curious to know the lives of others, 
 slothful to amend their own. Why seek they to hear from 
 me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what themselves 
 are ? And how know they, when from myself they hear of 
 myself, whether I say true ; seeing no man knows what is in i Cor. 
 man, but the spirit of man which is in him ? But if they ' 
 hear from Thee of themselves, they cannot say, " The Lord 
 lieth." For what is it to hear from Thee of themselves, but 
 to know themselves ? and who knoweth and saith, " It is 
 false," unless himself lieth? But because charity believeth^b-^^tT- 
 all things; (that is, among those whom knitting unto itself 
 it maketh one,) I also, O Lord, will in such wise confess unto 
 Thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannot demonstrate 
 whether, I confess truly; yet they believe me, whose ears 
 charity openeth unto me. 
 
 4. But do Thou, my inmost Physician, make plain unto 
 me, what fruit I may reap by doing it. For the confessions 
 of my past sins, which Thou hast forgiven and covered, Fs.32,l. 
 that Thou mightest bless me in Thee, changing my soul by 
 Faith and Thy Sacrament, when read and heard, stir up the 
 heart, that it sleep not in despair and say " I cannot," but 
 awake in the love of Thy mercy and the sweetness of Thy 
 grace, whereby, whoso is weak, is strong, when by it he be- 
 came conscious of his own weakness. And the good delight 
 to hear of the past evils of such as are now freed from them, 
 not because they are evils, but because they have been and 
 are not. With what fi:uit then, O Lord my God, to Whom 
 my conscience daily confesseth, trusting more in the hope of 
 Thy mercy than in her own innocency, with what fruit, I 
 pray, do I by this book, confess to men also in Thy presence. 
 
184 Self to be disclosed, only to obtain the prayers of others 
 
 CONF. what I now am, not what I have been ? For that other fruit 
 — '- — '- I have seen and spoken of. But what I now am, at the very 
 time of making these confessions, divers desire to know, who 
 have or have not known me, who have heard from me or 
 of me ; but their ear is not at my heart, where I am, what- 
 ever I am. They wish then to hear me confess what I am 
 within ; whither neither their eye, nor ear, nor understanding, 
 can reach ; they wish it, as ready to believe — but will they 
 know? For charity, whereby they are good, telleth them, 
 that in my confessions I lie not ; and she in them, believeth 
 me. 
 
 [IV.] 5. But for what fruit would they hear this? do 
 they desire to joy with me, when they hear how near, by Thy 
 gift, I approach unto Thee ? and to pray for me, when they 
 shall hear how much I am held back by my own weight? 
 To such will I discover myself. For it is no mean jfruit, O 
 1 Cor. Lord my God, that by many thanks should be given to Thee 
 ' ■ on our behalf, and Thou be by many intreated for us. Let 
 the brotherly mind love in me, what Thou teachest is to 
 be loved, and lament in me, what Thou teachest is to be 
 lamented. Let a brotherly, not a stranger, mind, not that of 
 Pa. 144, the strange children, whose mouth talketh of vanity, and their 
 ''■ right hand is a right hand of iniquity, but that brotherly 
 mind which when it approveth, rejoiceth for me, and when it 
 disapproveth me, is sorry for me ; because whether it ap- 
 proveth or disapprovetlT, it loveth me. To such will I dis- 
 cover myself: they will breathe freely* at my good deeds, sigh' 
 for my ill. My good deeds are Thine appointments, and Thy 
 gifts; my evil ones, are my offences, and Thy judgments"". 
 Let them breathe freely at the one, sigh at the other ; and let 
 hymns and weeping go up into Thy sight, out of the hearts 
 Rev. 8, of my brethren. Thy censers. And do Thou, O Lord, be 
 ^' pleased with the incense of Thy holy temple, have mercy 
 ' 'upon me according to Tfiy great mercy for Thine own name's 
 sake ; and no ways forsaking what Thou hast begun, perfect 
 my imperfections. 
 
 6. This is the fruit of my confessions of what I am, not of 
 what I have been, to confess this, not before Thee only, in a 
 
 » Respirent, suspirent. and p. 141. n. 1. and p. 148. n. x. 
 
 b See above, 1. rii. §. 5. p. 110. n. e. 
 
in the sight of God, and to His servants. 185 
 
 secret exultation with trembling, and a secret sorrow withPs.2,li. 
 hope; but in the ears also of the believmg sons of men, 
 sharers of my joy, and partners in my mortality, my fellow 
 citizens, and fellow pilgrims, who are gone before, or are to 
 follow on, companions of my way. These are Thy servants, 
 my brethren, whom Thou wiliest to be Thy sons j my masters, 
 whom Thou commandest me to serve, if I would live with 
 Thee, of Thee. But this Thy Word were little did it only 
 command by speaking, and not go before in performing. 
 This then I do in deed and word, this I do under Thy wings; 
 in over great peril, were not my soul subdued vmto Thee 
 under Thy wings, and my infirmity known unto Thee. I am 
 a little one, but my Father ever liveth, and my Guardian is 
 sufficient for me. For He is the same who begat me, and 
 defends me: and Thou Thyself art all my good; Thou, 
 Almighty, Who art with me, yea, before I am with Thee. To 
 such then whom Thou commandest me to serve will I dis- 
 cover, not what I have been, but what I now am, and what 
 I -yet am. But neither do I judge myself. Thus therefore 1 1 Cor. 
 would be heard. ' * 
 
 [V.] 7. Yox Thou, Lord, dost judge me: because, although lb. 
 no man knoweth the things of a man, hut the spirit of a man ' Cor. 
 which is in him, yet is there something of man, which 
 neither the spirit of man that is in him, itself knoweth. But 
 Thou, Lord, knowest all of him, Who hast made him. Yet I, 
 though in Thy sight I despise myself, and account myself 
 dust and ashes; yet know I something of Thee, which I 
 know not of myself. And truly, now we see through a glass l Cor. 
 darkly, not face to face as yet. So long therefore as / 5e ' ' 
 absent from Thee, I am more present with myself than with 5, 6. * 
 Thee ; and yet know I Thee that Thou art in no ways passible " ; 
 but I, what temptations I can resist, what I cannot, I know 
 not. And there is hope, because Thou art faithful. Who leilt l Cor. 
 not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able ; but wilt ' 
 with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may 
 be able to bear it. I will confess then what I know of my- 
 self, 1 will confess also what I know not of myself. And that 
 because what I do know of myself, I know by Thy shining 
 upon me ; and what I know not of myself, so long know I 
 * Against his Manichsean errors ; see above, b. vii, §. 3. 
 
186 God is to the soul, what objects of sense are to the body. 
 
 CONF. not it, until my darkness be made as the noon-day in Thy 
 
 , ' ' countenance. 
 
 Is. 58, r . 
 
 10. [VI.] 8. Not with doubting, but with assured conscious- 
 
 ness, do I love Thee, Lord. Thou hast stricken my heart 
 with Thy word, and I loved Thee. Yea also heaven, and 
 earth, and all that therein is, behold, on every side they bid 
 me love Thee ; nor cease to say so unto all, that they may be 
 
 'Rom. \, without excuse. But more deeply wilt Thou have mercy on 
 
 IS.' ' whom Thou wilt have mercy, and wilt have compassion on 
 whom Thou hast had compassion: else in deaf ears do the 
 heaven and the earth speak Thy praises. But what do I love, 
 when I love Thee ? not beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony 
 of time, nor the brightness of the light, so gladsome to our 
 eyes, nor sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the fragrant 
 smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and 
 honey, not limbs acceptable to embracements of flesh. None 
 of these I love, when I love my God ; and yet I love a kind 
 of light, and melody, and fragrance, and meat, and embrace- 
 ment, when I love my God, the light, melody, fragrance, 
 meat, embracement of my inner man : where there shineth 
 unto my soul, what space cannot contain, and there sound- 
 eth, what time beareth not away, and there smelleth, what 
 breathing disperseth not, and there tasteth, what eating 
 diminisheth not, and there clingeth, what satiety divorceth 
 not. This is it which I love, when I love my God. 
 
 9. And what is this ? I asked ■" the earth, and it answered me, 
 " I am not He ;" and whatsoever are in it, confessed the same. 
 I asked the sea and the deeps, and the living creeping things, 
 and they answered, " We are not thy God, seek above us." 
 I asked the moving air ; and the whole air with his inhabit- 
 ants answered, " Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God." 
 I asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars, " Nor (say they) are 
 we the God whom thou seekest." And I replied unto all the 
 things which encompass the door of my flesh ; " Ye have told 
 me of my God, that ye are not He ; tell me something of 
 Him." And they cried out with a loud voice, " He made 
 us." My questioning them, was my thoughts on them : and 
 
 ■< The earth's form of beauty is a sort seest, and by thy musing, as it were, 
 of voice of the dumb earth. Thou ob- aslest it, and the very enquiring is a 
 servest and seest its beautiful form; thou questioning. Aug. in Ps. 144. §. 13. 
 
Creation speakstoallo/God,but heard thro' conscience only. 187 
 
 their form of beauty gave the answer'. And I turned myself 
 unto myself, and said to myself, " Who art thou ?" And T 
 answered, " A man." And behold, in me there present 
 themselves to me soul, and body, one without, the other 
 vsdthin. By which of these ought 1 to seek my God ? I 
 had sought Him in the body from earth to heaven, so far as 
 I could send messengers, the beams of mine eyes. But the 
 better is the inner, for to it as presiding and judging, all the 
 bodily messengers reported the answers of heaven and earth, 
 and all things therein, who said, " We are not God, but He 
 made us." These things did my inner man know by the 
 ministry of the outer : I the inner, knew them ; I, the mind, 
 through the senses of my body. I asked the whole frame of 
 the world about my God ; and it answered me, " I am not 
 He, but He made me." 
 
 10. Is not this corporeal figure apparent to all whose 
 senses are perfect ? why then speaks it not the same to all ? 
 Animals small and great see it, but they cannot ask it: 
 because no reason is set over their senses to judge on what 
 they report. But men can ask, so that.^Ae invisible things ofKom. 1, 
 God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are ' 
 made; but by love of them, they are made subject unto 
 them : and subjects cannot judge. Nor yet do the creatures 
 answer such as ask, unless they can judge : nor yet do they 
 change their voice, (i. e. their appearance,) if one man only 
 sees, another seeing asks, so as to appear one way to this man, 
 another way to that ; but appearing the same way to both, it 
 is dumb to this, speaks to that; yea rather it speaks to all; but 
 they only imderstand, who compare its voice received from 
 without, with the truth withim For truth saith unto me, 
 " Neither heaven, nor earth, nor any other body is thy God." 
 This, their very nature saith to him that seeth them ; " They 
 are a mass ; a mass is less in a part thereof, than in the whole." 
 Now to thee I speak, O my soul, thou art my better part : for 
 thou quickenest the mass of my body, giving it life, which no 
 body can give to a body :, but thy God is even unto thee the 
 Life of thy life. 
 
 [VII.] 11. What then do I love, when I love my God? 
 
 ' Doth not, on considering the beauty thee, with one voice, " Not I made my- 
 of this universe, its very form answer self, but God P" Id. ib. * 
 
188 By uhat pots:er do we find out God ? 
 
 CONF. who is He above the head of my soul? By my very soul 
 - will I ascend to Him. I will pass beyohd that power whereby 
 
 I am united to my body, and fill its whole frame with life. 
 P«.32,9. Nor can I by that power find my God; for so horse and 
 mule that have no understanding, might find Him; seeing 
 it is the same power, whereby even their bodies live. But 
 another power there is, not that only whereby I animate, but 
 that too whereby I imbue with sense my flesh, which the Lord 
 hath framed for me: commanding the eye not to hear, and the 
 ear not to see ; but the eye, that through it I should see, and 
 the ear, that through it I should hear; and to the other senses 
 severally, what is to each their own peculiar seats and offices; 
 which, being divers, I the one mind, do through them enact. 
 I will pass beyond this power of mine also ; for this also have 
 the horse and mule, for they also perceive through the body. 
 [VIII.] 12. I will pass then beyond this power of my 
 nature also, rising by degrees unto Him, who made me. And 
 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 forgetfiilness hath not yet swallowed up 
 and buried. When I enter there, I require what I wiU, 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, fi'om the face of my remembrance; 
 until what I wish 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 wiU., 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, *nd all colours and forms of bodies, by the eyes ; 
 
Astonishing manifoldness of memory. 189 
 
 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 harbour 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 them- 
 selves 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 aud silence, in my memory I can 
 produce colours, 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 forth- 
 with 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 colours, 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 remem- 
 bering 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 1 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 my- 
 self with the past continually combine fresh and fresh like- 
 nesses 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 1 reflect on, 
 at present. " I will do this or that," say I to myself, in that 
 
1 90Men admire things without, not those more wonderfulmthin. 
 
 CONF. great receptacle of my mind, stored with the images of things 
 — : — '- so many and so great, " and this or that will follow." 
 " O that this or that might be !" " God avert this or that !" 
 So speak I to myself: and when I speak, the images of all 
 I speak of are present, out of the same treasvay 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. And 
 where should that be, which it containeth not of itself ? Is it 
 without it, and not within ? how then doth it not comprehend 
 itself? A wonderful admiration surprises me, amazement 
 seizes me upon this. And men go abroad to admire the 
 heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad 
 tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the cii'cuits of 
 the stars, and pass themselves by ; nor wonder, that when I 
 spake of all these things, I did not see them with mine eyes, 
 yet could not have spoken of them, unless I then actually 
 saw the mountains, billows, rivers, stars, which I had seen, 
 and that ocean which I believe to be, inwardly in my memory, 
 and that, with the same vast spaces between, as if I saw them 
 abroad. Yet did not I by seeing draw them into myself, 
 when with mine eyes I beheld them ; nor are they themselves 
 with me, but their images only. And I know by what sense 
 of the body, each was impressed upon me. 
 
 [IX.] 16. Yet not these alone does the immeasurable 
 capacity of my memory retain. 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, 
 what is literature, what the art of disputing, how many kinds 
 of questions there be, whatsoever of these I know, in such 
 manner exists in my memory, as that I have not taken in the 
 image, and left out the thing, or that it should have sounded 
 and passed away like a voice fixed on the ear by that impress, 
 whereby it might be recalled, as if it sounded, when it no 
 longer sounded ; or as a smeU while it passes, and evaporates 
 into air affects the sense of smell, whence it conveys into the 
 
Memory contains some things wiihou t aidof sense or learning. 191 
 
 memory an image of itself, which remembering, we renew, 
 or as meat, which verily in the belly hath now no taste, and 
 yet in the memory still in a manner tasteth ; or as any thing 
 which the body by touch perceiveth, and which when removed 
 from us, the memory still conceives. For those 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. 
 
 [X.] 17. But now when I hear that there be three kinds of 
 questions, " Whether the thing be ? what it is ? of what kind 
 it is?" I do indeed hold the images of the soxmds, of which 
 those words be composed, and that those sounds, with a noise 
 passed through the air, and now are not. But the things 
 themselves which are signified by those sounds, I never 
 reached with any sense of my body, nor ever discerned them 
 otherwise than in my mind ; yet in my memory have I laid 
 up not their images, but themselves. Which how they 
 entered into me, let them say if they can ; for I have gone 
 over all the avenues of my flesh, but cannot find by which 
 they entered. For the eyes say, " if those images were 
 coloured, we reported of them." The ears say, " if they 
 sound, we gave knowledge of them." The nostrils say, 
 " if they smell, they passed by us." The taste says, " unless 
 they have a savour, ask me not." The touch says, " if it have 
 not size, I handled it not ; if I handled it not, I gave no 
 notice of it." Whence and how entered these things into my 
 memory ? I know not how. For when I learned them, I gave 
 not credit to another man's mind, but recognized them in 
 mine ; and approving them for true, I commended them to it,^ 
 laying them up as it were, whence I might bring them forth 
 when I willed. In my heart then they were, even before I 
 learned them, but in my memory they were not. Where 
 then? or wherefore, when they were spoken, did I acknow- 
 ledge them, and said, " So is it, it is true," unless that they 
 were already in the memory, but so thrown back and buried 
 as it were in deeper recesses, that had not the suggestion of 
 another drawn them forth, I had perchance been unable to 
 conceive of them ? 
 
 [XI.] 18. Wherefore we find, that to learn these things 
 
192 Abstract truths, already in the mind, before learning them. 
 
 CO NF, whereof we imbibe not the images by our senses, but 
 — '- — '- perceive within by themselves, vnthout images, as they are, is 
 nothing else, but by conception to receive, and by marking to 
 take heed that those things which the memory did before 
 contain at random and unarranged, be laid up at hand as it 
 were in that same memory, where before they lay unknown, 
 scattered and neglected, and so readily occur to the mind 
 familiarized to them. And how many things of this kind does 
 my memory bear which have been already found out, and as 
 I said, placed as it were at hand, which we are said to have 
 learned and come to know ; which were I for some short 
 space of time to cease to call to mind, they are again so 
 buried, and glide back, as it were, into the deeper recesses, 
 that they must again, as if new, be thought out thence, for 
 other abode they have none : but they must be drawn 
 together again, that they may be known ; that is to say, they 
 must as it were be collected together from their dispersion : 
 whence the word " cogitation" is derived. For cogo (collect) 
 and cogito (re-collect) have the same relation to each other as 
 ago and agito, facio and factito. But the mind hath 
 appropriated to itself this word (cogitation), so that, not what 
 is " collected" any how, but what is " re-collected," i. e. 
 brought together, in the mind, is properly said to be cogitated, 
 or thought upon. 
 
 [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 colour, 
 nor sound, nor taste, nor smell, nor touch. I have heard the 
 sound of the words whereby when discussed they are denoted : 
 ,but the sounds are other than the things. For the soimds are 
 other in Greek than in Latin: but the things are neither 
 Greek, nor Latin, nor any other language. I have seen the 
 lines of architects, the very finest, like a spider's thread ; but 
 those are still different, they are not the images of those lines, 
 which the eye of flesh shewed me : he knoweth them, whoso- 
 ever without any conception whatsoever of a body, recognizes 
 them within himself I have perceived also the numbers of 
 the things with which we number all the senses of my body ; 
 but those numbers wherewith we number, are different, nor 
 are they the images of these, and therefore they indeed are. 
 
Singular anomaly between feelings and the memory of them. 193 
 
 Let him who seeth them not, deride me for saying these 
 things, and I will pity him, while he derides me. 
 
 [XIII.] 20. All these things I remember, and how I learnt 
 them I remember. Many things also most falsely objected 
 against them have I heard, and remember; which though 
 they be false, yet is it not false that I remember them ; and I 
 remember also that I have discerned betwixt those truths and 
 these falsehoods objected to them. And I perceive, that the 
 present discerning of these things is different from remember- 
 ing that I oftentimes discerned them, when I often thought 
 upon them. I both remember then to have often understood 
 these things ; and what I now discern and understand, I lay 
 up in my memory, that hereafter I may remember that I 
 understood it now. So then I remember also to have re- 
 membered ; as, if hereafter I shall call to remembrance, that 
 I have now been able to remember these things, by the force 
 of memory shall I call it to remembrance. 
 
 [XIV.] 21. The same memory contains also the affections 
 of my mind, not in the same manner that my mind itself con- 
 tains 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 soitow 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. Which is not wonderful, as to the 
 body; for mind is one thing, body another. If I therefore 
 with joy remember some past pain of body, it is not so 
 wonderful. But now seeing this very memory itself is mind, 
 (for when we give a thing in charge, to be kept in memory, 
 we say, " See that you keep it in mind';" and when we forget, 
 we say, " It did not come to my mind," and, " It slipped out 
 of my mind," calling the memory itself the mind ;) this being 
 so, how is it, that when with joy I remember my past sorrow, 
 the mind hath joy, the memory hath sorrow ; the mind upon 
 the joyfulness which is in it, is joyful, yet the memory upon 
 the sadness which is in it, is not sad? Does the memory 
 perchance not belong to the mind ? Who will say so ? The 
 memory then is, as it were, the belly of the mind, and joy and 
 
 ^ So also " mindful," " unmindful." 
 O 
 
194 Notions, whereby we remember things, not always images. 
 
 CONF. sadness, like sweet and bitter food ; which, when committed 
 — '• — '- to the memory, are, as it were, passed into the belly, where 
 they may be stowed, but cannot taste. Ridiculous it is to 
 imagine these to be alike ; and yet are they not utterly unlike. 
 22. But, behold, out of my memory I bring it, when I say 
 there be four perturbations of the mind, desire, joy, fear, 
 sorrow; and whatsoever I can dispute thereon, by dividing 
 each into its subordinate species, and by defining it, in my 
 memory find I what to say, and thence do I bring it: yet am 
 I not disturbed by any of these perturbations, when by calling 
 them to mind, I remember them ; yea, and before I recalled 
 and brought them back, they were there ; and therefore could 
 they, by recollection, thence be brought. Perchance, then, 
 as meat is by chewing the cud brought up out of the 
 belly, so by recollection these out of the memory. Why then 
 does not the disputer, thus recollecting, taste in the mouth of 
 his musing the sweetness of joy, or the bitterness of sorrow .? 
 Is the comparison unlike in this, because not in all respects 
 like ? For who would willingly speak thereof, if so oft as we 
 name grief or fear, we should be compelled to be sad or fear- 
 ful ? x4nd yet could we not speak of them, did we not find in 
 our memory, not only the sounds of the names according to 
 the images impressed by the senses of the body, but notions 
 of the very things themselves which we never received by 
 any avenue of the body, but which the mind itself perceiving 
 by the experience of its own passions, committed to the 
 memory, or the memory of itself retained, without being 
 committed unto it. 
 
 [XV.] 23. But whether by images or no, who can readily 
 say? Thus, I name a stone, I name the sun, the things 
 themselves not being present to my senses, but their images 
 to my memory. I name a bodily pain, yet it is not present 
 with me, when nothing aches: yet unless its image were 
 present in my memory, I should not know what to say thereof, 
 nor in discoursing discern pain from pleasure. I name 
 bodily health ; being sound in body, the thing itself is present 
 with me; yet, unless its image also were present in my 
 memory, I could by no means recal what the sound of this 
 name should signify. Nor would the sick, when health were 
 named, recognize what were spoken, unless the same image 
 
How can forgetfulness be retained by memory f 195 
 
 were by the force of memory retained, although the thing 
 itself were absent from the body. I name numbers whereby 
 we numberj and not their images, but themselves are present 
 in my memory. I name the image of the sun, and that 
 image is present in my memory. For I recal not the image 
 of its image, but the image itself is present to me, calling it 
 to mind. I name memory, and I recognize what I name. 
 And where do I recognize it, but in the memory itself? Is it 
 also present to itself by its image, and not by itself.? 
 
 [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 
 forgetfiilness, but the privation of memory ? How then is it 
 present that I remember it, since when present 1 cannot 
 remember ? But if what we remember we hold it in me- 
 mory, 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 re- 
 member 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 become 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 enquiring 
 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 
 
 2 
 
196 Boundlessness of memory, yet reaches not to God. 
 
 CONF. 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 iny 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 any thing 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 remembered 
 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, 
 eifaces even what it finds already noted ? And yet, in what- 
 ever way, although that way be past conceiving and explain- 
 ing, yet certain am I that I remember forgetfulness itself 
 also, whereby what we remember is effaced. 
 
 [XVII.] 26. Great is the power of memory, a fearful thing, 
 
 my God, a deep and boundless manifoldness; and this thing 
 is the mind, and this am I myself. What am I then, O my God ? 
 What nature am I ? A life various and manifold, and exceed- 
 ing immense. Behold in the plains, and caves, and caverns 
 of my memory, innumerable and innumerably fiill of innu- 
 merable kinds of things, either through images, as all bodies; 
 or by actual presence, as the arts ; or by certain notions or 
 impressions, as the affections of the mind, which, even when 
 the mind doth not feel, the memory retaineth, while yet what- 
 soever is in the memory, is also in the mind — over all these do 
 
 1 run, I fly ; I dive on this side and on that, as far as I can, 
 and there is no end. So great is the force of memory, so 
 great the force of life, even in the mortal life of man. What 
 shall I do then, O Thou my true life, my God } I will pass 
 even beyond this power of mine which is called memory: 
 
The same things out of tlie memory and in it. 197 
 
 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 now will pass beyond this power of mine which is 
 called memory, desirous to arrive at Thee, whence Thou 
 mayest be arrived at ; and to cleave imto 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 any thing, but by memory. I will pass then 
 beyond memory also, 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 lind Thee ? If I find Thee 
 without my msmory, then do I not retain Thee in my 
 memory. And how shall I find Thee, if I remember Thee not ? 
 
 [XVIII.] 27, For the woman that had lost her groat, and Lukeis, 
 sought it with a light ; unless she had remembered it, she had ' 
 never found it. For when it was found, whence should she 
 know whether it were the same, unless she remembered it ? 
 I remember to have sought and found many a thing; and 
 this I thereby know, that when I was seeking any of them, 
 and was asked. Is this it ?" " Is that it?" so long said I " No," 
 until that were offered me which I sought. Which had I not 
 remembered (whatever it were) though it were offered me, yet 
 should I not find it, because I could not recognize it. And 
 so it ever is, when we seek and find any lost thing. Not- 
 withstanding, when any thing is by chance lost from the 
 sight, not from the memory, (as any visible body,) yet its 
 image is still retained within, and it is sought until it be 
 restored to sight ; and when it is found, it is recognized by 
 the image which is within : nor do we say that we have 
 found what was lost, unless we recognize it ; nor can we 
 recognize it, unless we remember it. But this was lost to the 
 eyes, but retained in the memory. 
 
 [XIX.] 28. But what when the memory itself loses any 
 thing, as falls out when we forget and seek that we may recol- 
 lect? Wherein the end do we search, but in the memory itself? 
 and there, if one thing be perchance offered instead of another, 
 
198 Since we can only seek for what we remember, 
 
 CONF. we reject it, until what we seek meets us ; and when it doth, 
 — : — ^we say, " This is it;" which we should not unless we recog- 
 nized it, nor recognize it unless we remembered it. Certainly 
 then we had forgotten it. Or, had not the whole escaped us, 
 but by the part whereof we had hold, was the lost part 
 sought for ; in that the memory felt that it did not carry on 
 together all which it was wont, and maimed, as it were, by 
 the curtailment of its ancient habit, demanded the restoration 
 of what it missed ? For instance, if we see or think of some 
 one known to us, and having forgotten his name, try to 
 recover it ; whatever else occurs, connects itself not therewith ; 
 because it was not wont to be thought upon together with 
 him, and therefore is rejected, until that present itself, 
 whereon the knowledge reposes equably as its wonted object. 
 And whence does that present itself, but out of the memory 
 itself? for even when we recognize it, on ieing reminded 
 by another, it is thence it comes. For we do not believe 
 it as something new, but, upon recollection, allow what 
 was named to be right. But were it utterly blotted out of the 
 mind, we should not remember it, even when reminded. For 
 we have not as yet utterly forgotten that, which we remember 
 ourselves to have forgotten. What then we have utterly for- 
 gotten, though lost, we cannot even seek after. 
 
 [XX.] 29. How then do I seek Thee, O Lord ? For when 
 I seek Thee, my God, I seek a happy life. / will seek Thee, 
 thai my soul may live. For my body liveth by my soul ; and 
 my soul by Thee. How then do I seek a happy life, seeing 
 I have it not, until I can say, where I ought to say it, " It is 
 enough ?" How seek I it ? By remembrance, as though I 
 had forgotten it, remembering that I had forgotten it ? 
 Or, desiring to learn it as a thing unknown, either 
 never having known, or so forgotten it, as not even to 
 remember that I had forgotten it ? Is not a happy life what 
 all will, and no one altogether wills it not^? Where have 
 they known it, that they so will it ? where seen it, that they 
 so love it } Truly we have it, how, I know not. Yea, there 
 is another way, wherein when one hath it, then is he happy ; 
 
 s " I know what thou wiliest, thou first, few the last, without which the first, 
 BeekeSt happiness ; if then thou wouldest which allwill, is not arrived at." Aug. in 
 be happy, be without spot. All will the Ps, 118. §. 1. 
 
where does all mankind remember happiness ? 199 
 
 and there are, who are blessed, in hope. These have it in a 
 lower kind, than they who have it in very deed ; yet are they 
 better off than such as are happy neither in deed, nor in hope. 
 Yet even these, had they it not in some sort, would not so 
 will to be happy, which that they do will, is most certain. 
 They have known it then, I know not how, and so have it by 
 some sort of knowledge, what, 1 know not, and am perplexed 
 whether it be in the memoiy, which if it be, then we have 
 been happy once ; whether all severally, or in that man who 
 first sinned, in whom, also we all died, and from whom we i Cor. 
 are all born with misery, I now enquire not ; but only, ' 
 whether the happy life be in the memory ? For neither should 
 we love it, did we not know it. We hear the name, and we 
 all confess that we desire the thing ; for we are not delighted 
 with the mere sound. For when a Greek hears it in Latin, 
 he is not delighted, not knowing what is spoken ; but we 
 Latins are delighted, as would he too, if he heard it in Greek ; 
 because the thingitself is neitherGreek nor Latin, which Greeks 
 and Latins, and men of all other tongues, long for so earnestly. 
 Known therefore it is to all, for could they with one voice be 
 asked, " would they be happy ?" they would answer without 
 doubt, " they would." And this could not be, unless the thing 
 itself whereof it is the name, were retained in their memory. 
 
 [XXI.] 30. But is it so, as one remembers Carthage who 
 hath seen it ? No. For a happy life is not seen with the eye, 
 because it is not a body. As we remember numbers then? 
 No. For these, he that hath in his knowledge, seeks not 
 fiirther to attain unto ; but a happy life, we have in our 
 knowledge, and therefore love it, and yet still desire to attain 
 it, that we may be happy. As we remember eloquence then ? 
 No. For although upon hearing this name also, some call to 
 mind the thing, who still are not yet eloquent, and many who 
 desire to be so, whence it appears that it is in their knowledge ; 
 yet these have by their bodily senses observed others to be 
 eloquent, and been delighted, and desire to be the like; 
 (though indeed they would not be delighted but for some 
 inward knowledge thereof, nor wish to be the like, unless 
 they were thus delighted ;) whereas a happy life, we do by no 
 bodily sense experience in others. As then we remember 
 joy? Perchance; for my joy I remember, even when sad, as 
 
200 Happiness not joy merely, but joy in God. 
 
 CONF. a happy life, when unhappy; nor did I ever with bodily sense 
 — '- — '- see, hear, smell, taste, or touch my joy ; but I experienced it 
 in my mind, when I rejoiced; and the knowledge of it clave 
 to my memory, so that I can recall it with disgust sometimes, 
 at others with longing, according to the nature of the things, 
 wherein I remember myself to have joyed. For even from 
 foul things have I been immersed in a sort of joy ; which 
 now recalling, I detest and execrate ; otherwhiles in good 
 and honest things, which I recall with longing, although 
 perchance no longer present; and therefore with sadness I 
 recall former joy. 
 
 31. Where then and when did I experience my happy 
 life, that I should remember, and love, and long for it ? Nor 
 is it I alone, or some few besides, but we all would fain be 
 happy ; which, unless by some certain knowledge we knew, 
 we should not with so certain a will desire. But how is this, 
 that if two men be asked whether they would go to the wars, 
 one, perchance, would answer that he would, the other, that 
 he wouldj not ; but if they were asked, whether they would 
 be happy, both would instantly without any doubting say 
 they would ; and for no other reason would the one go to the 
 wars, and the other not, but to be happy. Is it perchance, 
 that as one looks for his joy in this thing, another in that, all 
 agree in their desire of being happy, as they would, (if they 
 were asked,) that they wished to have joy, and this joy they 
 call a happy life? Although then one obtains this joy by 
 one means, another by another, all have one end, which 
 they strive to attain, namely, joy. Which being a thing, 
 which all must say they have experienced, it is therefore found 
 in the memory, and recognized whenever the name of a happy 
 life is mentioned. 
 
 [XXII.] 32. Far be it, Lord, far be it from the heaxt of 
 Thy sei-vant who here confesseth unto Thee, far be it, that, be 
 the joy what it may, I should therefore think myself happy. 
 Is. 48, jTor there is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to 
 those who love Thee for Thine own sake, whose joy Thou 
 Thyself art. And this is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee, 
 of Thee, for Thee ; this is it, and there is no other"* For 
 
 1> " For whoso enjoys what he loves, but the most miserable, would deny that 
 andlovesthetrueandhighestGoodjWho, he wasblest.'" Aug.de Civ. Dei,viil.9. 
 
Men wish what they love to be trut?i, not to love truth. 201 
 
 they who think there is another, pursue some other and not 
 the true joy. Yet is not their will turned away from some 
 semblance of joy. 
 
 [XXIII.] 33. It is not certain then that all wish to be 
 happy, inasmuch as they who wish not to joy in Thee, which 
 is the only happy life, do not truly desire the happy life. 
 Or do all men desire this, but because thejlesh lusteth against Gal. 5, 
 the Spirit, and the Spirit against the Jlesh, that they cannot ' 
 do what they would, they fall upon that which they can, and 
 are content therewith ; because, what they are not able to do, 
 they do not will so strongly, as would suffice to make them 
 able ' ? For I ask any one, had he rather joy in truth, or in 
 falsehood ? They will as little hesitate to say, " in the truth," 
 as to say, " that they desire to be happy;" for a happy life is 
 joy in the truth : for this is a joying in Thee, Who art ^Ae John 14, 
 Truth, O God my light, health of my countenance, my God. 
 This is the happy life which all desire ; this life which alone p^] ^^ 
 is happy, all desire; to joy in the truth all desire". I haveii> 
 met with many that would deceive ; who would be deceived, 
 no one. Where then did they know this happy life, save 
 where they knew the truth also ? For they love it also, since 
 they would not be deceived. And when they love a happy 
 life, which is no other than joying in the truth, then also do 
 they love the truth ; which yet they would not love, were 
 there not some notice of it in their memory. Why then joy 
 they not in it .? why are they not happy ? because they are 
 more strongly taken up with other things which have more 
 power to make them miserable, than that which they so 
 faintly remember to make them happy'. For there is yet a 
 little light in men ; let them walk, let them walk, that the John 12, 
 darkness overtake them not. ^^' 
 
 34. But why doth " truth generate hatred'"," and the mati John 8, 
 of thine, preaching the truths become an enemy to them ? ' 
 whereas a happy life is loved, which is nothing else but joying 
 in the truth ; unless that truth is in that kind loved, that they 
 who love any thing else, would gladly have that which they 
 
 ' See above, 1. viii. §. 20. p. 140. it, and without which no one is worthy 
 
 ^ See aboye, c. 20. of it, no one attains it, namely, to live 
 
 ' " No wonder that miserable man aright, he does not equally will." Aug. 
 
 obtains not what he longs for, i. e. a de Lib. Arb. 1. i. c. 14. 
 
 happy life; for that which accompanies ■" Ter. Andr. i. 1. 40. 
 
202 JVhohidethemselvesfrom the trutli,hidetruth,not themselves. 
 
 CONF. love to be the truth ; and because they would not be deceived, 
 — '- — '- would not be convinced that they are so ? Therefore do they 
 hate the tmth, for that thing's sake, which they love instead of 
 the truth. They love truth when she enlightens, they hate 
 her when she reproves. For since they would not be deceived, 
 and would deceive, they love her, when she discovers herself 
 unto them, and hate her, when she discovers them. Whence 
 she shall so repay them, that they who would not be made 
 manifest by her, she both against their will makes manifest, 
 and herself becometh not manifest unto them. Thus, thus, 
 yea thus doth the mind of man, thus blind and sick, foul and 
 ill-favoured, wish to be hidden, but that aught should be 
 hidden from it, it wills not. But the contrary is requited it, 
 that itself should not be hidden from the Tmth ; but the 
 Truth is hid from it. Yet even thus miserable, it had rather 
 joy in truths than in falsehoods. Happy then will it be, 
 when, no distraction interposing, it shall joy in that only 
 Truth, by Whom all things are true. 
 
 [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 any thing concerning Thee, 
 but what 1 have kept in memory, ever since I learnt Thee. 
 For since I learnt Thee, I have not forgotten Thee. For 
 where 1 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, 
 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 honour 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 
 
 See above, iv. e. 12. vii. c. 10. " See c. 17. 
 
Whoso Jindelh the Truth, Jindeth Qod. 203 
 
 afl'ectioiis 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 
 aifection of a living being; (as when we rejoice, condole, 
 desire, fear, remeinber, 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 un- 
 changeable over all, and yet hast vouchsafed to dwell in my 
 memory, since I learnt Thee. And why seek I now, in what 
 place thereof 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.J 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 Job 23, 
 go backward and forward, and there is no place. Every ^' ^' 
 where, 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. 
 
 [XXVII.] 38. Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of 
 ancient days, yet ever new ! too late I loved Thee ! And 
 behold. Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched 
 for Thee; deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms, which 
 Thou hadst made''- Thou wert with me, but I was not with 
 Thee. Things held me far from Thee, which, unless they were 
 in Thee, were not at all'. Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and 
 burstest, my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scat- 
 teredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odours, and I drew 
 in breath and pant for Thee. I tasted, and hunger and 
 thirst. Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace. 
 
 1 See 1. iv. §. 18. p. 56. not. m. ' lb. not. u. and p. and 1. vii. c. 14. 20. 
 
204 Man,sofar as God upholdeth him nol,a hurtheii to himself. 
 
 CONF. [XXVIII.] 39. When I shall with my whole self cleave to 
 
 — : — '- Thee, I shall no where have sorrow, or labour ; and my life 
 
 sliall wholly live, as wholly full of Thee. But now since whom 
 
 Thou fillest. Thou liftest up, because I am not full of Thee 1 am 
 
 a burthen to myself. Lamentable joys strive with joyous 
 
 sorrows : and on which side is the victory, I know not. Woe 
 
 is me ! Lord, have pity on me. My evil sorrows strive with 
 
 my good joys ; and on which side is the victory, I know not. 
 
 Woe is me ! Lord, have pity on me. Woe is me ! lo! I hide 
 
 not my wounds ; Thou art the Physician, I the sick ; Thou 
 
 .Tob7,l. merciful, I miserable. Ts not the life of man upon earth all 
 
 2'1 trials Who wishes for troubles and difficulties? Thou 
 Vulg. 
 
 commandest them to be endured, not to be loved. No man 
 
 loves what he endures, though he love to endure. For though 
 he rejoices that he endures, he had rather there were nothing 
 for him to endure. In adversity, I long for prosperity, in 
 prosperity I fear adversity. What middle place is there 
 betwixt these two, where the life of man is not all trial ? 
 Woe to the prosperities of the world, once and again, through 
 fear of adversity, and corruption of joy ! Woe to the adver- 
 sities of the world, once and again, and the third time, Irom 
 the longing for prosperity, and because adversity itself is a 
 hard thing, and lest it shatter endurance. Is not the life of 
 man upon earth all trial, without any interval ? 
 
 [XXIX.] 40. And all my hope is no where but in Thy 
 
 exceeding great mercy. Give what Thou enjoinest, and 
 
 enjoin what Thou wilt' Thou enjoinest us continency'; and 
 
 '^\sA.^,when I knew, saith one, that no man can he continent, unless 
 
 *^' God give it, this also was a part of wisdom to know whose 
 
 ' " These words of mine Pelagius at nancy.' Two virtues, which cleanse the 
 Rome, when they ha'd been mentioned soul, and make it capable of receiving 
 in his presence by a certain brother and the Divine Nature. In restraining lusts, 
 fellow-Bishop of mine, could not endure, , and checking pleasures, lest evil blan- 
 and contradicting somewhat excitedly, dishments seduce, and so-called prospe- 
 nearly quarrelled with him, who had rity enervate us, we have need of ' con- 
 mentioned them." Aug. de Dono Persev. tinency ,' notto trust to earthly happiness, 
 §. 53. and, to the end, to seek the happiness, 
 
 ' " There are two labours enjoined in which hath no end. But as it belongs 
 
 this life, to ' contain' and to ' sustain.' to ' continency,'not to trust to the hap- 
 
 Forweareenjoinedto'contain' ourselves piness of the world, so does it to ' sus- 
 
 from those things which in this world are tenancy,' not to give way to the unhap- 
 
 called goods, and to ' sustain' the evils, piness of the world." Aug. Serm. 38. 
 
 which in this world abound. The one init. 
 is called ' continenoy,' the other ' suste- 
 
Evil effects of bad customs remain. 205 
 
 gift she is. By continency verily, are we bound up and 
 brought back into One, whence we were dissipated into 
 many. For too little doth he love Thee, who loves any thing 
 with Thee, which he loveth not for Thee". O love, who ever 
 burnest and never consumest ! O charity, my God ! kindle 
 me. Thou enjoinest continency: give me what Thou en- 
 joinest, and enjoin what Thou wilt. 
 
 [XXX.] 41. Verily Thou enjoinest me continency from the 
 lust of the jiesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the \ john 
 world''. Thou enjoinest continency from concubinage; and, 2' 1^* 
 for wedlock itself. Thou hast counselled something belter than 
 what Thou hast permitted. And since Thou gavest it, it was 
 done, even before I became a dispenser of Thy Sacrament. 
 But there yet live in my memory (whereof I have much 
 spoken) the images of such things, as my ill custom there 
 fixed ; which haunt me, strengthless when I am awake : but 
 in sleep, not only so as to give pleasure, but even to obtain 
 assent, and what is very like reality. Yea, so far prevails the 
 illusion of the image, in my soul and in my flesh, that, when 
 asleep, false visions persuade to that which when waking, 
 the true cannot. Am I not then myself, O Lord my God? 
 And yet there is so much diflPerence betwixt myself and 
 myself, within that moment wherein I pass from waking to 
 sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking ! Where is 
 reason then, which, awake, resisteth such suggestions ? And 
 should the things themselves be urged on it, it remaineth un- 
 shaken. Is it clasped up with the eyes ? is it lulled asleep 
 
 "" Not that the creature is not to be curiosity chiefly prevails through the 
 loved; butif that love be referred to the eyes, and vrhat the rest belong to, is 
 Creator, then it is not cupidity but love, plain. And that temptation of our Lord's 
 For itis then cupidity, vphen the creature human nature was threefold; by food, 
 is loved for its ovfn sake." Aug. deTrin. i.e. by the concupiscence of the flesh, 
 ix. §.13. " He who would be temperate when it is suggested, ' command these 
 in this sort of mortal and peissing things, stones to become bread ;' by vain boast- 
 has a rule of life established by both ing, when, placed on a mountain, all the 
 Testaments, that he love none of them, kingdoms of this earth are shewn Him, 
 think nothing to be desired for its own and promised, if He will worship ; by 
 sake, but use them, as far as may suffice curiosity, when He is urged to oast Him- 
 for the needs of this life and its duties, self down from the pinnacle of the tem- 
 with the moderation of one who useth, pie, to try, whether He would be sup- 
 not with the affection of one who lov- ported by Angels. So then after the 
 eth." Aug. de Mor. Eccl. Cath. §. 39. enemy could prevail with Him by none 
 
 X " These three sorts of vices, the plea- of these temptations, it is said of him, 
 
 sure oflheflesh,andpride,and curiosity, ' After the devil had made anendofall 
 
 comprise all sins. Which seem to me temptations.' " Aug. in Ps. 8. v. fin. 
 enumerated by the Apostle John. For 
 
206 RemiUs of past sin deplorable, but can be effaced by God. 
 
 CONF.with the senses of the body? And whence is it that often 
 — '- — '- even in sleep we resist, and mindful of our purpose, and 
 abiding most chastely in it, yield no assent to such entice- 
 ment? And yet so much diflference there is, that when 
 it happeneth otherwise, upon waking we return to peace of 
 conscience : and by this very difference discover that we did 
 not, what yet we be soiTy that in some way it was done 
 in us. 
 Ps. 103, 42. Art Thou not mighty, God Almighty, so as to heal all 
 the diseases of my soul, and by Thy more abundant grace to 
 quench even the impure motions of my sleep ? Thou wilt 
 increase, Lord, Thy gifts more and more in me, that my soul 
 may follow me to Thee, disentangled from the bird-lime of 
 concupiscence; that it rebel not against itself, and even in 
 dreams not only not, through images of sense, commit those 
 debasing corruptions, even to pollution of the flesh, but not 
 even to consent unto them. P'or that nothing of this sort should 
 have, over the pure affections even of a sleeper, the very least in- 
 fluence, not even such as a thought would restrain, — to work 
 this, not only during life, but even at my present age, is not 
 Eph. 3, hard for the Almighty, Who art able to do above all that we 
 "■ ask or think. But what I yet am in this kind of my evil, 
 Ps.2,ll.have I confessed unto my good Lord; rejoicing with trem- 
 bling, in that which Thou hast given me, and bemoaning that 
 wherein I am still imperfect ; hoping, that Thou wilt perfect 
 Thy mercies in me, even to perfect peace, which my outward 
 J Cor. 3nd inward man shall have with Thee, when death shall be 
 15, 54. swallowed up in victory. 
 
 Mat. 6, [XXXI.] 43. There is another evil of the day, which I 
 ^'** would were sufficient for it. For by eating and drinking we 
 1 Cor. repair the daily decays of our body, until Thou destroy both 
 ^' '^' belly and meat, when Thou shalt slay my emptiness with a 
 lb. 15, wonderful fulness, and clothe this incorruptible with an eter- 
 
 54 
 
 nal incorruption. But now the necessity is sweet unto me, 
 against which sweetness I fight, that 1 be not taken captive ; 
 jb.9,27. and cany on a daily war by fastings ; often bringing my body 
 into subjection, and my pains are removed by pleasure. For 
 hunger and thirst are in a manner pains ; they burn and kiU 
 like a fever, unless the medicine of nourishments come to our 
 aid. Which since it is at hand through the consolations of 
 
Self-deceit in satisfying natural wants. 207 
 
 Thy gifts, with which laud, and water, and air serve our 
 weakness, our calamity is termed gratification. 
 
 44. This hast Thou taught me, that I should set myself to 
 take food as physic. But while I am passing from the dis- 
 comfort of emptiness to the content of replenishing, in the 
 very passage tlie snare of concupiscence besets me. For that 
 passing, is pleasure, nor is there any other way to pass 
 thither, whither we needs must pass. And health being the 
 cause of eating and drinking, there joineth itself as an at- 
 tendant a dangerous pleasure, which mostly endeavours to go 
 before it, so that I may for her sake do what I say I do, or wish 
 to do, for health's sake. Nor have each the same- measure ; 
 for what is enough for health, is too little for pleasure. And 
 oft it is uncertain, whether it be the necessary care of the 
 body which is yet asking for sustenance, or whether a volup- 
 tuous deceivableness of greediness is proffering its services. 
 In this uncertainty the unhappy soul rejoiceth, and therein 
 prepares an excuse to shield itself, glad that it appeareth not 
 what sufficeth for the moderation of health, that under the 
 cloak of health, it may disguise the matter of gratification. 
 These temptations I daily endeavour to resist, and I call on 
 Thy right hand, and to Thee do I refer my perplexities; 
 because I have as yet no settled counsel herein. 
 
 45. I hear the voice of my God commanding, Let not your i^^^^^^l 
 hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. ^*- 
 Drunkenness is far from me; Thou wilt have mercy 
 that it come not near me. But fiiU-feeding sometimes 
 creepeth upon Thy servant; Thou wilt have mercy, that it 
 may be far from me. For no one can be continent unless y^isi^g 
 Thou give it. Many things Thou givest us, praying for them ; ^ '• 
 and what good soever we have received before we prayed, 
 from Thee we received it ; yea to the end we might after- 
 wards know this, did we before receive it. Drunkard was I 
 never, but drunkards have I known made sober by Thee. 
 From Thee then it was, that they who never were such, 
 should not so be, as from Thee it was, that they who have 
 been, should not ever so be ; and fi-om Thee it was, that both 
 might know from Whom it was. I heard another voice of ' 
 Thine, Go not after thy lusts, and from thy pleasure turn^'^^as. 
 away. Yea by Thy favour have I heard that which I have ' ' 
 
208 Complete governance of the appetite, a great grace of God. 
 
 CONF.much loved; neither if ice eat, shall we abound ; neither if ue 
 ■- eat not, shall we lack ; which is to say, neither shall the one 
 
 8, 8. * make me plenteous, nor the other miserable. I heard also 
 
 Phil. 4, another, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, there- 
 
 ■ with to be content ; I know how to abound, and how to suffer 
 
 need. I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth 
 
 me. Behold a soldier of the heavenly camp, not the dust 
 
 Ps. 103, which we are. But remember. Lord, that we are dust, 
 
 14. 5 5' 
 
 Gen 3 ^°^ ^^^ '^^ '^^^^ thou hast made man ; and he was lost and 
 •9- is found. Nor could he of himself do this, because he whom 
 Luke IS, I so loved, Saying this through the in-breathing of Thy in- 
 spiration, was of the same dust. / can do all things (saith he) 
 through Him that strengtheneth me. Strengthen me, that 
 / can. Give what Thou enjoinest, and enjoin what Thou 
 iCor. l,wilt'. He confesses to have received, and when he glorieth, 
 30. 31. i^ ^j^g Lord he glorieth. Another have I heard begging that 
 Ecclus. he might receive. Take from me (saith he) the desires of the 
 ^^' ^" belly; whence it appeareth, ray holy God, that Thou givest, 
 
 when that is done which Thou commandest to be done. 
 
 Rom. 46. Thou hast taught me, good Father, that to the pure, 
 
 ' all things are pure ; but that it is evil unto the man that 
 
 1 Tim.4, eateth with offence ; and, that every creature of Thine is good, 
 
 and nothing to be refused, which is received by thanksgiving ; 
 
 1 Cor. 8, and that meat commendeth us not to God ; and, that no man 
 
 ^' should judge us in meat or drink ; and, thait he which eateth, 
 
 16.' ' let him not despise him that eateth not; and let not him that 
 
 ^°™- eateth not, judge him that eateth. These things have I 
 
 ' ' learned, thanks be to Thee, praise to Thee, my God, my 
 
 Master, knocking at my ears, enlightening my heart ; deliver 
 
 me out of all temptation. I fear not uncleanness of meat, but 
 
 Gen. 9, the uncleanness of lusting. I know, that Noah was pennitted 
 
 ^" . to eat all kind of flesh' that was good for food; that Elijah 
 
 17, 6.^' was fed with flesh ; that John, endued with an admirable 
 
 abstinence, was not polluted by feeding on living creatures, 
 
 Gen, 23, locusts'. I know also that Esau was deceived by lusting for 
 
 ^*- lentiles; and that David blamed himself for desiring a draught 
 
 23,15— 
 
 17. 
 
 y " God then commandeth not impos- * Against the Manichees, who forbad 
 
 sibilities ; but by enjoining, bids thee do to eat flesh. 
 
 what thou canst, and ask what thou canst ^ According to the Manichees, the 
 
 not." Aug. de Nat. et Grat. c. 43. most impure food of all, as being insects. 
 
Man ignorant of what is in himself, until tried. 209 
 
 of water ; and that our King was tempted, not concerning flesh, Mat. 4, 
 but bread. And therefore the people in the wilderness also »; ^ 
 deserved to be reproved, not for desiring flesh, but because, H- 
 in the desire of food, they murmured against the Lord. 
 
 47. Placed then amid these temptations, I strive daily 
 against concupiscence in eating and drinking. For it is not 
 of such nature, that I can settle on cutting it off" once for all, 
 and never touching it afterward, as I could of concubinage. 
 The bridle of the throat then is to be held attempered between 
 slackness and stiffness. And who is he, O Lord, who is not 
 somewhit transported beyond the limits of necessity ? whoever 
 he is, he is a great one; let him make Thy Name -great. 
 But I am not such, for I am a sinful man. Yet do I too Luke 5, 
 magnify Thy name; and He maketh intercession to Thee^ 
 for my sins, who hath overcome the world; numbering me 34. 
 among the weak members of His body ; because thitie eyes^ ' 
 have seen that of Him which is imperfect, and in Thy book i Cor. 
 shall all be written^- Pa. 139 
 
 [XXXII.] 48. With the allurements of smells, I am not l^.' 
 much concerned. When absent, I do not miss them ; when 
 present, I do not refuse them ; yet ever ready to be without 
 them. So I seem to myself; perchance I am deceived. For 
 that also is a mournful darkness, whereby my abilities within 
 me, are hidden from me ; so that my mind making enquiry 
 into herself of her own powers, ventures not readily to believe 
 herself; because even what is in it, is mostly hidden, unless 
 experience reveal it°. And no one ought to be secure in that 
 life, the whole whereof is called a trial, that he who hath Job 7,1. 
 been capable, of worse to be made better, may not likewise " ^' 
 
 <> " ' Thine eyes have seen what is did see what was imperfect of Me, and 
 imperfect of Me, and in Thy book shall in Thy book shall they aU be written.' " 
 they all be written,' not the perfect only, Aug. in Ps. 138. $.21. " The Son Him- 
 but the imperfect also. Let not the im- self saith, ' Thy eyes saw what was im- 
 perfect fear j only let them hold on. Nor perfect of Me,' (lit. my imperfect.) The 
 because I said ' Let them not fear,' let imperfect, which is in My body, Thy eyes 
 themloTeimperfectioB,andremain where saw. And what then? Have they hope, 
 they have been found. Let them hold who are imperfect ? They have. Hear 
 on, as much as in them lies. Let them what follows, ' And in 'Thy hook shall 
 daily add, daily draw near J yet let them they all be written.' " Aug. Serm. 136. 
 not draw back from the Body of the de verb. Ev. Joh. 9. c. 5. 
 Lord; I3iat compacted together in one "=" The hidden gifts of God in a man's 
 body, and among these members, they self are not made known even to himself, 
 may be accounted worthy to have those except when proved by temptation.'" 
 words pronounced of them, ' Thy eyes Aug, de Sancta Virgin, o. 4. 
 
210 In Church music, the music to he subordinate to the words. 
 
 CONF, of better be made worse. Our only hope, only confidence, 
 
 — '■ — '- only assured promise, is Thy mercy. 
 
 [XXXIII.] 49. The delights of the ear, had more firmly 
 entangled and subdued me ; but Thou didst loosen, q^nd free 
 me. Now, in those melodies which Thy wotds breathe soul 
 into, when sung with a sweet and attuned voice, I do a little 
 repose ; yet not so as to be held thereby, but that I can dis- 
 engage myself when I will. But with the words which are their 
 life and whereby they find admission into me, themselves seek 
 in my affections a place of some estimation, and I can scarcely 
 assign them one suitable. For at one time I seem to myself to 
 give them more honour than is seemly, feeling our minds to be 
 more holily and fervently raised unto a flame of devotion, by 
 the holy words themselves when thus sung, than when not ; 
 and that the several affections of our spirit, by a sweet variety, 
 have their own proper measures in the voice and singing, by 
 some hidden correspondence wherewith they are stirred up. 
 But this contentment of the flesh, to which the soul must not 
 be given over to be enervated, doth oft beguile me, the sense 
 not so waiting upon reason, as patiently to follow her ; but 
 having been admitted merely for her sake, it strives even to 
 run before her, and lead her. Thus in these things I unawares 
 sin, but afterwards am aware of it. 
 
 50. At other times, shunning over-anxiously this very 
 deception, I err in too great strictness ; and sometimes to 
 that degree, as to wish the whole melody of sweet music 
 which is used to David's Psalter, banished from my ears, and 
 the Church's too ; and that mode seems to me safer, which I re- 
 member to have been often told me of Athanasius Bishop of 
 Alexandria, who made the reader of the psalm utter it with 
 so slight inflection of voice, that it was nearer speaking than 
 singing. Yet again, when I remember the tears I shed at 
 the Psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of my re- 
 covered faith ; and how at this time, I am moved, not with 
 the singing, but with the things sung, when they are sung 
 with a clear voice and modulation most suitable, I acknowledge 
 the great use of this institution. Thus I fluctuate between 
 peiil of pleasure, and approved wholesomeness ; inclined the 
 rather (though not as pronouncing an irrevocable opinion) 
 to approve of, the usage of singing in the church ; that so by 
 
Unceasing temptations of the sight. 21 1' 
 
 the delight of the ears, the weaker minds may rise to the 
 feeling of devotion. Yet when it befalls me to be more moved 
 with the voice than the words sung, I confess to have sinned 
 penally, and then had rather not hear music. See now my 
 state ; weep with me, and weep for me, ye, who so regulate 
 your feelings within, as that good action ensues. For you 
 who do not act, these things touch not you. But Thou, O 
 Lord my God, hearken; behold, and see, and have mercy, and Ps. 6, 3. 
 heal ine, Thou, in whose presence I have become a problem 
 to myself; and that is my infirmity. Ps. 77, 
 
 [XXXIV.] 51. There remains the pleasure of these eyes of 
 my flesh, on which to make my confessions in the hearing of 
 the ears of Thy temple, those brotherly and devout ears ; and 
 so to conclude the temptations of the lust of the flesh, which 
 yet assail me, groaning earnestly, and desiring to be clothed 2 Cot. 5, 
 upon with my house from heaven. The eyes love fair and 
 varied forms, and bright and soft colours. Let not these 
 occupy my soul; let God rather occupy it, who made these Geo. i, 
 things, very good indeed, yet is He my good, not they. And 
 these affect me, waking, the whole day, nor is any rest 
 given me from them, as there is from musical, sometimes, 
 in silence, from all voices. For this queen of colours, the 
 light, bathing all which we behold, wherever I am through 
 the day, gliding by me in varied forms, sooths me when 
 engaged on other things, and not observing it. And so 
 strongly doth it entwine itself, that if it be suddenly with- 
 drawn, it is with longing sought for, and if absent long, 
 saddeneth the mind. 
 
 52. O Thou Light, which Tobias saw, when, these eyesTob.4. 
 closed, he taught his son the way of life ; and himself went 
 before with the feet of charity, never swerving. Or which 
 Isaac saw, when his fleshly eyes being heavy and closed by old Gen. 27. 
 age, it was vouchsafed him, not, knowingly to bless his sons, 
 but by blessing to know them. , Or which Jacob saw, when 
 he also, blind thtough great age, with illumined heart, in 
 the persons of his sons sl^ed light on the different races of 
 the future people, in them foresignified; and laid his hands, Gen^ 48. 
 mystidallly crossed, upon his grandchildi'eii by Joseph, not _ 
 as their father by his outward eye corrected them, but as him- 
 self inwardly discerned. This is the light, it is one, and all 
 
 p2 
 
212 Men multiply their own temptations beyond measure. 
 
 (X)NF.are one, who see and love it. But that corporeal light 
 — — ^whereof I spake, it se'asoneth the life of this world for her 
 blind lovers, with an inticing and dangerous sweetness. But 
 they who know how to praise Thee for it, " All-creating 
 Lord"*," take it up= in Thy hymns, and are not taken up with 
 it in their sleep. Such would T be. These seductions of the 
 eyes I resist, lest my feet wherewith I walk upon Thy way 
 be ensnared ; and I lift up mine invisible eyes to Thee, that 
 
 Ps. 25, Thou wouldest pluck my feet out of the snare. Thou dost 
 ever and anon pluck them out, for they are ensnared. Thou 
 ceasest not to pluck them out, while I often entangle myself 
 
 Ps. I2l,in the snares on all sides laid; because Thou that keepest 
 Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 
 
 53. What innumerable toys, made by divers arts and 
 manufactures, in our apparel, shoes, utensils and all sort of 
 works, in pictures also and divers images, and these far 
 exceeding all necessary and moderate use and all pious 
 meaning, have men added \o tempt their own eyes withal ; 
 outwardly following what themselves make, inwardly forsaking 
 Him by whom themselves were made, and destroying that 
 which themselves have been made ! But I, my God and my 
 Glory, do hence also sing a hymn to Thee, and do consecrate 
 praise to Him who consecrateth me ', because those beautiful 
 patterns which through men's souls are conveyed into their 
 cunning hands ^, come from that Beauty, Which is above our 
 souls, Which my soul day and night sigheth after. But the 
 framers and followers of the outward beauties, derive thence 
 the rule of judging of them, but not of using" them. And 
 
 Ps. 58, He is there, though they perceive Him not', that so they might 
 
 }^' not wander, but keep their strength for Thee, and not scatter 
 
 ^ The beginning of a hymn of S. Am- shade, and yet what even there delights 
 
 brose, which they were wont to sing at them, they still have from the encom- 
 
 the commencement of night. The two passing radiance of Thy light. But the 
 
 first stanzas are (jnoted above, 1. ix. shade being loved, weakens the mind's 
 
 §. 32. eye, and makes it unequal to bear Thy 
 
 ^ Assumunt earn, non absumuntur ab countenance. Wherefore a man becomes 
 
 ea. more and more darkened, while he pre- 
 
 ^ Sacrifico laudem Sacrificatori meo. fers to follow what, at each stage, is 
 
 E See below, 1. xi. c. 5. more bearable to his increasing weak- 
 
 h See above on e. 29. not. ness. "Whence he begins to be unable to 
 
 1 "For,tuming, as it were, their backs see that, which in the highest degree, 
 
 to Thee, they are fixed down upon the IS." Aug. de Lib. Arb. 1. i. §. 43. 
 
 works of the flesh, as it were in their own 
 
Curiosity, the lust of the eyes. 213 
 
 it abroad upon pleasurable wearinesses. And I, though I speak 
 and see this, entangle my steps' with these outward beauties; 
 but Thou pluckest me out, O Lord, Thou pluckest me out; 
 because Thy loving-kindness is before my eyes. For I amPs.26,3. 
 taken miserably, and Thou pluckest me out mercifully; 
 sometimes not perceiving it, when I had but lightly lighted 
 upon them ; otherwhiles with pain, because I had stuck fast 
 in them. 
 
 [XXXV.] 54. To this is added, another form of temptation 
 more manifoldly dangerous. For besides that concupiscence 
 of the flesh which consisteth in the delight of all senses and 
 pleasures, wherein its slaves, who go far from Thee, waste and Ps. 73, 
 perish, the soul hath, through the same senses of the body, ' 
 a certain vain and curious desire, veiled under the title of 
 knowledge and learning, not of delighting in the flesh, but of 
 making experiments through the flesh. The seat whereof 
 being in the appetite of knowledge, and sight being the 
 sense chiefly used for attaining knowledge, it is in Divine 
 language called. The lust of the eyes. For, to see, belongeth j j„i,„ 
 properly to the eyes ; yet we use this word of the other senses 2. 16. 
 also, when we employ them in seeking knowledge. For we 
 do not say, hark how it flashes, or smell how it glows, or taste 
 how it shines, or feel how it gleams; for all these are said to 
 be seen. And yet we say not only, see how it shineth, which 
 the eyes alone can perceive ; but also, see how it soundeth, 
 see how it smelleth, see how it tasteth, see how hard it is. 
 And so the general experience of the senses, as was said, is 
 called T7ie lust of the eyes, because the office of seeing, 
 wherein the eyes hold the prerogative, the other senses by 
 way of similitude take to themselves, when they make search 
 after any knowledge. 
 
 55. But by this may more evidently be discerned, wherein 
 pleasure and wherein curiosity is the object of the senses; 
 for pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, melodious, fragrant, 
 savoury, soft; but curiosity, for trial's sake, the contrary as well, 
 not for the sake of suffering annoyance, but out of the lust of 
 making trial and knowing them. For what pleasure hath it, 
 to see in a mangled carcase what will make you shudder ? 
 and yet if it be lying near, they flock thither, to be made 
 sad, and to turn pale. Even in sleep they are afraid to see it. 
 
214 Knowledge never to he an end. 
 
 CONF. As if when awake, any one forced them to see it, or any 
 
 — '■ — '- report of its beauty drew them thither ! Thus also in the 
 other senses, which it were long to go through. From this 
 disease of curiosity, are all those strange sights exhibited in the 
 theatre. Hence men go on to search out the hidden powers 
 of nature, (which is beside^ our end,) which to know profits 
 not, and wherein men desire nothing but to know". Hence also, 
 if with that same end of perverted knowledge magical arts be 
 enquired by. Hence ajso in religion itself, is Goji tempted, 
 when signs and wonders are demanded of Him, not desired 
 for any good end, but merely to make trial of. 
 
 56. In this so vast wilderness, full of snares and dangers, 
 behold many of them I have cut off, and thrust out of my 
 heart, as Thou hast given me, God of my salvation. And 
 yet when dare I say, since so many things of this kind buzz 
 on all sides about our daily life — when dare I say, that no- 
 thing of this sort engages my attention, or causes in me an 
 idle interest ? True, the theatres do not now caiTy me away, 
 nor care I to know the courses of the stars, nor did my soul ever 
 consult ghosts departed ; all sacrilegious mysteries I detest. 
 From Thee, O Lord my God, to whom 1 owe humble' and 
 single-hearted service, by what artifices and suggestions doth 
 the enemy deal with me to desire some sign ! But I beseech 
 thee by our King, and by our pure and holy country, Jerusa- 
 lem, that as any consenting thereto is far fi:om me, so may it 
 ever be further and fijrther, But when I pray Thee for the 
 salvation of any, my end and intention is far different. Thou 
 
 John2l, giyest and wilt give me to follow Thee willingly, doing what 
 
 22- Thou wilt. 
 
 ■t " If the causes of the moTements ' Let him who thinieth he standeth 
 
 of bodies were to he known to us, none take heed lest he fall.' For this bene- 
 
 were of more importance to know than ficial fear, lest, having been regene- 
 
 suoh as influence our health. But since, rated and now beginning to live godly, 
 
 in ignorance of these, we seek physi- we should, as being secure, think over- 
 
 cians, whoseesnothowcontentweshould highly, there are mingled, by the per- 
 
 be to be ignorant of the hidden mysteries mission and provision and disposifion of 
 
 of heaven and earth?" Aug. Enchir. God, with those who shall persevere, 
 
 0. 16. others who will not ; alarmed at whose 
 
 1 '' But now the faithful pray for them- fall, we may walk on in the right path, 
 
 selves also, that they may persevere in ' with fear and trembling,' until, from 
 
 whattheyhavebegun tobe. Foritisuseful this ' life on earth, which is all trial,' we 
 
 to all, jw almost all, with a view to this pass to another, where will be no pride 
 
 humility, which is so healthful, that they to be repressed, and no strife against 
 
 should not be able to know, what they suggestions and temptations." Aug. Ep. 
 
 shall be hereafter. To this enditis said, 217. §. 14. 
 
Evik of yielding to impressions of sight. 215 
 
 57. Notwithstanding, in how many most petty and con- 
 temptible things is our curiosity daily tempted, and how often 
 we give way, who can recount ? How often do we begin, as 
 if we were tolerating people telling vain stories, lest we 
 offend the weak ; then by degrees we take interest therein ! I 
 go not now to the circus to see a dog coursing a hare ; but in 
 the field, if passing, that coursing peradventure will distract 
 me even from some weighty thought, and draw me after it: 
 not that I turn aside the body of my beast, yet still incline 
 my mind thither. And unless Thou, having made me see 
 my infirmity, didst speedily admonish me either through the 
 sight itself, by some contemplation to rise towards Thee, or 
 altogether to despise and pass it by, I dully stand fixed 
 therein. What, when sitting at home, a lizard catching flies, 
 or a spider entangling them rushing into her nets, oft-times 
 takes my attention ? Is the thing different, because they are 
 but small creatures ? I go on from them to praise Thee the 
 wonderful Creator and Orderer of all, but this does not 
 first draw my attention. It is one thing to rise quickly, 
 another not to fall. And of such things is my life full ; and 
 my one hope is Thy wonderful great mercy. For when our 
 heart becomes the receptacle of such things, and is over- 
 charged with throngs of this abundant vanity, then are our 
 prayers also thereby often interrupted and distracted, and 
 whilst in Thy presence we direct the voice of our heart to 
 Thine ears, this so great concern is broken off, by the rushing 
 in of I know not what idle thoughts. Shall we then account 
 this also among things of slight concernment, or shall ought 
 bring us back to hope, save Thy complete mercy, since Thou 
 hast begun to change us } 
 
 [XXXVI.] 58. And Thou knowest how far Thou hast already 
 changed me, who first healedst me of the lust of vindicating 
 myself, that so Thou mi^\£st forgive all the rest of myPs. 103, 
 iniquities, and heal all my infirmities, and redeem my life ^~^' 
 from corruption, and crown me with mercy andpity, andsatisfy 
 my desire with good things : who didst curb my pride with 
 Thy fear, and tame my neck to Thy yoke. And now I bear Mat. n, 
 it and it is light unto me, because so hast Thou promised,^"' 
 and hast made it; and verily so it was, and I knew it not, 
 when I feared to take it. 
 
216 Not praise, but the gift of God which is praised, to be prized. 
 
 CO^- 59- But, O Lord, Thou alone Lord without pride, because 
 
 -^ — - Thou art the only true Lord, who hast no lord ; hath this 
 
 third kind of temptation also ceased from me, or can it cease 
 
 through this whole life ? To wish, namely, to be feared and 
 
 loved of men, for no other end, but that we may have a joy 
 
 therein which is no joy? A miserable life this, and a foul 
 
 boastfulness ! Hence especially it comes, that men do neither 
 
 Jam. 4, purely love, nor fear Thee. And therefore dost Thou resist 
 
 the proud, and givest grace to the humble : yea. Thou 
 
 Ps.18,7, thunderest down upon the ambitions of the world, and the 
 
 foundations of the mountains tremble. Because now certain 
 
 offices of human society make it necessary to be loved and 
 
 feared of men, the adversary of our true blessedness layeth 
 
 hard at us, every where spreading his snares of " well-done, 
 
 well-done ;" that greedily catching at them, we may be taken 
 
 unawares, and sever our joy from Thy truth, aud set it in the 
 
 deceivingness of men; and be pleased at being loved and 
 
 feared, not for Thy sake, but in Thy stead : and thus having 
 
 been made like him, he may have them for his own, not in 
 
 the bands of charity, but in the bonds of punishment : who 
 
 Isa. 14 purposed to set his throne in the north, that dark and 
 
 13. 14. chilled they might sen^e him, pervertedly and crookedly 
 
 Lukel2 imitating Thee. But we, O Lord, behold we are Thy little 
 
 32. flock ; possess us as Thine, stretch Thy wings over us, and 
 
 let us fly under them. Be Thou our glory ; let us be loved for 
 
 Thee, and Thy word feared in us. Who would be praised of 
 
 men, when Thou blamest, will not be defended of men, 
 
 when Thou judgest ; nor delivered, when Thou condemnest. 
 
 Ps 9 29. But when — ^not the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, 
 
 Vulg. nor he blessed who doth ungodlily, but — a man is praised for 
 
 ' some gift which Thou hast given him, and he rejoices more 
 
 at the praise for himself than that he hath the gift for which 
 
 he is praised, he also is praised, while Thou dispraisest; and 
 
 better is he who praised than he who is praised. For the 
 
 one took pleasure in the gift of God in man ; the other was 
 
 better pleased with the gift of man, than of God. 
 
 [XXXVII.] 60. By these temptations we are assailed 
 
 daily, Lord ; without ceasing are we assailed. Our daily 
 
 Vro\.ii furnace is the tongue of men. And in this way also Thou 
 
 ^'" commandest us continence. Give what Thou enjoinest, and 
 
Praise not to be avoided. 217 
 
 enjoin what Thou wilt. Thou knoweston this matter the groans 
 of my heart, and the floods of mine eyes. For I cannot learn 
 how far I am more cleansed from this plague, and I much 
 fear my secret sins, which Thine eyes know, mine do not. Ps. 19, 
 For in other kinds of temptations I have some sort of means ' 
 for examining myself; in this, scarce any. For, in refraining 
 my mind from the pleasures of the flesh, and idle curiosity, 
 I see how much I have attained to, when I do without them ; 
 foregoing, or not having them""- For then I ask myself 
 how much more or less troublesome it is to me, not to have 
 them ? Then, riches, which are desired, that they may serve 
 to some one or two or all of the three concupiscences", if the l John 
 soul cannot discern, whether, when it hath them, it despiseth ' 
 them, they may be cast aside, that so it may prove itself But 
 to be without praise, and therein essay our powers, must we 
 live ill, yea so abandonedly and atrociously, that no one should 
 know without detesting us? What greater madness can be 
 said, or thought of? But if praise useth and ought to accom- 
 pany a good life and good works, we ought as little to forego 
 its company, as good life itself. Yet I know not, whether I 
 can well or ill be without any thing, unless it be absent. 
 
 61. What then do I confess unto Thee in this kind of 
 temptation, O Lord? What, but that I am delighted with 
 praise, but with truth itself, more than with praise? For 
 were it proposed to me, whether I would, being phrenzied in 
 error on all things, be praised by all men, or being consistent 
 and most settled in the truth be blamed by all, I see which I 
 should choose. Yet fain would I, that the approbation of 
 another should not even increase my joy for any good in me. 
 Yet I own, it doth increase it, and not so only, but dispraise 
 doth diminish it. And when I am troubled at this my 
 misery, an excuse occurs to me, which of what value it is, 
 Thou God knowest, for it leaves me uncertain. For since 
 Thou hast commanded us not continency alone, that is, from 
 
 ■" " A man who makes progress amid we love them not; but when they begin 
 prosperity, by adversity learns what pro- to depart, then we discover what sort of 
 gress he has made. For when he has persons we are. For on that we set not 
 an abundance of these psissing goods, he our heart, when present, which we part 
 trusts not in them; but when they are from without sorrow." Aug. de Vera Re- 
 withdrawn, he recognizes whether they lig. c. 47. 
 
 have not taken hold of him. For gene- " See above, e. 30. beg. and not. a, 
 
 rally, when we have them, we think that p. 205. 
 
218 Occasions of self-deceit in estimaling love of praise. 
 
 CONF. what things to refrain our love, but righteousness also, that is, 
 — : — '- whereon to bestow it, and hast willed us to love not Thee 
 only, but our neighbour also ; often, when pleased with 
 intelligent praise, I seem to myself to be pleased with the 
 proficiency or towardliness of my neighbour, or to be grieved 
 for evil in him, when I hear him dispraise either what he 
 understands not, or is good. For sometimes I am grieved 
 at my own praise, either when those things be praised in me, 
 in which I mislike myself, or even lesser and slight goods are 
 more esteemed, than they ought. But again how know I 
 whether I am therefore thus affected, because I would not 
 have him who praiseth me, differ from me about myself j not 
 as being influenced by concern for him, but because those 
 same good things which please me in myself, please me more 
 when they please another also? For some how I am not 
 praised when my judgment of myself is not praised; for- 
 asmuch as either those things are praised, which displease 
 me ; or those more, which please me less. Am I then doubtful 
 of myself in this matter ? 
 
 62. Behold, in Thee, O Truth, I see, that I ought not to be 
 moved at my own praises, for my own sake, but for the good 
 of my neighbour". And whether it be so with me, I know 
 not. For herein I know less of myself, than of Thee'". I 
 beseech now, O my God, discover to me myself also, that I 
 may confess unto my brethren, who are to pray for me, 
 wherein I find myself maimed. Let me examine myself 
 again more dUigently. If in my praise I am moved with the 
 good of my neighbour, why am I less moved if another be 
 unjustly dispraised than if it be myself? Why am I more 
 stung by reproach cast upon myself, than at that cast upon 
 another, with the same injustice, before me? Know I not 
 
 "" For the praise of man ought not to not a pleasure. But praise from well- 
 be desired by a well-doer, but to follow livers, should I say, I mislike it, I lie ; 
 him, that they may profit who can imitate should I say , I like it, I fear lest I should 
 also what they praise, not that he should be more desirous of unrealities than of 
 think that he had any advantage, whom reality. What shall I say then ? I neither 
 they praise." Aug. de Serm. Dom. in wholly lite, nor wholly dislike it : — not 
 Monte, 1. ii. c. 2. " He knoweth, in wholly like, lest I be endangered by 
 Whose Presence I speak, yea, in Whose the praise of man ; not whoUy mislike, 
 Presence I think, that I take not so much lest they to whom I preach should be 
 pleasure in popular praises, as I feel ungrateful." Aug. Serm. 338 in die 
 anxious and harassed how they live, who ordinat. suae, §. 1. 
 praise me. For to be praised by ill-livers, P See above, u. 6. 
 Imislike, abhor, detest ; itis a grief to me, 
 
Contempt of praise often vain. 219 
 
 this also? or is it at last that I deceive myself, and do notGal.6,3. 
 the truth before Thee in my heart and tongue ? This mad- } g " 
 ness put far from me, O Lord, lest mine own mouth be to me 
 the sinner's oil to make fat my head. I am poor and needy; Ps. 141, 
 yet best, while in hidden groanings I displease myself, and seek " 
 Thy mercy, until what is lacking in my defective state be 22. 
 renewed and perfected, on to that peace which the eye of the 
 proud knoweth not. 
 
 [XXXVIII.] 63. Yet the word, which cometh out of the 
 mouth, and deeds known to men, bring with them a most 
 dangerous temptation through the love of praise : which, to 
 establish a certain excellency of our own, solicits and col- 
 lects men's suffrages. It tempts, even when it is reproved 
 by myself in myself, on the very ground that it is reproved ; 
 and often glories more vainly of the very contempt of vain 
 glory ; and so it is no longer contempt of vain-glory, whereof 
 it glories ; for it doth not contemn when it glorieth. 
 
 [XXXIX.] 64. Within also, within is another evil, arising 
 out of a like temptation; vrhereby men become vain, pleasing 
 themselves in themselves, though they please not, or dis- 
 please, or care not to please others. But pleasing them- 
 selves, they much displease Thee, not only taking pleasure in 
 things not good, as if good, but in Thy good things, as though 
 their own''; or even if as thine, yet as though for their own 
 merits ; or even if as though from Thy grace, yet not with 
 brotherly rejoicing, but envying that grace to others. In all 
 these and the like perils and travails. Thou seest the trem- 
 bling of my heart ; and I rather feel my wounds to be cured 
 by Thee, than not inflicted by me. 
 
 [XL.] 65. Where hast Thou not walked with me, G Truth, 
 teaching me what to beware, and what to desire; when I 
 referred to Thee what I could discover here below, and con- 
 sulted Thee? With my outward senses, as I might, I sur- 
 veyed the world, and observed the life, which my body hath 
 
 1 " Whoso, with true piety, believes Ing, he ascribes to no other than His 
 
 ^d hopes in God, Whom. he loves, re- mercy Whom he feareth to displease, 
 
 gards more those things in which he is giving thanks that the one has been 
 
 displeased with himself, than (hose, if healed, making supplication that the 
 
 there he such in him, which do not so other may be healed." Aug. de Civ. 
 
 much please him, as the Truth. And Dei, 1. v. c. 20. 
 that, wherein he now is capable of pleas" 
 
220 God nothing which we can discern, but reveals Himself. 
 
 CONF. from me, and these my senses. Thence entered I the recesses 
 '- of my memory, those manifold and spacious chambers, wonder- 
 fully furnished with innumerable stores; and I considered, 
 and stood aghast; being able to discern nothing of these 
 things without Thee, and finding none of them to be Thee. 
 Nor was I myself, who found out these things, who went 
 over them all, and laboured to distinguish and to value every 
 thing according to its dignity, taking some things upon the 
 report of my senses, questioning about others which I felt to be 
 mingled with myself, numbering and distinguishing the report- 
 ers themselves, and in the large treasure-house of my memory, 
 revolving some things, storing up others, drawing out others. 
 Nor yet was I myself when I did this, i. e. that my power where- 
 by I did it, neither was it Thou, for Thou art the abiding 
 light, which I consulted concerning all these, whether they 
 were, what they were, and how to be valued; and I heard 
 Thee directing and commanding me; and this I often do, 
 this delights me, and as far as I may be freed from neces- 
 sary duties, unto this pleasure have I recourse. Nor in all 
 these which 1 run over consulting Thee, can I find any safe 
 place for my soul, but in Thee; whither my scattered'' 
 members may be gathered, and nothing of me depart from 
 Thee. And sometimes Thou admittest me to an affection, 
 very unusual, in my inmost soul ; rising to a strange sweet- 
 ness, which if it were perfected in me, I know not what 
 in it would not belong to the life to come. But through 
 my miserable encumbrances I sink down again into these 
 lower things, and am swept back by former custom, and am 
 held, and greatly weep, but am greatly held. So much doth 
 the burthen of a bad custom weigh us down. Here I can 
 stay, but would not ; there I would, but cannot ; both wa;ys, 
 miserable. 
 
 [XLI.] GQ. Thus then have I considered the sicknesses of 
 my sins in that threefold concupiscence", and have called 
 Thy right hand to my help. For with a wounded heart have 
 
 ' "Long hast thou (0 soul) lived whom it ha« for its Author." Aug.inPs. 
 
 absorbed, and lashed by various and dis- 145. §. S. vid. sup. 1. ix. §. 10. etinf. 
 
 cordant longings, thou bearest the marks 1. xi. c. 29. 
 
 of thy wounds, distracted amid many ' See above, c. 30. beg. and not. », 
 
 loves. Gather thee up to thyself; what- p. 205. 
 ever from without pleases thee, seek 
 
The Mediator between God and man, must be Oodandman. 22 1 
 
 I beheld Thy brightness, and sUicken back I said, " who can p,. 31, 
 attain thither? I am cast away from the sight of Thine eyes."^"^- 
 Thou art the Truth who presidest over all, but I through my 
 covetousness', would not indeed forego Thee, but would with 
 Thee possess a lie; as no man would in such wise speak 
 falsely, as himself to be ignorant of the truth. So then I lost 
 Thee, because Thou vouchsafest not to be possessed with a 
 lie. 
 
 [XLII.] 67. Whom could I find to reconcile me to Thee ? 
 was I to have recourse to Angels? by what prayers? by 
 what sacraments ? Many endeavouring to return unto Thee, 
 and of themselves unable, have, as I hear, tried this, and 
 fallen into the desire of curious visions, and been accounted 
 worthy to be deluded. For they, being high minded, sought 
 Thee by the pride of learning, swelling out rather, than 
 smiting upon, their breasts, and so by the agreement of their 
 heart, drew unto themselves the princes of the air, the fellow- Eph. 2, 
 conspirators of their pride, by whom, through magical influ- * 
 ences, they were deceived, seeking a mediator, by whom 
 they might be purged, and there was none. For the devil it 
 was, transforming himself into an Angel of light. And it 2 Cor. 
 much enticed proud flesh, that he had no body of flesh. ' 
 For they were mortal, and sinners ; but Thou, Lord, to whom 
 they proudly sought to be reconciled, art immortal, and with- 
 out sin. But a mediator between God and man, must have 
 something like to God, something like to men ; lest being in 
 both like to man, he should be far firom God : or if in both 
 like God, too unlike man : and so not be a mediator. That 
 deceitful mediator then, by whom in Thy secret judgments 
 pride deserved to be deluded, hath one thing in common 
 with man, that is sin ; another, he would seem to have in 
 common with God ; and not being clothed with the mortality 
 
 of flesh °, would vaunt himself to be immortal. But since the Rom. 6, 
 
 20 
 wages of sin is death, this hath he in common with men, that ' 
 
 with them he should be condemned to death. 
 
 [XLIII.] 68. But the true Mediator, Whom in Thy secret 
 
 ' See above, iii. k. 8. v. fin. the more proudly, for not having ; and 
 
 " " That true and benevolent Medi- promised to miserable man a delusive 
 
 ator, shewed Himself to mortals in that aid, as if immortals to mortals." Aug. de 
 
 mortal nature, which those malevolent Civ. Dei, x. 24. 
 
 and deceiving mediators, bore themselves 
 
222 Greai and opposite mercies in the Atonement. 
 
 CONF. mercy Thou hast shewed to the humble, and sentest, that by 
 -^. — '- His example also they might learn that same humility, that 
 2, 5. " Mediator hetween God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, 
 appeared betwixt mortal sinners and the immortal Just One ; 
 mortal with men, just with God : that because the wages of 
 righteousness is life and peace, He might by a righteousness 
 conjoined with God, make void that death of sinners, now made 
 righteous, which He willed to have in common with them. 
 Hence He was shewed forth to holy men of old ; that so they, 
 through faith in His Passion to come, as we through faith of 
 it passed, might be saved. For as Man, He was a Mediator ; 
 but as the Word, not in the middle between God and man, 
 because equal to God, and God with God, and together one 
 God. 
 Kom. 8, 69. How hast Thou loved us ', good Father, who sparedst 
 not Thine only Son, hut deliveredst Him up for us ungodly ! 
 Phil. 2, How hast Thou loved us, for whom, He that thought it no 
 ' ' robbery to be equal with Tliee, was made subject even to the 
 FsM,5. death of the cross, He alone free among the dead', having 
 Johnio, power to lay down His life, and power to take it again : for 
 us to Thee both Victor and Victim, and therefore Victor, 
 because the Victim ; for us to Thee Priest and Sacrifice, and 
 therefore Priest because the Sacrifice ; making us to Thee, of 
 servants, sons, by being bom of Thee, and serving us. Well 
 Ps. 103, then is my hope strong in Him, that Thou wilt heal all my 
 Rom 8 infi/rmiti^s, by Him Who sitteth at Thy right hand and 
 34. maketh intercession for us ; else should I despair. For many 
 and great are my infirmities, many they are, and great; 
 but Thy medicine is mightier. We might imagine that Thy 
 Word was far Irom any union with man, and despair of our- 
 john 1, selves, unless He had been made flesh and dwelt among us.' 
 
 * " He who made man ofthe dust, and person of the Lord appears. For who 
 
 breathed life into him, and for that His besides was ' free among the dead,' but 
 
 creature gave His Only-Begotten to He Who, ' in the likeness of sinfalflesh,' 
 
 death, how much He loves us, who can among sinners was alone ' without sin ?' 
 
 speak, who can even worthily think.!"' He then was ' free among the dead,' 
 
 Aug. Serm. 57. u. 13. " Moreover, Who had power to lay down His life, 
 
 man was to be persuaded how much God and to take it again, from ' Whom no one 
 
 loved us, and as what, He loved us ; how took it, but He laid it down of Himself,' 
 
 much, lest we should despair, as what, Who also could raise up His flesh, as the 
 
 lest we should be proud." Id. de Trin. ' Temple, destroyed' by them ; whenHe 
 
 1. iv. c. 1 . willed, Who, &c." Aug. in Ps. 87. §. 6. 
 
 y " In these words especially, the See above, p. 180. n. y. on 1. ix. |. 36. 
 
Aug. forbidden hy God io retire from the world. 223 
 
 70. Affrighted with my sins and the burthen of my misery, 
 I had cast in my heart, and had purposed to^ee to the wilder- Ps. 55, 
 ness : but Thou forbaddest me, and strengthenedst me, saying, ''' 
 Therefore Christ died for all, that they which live may now "i Cor. 5, 
 no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for ^^' 
 them. See, Lord, I cast my care upon Tliee, that 1 may live, Ps. 55, 
 and consider wondrous things out of Thy law. Thou knowest ^^' 
 my unskilfulness, and my infirmities; teach me, and heal me. is! 
 He Thine only Son, in Whom are hid all the treasures of Co\.2,3. 
 wisdom and knowledge, hath redeemed me with His blood. 
 Let not the proud speak evil of me; because I meditate onps. 119, 
 my ransom, and eat and drink, and communicate it; and'?f- 
 poor, desired to be satisfied from Him, amongst those that 
 eat and are satisfied, and they shall praise the Lord who seek Ps. 22 
 Him. 26. 
 
 Ps. H9, 
 
 Here, where Aug. breaks off the ac- 
 count of his life, it may be well to sub- 
 join his own view of that wretched por- 
 tion of it, which preceded his conversion 
 and baptism. This he gives incidentally 
 in answer to the Donatists, who, affect- 
 ing great purity of discipline, would 
 fain have undervalued his defences of 
 the Faith on account of his sins, when 
 he ag yet belonged not to the Faith, 
 being a heretic and unbaptized. (Serm. 
 3. in Ps. 36. §. 19.) " Let them speak 
 then against us what they will ; we will 
 love them, though against their will. 
 For we know, brethren, we know their 
 speeches ; for which let us not be angry 
 with them; bear it patiently with us. 
 For they see that they have nothing to 
 allege in the matter itself; so they turn 
 their speeches against us, and begin to 
 speak evil of us, many things which 
 they know, many which they know not. 
 For we were once, as the Apostle saith, 
 ' foolish and unbelieving, and to every 
 good work reprobate.' We were foolish 
 and phrensied in a perverse error, we 
 deny it not ; and in proportion as we 
 deny not what has past in us, do we the 
 more praise God, Who hath forgiven us. 
 Why then dost thou, after the manner of 
 heretics, leave the matter, and betake 
 thyself to the person ? For what am 1 ? 
 What am I .» Am I the Catholic Church ? 
 
 Am I the heritage of Christ diffused 
 throughout all nations ? Enough for me, 
 that I am in it. Thou revilest my past 
 ills ; what great thing dost thou herein p 
 I am severer against my ills, than thou; 
 what thou revilest, I have condemned. 
 Would thou wouldest imitate me, and 
 thy error also might becomepast! Those 
 are pa«t ills, which they know of espe- 
 cially in this city. [Carthage. See b. iii.] 
 For here we lived ill, which I confess ; 
 and in proportion as I rejoice in the 
 grace of God, so do I for my past sins — 
 what shall I say." — grieve P I should 
 grieve, were it still T. But what shall 
 I say? joyp Neither can I say this; 
 for would I had never been ? Yet what- 
 soever I have been, in the Name of 
 Christ, it is past. But what they now 
 censure, they know not. For there are 
 things for which they may yet blame 
 me, but it is too much for them to know 
 these. For I do toil much in my 
 thoughts, struggling against my evil 
 suggestions, and having lasting and al- 
 most continual conflict with the tempta- 
 tions of the enemy, who would subvert 
 me. I groan to God in my infirmity ; 
 and He knoweth what my heart labour- 
 eth with, Who knoweth what it bringeth 
 forth. ' But to me it is a very small 
 thing that I he judged by you, or of 
 man's judgment,' saith the Apostle, 
 
224 Aug?s answer to those who reviled him for his early life. 
 
 ' yea, I judge not my own self.' For I 
 know myself better than they, and God 
 better than myself. Let them not then 
 reproach you on our account, let them 
 not, Christ forbid ! For they say, ' And 
 who are they ? and whence are they P 
 we knew them evil here ; where were 
 they baptized P' If they knew us well, 
 they know that once we sailed hence ; 
 they know that we tarried in a foreign 
 
 land; they know that we went and re- 
 turned, different men. We were not 
 baptized here ; but the Church, where 
 we were baptized, is known to the whole 
 world. And there are many of our 
 brethren, who both know that we were 
 baptized, and were baptized with us. 
 It is easy then to know this, if any of 
 the brethren are concerned on this ac- 
 count." 
 
THE ELEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug. breaks oif 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. 
 
 [I.] 1. Lord, since eternity is Thine, art Thou ignorant of 
 what I say to Thee ? or dost Thou see in time, what passeth 
 in time ? Why then do I lay in order before Thee so many 
 relations ? Not, of a truth, that Thou mightest learn them 
 through me, but to stir up mine own and my readers' devotions 
 towards Thee, that we may all say, Great is the Lord, andPsMA- 
 greatly to be praised. I have said already, and again will say, 
 for love of Thy love do I this. For we pray also, and yet 
 Truth hath said, Tour Father knoweth what you have need of. Mat. 6, 
 before you ask. It is then our affections which we lay open ' 
 unto Thee, confessing our own miseries, and Thy mercies 
 upon us, that Thou mayest free us wholly, since Thou hast 
 begun, that we may cease to be wretched in ourselves, and be 
 blessed in Thee ; seeing Thou hast called us, to become poor Mat. s, 
 in spirit, and meek, and mourners, and hungering and athirsl 
 after righteousness, and merciful, and pure in heart, and 
 peace-makers. See, I have told Thee many things, as I could 
 and as I would, because Thou first wouldest that I should 
 confess unto Thee, my Lord God. For Thou art good, for V^. 118, 
 Thy mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 [II.] 2. But how shall I suffice with the tongue of my pen 
 to utter all Thy exhortations, and all Thy terrors, and com- 
 forts, and guidances, whereby Thou broughtest me to preach 
 Thy Word, and dispense Thy Sacrament" to Thy people t 
 
 " S. Aug. says a little on his Ordina^ 126 ad Albinam, §. 7. and on his Epis- 
 tion, to which he was brought against his copate, Ep. 31. ad Paulinom et Thera- 
 *ill, in the Ep. 21. ad Valeriunij and siam: bespeaks somewhat more fully as 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 Aug.^s dread of the Episcopate. 
 
 CONF. And if I suffice to utler them in order, the drops '' of time ai'e 
 
 B XI • • • 
 
 — ' precious with me ; and long have I burned to meditate in Thy 
 
 law, and therein to confess to Thee my skill and unskilfulness, 
 the day-break of Thy enlightening, and the remnants of my 
 darkness, until infirmity be swallowed up by strength. And 
 I would not have aught besides steal away those hours which 
 I find free from the necessities of refreshing my body and the 
 powers of my mind, and of the service which we owe to men", 
 or which though we owe not, we yet pay. 
 
 3. O Lord my God, give ear unto my prayer, and let Thy 
 mercy hearken unto my desire : because it is anxious not for 
 myself alone, but would serve brotherly charity ; and Thou 
 seest my heart, that so it is. I would sacrifice to Thee the 
 
 to what he did or what happened to him, 
 in asermon preached " lest his character 
 be stained, " on the " life and conversation 
 of his Clergy." S. 355. §. 2. " I, whom, 
 by the grace of God, ye see as your 
 Bishop, came as a- young man to this 
 city, as many of you know. I was look- 
 ing for a place where to form a monastery, 
 to live there with my brethren. For all 
 worldly hopes I had abandoned, and what 
 I might have been, I would not be ; nor 
 yet sought I to be what I am. ' I chose 
 I ather to be cast down in the house of my 
 God, than to dwell in the tents of the 
 ungodly.* I separated me from those 
 who love the world, nor yet did I set 
 myself .with those, who are placed over 
 the people. Norinthe Feast of my Lord 
 did I ' choose the higher place,' but the 
 ' lower' and abject one, and it pleased 
 Him to say to me ' Go up higher.' But 
 so exceedingly did I dread the Episco- 
 pate, that because my reputation had 
 now begun to be of some account among 
 the servants of God, I would not go to 
 any place where I knew there was no 
 Bishop. For I was ware of this, and did 
 what I could, that in a low place I might 
 be saved, lest in a high one I should be 
 perilled. But, as I said, the servant 
 must not oppose his Master. I came to 
 this city to see a friend, whom I thought 
 I might gain to God, that he might five 
 with us in the monastery; Tcameasbeing 
 safe, the place having a Bishop already. 
 I was laid hold of, made a presbyter, and 
 by this step, came to the Episcopacy." 
 He had sold and given to the poor 
 what he calls " his petty little poverty," 
 or his " few paternal acres," (Ep. 126. 
 §. 6.) to live on the common stock, " but 
 our common, yea our large and all-suf- 
 
 ficient support was to he God Himself," 
 (ib.) " vehemently longing after that 
 perfection whereof the Lordspake," Mat. 
 19, 21. and " having determined to be 
 content with such food only as is neces- 
 sary for the health of the body." (de 
 Util. Cred. §. 3.) 
 
 ^ The hour-g'.asses of his time, which 
 went by water. Old Ed. 
 
 c See above b. vi. §. 3. p. 88. §. 15. 
 p. 98. and n. i. and ^ctt. Eccles. 
 S. Aug. Ep. 213. " before mid-day and 
 after mid-day am I involved in the 
 business of men ; &c. and de op. 
 Monach. §. 37. " I call to vritness on my 
 soul the Lord Jesus, in Whose name I 
 speak these things boldly, that as far as 
 relates to my own advantage, I had much 
 rather daily during certain hours (as far 
 as is appointed in well-governed monas- 
 teries) work to a degree with my hands, 
 and have the other hours free for reading 
 and prayer, or composing something outof 
 the Divine Scriptures, than be subject to 
 those most disordered perplexities of 
 others' differences in secular matters, 
 either to be formally decided, or ended 
 by mediation ; to which toils that same 
 Apostle has bound us, and that not by 
 his own will, but by His, who spake by 
 him. I pass by inn amerahle other eccle- 
 siastical toils, which no one perhaps be- 
 lieves, who has not tried. We do not 
 then ' bind heavy burdens, and lay 
 them on your shoulders, which we touch 
 not with a finger,' since if we might, 
 consistently with the nature of our office, 
 (He seeth who trieth our hearts,) we 
 had rather do this, which we exhort you 
 to do, than those things, which ourselves 
 are compelled to do." 
 
Prayer to understand Scripture. 227 
 
 service of my thought and tongue ; do Thou give me, what I 
 may offer Thee. For / am poor and needy, Thou rich to all that Ps.8, 16. 
 call upon Thee ; Who, inaccessible to care, carest for us. Cir-^^"^- 
 cumcise from all rashness and all lying both my inward and Ex'.6,l2. 
 outward lips : let Thy Scriptures be my pure delights : let me 
 not be deceived in them, nor deceive out of them. Lord, 
 hearken and pity, O Lord my God, Light of the bhnd, and 
 Strength of the weak; yea also Light of those that see, and 
 Strength of the strong; hearken unto my soul, and hear it 
 crying out of the depths. For if thine ears be not with us in Ps. 130, 
 the depths also, whither shall we go ? whither cry ? The day is h 
 Thine, and the night is Thine ; at Thy beck the moments flee 16. 
 by. Grant thereof a space for our meditations in the hidden 
 things of Thy law, and close it not against us who knock. For 
 not in vain wouldest Thou have the darksome secrets'* of so 
 many pages written; nor are those forests without their harts' Ps. 29. 
 which retire therein and range and walk ; feed, lie down, and ^°^ *'^' 
 ruminate'. Perfect me, O Lord, and reveal them unto me. 
 Behold, Thy voice is my joy; Thy voice exceedeth the 
 abundance of pleasures. Give what I love : for I do love ; 
 and this hast Thou given : forsake not Thy own gifts, nor 
 despise Thy green herb that thirsteth. Let me confess 
 unto Thee whatsoever 1 shall find in Thy books, and hear the Ps. 26, 
 voice of praise, and drink-in Thee, and meditate onthe wonderful ''• 
 things out of Thy law ; even from the beginning, wherein Tliou 
 tnadest the heaven and the earth, unto the everlasting reigning 
 of Thy holy city with Thee. 
 
 4. Lord, have mercy on me, and hear my desire. For it is 
 not, I deem, of the earth, not of gold and silver, and precious 
 stones, or gorgeous apparel, or honours and offices, or the 
 pleasures of the flesh, or necessaries for the body and for this 
 life of our pilgrimage ; all which shall be added unto those that Mat. 6, 
 seek Thy kingdom and Thy righteousness. Behold, O Lord my ' 
 
 "1 " God has therefove in the Scriptures For the voice of the Lord first perfected 
 
 clothed his mysteries with clouds, that those who subdue and repel the en- 
 
 the love of truth in men might be kindled venomed tongues [in allusion to the re- 
 
 hy (he very difficulty of discovering them, latedenmityofhartsto serpents]. " And 
 
 For if they were such only as were very will lay bare the forests." And then will 
 
 readily understood, truth would neither He lay bare to them the dark depths of 
 
 he earnestly sought after nor found with the Divine hooks and mysteries where 
 
 pleasure." Aug. de Vera Eelig. e. 17. they may feed freely. Aug, ad loc. 
 
 e According to the Old Vers. " The 'See onb. vi. o. 3. 
 voice of the Lord perfecting the harts." 
 
 Q2 
 
228 All wisdom hidden in Christ, to be sought through Him. 
 
 CONF. God, wherein is my desire. Tlie wicked have told me of 
 ^— y^ delights, hut not such as Thy law, O Lord. Behold, wherein is 
 85.Vulg.my desire. Behold, Father, behold, and see and approve; 
 and be it pleasing in the sight of Thy mercy, that I may find 
 grace before Thee, that the inward parts of Thy words be 
 opened to me knocking. I beseech by our Lord Jesus Christ 
 Ps. 80, Thy Son, the Man of Thy right hand, the Son of Man, whom 
 Thou hast established for Thyself, as Thy Mediator and ours, 
 through Whom Thou soughtest us, not seeking Thee, but 
 John 1, soughtest us, that we might seek Thee, — Thy Word, through 
 Whom thou madest all things, and among them, me also ; — 
 Thy Only-Begotten, through Whom Thou calledst to adoption 
 the believing people, and therein me also; — I beseech 
 Rom. 8, Thee by Him, who sitteth at Thy right hand, and intercedeth 
 Col. 2, ttiith Thee for vs, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of 
 ^- wisdom and knowledge. These do I seek in Thy books. Of 
 
 46. ' Him did Moses write ; this saith Himself; this saith the Truth. 
 [HI.] 5. I would hear and understand, how " In the Begin- 
 ning Thou madest the heaven and earth." Moses wrote this, 
 wrote and departed, passed hence from Thee to Thee ; nor is 
 he now before me. For if he were, I would hold him and ask 
 him, and beseech him by Thee to open these things unto me, 
 and would lay the ears of my body to the sounds bursting out 
 of his mouth. And should he speak Hebrew, in vain will it 
 strike on my senses, nor would aught of it touch my mind; but 
 if Latin, I should know what he said.. But whence should I 
 know, whether he spake truth ? Yea, and if I knew this also, 
 should I know it from him ? Truly within me, within, in the 
 chamber of my thoughts. Truth, neither Hebrew, nor Greek, 
 nor Latin, nor barbarian, without organs of voice or tongue, 
 or sound of syllables, would say " It is truth," and I forthwith 
 should say confidently to that man of Thine, " thou sayest 
 truly." Whereas then I cannot enquire of him, Thee, Thee 
 I beseech, O Truth, full of Whom he spake truth. Thee, my 
 God, I beseech, forgive my sins ; and Thou, who gavest him 
 Thy servant to speak these things, give to me also to under- 
 stand them. 
 
 [IV.] 6. Behold, the heavens and the earth are ; they pro- 
 claim that they were created; for they change and vary^- 
 
 8 See above b. vii. c. 11. p. 122. and note r. 
 
The face of creation testifies of a Creator. 229 
 
 Whereas whatsoever hath not been made, and yet is, hath 
 nothing in it, which before it had not; and this it is, to 
 change and vary. They proclaim also, that they made not 
 themselves ; " therefore we are, because we have been made ; 
 we were not therefore, before we were, so as to make ourselves." 
 Now the evidence of the thing, is the voice of the speakers. 
 Thou therefore, Lord, madest them ; who art beautiful, for 
 they are beautiful ; who art good, for they are good ; who Art, 
 for they are ; yet are they not beautiful nor good, nor are they, 
 as Thou their Creator art ; compared with Whom, they are 
 neither beautiful, nor good, nor are. This we know, thanks be 
 to Thee. And our knowledge, compared with Thy knowledge, 
 is ignorance. 
 
 [V.] 7. But how didst Thou make the heaven and the earth ? 
 and what the engine of Thy so mighty fabric ? For it was 
 not as a human artificer, forming one body from another, 
 according to the discretion of his mind, which can in some way 
 invest with such a form, as it seeth in itself by its inward eye". 
 And whence should he be able to do this, unless Thou hadst 
 rdade that mind ? and he invests with a form what already 
 existeth, and hath a being, as clay, or stone, or wood,, or gold, 
 or the like. And whence should they be, hadst not Thou 
 appointed them ? Thou madest the artificer his body. Thou 
 the mind commanding the limbs. Thou the matter whereof he 
 makes any thing ; Thou the apprehension whereby tO take in 
 his art, and see within what he doth without ; Thou the sense 
 of his body, whereby, as by an interpreter, he may from 
 mind to matter, convey that which he doth, and report to his 
 mind what is done ; that it within may consult the truth, 
 which presideth over itself, whether it be well done or no. All 
 these praise Thee, the Creator of all. But how dost Thou make 
 them? how,OGo6.,dxAsiTho\xmakeheavenandearth? Verily, 
 neither in the heaven, nor in the earth, didst Thou make heaven 
 andearth ; nor in the air, or waters, seeing these also belong to 
 the heaven and the earth ; nor in the whole world didst Thou 
 make the whole world ; because there was no place where to 
 make it, before it was made, that it might be. Nor didst Thou 
 hold any thing in Thy hand, whereof to make heaven and 
 earth. Forwhence shouldest Thou have this, which Thou hadst 
 
 h See b. x. §. S3. 
 
230 God speaks to us, in time, else Eternally in His Word. 
 
 CONF. not made, thereof to make any thing ? For what is, but because 
 
 p-^— Thou art ? Therefore Thou spakest, and they were made, and 
 
 9. 6. ' in Thy Word TIiou madest them. 
 
 [VI.] 8. But how didst Thou speak ? In the way that the 
 
 Max.\l, voice came out of the cloud, saying. This is my beloved Son? 
 For that voice passed by and passed away, began and ended ; 
 the syllables sounded and passed away, the second after the 
 first, the third after the second, and so forth in order, until the 
 last after the rest, and silence after the last. Whence it is 
 abundantly clear and plain that the motion of a creature 
 expressed it, itself temporal, serving Thy eternal will. And 
 these Thy words, created for a time, the outward ear reported 
 to the intelligent soul, whose inward ear lay listening to Thy 
 Eternal Word. But she compared these words sounding in 
 time, with that Thy Eternal Word in silence, and said " It is 
 different, far different. These words are far beneath me, 
 nor are they, because they flee and pass away ; but the Word of 
 my Loj-d abideth above vaefor ever." If then in sounding and 
 passing words Thou saidst thai heaven and earth should be made, 
 and so madest heaven and earth, there was a corporeal creature 
 before heaven and earth, by whose motions in time that voice 
 might take his course in time. But there was nought cor- 
 poreal before heaven and earth ; or if there were, surely thou 
 hadst, without such apassing voice, created that, whereofto make 
 this passing voice, by which to say. Let the heaven and the 
 earth be made. For whatsoever that were, whereof such a voice 
 were made, unless by Thee it were made, it could not be at all. 
 By what Word then didst Thou speak, that a body might be 
 made, whereby these words again might be made .? 
 
 Joha 1, [VII.] 9. Thou callest us then to understand the Word, 
 God with Thee God, Which is spoken eternally, and by It are all 
 things spoken eternally. For what was spoken was not spoken 
 successively, one thing concluded that the nextmight be spoken, 
 but all things together and eternally'. Else have we time and 
 change ; and not a true eternity nor true immortality. This 
 I know, O my God, and give thanks. I know, I confess to 
 Thee, O Lord, and with me there knows and blesses Thee, 
 
 ' " For in the Eternal, speaking pro- thing future, as though it were not as 
 perly, there is neither any thing past, yet, but whatsoever is, only is." Aug. 
 as though it had passed away, nor any lib. 83. qusest. qu. 19. 
 
 I. 
 
God knows and says eternally what takes place in time. 231 
 
 whoso is not unthankful to assured Truth. We know, Lord, 
 we know ; since inasmuch as any thing is not which was, and 
 is, which was not, so far forth it dieth and ariseth. Nothing 
 then of Thy Word doth give place or replace, because It is 
 truly immortal and eternal. And therefore unto the Word 
 coetemal with Thee Thou dost at once and eternally say all 
 that Thou dost say ; and whatever Thou sayest shall be made 
 is made ; nor dost Thou make, otherwise than by saying ; and 
 yet are not all things made together, or everlasting, which 
 Thou makest by saying. 
 
 [VIII.] 10. Why, I beseech Thee, O Lord my God ? I see 
 it in a way ; but how to express it, I know not, unless it be, that 
 whatsoever begins to be, and leaves off to be, begins then, and 
 leaves off then, when in Thy eternal Reason it is known, that it 
 ought to begin or leave off; in which Reason nothing beginneth 
 or leaveth off. This is Thy Word, which is also " the Begin- John 8, 
 ning"', because also It speaketh unto us." Thus in the Gospel y^ers. 
 He speaketh through the flesh ; and this sounded outwardly in 
 the ears of men ; that it might be believed and sought in- 
 wardly, and found in the eternal Verity ; where the good and 
 only Master teacheth all His disciples. There, Lord, hear I 
 Thy voice speaking unto me ; because He speaketh unto us. 
 Who leacheth us ; but He that teacheth us not, though He 
 speaketh, to us He speaketh not. Who now teacheth us, but 
 the unchangeable Truth } for even when we are admonished 
 through a changeable creature ; we are but led to the un- 
 changeable Truth ; where we learn truly, while we stand «««? Jo''° 3, 
 hear Him, and rejoice greatly because of the BridegroonCs 
 voice, restoring us to Him, from Whom we are. And there- 
 fore the Beginning, because unless It abided, there should not, 
 when we went astray, be whither to return'. But when we 
 
 I' " He saith ' The Beginning, because voice. ' Therefore' He saith, ' believe me 
 
 also I speakunto you, 'Believe me tobe the to be the Beginning, because that ye may 
 
 Beginning, lest ye die in your sins. For believe, I not only am, but also speai 
 
 as though in what they sedd, ' Who art unto you.' " Aug. ad loc. 
 
 Thou?' they had said no other than, '" Whither should the mind return, to 
 
 ' What shall we believe Thee to be,' become good, but to The Good, when it 
 
 He answereth, ' The Beginning,' i. e. be- loves and desires and obtains It P Whence 
 
 lieve me to be the Beginning. For if the if it turn away again, and become not 
 
 Beginning remained as He is, with the good, thereby, that it doth turn away 
 
 Father, not taking,the form of a servant, from the Good, unless that Good, whence 
 
 or speaUng, as man to man, how should it turns away abode in Itself, it would not 
 
 they believe in Him, since feeble hearts have whither to tum,if itwould amend." 
 
 could not hear the Intelligible Word Aug. de Trin. 1. viii. c. 3. "tt-^Tcn and 
 
 without the intervention of a sensible Principium, signifying " the first Prin- 
 
232 Gleams of Divine Truth — Maniclman cavils. 
 
 CONF. return from error, it is through knowing that we return ; and 
 ~ — '- that we may know, He teacheth lis, because He 'mthe Beginning, 
 and speaking unto us. 
 
 [IX.] 9. In this Beginning, O God, hast Thou made heaven 
 
 and earth, in Thy Word, in Thy Son, in Thy Power, in Thy 
 
 Wisdom, in Thy Tinlh ; wondrously speaking, and wondrously 
 
 making. Who shall comprehend } Who declare it .' What 
 
 is that which gleams through me, and strikes my heart without 
 
 hurting it ; and I shudder and kindle .? I shudder, inasmuch as 
 
 I am unlike it ; I kindle, inasmuch as I am like it. It is 
 
 Wisdom, Wisdom's self which gleameth through me ; severing 
 
 my cloudiness which yet again mantles over me, fainting from 
 
 it, through the darkness which for my punishment gathers 
 
 Ps. 31, upon me. For my strength is brought down in need, so that I 
 
 cannot support my blessings, till Thou, Lord, Who hast been 
 
 Ps. t03, gracious to all mine iniquities, shall heal all my infirmities. 
 
 For Thou shall also redeem my life from corruption, andcrown 
 
 me with loving kindness andtender mercies,andshalt satisfy my 
 
 desire with good things,becausemyyouthshallberenewedlike an 
 
 Rom 8 eagle'' s. For in hope we are saved, wherefore we through patience 
 
 24. 25. laait for Thy promises. Let him that is able, hear Thee 
 
 inwardly discoursing out of Thy oracle : I will boldly cry out, 
 
 Ps. 104 How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, in Wisdom hast Thou 
 
 24. made them all ; and this Wisdom is the Beginning, and in that 
 
 Beginning didst Thou make heaven and earth. 
 
 [X.] 12. Lo are they not full of their old leaven, who say 
 to us, " What was God doing before He made heaven and 
 earth ?" " For if (say they) He were unemployed and 
 wrought not, why does He not also henceforth, and for ever, 
 as He did heretofore? For did any new motion arise, in 
 God, and a new will to make a creature, which He had never 
 before made, how then would that be a true eternity, where 
 there arisetb a will, which was not ? For the will of God is 
 not a creature, but before the creature; seeing nothing could 
 be created, unless the will of the Creator had preceded. The 
 will of God then belongeth to His very Substance. And if 
 aught have arisen in God's Substance, which before was not, 
 that Substance cannot be truly called eternal. But if the will 
 
 oiple" as well as " Beginning" have a corresponding Soriptiiral term, 
 force, which cannot be expressed by our 
 
Time has no relation to Eternity. 233 
 
 of God has been from eternity that the creature should be, 
 why was not the creature from eternity ?" 
 
 [XI.] 13. Who speak thus, do not yet understand Thee, O 
 Wisdom of God, Light of souls, understand not yet how the 
 things be made, which by Thee, and in Thee are made : yet 
 they strive to comprehend things eternal, whilst their heart 
 fluttereth between the motions of things past and to come, 
 and is still unstable. Who shall hold it, and fix it, that it be 
 settled awhile, and awhile catch the glory of that ever-fixed 
 Eternity, and compare it with the times which are never fixed, 
 and see that it cannot be compared ; and that a long time 
 cannot become long, but out of many motions passing by, 
 which cannot be prolonged altogether ; but that in the Eternal 
 nothing passeth, but the whole is present ; whereas no time is 
 all at once present ; and that all time past, is driven on by 
 time to come, and all to come followeth upon the past ; and 
 all past and to come, is created, and flows out of that which 
 is ever present ? Who shall hold the heart of man, that it 
 may stand still, and see how eternity ever still-standing, 
 neither past nor to come, uttereth the times past and to 
 come ? Can my hand do this, or the hand of my mouth by 
 speech bring about a thing so great ?■ 
 
 [XII.] 14. See, I answer him that asketh, " What did God 
 before He made heaven and earth ?" I answer not as one is 
 said to have done memly, (eluding the pressure of the ques- 
 tion,) " He was preparing hell (saith he) for pryers into 
 mysteries." It is one thing to answer enquiries, another to 
 make sport of enquirers. So I answer not ; for rather had I 
 answer, " I know not," what I know not, than so as to raise 
 a laugh at him who asketh deep things and gain praise for one 
 who answereth false things. But I say that Thou, our God, 
 art the Creator of every creature : and if by the name 
 " heaven and earth," every creature be understood ; I boldly 
 say, " that before God made heaven and earth. He did not 
 make any thing. For if He made, what did He make but a 
 creature ? And would I knew whatsoever I desire to know 
 to my profit, as I know, that no creature was made, before 
 there was made any creature. 
 
 [XIII.] 15. But if any excursive brain rove over the 
 images of forepassed times, and wonder that Thou the God 
 
234 Time itself a Creature, therefore not before Creation. 
 
 CONF. Almighty and All-creating and All-supporting, Maker of 
 — — '- heaven and earth, didst for innumerable ages forbear from so 
 great a work, before Thou wouldest make it ; let him awake 
 and consider, that he wonders at false conceits. For whence 
 could innumerable ages pass by, which Thou madest not. 
 Thou the Author and Creator of all ages? or what times 
 should there be, which were not made by Thee"? or how 
 should they pass by, if they never were ? Seeing then Thou 
 art the Creator of all times, if any time was before Thou 
 madest heaven and earth, why say they that Thou didst forego 
 working ? For that very time didst Thou make, nor could 
 times pass by, before Thou madest those times. But if before 
 heaven and earth there was no time, why is it demanded, what 
 Thou then didst ? For there was no " then," when there was 
 no time. 
 
 16. Nor dost Thou by time, precede time : else shouldest 
 Thou not precede all times. But Thou precedest all things 
 past, by the sublimity of an ever-present eternity ; and sur- 
 passest all future because they are future, and when they 
 Ps. 102, come, they shall be past ; but Thou art the Same, and Thy 
 ^' years fail not. Thy years neither come nor go ; whereas ours 
 both come and go, that they all may come. Thy years 
 stand together, because they do stand ; nor are departing 
 thrust -out by coming years, for they pass not away; but 
 ours shall all be, when they shall no more be. Thy years are 
 one day ; and Thy day is not daily, but To-day, seeing Thy To- 
 day gives not place unto to-morrow, for neither doth it replace 
 yesterday. Thy To-day, is Eternity "; therefore didst Thou 
 beget The Coeternal, to whom Thou saidst. This day have I 
 begotten Thee. Thou hast made all things ; and before all 
 times Thou art : neither in any time was time not. 
 
 [XIV.] 17. At no time then hadst Thou not made any 
 thing, 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 
 
 ■» See above b. vii. c. 15. ended by the commencement of the mor- 
 
 " " For where the day neither com- row, it is ever To-day." Aug. Enchir. 
 mences with the end of yesterday, nor is 49. 
 
fVfiat time is, understood practically, not really. 235 
 
 discourse do we mention more familiarly and knowingly, than 
 time ? And, we understand, when we speak of it ; we under- 
 stand 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 j" 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, "Vt hath 
 been long ;" and of the future, " it will be long." O my 
 Lord, my Light, shall not here also Thy Truth mock at man ? 
 For that past time which was long, was it long when it was 
 now past, or when it was yet present ? For then might it 
 be long, when there was, what could be long ; but when past, it 
 was no longer ; wherefore neither could that be long, which 
 was not at all. Let us not then say, " time past hath been 
 long :" for we shall not find, what hath been long, seeing that 
 since it was past, it is no more ; but let us say, " that present 
 time was long ;" because, when it was present, it was long. 
 For it had not yet passed away, so as not to be ; and therefore 
 there was, what could be long ; but after it was past, that 
 ceased also to be long, which ceased to be. 
 
 19. Let us see then, thou soul of man, whether present 
 time can be long : for to thee it is given to feel and to mea- 
 sure length of time. What wilt thou answer me? Are an 
 
236 Time present has no space. 
 
 CONF. hundi-ed years, when present, a long time ? See first, whether 
 ^L^ an hundred years can be prpsent. For if the first of these 
 years be now current, it is present, but -the other ninety and 
 nine are to come, and therefore are not yet, but if the second 
 year be current, one is now past, another present, the rest to 
 come. And so if we assume any middle year of this hundred 
 to be present, all before it, are past ; all after it, to come ; 
 wherefore an hundred years cannot be present. But see at 
 least whether that one which is now current, itself is present ; 
 for if the current month be its first, the rest are to come ; if 
 the second, the first is already past, and the rest are not yet. 
 Therefore, neither is the year now current present ; and if 
 not present as a whole, then is not the year present. For 
 twelve months are a year ; of which whatever be the current 
 month is present; the rest past, or to come. Although 
 neither is that current month present ; but one day only ; the 
 rest being to come, if it be the first; past, if the last; if any 
 of the middle, then amid past and to come. 
 
 20. See how the present time, which alone we found could 
 be called long, is abridged to the length scarce of one day. 
 But let us examine that also ; because neither is one day 
 present as a whole. For it is made up of four and twenty 
 hours of night and day: of which, the first hath the rest 
 to come ; the last hath them past ; and any of the middle 
 hath those before it past, those behind it to come. Yea, that 
 one hour passeth away in flying particles. Whatsoever of it 
 hath flown away, is past ; whatsoever remaineth, is to come. 
 If an instant of time be conceived, which cannot be divided 
 into the smallest particles of moments, that alone is it, which 
 may be called present. Which yet flies with such speed from 
 future to past, as not to be lengthened out with the least 
 stay. For if it be, it is divided into past and future. The 
 present hath no space. Where then is the time, which we 
 may call long ? Is it to come ? Of it we do not say, " it 
 is long ;" because it is not yet, so as to be long ; but we say, 
 " it will be long." When therefore will it be .? For if even 
 then, when it is yet to come, it shall not be long, (because 
 what can be long, as yet is not,) and so it shall then be long, 
 when from future which as yet is not, it shall begin now to be, 
 and have become present, that so there should exist what may 
 
Grounds for thinkivg that time past and presetit do exist. 237 
 
 be long; then does time present cry out in the words above, 
 that it cannot be long. 
 
 [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. 
 
 [XVII.] 22. I ask, Father, I affirm not : O my God, rule 
 and guide me. " Who will tell me that there are not three 
 times, (as we learned when boys, and taught boys,) past, 
 present, and future ; but present only, because those two are 
 not } Or are they also ; and when from future it becometh 
 present, doth it come out of some secret place ; and so, when 
 retiring, from present it becometh past ? For where did they, 
 who foretold things to come, see them, if as yet they be not ? For 
 that which is not, cannot be seen. And they who relate tl^ngs 
 past, could not relate them, if in mind they did not discern 
 them, and if they were not, they could no way be discerned. 
 Things then past and to come are." 
 
 [XVIII.] 23. Permit me, Lord, to seek fm-ther. O my 
 Hope, let not my purpose be confounded. For if times 
 past and to come be, I would know where they be. Which 
 yet if I cannot, yet I know, wherever they be, they are not 
 there as future, or past, but present. For if there also they be 
 future, they are not yet there ; if there also they be past, they 
 are no longer there. Wheresoever then is whatsoever is, it is 
 only as present. Although when past facts are related, there are 
 drawn out of the memory, not the things themselves w^hich are 
 past, but words which, conceived by the images of the things, 
 they, in passing, have through the senses left as traces in the 
 mind. Thus my childhood, which now is not, is in time past, 
 which now is not : but now when I recall its image, and tell of 
 it, I behold it in the present, because it is still in my memory. 
 Whether there be a like cause of foretelling things to come 
 
238 The future present to the mind, hy its signs or causes. 
 
 'fl'xf' ^^^ ' ^^* °^ things which as yet are not, the images may be 
 — — '- perceived before, already existing, I confess, O my God, 
 I know not. This indeed I know, that we generally think 
 before on our future actions, and that that forethinking is 
 present, but the action whereof we forethink is not yet, 
 because it is to come. Which, when we have set upon, and 
 have begun to do what we were forethinking, then shall that 
 action be; because then it is no longer future, but present. 
 
 24. Which way soever then this secret fore-perceiving of 
 things to come be ; that only can be seen, which is. But 
 what now is, is not fiiture, but present. When then things to 
 come are said to be seen, it is not themselves which as yet are 
 not, (that is, which are to be,) but their causes perchance or 
 signs are seen, which already are. Therefore they are not 
 future but present to those who now see that, from which the 
 future, being fore-conceived in the mind, is foretold. Which 
 fore-conceptions again now are ; and those who foretel those 
 things, do behold the conceptions present before them. Let 
 now the numerous variety of things furnish me some example. 
 I behold the day-break, I foreshew, that the sun is about to 
 rise. What I behold, is present ; what I fore-signify, to come ; 
 not the sun, which already is ; but the sun-rising, which is not 
 yet. And yet did I not in my mind imagine the sun-rising it- 
 self, (as now while I speak of it,) I could not foretel it. But 
 neither is that day-break which I discern in the sky, the sun- 
 rising, although it goes before it ; nor that imagination of my 
 mind ; which two are seen now present, that the other which 
 is to be may be foretold. Future things then are not yet : 
 and if they be not yet, they are not : and if they are not, they 
 cannot be seen ; yet foretold they may be from things present, 
 which are already, and are seen. 
 
 [XIX.] 25. Thou then, Ruler of Thy creation, by what 
 way dost Thou teach souls things to come ? For Thou didst 
 teach Thy Prophets. By what way dost Thou, to Whom 
 nothing is to come, teach things to come ; or rather of the 
 future, dost teach things present .? For, what is not, neither 
 Ps. 139, can it be taught. Too far is this way out of my ken : it is too 
 ^' mighty for me, I cannot attain unto it ; but from Thee I can, 
 
 when Thou shalt vouchsafe it, O sweet Light of my hidden 
 eyes. 
 
Past and future only exist in the soul. 239 
 
 [XX.] 26. What now is cleai- 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. And if any should ask 
 me, " How knowest thou ?" I might answer, " I know, that we 
 do measure, nor can we measure things that are not; and 
 things past and to come, are not." But time present how 
 do we measure, seeing it hath no space? It is measured 
 while passing, but when it shall have past, it is not measured ; 
 for there will be nothing to be measured. But whence, by 
 what way, and whither passes it while it is a measuring ? 
 whence, but from the future ? Which way, but through the 
 present ? whither, but into the past ? From that therefore, 
 which is not yet, through that, which hath no space, into that, 
 which now is not. Yet what do we measure, if not time 
 in some space .? For we do not say, single, and double, and 
 triple, and equal, or any other like way that we speak of time^ 
 except of spaces of times. In what space then do we measure 
 time passing ? In the future, whence it passeth through .? 
 But what is not yet, we measure not. Or in the present, 
 by which it passes ? but no space, we do not measure : or 
 in the past, to which it passes ? But neither do we measure 
 that, which now is not. 
 
240 Things apparently plain, great mysteries. 
 
 CONF. [XXII.] 28. My soul is on fire to know this most intricate 
 -^ — -■ enigma. Shut it not up, O Lord my God, good Father ; 
 through Christ I beseech Thee, do not shut up these usual, 
 yet hidden things, from my desire, that it be hindered from 
 ])iercing into them ; but let them dawn through Thy enlight- 
 ening mercy, O Lord. Whom shall I enquire of concerning 
 these things ? and to whom shall I more fruitfully confess my 
 ignorance, than to Thee, to Whom these my studies, so vehe- 
 mently kindled toward Thy Scriptures, are not troublesome ? 
 Give what I love ; for I do love, and this hast Thou given me. 
 Mat. 7, Give, Father, Who truly knowest to give good gifts unto Thy 
 children. Give, because I have taken upon me to know, and 
 Ps. 73, trouble is before me until Thou openest it. By Christ I 
 beseech Thee, in His Name, Holy of holies, let no man dis- 
 Ps.116, turb me. For [believed, and therefore do I speak'. This is 
 Ps". 27 "'y hope, for this do I live, that / may contemplate the 
 *' delights of the Lord. Behold, Thou hast made my days old, 
 ' and they pass away, and how, I know not. And we talk of time, 
 and time, and times, and times, " How long time is it since he 
 said this ;" " how long time since he did this ;" and " how long 
 time since I saw that;" and " this syllable hath double time 
 to that single short syllable." These words we speak, and 
 these we hear, and are understood, and understand. Most 
 manifest and ordinary they are, and the self-same things again 
 are but too deeply hidden, and the discovery of them were 
 new. 
 
 [XXIII.] 29. I heard once from a learned man, that the 
 motions of the sun, moon, and stars, constituted time, and I 
 assented not. For why should not the motions of all bodies 
 rather be times ? Or, if the lights of heaven should cease, 
 and a potter's wheel run round, should there be no time by 
 which we might measure those whirlings, and say, that either 
 it moved with equal pauses, or if it turned sometimes slower, 
 otherwhiles quicker, that some rounds were longer, other 
 shorter ? Or, while we were saying this, should we not also 
 be speaking in time .'' Or, should there in our words be some 
 syllables short, others long, but because those sounded in 
 a shorter time, these in a longer .' God, grant to men to see 
 in a small thing, notices common to things great and small. 
 Gen. 1, The stars and lights of heaven, are also for signs, and for 
 
Tlie motions of the heavenly bodies not time. 241 
 
 seasons, and for years, and for days ; they are ; yet neither 
 should I say, that the going round of that wooden wheel was 
 a day, nor yet he, that it was therefore no time. 
 
 30. I desire to know the force and nature of time, by which 
 we measure the motidns of bodies, and say (for example) this 
 motion is twice as long as that. For I ask. Seeing " day" 
 denotes not the stay only of the sun upon the earth, (ac- 
 cording to which day is one thing, night another;) but 
 also its whole circuit from east to east again; according 
 to which we say, " there passed so many days," the night 
 being included when we say, " so many days," and the nights 
 not reckoned apart; — seeing then a day is completed by 
 the motion of the sun and by his circuit from east to 
 east again, I ask, does the motion alone make the day, or the 
 stay in which that motion is completed, or both ? For if 
 the first be the day; then should we have a day, although 
 the sun should finish that course in so small a space of time, 
 as one hour comes to. If the second, then should not that 
 make a day, if between one sun-rise and another there were 
 but so short a stay, as one hour comes to ; but the sun must 
 go four and twenty times about, to complete one day. If 
 both, then neither could that be called a day, if the sun 
 should run his whole round in the space of one hour; nor 
 that, if, while the sun stood still, so much time should over- 
 pass, as the sun usually makes his whole course in, from 
 morning to morning. I will not therefore now ask, what that 
 is which is called day ; but, what time is, whereby we, mea- 
 suring the circuit of the sun, should say that it was finished in 
 half the time it was wont, if so be it was finished in so small 
 a space as twelve hours ; and comparing both times, should call 
 this a single time, that a double time ; even supposing the sun 
 to run his round from east to east, sometimes in that single, 
 sometimes in that double time. Let no man then tell me, 
 that the motions of the heavenly bodies constitute times, 
 because, when at the prayer of one, the sun had stood still, jos. lo. 
 till he could achieve his victorious battle, the sun stood 
 still, but time went on. For in its own allotted space of 
 time was that battle waged and ended. I perceive time then 
 to be a certain extension. But do I perceive it, or seem 
 to perceive it ? Thou, Light and Truth, wilt shew me. 
 
 K 
 
242 The motions of bodies not time. 
 
 CONF. [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 when a body is moved, I by time measure, 
 how long it moveth, from the time it began to move, until it 
 left off? And if I did not see whence it began ; and it con- 
 tinue to move so that I see not when it ends, I cannot 
 measure, save perchance from the time I began, until I cease 
 to see. And if I look long, I can only pronounce it to be a 
 long time, but not how long ; because when we say " how 
 long," we do it by comparison; as," this is as long as that," or 
 " this twice so long as that," or the like. But when we can 
 mark the distances of the places, whence and whither goeth 
 the body moved, or his parts, if it moved as in a lathe, then 
 can we say precisely, in how much time the motion of that 
 body or his part, from this place unto that, was finished. 
 Seeing therefore the motion of a body is one thing, that by 
 which we measure how long it is, another ; who sees not, 
 which of the two is rather to be called time ? For and if a 
 body be sometimes moved, sometimes stands still, then we 
 measure, not his motion only, but his standing still too by 
 time ; and we say, " it stood still, as much as it moved ;" or 
 " it stood still twice or thrice so long as it moved ;" or any 
 other space which our measuring hath either ascertained, or 
 guessed ; more or less, as we use to say. Time then is not 
 the motion of a body. 
 
 [XXV,] 32. And I confess to Thee, O Lord, that I yet 
 know not what time is, and again I confess unto Thee, O 
 Lord, that I know that 1 speak this in time, and that having 
 long spoken of time, that very " long" is not long, but by the 
 pause of time. How then know I this, seeing I know not what 
 time is ? or is it perchance that I know not how to express 
 what I know ? Woe is me, that do not even know, what 
 I know not. Behold, O my God, before Thee I lie not; but 
 Ps. 18, as I speak, so is my heart. Thou shalt light my candle; 
 '^^' Thou, O Lord my God, wilt enlighten my darkness. 
 
 [XXVI.] 33. Does not my soul most truly confess unto 
 Thee, that I do measure times? Do I then measure, O my 
 God, and know not what I measure ? I measure the motion 
 
Time the protraction of something ; but of what? 243 
 
 of a body in time ; and the time itself do I not measure ? Or 
 covdd I indeed measure the motion of a body how long it 
 were, and in how long space it could come from this place to 
 that, without measuring the time in which it is moved ? This 
 same time then, how do I measure ? do we by a shorter 
 time measure a longer, as by the space of a cubit, the space 
 of a rood f for so indeed we seem by the space of a short 
 syllable, to measure the space of a long syllable, and to say 
 that this is double the other. Thus measure we the spaces 
 of stanzas, by the spaces of the verses, and the spaces of the 
 verses, by the spaces of the feet, and the spaces of the feet, 
 by the spaces of the syllables, and the spaces of long, by the 
 spaces of short syllables ; not measuring by pages, (for then 
 we measure spaces, not times ;) but when we utter the words 
 and they pass by, and we say " it is a long stanza, because 
 composed of so many verses ; long verses, because consisting 
 of so many feet; long feet, because prolonged by so many 
 syllables; a long syllable because double to a short one." 
 But neither do we this way obtain any certain measure of 
 time ; because it may be, that a shorter verse, pronounced 
 more fully, may take up more time than a longer, pronounced 
 hurriedly. And so for a verse, a foot, a syllable. Whence it 
 seemed to me, that time is nothing else than protraction; 
 but of what, I know not; and I marvel, if it be not of the mind 
 itself? For what I beseech Thee, O my God, do I measure, 
 when I say, either indefinitely " this is a longer time than 
 that," or definitely " this is double that .''" That T 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. 
 
 [XXVII.] 34. Courage, my mind, and press on mightily. 
 God is our helper. He made us, and not we ourselves. Press Ps. loo, 
 on where truth begins to dawn. Suppose, now, the voice of ^• 
 a body begins to sound, and does sound, and sounds on, and 
 list, it ceases ; it is silence now, and that voice is past, and is 
 no more a voice. Before it sounded, it was to come, and 
 could not be measured, because as yet it was not, and now 
 it cannot, because it is no longer. Then therefore while it 
 sounded, it might; because there then was what might be 
 
 e2 
 
244 Time cannot properly he measured even by itself. 
 
 CONF. measured. But yet even then it was not at a stay ; for it was 
 
 — : -■ passing on, and passing away. Could it be measured the 
 
 rather, for that? For while passing, it was being extended 
 into some space of time, so that it might be measured, since 
 the present hath no space. If therefore then it might, then, 
 lo, suppose another voice hath begun to sound, and still 
 soundeth in one continued tenor without any interruption ; let 
 us measure it while it sounds; seeing when it hath left 
 sounding, it will then be past, and nothing left to be measured; 
 let us measure it verily, and tell how much it is. But it 
 sounds still, nor can it be measured but from the instant it 
 began in, unto the end it left in. For the very space 
 between is the thing we measure, namely, from some 
 beginning unto some end. Wherefore, a voice that is not 
 yet ended, cannot be measured, so that it may be said how 
 long, or short it is ; nor can it be called equal to another, or 
 double to a single, or the like. But when ended, it no longer 
 is. How may it then be measured 1 And yet we measure 
 times; but yet neither those which are not yet, nor those 
 which no longer are, nor those which are not lengthened out 
 by some pause, nor those which have no bounds. We 
 measiue neither times to come, nor past, nor present, nor 
 passing ; and yet we do measure times. 
 
 35. " Deus Creator omnium," this verse of eight syllables 
 alternates between short and long syllables. The four short 
 then, the first, third, fifth, and seventh, are but single, in 
 respect of the four long, the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth. 
 Every one of these, to every one of those, hath a double time : 
 I pronounce them, report on them, emd find it so, as one's 
 plain sense perceives. By plain sense then, I measure a 
 long syllable by a short, and I sensibly find it to have twice 
 so much ; but when one sounds after the other, if the former 
 be short, the latter long, how shall I detain the short one, and 
 how, measuring, shall I apply it to the long, that I may find 
 this to have twice so much ; seeing the long does not begin 
 to sound, unless the short leaves sounding ? And that very 
 long one do I measure at present, seeing I measure it not till 
 it be ended ? Now his ending is his passing away. What 
 then is it I measure ? where is the short syllable by which I 
 measure? where the long which I measure? Both have 
 
Time, the impression ofthing^s on the mind. 245 
 
 sounded, have flown, passed away, are no more ; and yet I 
 measure, and confidently answer (so far as is presumed on a 
 practised sense) that as to space of time this syllable is but 
 single, that double. And yet I could not do this, unless they 
 were already past and ended. It is not then themselves, 
 which now are not, that I measure, but something in my 
 memory, which there remains fixed. 
 
 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 1 mea- 
 sure, 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 ? For though both voice and tongue be 
 still, yet in thought we go over poems, and verses, and any 
 other discourse, or dimensions of motions, and report as to 
 the spaces of times, how much this is in respect of that, no 
 otherwise than if vocally we did pronounce them. If a man 
 would utter a lengthened sound, and had settled in thought 
 how long it should be, he hath in silence already gone 
 through a space of time, and committing it to memory, begins 
 to utter that speech, which sounds on, until it be brought unto 
 the end proposed. Yea it hath sounded, and will sound ; for 
 so much of it as is finished, hath sounded already, and the 
 rest will sound. And thus passeth it on, until the present 
 intent conveys over the fiiture into the past; the past 
 increasing by the diminution of the future, until by the 
 consumption of the future, all is past. 
 
 [XXVIII.] 37. But how is that future diminished or 
 consumed, which as yet is not ? or how that past increased, 
 which is now no longer, save that in the mind which enacteth 
 this, there be three things done ? For it expects, it considers, 
 it remembers ; that so that which it expecteth, through that 
 which it considereth, passeth into that which it remem- 
 bereth. Who therefore denieth, that things to come are not 
 
240 Length of future and past, only relative to the mind. 
 
 CONF. as yet ? and yet, there is in the mind an expectation of things 
 — : — '- to come. And who denies past things to be now no longer ? 
 and yet is there still in the mind a memory of things past. 
 And who denieth that the present time hath no space, because 
 it passeth away in a moment ? and yet our consideration con- 
 tinueth, through which that which shall be present pro- 
 ceedeth to become absent. It is not then 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 that 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. 
 Ps.63,4. [XXIX.] 39. But because Thy loving kindness is better 
 ^"- 8- than all lives, behold, my life is but a distraction, and Ihy 
 2 ^"° riffht handupheld me, in my Lord the Son of man, the Mediator 
 betwixt Thee, The One, and us many, many' also through 
 Phil. 3 our manifold distractions amid many things, that by Him I 
 13. U. ffiay apprehend in Whom I have been apprehended, and may 
 be re-collected from my old conversation, to follow The One, 
 
 " Before we arrive at the One, we break us off from the One." Aug. Sewn, 
 need many tilings. Let the One extend 25B. c. 6. See below, b. xii. c. 16 and 
 us on, lest the many distend ns, and note. 
 
Time and sense manifold, God and eternity one. 247 
 
 forgetting wfrnt is behind, and not distended but extended, 
 not to things which shall be and shall pass away, but to those 
 things which are before, not distractedly but intently, I follow Pb.26,7. 
 on for the prize of my heavenly calling, where I may hear Ps.27,4. 
 the voice of Thy praise, and contemplate Thy delights, 
 neither to come, nor to pass away. But now are my years Ps. 31, 
 spent in mourning. And Thou, O Lord, art my comfort, my 
 Father everlasting, but I have been severed amid times, 
 whose order I know not ; and my thoughts, even the inmost 
 bowels of my soul, are rent and mangled with tumultuous 
 varieties, until I flow together into Thee, purified and molten 
 by the fire of Thy love. 
 
 tXXX.] 40. And now will I stand, and become firm in 
 Thee, in my mould. 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 V " Or, how came it into His mind to 
 make any thing, having never before made any thing ?" Give 
 tliem, 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, than " 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 Phil. 3, 
 towards those things which are before ; and understand Thee '^" 
 before all times, the eternal Creator of all times, and that no 
 times be coetemal with Thee, nor any creature, even if there 
 be any creature before all times. 
 
 [XXXI.] 41. O Lord my God, what a depth is that recess 
 of Thy mysteries, and how far from it have the consequences 
 of my transgressions cast me! Heal mine eyes, that I may 
 share the joy of Thy light. Certainly, if there be a mind 
 gifted with such vast knowledge and foreknowledge, as to 
 know aU things past and to come, as I know one well-known 
 Psalm, truly that mind is passing wonderful, and fearfully 
 amazing ; in that nothing past, nothing to come in after-ages, 
 
 P " For if eternity and time are rightly creature come into existence, which 
 
 distinguished,inthattime exists not with- should vary somethingby some change?" 
 
 out a varying changeableness.whereas in Aug. de Civ. Dei, b. xi. o. 6. See below, 
 
 eternity ia no change, who seeth not b. xii. u. 29, end. 
 that times could not have been, had no 
 
248 God knows things, not in succession, but eternally. 
 
 CONF.is any more hidden from him, than when I sung that Psalm, 
 
 — ^ '■ was hidden from me what, and how much of it had passed 
 
 away from the beginning, what, and how much there re- 
 mained unto the end. But far be it that Thou the Creator 
 of the Universe, the Creator of souls and bodies, far be it, 
 that Thou shouldest in such wise know all things past and 
 to come. Far, far more wonderfully, and far more mysteri- 
 ously, dost thou know them. For not, as the feelings of one 
 who singeth what he knoweth, or heareth some well-known 
 song, are through expectation of the words to come, and the 
 remembering of those that are past, varied, and his senses 
 divided, — not so doth any thing happen unto Thee, unchange- 
 ably eternal, that is, the eternal"" Creator of minds. Lik^ 
 then as Thou in the Beginning knewest the heaven and the 
 eaHh, without any variety of Thy knowledge, so madest 
 Thou in the Beginning heaven and earth, without any 
 distraction of Thy action. Whoso understandeth, let him 
 confess unto Thee; and whoso understandeth not, let him 
 confess unto Thee. Oh how high art Thou, and yet the 
 Ps. 146, humble in heart are Thy dwelling-place; for Thou raisest 
 up those that are bowed down, and they fall not, whose ele- 
 vation Thou art. 
 
 1 " In God, all things are ordered and posed through the ordered causes of 
 
 fixed ; nor doth He any thing, as ty a things in the unchangeableness of His 
 
 sudden counsel, which He did not from most hidden counsels, whereby each se- 
 
 eternity foreknow that He should do ; but veral thing, which in its appointed time 
 
 in the movements of the creature, which comes to [our] knowledge, He both 
 
 He wonderfully governeth. Himself not makes, when present, and, when future, 
 
 moved in time, in time is said to have had already made." Aug. in Ps. 105,45. 
 
 done, as by a sudden will, what He dis- §. 35. 
 
THE TWELFTH BOOK. 
 
 Aug. proceeds to comment on Gen. 1, 1. and explains the " heaven" to 
 mean that spiritual and incorporeal creation, which cleaves to God 
 uninterjnittingly, always heholding 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 con- 
 cealed in them. 
 
 [I.] 1. My heart, O Lord, touched with the words of Thy 
 holy Scripture, is much busied, amid this poverty of my life. 
 And therefore mosttimes, is the poverty of human understand- 
 ing copious in words, because enquiring hath more to say 
 than discovering, and demanding is longer than obtaining, 
 and our hand that knocks, hath more work to do, than our 
 hand that receives. We hold the promise, who shall make it 
 null ? If God be for us, who can be against us ? Ask, and ye Kom. 8, 
 shall have ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be Matt. 7 
 opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth ; and ^- ^• 
 he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knocketh, shall it 
 be opened. These be Thine own promises : and who need 
 fear to be deceived, when the Truth promiseth ? 
 
 [II.] 2. The lowliness of my tongue confesseth unto Thy 
 Highness, that Thou madest heaven and earth ; this heaven 
 which I see, and this earth that I tread upon, whence is this 
 earth that I bear about me ; Thou madest it. But where is 
 that heaven of heavens, O Lord, which we hear of in the 
 words of the Psalm, The heaven of heavens " are the Lord^s ; Ps. i is, 
 but the earth hath He given to the children of men f Where 
 
 a E. V. "The heaven, even the hea- 4. Deut. 10, 14. 1 Kings 8, 27. Neh. 
 
 vens,"lit."Theheaven.s, heavens." The 9, 6. according to a oonstraotion which 
 
 Targ. however, as well as the J and the Hebrew grammarians often apply ; 
 
 Vulg.regardthewordsa>Oty£=30'ti'n ^^ so, I find, Obad. Sephorno and Ibn 
 
 as equivalent to C=l»a»n 'Oty Ps. 148, Yeehaiah take it. 
 
250 " Earth without form and void," unformed matter. 
 
 CONF. is that heaven which we see not, to which all this which we 
 
 see IS earth ? For this corporeal whole, not being wholly every 
 
 where, hath in such wise received its poi-tion of beauty in 
 these lower parts, whereof the lowest is this our earth ; but 
 to that heaven of heavens, even the heaven of our earth, is 
 but earth : yea both these great bodies, may not absurdly be 
 called earth, to that unknown heaven, which is the Lord's, not 
 the sons' of men. 
 
 [III.] 3. And now this earth was invisible and without 
 form, and there was I know not what depth of abyss, upon 
 which there was no light, because it had no shape. There- 
 fore didst Thou command it to be written, that darkness was 
 upon the face of the deep ; what else than the absence of 
 light'? For had there been light, where should it have been 
 but by being over all, aloft, and enlightening? Where then 
 light was not, what was the presence of darkness, but the 
 absence of light ? Darkness therefore was upon it, because 
 light was not upon it; as where sound is not, there is silence. 
 And what is it to have silence there, but to have no sound 
 there ? Hast not Thou, O Lord, taught this soul, which con- 
 fesseth unto Thee ? Hast not Thou taught me, Lord, that 
 before Thou formedst and diversifiedst this formless matter, 
 there was nothing, neither colour, nor figure, nor body, nor 
 spirit? and yet not altogether nothing; for there was a certain 
 formlessness, without any beauty. 
 
 [IV.] 4. How then should it be called, that it might be in 
 some measure conveyed to those of duller mind, but by some 
 ordinary word ? And what, among all parts of the world can 
 be found nearer to an absolute formlessness, than earth and 
 deep? For, occupying the lowest stage, they are less beau- 
 tiful than the other higher parts are, transparent all and 
 shining. Wherefore then may I not conceive the form- 
 lessness of matter (which Thou hadst created without beauty, 
 whereof to make this beautiful world) to be suitably inti- 
 mated unto men, by the name of earth invisible and without 
 form. 
 
 [V.] 5. So that when thought seeketh what the sense may 
 conceive under this, and saith to itself, " It is no intellectual 
 
 ^ Tacitly opposed to the Manichees, darkness was a self-existent substance, 
 as also much which follows, with whom See Note A. i. and i. b. 
 
His notions of matter, as a Manichcsan. 251 
 
 fonii, as life, or justice ; because it is the matter of bodies ; 
 nor object of sense, because being invisible, and without 
 form, there was in it no object of sight or sense ;" — while 
 man's thought thus saith to itself, it may endeavour either to 
 know it, by being ignorant of it ; or to be ignorant, by know- 
 ing it. 
 
 [VI.] 6. But I, Lord, if I would, by my tongue and my 
 pen, confess unto Thee the whole, whatever Thyself hath 
 taught me of that matter, — ^the name whereof hearing before, 
 and not understanding, when they who understood it not, told 
 me of it, so I conceived ■= of it as having innumerable forms 
 and diverse, and therefore did not conceive it at all, my mind 
 tossed up and down foul and horrible " forms" out of all 
 order, but yet " forms ;" and I called it without form not 
 that it wanted all form, but because it had such as my mind 
 would, if presented to it, turn from, as unwonted and jarring, 
 and human frailness would be troubled at. And still that which 
 I conceived, was without form,not as being deprived of all form, 
 but in comparison of more beautiful forms ; and true reason 
 did persuade me, that I must utterly uncase it of all remnants 
 of form whatsoever, if I would conceive matter absolutely 
 without form ; and I could not ; for sooner could 1 imagine 
 that not to be at all, which should be deprived of all form, 
 than conceive a thing betwixt form and nothing, neither 
 formed, nor nothing, a formless almost nothing. So my 
 mind gave over to question thereupon with my spirit, it being 
 filled with the images of formed bodies, and changing and 
 varying them, as it willed ; and I bent myself to the bodies 
 themselves, and looked more deeply into their changeableness, 
 by which they cease to be what they have been, and begin 
 to be what they were not; and this same shifting from form 
 to form, I suspected to be through a certain formless state "*, 
 not through a mere nothing; yet this I longed to know, 
 not to suspect only. — If then my voice and pen would con- 
 fess unto Thee the whole, whatsoever knots Thou didst open 
 for me in this question, what reader would hold out to take 
 in the whole ? Nor shall my heart for all this cease to give 
 Thee honour, and a song of praise, for those things which it 
 
 ' See above, b. iii. J. 11. and note * See below, e. 8, end. 
 A. §. i. b. 
 
252 Matter not created out of God's Substance. 
 
 CONF. is not able to express. For the changeableness of changeable 
 
 — : things, is itself capable of all those forms, into which these 
 
 changeable things are changed. And this changeableness, 
 what is it ? Is it soul .? Is it body ? Is it that which consti- 
 tuteth soul or body? Might one say, "a nothing something," 
 an " is, is not °," I would say, this were it : and yet in some 
 way was it even then, as being capable of receiving these 
 visible and compound figures. 
 
 [VII.] 7. But whence had it this degree of being, but 
 from Thee, from Whom are all things, so far forth as they 
 are? But so much the further from Thee, as the unliker 
 Thee ; for it is not farness of place. Thou therefore. Lord, 
 Who art not one in one place, and otherwise in another, but 
 the Self-same ', and the Self-same, and the Self-same, Holy, 
 Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, didst in the Beginnuig, 
 which is of Thee, in Thy Wisdom, which was bom of Thine 
 own Substance, create something, and that out of nothing. 
 For Thou createdst heaven and earth; not out of Thyself" ; 
 for so should they have been equal to Thine Only Begotten Son, 
 and thereby to Thee also ; whereas no way were it right that 
 aught should be equal to Thee, which was not of Thee. And 
 aught else besides Thee was there not, whereof Thou mightest 
 create them, O God, One Trinity, aud Trine Unity ; and 
 ' therefore out of nothing didst Thou create heaven and 
 earth; a great thing, and a small thing; for Thou art 
 Almighty and Good, to make all things good, even the great 
 heaven, and the petty earth. Thou wert, and nothing was 
 there besides, out of which Thou createdst heaven and earth ; 
 things of two sorts ; one near Thee, the other near to nothing " ; 
 one, to which Thou alone shouldest be superior ; the other, 
 to which nothing should be inferior. 
 Ps. 115, [VIII.] 8. But that heaven of heavens was for Thyself, 
 O Lord; but the earth which Thou gavest to the sons of men, 
 to be seen and felt, was not such as we now see and feel. 
 For it was invisible, without form, and there was a deep, upon 
 which there was no light ; or, darkness was above the deep, 
 
 « i. e. might one speak of a thing, above, b. iii. §. 10. aud b. iv. §. 26. and 
 
 floating between being and not being. notB A. §. ii. a. 
 
 f See above, 1. ix. §. 11. ^ Because at the first creation, it had 
 
 g Opposed to the Manichees, see no form nor thing in it. [Old Ed.] 
 
Things made " in the Beginning,'' made before all time. 253 
 
 that is, more than in the deep. Because this deep of waters, 
 visible now, hath even in his depths, a light proper for its 
 nature ; perceivable in whatever degree unto the fishes, and 
 creeping things in the bottom of it. But that whole deep 
 was almost nothing, because hitherto it was altogether 
 without form. ; yet there was already that which could be 
 formed. For Thou, Lord, madest the world of a matter 
 without form, which out of nothing, Thou madest next to 
 nothing, thereof to make those great things, which we sons 
 of men wonder at. For very wonderful is this corporeal 
 heaven ; of which firmament between water and water, the 
 second day, after the creation of light. Thou saidst. Let it be 
 made, and it was made. Which firmament Tliou calledst 
 heaven ; the heaven, that is, to this earth and sea, which 
 Thou madest the third day, by giving a visible figure to the 
 formless matter, which Thou madest before all days. For 
 already hadst Thou made both an heaven, before all days ; 
 but that was the heaven of this heaven ; because In the 
 beginning Thou hadst made heaven and earth. But this 
 same earth which Thou madest, was formless matter, because 
 it was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the 
 deep, of which invisible earth and without form, of which 
 formlessness, of which almost nothing, Thou mightest make 
 all these things of which this changeable world consists, but 
 subsists not' ; whose very changeableness appears therein, 
 that times can be observed and numbered in it. For times 
 are made by the alterations of things, while the figures, the 
 matter whereof is the invisible earth aforesaid, are varied and 
 turned. 
 
 [IX.] 9. And therefore the Spirit, the Teacher of Thy 
 servant'', when It recounts Thee to have In the Beginning 
 created heaven and earth, speaks nothing of times, nothing 
 of days. For verily that heaven of heavens which Thou 
 createdst in the Begin?iitig, is some intellectual creature, 
 which, although no ways coeternal unto Thee, the Trinity, 
 yet partaketh of Thy eternity, and doth through the sweetness 
 
 ' Constat, et non constat. S. Aug. between its present and any future forai 
 
 takesoccasionofthe wordtosay, thatin which it may take, " consists and (as 
 
 its full sense it cannot belong to matter, yet) consists not." 
 which has no intrinsic consistency. k Moses. 
 Martin supposes the antithesis to be 
 
254 Time affects only things fallen off from God. 
 
 CONF. of that most happy contemplation of Thyself, strongly restrain 
 
 — : its own changeableness ; and without any fall since its first 
 
 creation, cleaving close unto Thee, is placed beyond all the 
 rolling vicissitude of times. Yea, neither is this very formless- 
 ness of the earth invisible, and without form, numbered among 
 the days. For where no figure nor order is, there does nothing 
 come, or go ; and where this is not, there plainly are no days, 
 nor any vicis^tude of spaces of times. 
 
 [X.] 10. O let the Light, the Truth, the Light of my heart, 
 not mine own darkness, speak unto me. I fell ofi^ into that, 
 and became darkened ; but even thence, even thence I loved 
 Thee. I went astray, and remembered Thee. / heard Thy 
 voice behind me, calling to me to return, and scarcely heard 
 it, through the tumultuousness of the enemies of peace'. 
 And now, behold, I return in distress and panting after Thy 
 fountain. Let no man forbid me ! of this will I drink, and 
 so live. Let me not be mine own life ; fi-om myself T lived 
 ill, death was I to myself; and I revive in Thee. Do Thou 
 speak unto me, do Thou discourse unto me. I have believed 
 Thy Books, and their words be most full of mystery. 
 
 [XI.] 11. Already Thou hast told me with a strong voice, 
 1 Tim. O Lord, in my inner ear, that Thou art eternal. Who only hast 
 immortality" : since Thou canst not be changed as to figure 
 or motion, nor is Thy will altered by times : seeing no will 
 which varies is immortal. This is in Thy sight clear to me, 
 and let it be more and more cleared to me, I beseech Thee ; 
 and in the manifestation thereof, let me with sobriety abide 
 under Thy wings. Thou hast told me also with a strong 
 voice, O Lord, in my inner ear, that Thou hast made all 
 natures and substances, which are not what Thyself is, and 
 yet are ; and that only is not from Thee, which is not, and 
 the motion of the will from Thee who Art, unto that which 
 in a less degree is, because such motion is transgression 
 and sin " ; and that no man's sin doth either hurt Thee, or 
 
 ' The Manichees. Aug. de Trin. 1. xv. $. 7. 
 
 "■ " Nor is it without reason said of " " Ye say that evil is a sort of suh- 
 
 Him, that' He alone hath immortality ;' stance; we,thatitis not a substance, 
 
 for His immortality is truly immortality, but a declension from that which is, to 
 
 in Whose nature there is ' no change.' that which less is." Aug. u. Secundin. 
 
 The true eternity also is the anchange- Man. e. 12. " But the will turned 
 
 able God, without beginning, without away from the unchangeable and uni- 
 
 end ; consequently also incorruptible." versal good, and turned to its own, or 
 
 6, 16. 
 
God's eternity manifest in unchangeableness of holy Angels. 255 
 
 disturb the order of Thy government, first or last °. This is in 
 Thy sight clear unto me, and let it be more and more cleared 
 to me, I beseech Thee ; and in the manifestation thereof, let 
 me with sobriety abide under Thy wings. 
 
 12. Thou hast told me also with a strong voice, in my inner 
 ear, that neither is that creature coeternal unto Thyself, whose 
 happiness Thou only art, and which with a most persevering 
 purity, drawing its nourishment from Thee, doth in no place 
 and at no time put forth its natural mutability ; and. Thyself 
 being ever present with it, unto Whom with its whole affection 
 it keeps itself, having neither future to expect, nor con v eying i* 
 into the past what it remembereth, is neither altered by any 
 change, nor distracted into any times. O blessed creature, 
 if such there be, for cleaving unto Thy Blessedness ; blest in 
 Thee, its eternal Inhabitant and its Enlightener ! Nor do I 
 find by what name I may the rather call the heaven of heavens 
 which is the Lords, than Thine house, which contemplateth 
 Thy delights without any defection of going forth to another; 
 one pure mind, most harmoniously one, by that settled estate 
 
 of peace of holy spirits'", the citizens of Thy city in heavenly Eph. i, 
 places ; far above those heavenly places that we see. ^*'' *"^" 
 
 13. By this may the soul, whose pilgrimage is made long 
 
 and far away, by this may she understand, if she now thirsts Ps.42,2. 
 for Thee, if her tears be now become her bread, while they daily ^' '"■ 
 say unto her. Where is thy God? if she now seeks of Thee one Ps.27,4. 
 thing, and desireth it, that she may dwell in Thy house all 
 the days of her life ; (and what is her life, but Thou ? and 
 what Thy days, but Thy eternity, as Thy years which fail 
 not, because TIiou art ever the same ?) by this then may the 
 soul that is able, understand how far Thou art, above all 
 times, eternal ; seeing Thy house which at no time went into 
 a far country, although it be not coeternal with Thee, yet by 
 continually and unfailingly cleaving unto Thee, suffers no 
 changeableness of times. This is in Thy sight clear unto me, 
 
 some outward or inferior good, sins. It n. x.) passes over into another life, 
 
 turns to its own, when it would he in its which, in comparison of the former, is 
 
 own power ; to an outward, when it death." Id. de Lib. Arb. b. ii. §. 53. See 
 
 strives to know what belongs to others, above, b. vii. o. 16. 
 
 or not to itself; to an inferior, when it ' See above, b. v. u. 2. p. 66. and 
 
 loves the pleasures of the body ; and not. h, c, d. 
 
 thus man, becoming proud, curious, P Above, b. xi. §. 38. below, }. 18. 
 
 fleshly, (see above on b. x. $. 41. p. 205. 1 See below on b. xiii. c. 36. 
 
256 Tlie two extremes of Creation not subject to time. 
 
 CONF. and let it be more and more cleared unto me, I beseech Thee, 
 
 — ■ and in the manifestation thereof, let me with sobriety abide 
 
 under Thy wings. 
 
 14. There is, behold, I know not what formlessness in 
 those changes of these last and lowest creatures: and who 
 shall tell me, (unless such a one as through the emptiness of 
 his own heart, wanders and tosses himself up and down amid 
 his own fancies?) who but such a one would tell me, that 
 if all figure be so wasted and consumed away, that there 
 should only remain that formlessness, through which the thing 
 was changed and turned from one figure to another, that 
 that could exhibit the vicissitudes of times .? For plainly it 
 could not, because, without the variety of motions, there are 
 no times : and no variety, where there is no figure. 
 
 [XII.] 15. These things considered, as much as Thou 
 jyjjjjry-givest, O my God, as much as Thou slirrest me up to knock, 
 7- and as much as Thou openest to me, knocking, two things I 
 
 find that Thou hast made, not within the compass of time, 
 neither of which is coeternal with Thee. One, which is so 
 formed, that without any ceasing of contemplation, without 
 any interval of change, though changeable, yet not changed, 
 it may thoroughly enjoy Thy eternity and unchangeableness; 
 the other which was so formless, that it had not that, which 
 could be changed from one form into another, whether of 
 motion, or of repose, so as to become subject unto time. 
 But this Thou didst not leave thus formless, because before 
 „ , all days, Thou in the Beginning didst create Heaven and 
 2. Earth ; the two things that I spake of. But the Earth was 
 
 invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep- 
 In which words, is the formlessness conveyed unto us, (that 
 such capacities may hereby be drawn on by degrees, as are 
 not able to conceive an utter privation of all form, without 
 yet coming to nothing,) out of which another Heaven might 
 be created, together with a visible and well-formed earth: 
 and the waters diversly ordered, and whatsoever further is in 
 the formation of the world, recorded to have been, not with- 
 out days, created ; and that, as being of such nature, that the 
 successive changes of times may take place in them, as being 
 subject to appointed alterations of motions and of forms '- 
 
 ' See below c. 29, end, and note. 
 
Awful depth of God's words. 257 
 
 [XIII.] 16. This then is what I conceive, O my God, when 
 I hear Thy Scripture saying, Iti the beginning God made 
 Heaven and Earth : and the Earth was invisible and with- 
 out form, and darkness was upon the deep, and not mention- 
 ing what day Thou createdst them ; this is what I conceive, 
 that because of the Heaven of heavens, — that intellectual 
 Heaven, whose Intelligences know all at once, not in part, ] cor. 
 not darkly, not through a glass, but as a whole, in mani- '^' '2- 
 festation, face to face ; not, this thing now, and that thing 
 anon ; but (as I said) know all at once, without any succes- 
 sion of times; — and hecaxiBe oi \he earth invisible and without 
 form, without any succession of times, which succession pre- 
 sents " this thing now, that thing anon ;" because where is 
 no form, there is no distinction of things : — it is, then, on 
 account of these two, a primitive formed, and a primitive 
 formless ; the one, heaven but the Heaven of heaven, the other 
 earth but the earth invisible and without form ; because of 
 these two do I conceive, did Thy Scripture say without 
 mention of days, In the Beginning God created Heaven and 
 Earth. For forthwith it subjoined what earth it spake of; 
 and also, in that the Firmament is recorded to be created 
 the second day, and called Heaven, it conveys to us of which 
 Heaven He before spake, without mention of days. 
 
 [XIV.] 17. Wondrous depth of Thy words ! whose surface, 
 behold ! is before us, inviting to little ones ; yet are they a 
 wondrous depth, O my God, a wondrous depth ! It is awful 
 to look therein ; an awfulness of honour, ^.nd a trembling of 
 love. The enemies" thereof I hate vehemently ; oh that Thou ps. 139 
 wouldest slag them with Thy two-edged sword, that they^'- 
 might no longer be enemies unto it : for so do I love to 6. 
 have them slain unto themselves, that they may live unto 
 
 = The Maniehees, who rejected the whatever to eternity, belongeth to the 
 
 Old Testament, wherefore he wishes that other part of the sword. Our Lord came 
 
 they should be smitten, to their healing, then, bearing a two-edged sword, promis- 
 
 withthe " two-edged sword" of the Old ing things eternal, fulfiUingthoseof time, 
 
 and New Testament. " The Word of For therefore also are they called the 
 
 Crod is the ' two-edged sword.' Whence twoTestaments DothetwoTestaments 
 
 'two-edgedP' It speaketh of things tem- belong to the ' two-edged sword .f" The 
 
 poral, it speaketh of things eternal. In Old Testament promiseth things earthly, 
 
 each it establisheth what it saith, and the New eternal. In both the word of 
 
 whom it striketh, it separateth from the God is found true as a two-edged sword." 
 
 world. Whatever is promised us in time, Aug. in Ps. 149, 6. cf. in Ps. 143, 
 
 belongeth to one part of the sword; 17. 
 
258 God's uill eternal as His substance. 
 
 CONF. Thee. But behold others not fault-finders, but extoUers of 
 2l^-the book of Genesis ; " The Spirit of God," say they, « Who 
 by His servant Moses wrote these things, would not have 
 those words thus understood ; He would not have it under- 
 stood, as thou sayest, but otherwise, as we say." Unto Whom 
 Thyself, O Thou God of us all, being Judge, do I thus answer. 
 [XV.] 1 8. " Will you affirm that to be false, which with a 
 strong x'oice Truth tells me in my inner ear, concerning the 
 Eternity of the Creator, that His substance is no ways changed 
 by time, nor His will separate from His substance? Where- 
 fore He willeth not one thing now, another anon, but 
 once, and at once, and always. He willeth all things that 
 He willeth ; not again and again, nor now this, now that ; 
 nor willeth afterwards, what before He willed not, nor will- 
 eth not, what before He willed ; because such a will is 
 mutable ; and no mutable thing is eternal : but our God is 
 eternal. Again, what He tells me in my inner ear, the 
 expectation c^ things to come becomes sight, when they 
 are come, and this same sight becomes memory, when they 
 be past. Now all thought which thus varies is mutable; 
 and no mutable is eternal : but our God is eternal." These 
 things I infer, and put together, and find that my God, the 
 eternal God, hath not upon any new will made any creature, 
 nor doth His knowledge admit of any thing transitory. 
 " What will ye say then, O ye gainsayers ? Are these things 
 false ?" " No," they say ; " What then .? Is it false, that 
 every nature already formed, or matter capable of form, is 
 not, but fi-om Him Who is supremely good, because He is 
 supremely ?" " Neither do we deny this," say they. " What 
 then ? do you deny this, that there is a certain sublime 
 creature, with so chaste a love cleaving imto the true and 
 truly eternal God, that although not coetemal with Him, yet 
 is it not detached from Him, nor dissolved into the variety 
 and vicissitude of times, but reposeth in the most true con- 
 templation of Him only ?" Because Thou, O God, unto him 
 that loveth Thee so much as Thou commandest, dost shew 
 Thyself, and sufficest him ; and therefore' doth he not de- 
 cline from Thee, nor toward himself. This is the house of 
 
 ' " For since God only is nnehange- angels also are by nature subject to 
 able, it must be confessed, that the change. But through that will, whereby 
 
Wisdom createdbefore time differentfromCreating Wisdom.259 
 
 God", not of earthly mould, nor of any celestial bulk corporeal, 
 but spiritual, and partaker of Thy eternity, because without 
 defection for ever. For Thou hast made it fast for ever and Ps. 148, 
 ever, Thou hast given it a law which it shall not pass. ' 
 Nor yet is it coeternal with Thee, O God, because not without 
 beginning ; for it was made. 
 
 20. For although we find no time before it, for wisdom 'EccW. 
 was created before all things; not that Wisdom which is ' ' 
 altogether equal and coeternal unto Thee, our God, His Father, 
 and by Whom all things were created, and in Whom, as 
 
 the Beginning, Thou createdst heaven and earth ; but that 
 wisdom which is created, that is, the" intellectual nature, 
 which by contemplating the light, is light. For this, though 
 created, is also called wisdom. But what difference there is 
 betwixt the Light which enlighteneth, and which is enlight- 
 ened', so much is there betwixt the Wisdom that createth, and 
 that created; as betwixt the Righteousness which justifieth, 
 and the righteousness which is made by justification. For 
 we also are called Thy righteousness : for so saitli a certain 
 servant of Thine, That we might be made the righteousness 2 Cot. 
 of God in Him. Therefore since a certain created wisdom ' ' 
 was createdbefore all things, the rational and intellectual mind 
 of that chaste city of Thine, owr mother which is above, and is Ga\. 4, 
 
 free and eternal in the heavens; (in what heavens, if not in 
 
 2 Cor. 
 those ihaX praise Thee, the Heaven of heavens? Because this 5, i . 
 
 is also the Heaven of heavens for the Lord;) — though we find no Ps. 148, 
 
 time before it, (because that which hath been created before all 
 
 things, precedeth also the creature of time,) yet is the Eternity 
 
 of the Creator Himself before it, fi:om Whom, being created, 
 
 it took the beginning, not indeed of time, (for time itself was 
 
 not yet,) but of its creation. 
 
 21. Hence it is so of Thee, our God, as to be altogether 
 
 they love G-od rather than themselves, out it, He should not be blessed." Aug. 
 
 they abide firm and stedfast in Him, c. adv. Leg. et Proph. 1. 1. c. 2. 
 and enjoy His Majesty, being mostwiU- ^ Pet. Lombard, lib. sent. 2. dist. 2. 
 
 iugly subjected to Him only." Aug. de aii&rms, that by "Wisdom, Eool. 1, 4. the 
 
 vera Relig. c. 13. Angelsbeunderstood, thewholespiritual 
 
 " " But to His temple, which are all and intellectual nature ; namely, this 
 
 holy beipgs, both angels and men, God highest Heaven, in which the Angels 
 
 so imparteth His indwelling, that they were created, and it by them instantly 
 
 should from Him have good of that sort, filled. [Old Ed.] 
 
 whereby they may he blessed, not He f See on Joh. Tract. xiv.§.2. xxxv. 
 
 from them, a house of such sort, as with- §. 3. and o. Ep. Parmen. 1. ii. c. 14. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 Unchangeahleness of the creature cleaving to the Creator. 
 
 CONF. other than Thou, and not the Self-same*: because though we 
 ' find time neither before it, nor even in it, (it being meet ever 
 
 8. 
 
 to behold Thy face, nor is ever drawn away firom it, wherefore 
 it is not varied by any change,) yet is there in it a liability 
 to change, whence it would wax dart, and chill, but that 
 by a strong affection cleaving unto Thee, like perpetual noon, 
 it shineth and gloweth fi-om Thee. O house most lightsome 
 
 Ps. 26, and delightsome ! I have loved thy beauty, and the place of 
 the habitation of the glory of my Lord, thy builder and 
 possessor. Let my wayfaring sigh after thee ; and I say to 
 Htm that made thee, let Him take possession of me also in 
 
 Ps. 119, thee, seeing He hath made me likewise. / have gone astray 
 ■ like a lost sheep: yet upon the shoulders of my Shepherd, 
 
 5. ' thy builder, hope I to be brought back to thee. 
 
 22. " What say ye to me, O ye gainsayers that I was 
 speaking unto, who yet believe Moses to have been the holy 
 servant of God, and his books the oracles of the Holy Ghost } 
 Is not this house of God, not coetemal indeed with God, yet 
 
 2 Cor. 5, after its measure, eternal in the heavens, where you seek for 
 changes of times in vain, because you will not find them ? 
 
 Ps. 73, For that, to which it is ever good to cleave fast to God, 
 surpasses all extension, and all revolving periods of time." 
 " It is," say they. " What then of all that which my heart 
 loudly uttered unto my God, when inwardly it heard the voice 
 of His praise, what part thereof do you affirm to be false ? 
 Is it that the matter was zeithout form, in which because 
 there was no form, there was no order. But where no order 
 was, there could be no vicissitude of times: and yet this 
 ' almost nothing,' inasmuch as it was not altogether nothing, 
 was from Him certainly, from Whom is whatsoever is, in 
 what degree soever it is." " This also," say they, " do we 
 not deny." 
 
 [XVI.] 23. With these would I now parley a little in Thy 
 presence, O my God, who grant all these things to be true, 
 which Thy Truth whispers unto my soul. For those who deny 
 these things, let them bark and deafen themselves as much as 
 they please ; I will essay to persuade them to quiet, and to open 
 in them a way for Thy word. But if they refuse, and repel 
 
 Ps.28,1. me ; I beseech, O my God, be not Thou silent to me. Speak 
 
 » Against the Manichees, see Note A. §. ii. a. 
 
S. Aug. longings to be wholly gathered unto God. 261 
 
 Thou truly in my heart ; for only Thou so speakest : and I 
 will let them alone blowing upon the dust without, and 
 raising it up into their own eyes : and myself will enter my is. 26, 
 chamber, and sing there a song of loves unto Thee ; groaning ^^' 
 with groanings unutterable, in my wayfaring, and remember- Kom. 
 ing Jerusalem, with heart lifted up towards it, Jerusalem my ' 
 country, Jerusalem my mother, and Thyself that rulest over 
 it, the Enlightener, Father, Guardian, Husband, the pure and 
 strong delight, and solid joy, and all good things unspeakable, 
 yea all at once, because the One Sovereign and true Good. 
 Nor will I be turned away, until Thou gather all that I 
 am, from this dispersed' and disordered estate, into the peace 
 of that our most dear mother, where ihe first-fruits of my 
 spirit^ be already, (whence 1 am ascertained of these things,) 
 and Thou conform and confirm it for ever, O my God, my 
 Mercy. But those who do not affirm all these truths to be 
 false, who honour Thy holy Scripture, set forth by holy Moses, 
 placing it, as we, on the summit of authority to be followed, 
 and do yet contradict me in some thing, I answer thus ; Be 
 Thyself Judge, O our God, between my Confessions and 
 these men's contradictions. 
 
 [XVII.] 24. For they say, " Though these things be true, 
 yet did not Moses intend those two, when, by revelation of 
 the Spirit, he saith. In the beginning God created heaven 
 and earth. He did not under the name of heaven, signify 
 that spiritual or intellectual creature which always beholds 
 the face of God ; nor under the name oi earth, that formless 
 matter. " What then ?" " That man of God," say they, 
 " meant as we say, this declared he by those words." 
 " What ?" " By the name of heaven and earth would he 
 first signify," say they, " universally and compendiously, all 
 this visible world ; so as afterwards by the enumeration of 
 the several days, to arrange in detail, and, as it were, piece 
 by piece, all those things, which it pleased the Holy Ghost 
 thus to enounce. For such were that rude and carnal people 
 to which he spake, that he thought them fit to be entrusted 
 with the knowledge, of such works of God only as were 
 
 ' See above, b. ii. u. 1. b. ix. §. 10, •> See above, b. ix. |. 24. end. below, 
 and nott. b. z. u. 29 and 40, and not. b, xiii. c. 13. 
 h. xi. c. 29. 
 
262 Different interpretations of " Heaven and Earth" 
 
 CONF. visible." They agree, however, that under the words earth 
 
 — 'invisible and without form, and that darksome deep (out of 
 
 which it is subsequently shewn, thall all these visible things 
 which we all know, were made and arranged during those 
 " days") may, not incongruously, be understood of this form- 
 less (first) matter. 
 
 25. What now if another should say, " That this same 
 formlessness and confusedness of matter, was for this reason 
 first conveyed under the name of heaven and earth, because 
 out of it was this visible world with all those natures which 
 most manifestly appear in it, which is ofttimes called by the 
 name of heaven and earth, created and perfected ?" What 
 again if another say, " that invisible and visible nature is 
 not indeed inappropriately called heaven and earth ; and so, 
 that the universal creation, which God made in His Wisdom, 
 that is, in the Beginning, was comprehended under those 
 two words .? Notwithstanding, since all things be made not 
 of the substance of God, but out of nothing, (because they 
 are not the same that God is, and there is a mutable nature 
 in them aU, whether they abide, as doth the eternal house of 
 God, or be changed, as the soul and body of man are:) 
 therefore the common matter of all things visible and in- 
 visible, (as yet unformed though capable of form,) out of which 
 was to be created both heaven and earth, (i. e. the invisible 
 and visible creature when formed,) was entitled by the same 
 names given to the earth invisible and loithout form and the 
 darkness upon the deep, but with this distinction, that by the 
 earth itivisible and imthout form is understood corporeal 
 matter, antecedent to its being qualified by any form ; and 
 by the darkness upon the deep, spiritual matter, before it 
 underwent any restraint of its unlimited fluidness, or received 
 any light firom Wisdom ?" 
 
 26. It yet remains for a man to say, if he will, " that the 
 already perfected and formed natures, visible and invisible, 
 are not signified under the name of heaven and earth, when 
 we read. In the beginning God made heaven and earth, but 
 that the yet unformed commencement of things, the stuff" apt to 
 receive form and making, was called by these names, because 
 therein were" confusedly contained, not as yet distinguished by 
 their qualities and forms, all those things which being now 
 
Truth to be seen in Scripture, but not the same by all. 263 
 
 digested into order, are called Heaven and Earth, the one 
 being the spiritual, the other the corporeal, creation. 
 
 [XVIII.] 27. All which things being heard and well con- 
 sidered, I will not strive about words: for that is profitable 2 Tim. 
 
 2 14 
 
 to nothing, but the subversion of the hearers. But the law is f'Yim. 
 good to edify, if a man use it lawfully : for that the end of it i, 8. 5. 
 is charity, out of a pure heart and good conscience, a-nd faith 
 unfeigned. And well did our Master know, upon which two Matt. 
 commandments He hung all the Law and the Prophets. And ' 
 what doth it prejudice me, O my God, Thou light of my 
 eyes in secret, zealously confessing these things, since divers 
 things may be understood tinder these words which yet are 
 all true, — what, I say, doth it prejudice me, if I think other- 
 wise than another thinketh the writer thought ? All we 
 readers verily strive to trace out and to understand his mean- 
 ing whom we read ; and seeing we believe him to speak truly? 
 we dare not imagine him to have said any thing, which our- 
 selves either know or think to be false. While every man 
 endeavours then to understand in the holy Scriptures, the same 
 as the writer understood, what hurt is it, if a man under- 
 stand what Thou, the light of all true-speaking minds, dost 
 shew him to be true, although he whom he reads, understood 
 not this, seeing he also understood a Truth, though not this 
 truth ? 
 
 [XIX.] 28. For true it is, O Lord, that Thou madest 
 heaven and earth ; and it is true too, that the Beginning is 
 Thy Wisdom, in Which Tliou createdst all : and true again, pg. 194 
 that this visible world hath for its greater parts the heaven"^*- 
 and the earth, which briefly comprise all made and created 
 natures. And true too, that whatsoever is mutable, gives us 
 to understand a certain want of form, whereby it receiveth a 
 form, or is changed, or turned. It is. true, that that is sub- 
 ject to no times, which so cleaveth to the unchangeable Form, 
 as, though subject to change, never to be changed. It is true, 
 that that formlessness which is almost nothing, cannot be 
 subject to the alteration of times. It is true, that that where- 
 of a thing is made, may by a certain mode of speech, be 
 called by the name of the thing made of it; whence that 
 formlessness, whereof heaven and earth were made, might be 
 called heaven and earth. It is true, that of things having 
 
264 Nummary of true but different meanings 
 
 B°xn ^°™' ^^^'^^ ^* ""'^ ^°^ nearer to having no form, than the 
 
 ^ 'earth and the deep. It is true, that not only every created 
 
 and formed thing, but whatsoever is capable of being created 
 1 Cor. 8, and formed. Thou madest, of whom are all things. It is true, 
 that whatsoever is formed out of that which had no form, was 
 unformed before it was formed. 
 
 [XX.] 29. Out of these truths, of which they doubt not 
 whose inward eye Thou hast enabled to see such things, and 
 who unshakenly believe Thy servant Moses to have spoken 
 in the Spirit of truth ;— of all these then, he taketh one, who 
 saith, In the Beginning God made the heaven and the earth, 
 that is, " in His word coeternal with Himself, God made the 
 intelligible and the sensible, or the spiritual and the corporeal 
 creature." He another, that saith, In the Beginning God 
 made heaven and earth ; that is, " in His Word coeternal with 
 Himself, did God make the universal bulk of this corporeal 
 world, together with all those apparent and known creatures, 
 which it containeth." He another, that saith. In the Beginning 
 God made heaven and earth : that is, " in His Word coeternal 
 with Himself, did God make the formless matter' of creatures 
 spiritual and corporeal." He another, that saith, In the Be- 
 ginning God created heaven and earth ; that is, " in His 
 Word coeternal with Himself, did God create the formless 
 matter of the creature corporeal, wherein heaven and earth 
 lay as yet confused, which, being now distinguished and 
 formed, we at this day see in the bulk of this world." He 
 another, who saith, In the Beginning God made heaven and 
 earth, that is, " in the very beginning of creating and work- 
 ing, did God make that formless matter, confusedly containing 
 in itself both heaven and earth ; out of which, being formed, 
 
 <= Under the name "matter," with " a spiritual matter, if such there were, 
 
 regard to " spiritual creatures." Aug. whence the soul was formed," a " quasi- 
 
 designates whatever, although incorpo- matter." de Gen. ad Litt. 1. vil. §. 9. 
 
 real, still is not God, but the workman- 10. " As flesh had a certain matter, 
 
 ship of God; i. e. as has been said, z.e. earth, whence it was formed so as to 
 
 " The creature itself, such as it would be be flesh, so perchance also might the soul 
 
 if not peneti'ated by a light eternal, and — ^before that same nature was formed, 
 
 cleaving to God by that pure and inde- which is called soul, and whose excellence 
 
 fectible love, whereby its natural liability is virtue, its deformity vice — ^have a cer- 
 
 to change is restrained," (Dub. cp. §. 9. tain spiritual matter of its own peculiar 
 
 12. 15. 21. 25. and 33 end.) whence, to sort, as the earth out of which flesh was 
 
 avoid ascribing to it a corporeal cha- formed, was even then something, though 
 
 racter, Aug. calls it elsewhere " a cer- not flesh." 
 tain matter of its own peculiar nature," 
 
of the words in Oen. 1, 1.2. 265 
 
 do they now stand out, and are apparent, with all that is in 
 them." 
 
 [XXI.] 30. And with regard to the understanding of the 
 words following, out of all those truths, he chooses one to 
 himself, who saith, But the earth was invisible, and without 
 form, and darkness was upon the deep ; that is, " that corpo- 
 real thing that God made, was as yet a formless matter of 
 corporeal things, without order, without light." Another he 
 who says, The earth was invisible and without form, and 
 darkness was upon the deep ; that is, " this all, which is called 
 heaven and earth, was still a formless and darksome matter, 
 of which the corporeal heaven and the corporeal earth were 
 to be made, with all things in them, which are known to our 
 corporeal senses." Another he who says. The earth was 
 invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep: 
 that is, " this all, which is called heaven and earth, was still a 
 formless and a darksome matter; out of which was to be 
 made, both that intelligible heaven, otherwhere called the 
 Heaven of heavens, and the earth, that is, the whole corporeal 
 nature, under which name is comprised this corporeal heaven 
 also ; iu a word,, out of which every visible and invisible 
 creature was to be created." Another he who says. The earth 
 was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the 
 deep, " the Scripture did not call that formlessness by the 
 name of heaven and earth ; but that formlessness, saith he, 
 already was, whichhe called the earth invisible without form, 
 and darkness upon the deep ; of which he had before said, 
 that God had made heaven and earth, namely, the spiritual 
 and corporeal creature." Another he who says. The earth 
 was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the 
 deep ; that is, " there already was a certain formless matter, 
 of which the Scripture said before, that God made heaven and. 
 earth ; namely, the whole corporeal bulk of the world, divided 
 into two great parts, upper and lower, with all the common 
 and known creatures in them." 
 
 [XXII.] .31. For should any attempt to dispute against 
 these two last opinions, thus, " If you will not allow, that 
 this formlessness of matter seems to be called by the name 
 of heaven and earth; Ergo, there was something which 
 God had not made, out of which to make heaven and 
 
266 Scripture relates not the creation of all created things. 
 CONF. earth ; for neither hath Scripture told us, that God made this 
 
 "R XTT 
 
 — ' matter, unless we understand it to be signified by the name 
 
 of heaven and earth, or of earth alone, when it is said, In the 
 Beginning God made the heaven and earth ; that so in what 
 follows, and the earth was invisible and without form, 
 (although it pleased Him so to call the formless matter,) 
 we are to understand no other matter, but that which God 
 made, whereof is written above, God made heaven and earths 
 The maintainers of either of those two latter opinions will, 
 upon hearing this, return for answer, " we do not deny this 
 formless matter to be indeed created by God, that God of Whom 
 are all things, very good; for as we affirm that to be a greater 
 good, which is created and formed, so we confess that to be 
 a lesser good which is made capable of creation and form, 
 yet still good. We say however that Scripture hath not set 
 down, that God made this formlessness, as also it hath not many 
 Is. 6, 2. others; as the Clieruhim, and Seraphim, and those which 
 ^^' '^- the Apostle distinctly speaks of. Thrones, Dominions, Prin- 
 16.'' '' cipalities, Poiters. All which that God made, is most 
 apparent. Or if in that which is said. He made heaven and 
 earth, all things be comprehended, what shall we say of the 
 waters, upon which the Spirit of God moved"? For if they 
 be comprised in this word earth ; how then can formless 
 matter be meant in that name of earth, when we see the 
 waters so beautiful ? Or if it be so taken ; why then is it 
 written, that out of the same formlessness, the ^r?w«OTe«< was 
 made, and called heaven ; and that the waters were made, is 
 not written ? For the waters remain not formless and invisible, 
 seeing we behold them flowing in so comely a manner. But 
 if they then received that beauty, when God said. Let the 
 water which is under the firmament be gathered together, 
 that so the gathering together, be itself the forming of them ; 
 what will be answered as to those waters which be above the 
 firmament ? Seeing neither if formless would they have been 
 worthy of so honourable a seat,. nor is it written, by what 
 word they were formed. If then Genesis is silent as to God's 
 making of any thing, which yet that God did make neither 
 sound faith nor well-grounded understanding doubteth, nor 
 again wiU any sober teaching dare to affirm these waters to 
 be coetemal with God, on the ground that we find them to 
 
To see truth in Scripture, one thing, to see the Truth, another. 267 
 
 be mentioned in the book of Genesis, but when they were 
 created, we do not find; why (seeing truth teaches us) should 
 we not understand that formless matter (which this Scripture 
 calls the earth invisible and without form, and darksome deep) 
 to have been created of God out of nothing, and therefore not 
 to be coetemal to Him; notwithstanding this history hath 
 omitted to shew when it was created ?" 
 
 [XXIII.] 32. These things then being heard and perceived, 
 according to the weakness of my capacity, (which I confess 
 unto Thee, O Lord, that knowestit,) two sorts of disagreements 
 I see may arise, when a thing is in words related by true 
 reporters ; one, concerning the truth of the things, the other, 
 concerning the meaning of the relater. For we enquire one 
 way about the making of the creature, what is true ; another 
 way, what Moses, that excellent minister of Thy Faith, 
 would have his reader and hearer understand by those 
 words. For the first sort, away with all those who imagine 
 themselves to know as a truth, what is false; and for this 
 other, away with all them too, which imagine Moses to have 
 written things that be false. But let me be united in Thee, 
 O Lord, with those, and delight myself in Thee, with them 
 that feed on Thy truth, in the largeness of charity, and let us 
 approach together unto the words of Thy book, and seek in 
 them for Thy meaning, through the meaning of Thy servant, 
 by whose pen Thou hast dispensed them. • 
 
 [XXIV.] 33. But which of us shall, among those so 
 many truths, which occur to enquirers in those words, as they 
 are differently understood, so discover that one meaning, as 
 to affirm, " this Moses thought," and " this would he have 
 understood in that history ;" with the same confidence as he 
 would, " this is true," whether Moses thought this or that.'' For 
 behold, O my God, I Thy servant, who have in this book 
 vowed a sacrifice of confession unto Thee, and pray, that by 
 Thy mercy I may pay my vows unto Thee, can I, with the 
 same confidence wherewith I affirm, that in Thy incom- 
 mutable world Thou createdst all things visible and invisible, 
 affirm also, that Moses meant no other than this, when he wrote, 
 In the Beginning God made heaven and earth? No. Because 
 I see not in his mind, that he thought of this when he wrote 
 these things, as I do see it in Thy truth to be certain. For 
 
268 No truth the property of individuals, but error only. 
 
 CONF.he might have his thoughts upon God's commencement of 
 ?:^£i creating, when he said In the hegirming; and by heaven and 
 earth, in this place he might intend no formed and perfected 
 nature whether spiritual or corporeal, but both of them 
 inchoate and as yet formless. For I perceive, that whichsoever 
 of the two had been said, it might have been truly said; but 
 which of the two he thought of in these words, I do not so 
 perceive. Although, whether it were either of these, or any 
 sense beside, (that I have not here mentioned,) which this so 
 great riian saw in his mind, when he uttered these wordsj 
 I doubt not but that he saw it truly, and expressed it 
 aptly. 
 
 [XXV.] 34. Let no man harass me then, by saying, Moses 
 thought not as you say, but as I say : for if he should ask 
 me, " How know you that Moses thought that which you 
 infer out of his words?" I ought to take it in good part", and 
 would answer perchance as I have above, or something more 
 at large, if he were unyielding. But when he saith, " Moses 
 meant not what you say, but whut I say," yet denieth not 
 that which each of us say, may both be true, O my God, life of 
 the poor, in Whose bosom is no contradiction, pour down a 
 softening dew into my heart, that I may patiently bear with 
 such as say this to me, not because they have a divine 
 Spirit, and have seen in the heart of Thy servant what they 
 speak, but because they be proud; not knowing Moses' opinion, 
 but loving their own, not because it is truth, but because it is 
 theirs. Otherwise they would equally lo ve'another true opinion, 
 as I love what they say, when they say true : not because it 
 is theirs, but because it is true ; and on that very ground not 
 theirs because it is true. But if they therefore love it, because 
 
 <• " Inquiries on these subjects, and which may, without detriment to the 
 
 conjectures according to the ability of faith implanted in us, give rise to dififer- 
 
 each, furnish no unprofitable practice to entsenses,letusnothastily castourselves 
 
 the mind, if they be carried on with low- headlong into any one of them, so that, 
 
 liness, free from the error of opiniative- if a more diligent discussion of the truth 
 
 ness, as if men knew certainly whatthey should perchance shake it, our faith 
 
 know not. For to what end, either to should give way, while we contend not 
 
 affirm or deny these or the like things, for the meaning of Divine Scripture, but 
 
 or with risk to pronounce upon them, for our own, and in such wise as to wish 
 
 when without risk we may be ignorant of our meaning to be that of the Scriptures, 
 
 them.'" Aug. Enchir. c. 59. whereas we should rather wish that of 
 
 ° " On obscure subjects, far removed the Scriptures to be ours." Aug. de Gen. 
 
 from our observation, if we read any ad Lit. 1. i. §. 37. 
 thing, even in the Divine Scriptures, 
 
Truihs,in the same Scripture, not to beopposedto each other. '269 
 
 it is true, then is it both theirs, and mine ; as being in common 
 to all lovers of truth. But whereas they contend that Moses 
 did not mean what I say, but what they say, this I like not, 
 love not: for though it were so, yet that their rashness belongs 
 not to knowledge, but to overboldness, and not insight but vanity 
 was its parent. And therefore, O Lord, are Thy judgments 
 terrible ; seeing Thy truth is neither mine, nor his, nor 
 another's ; but belonging to us all, whom Thou callest pub- 
 licly to partake of it, warning us terribly, not to account it 
 private to ourselves, lest we be deprived of it. For whoso- 
 ever challenges that as proper to himself, which Thou pro- 
 poundest to all to enjoy, and would have that his own which 
 belongs to all, is driven from what is in common to his own ; 
 that is, from truth, to a lie. For he that speaketh a lie, John 8, 
 speaketh it of his own. **■ 
 
 35. Hearken, God, Thou best Judge ; Truth Itself, hearken 
 to what I shall say to this gainsayer, hearken, for before Thee do 
 I speak, and before my brethren, who employ Thy law law- 1 Tim. 
 fully, to the end of charity : hearken and behold, if it please ' 
 Thee, what I shall say to him. For this brotherly and 
 peaceful word do I retuna unto Him : " If we both see that 
 to be true that Thou sayest, and both see that to be true that 
 I say, where, I pray Thee, do we see it ? Neither I in thee, 
 nor thou in me ; but both in the unchangeable Truth itself, 
 which is above our souls. Seeing then we strive not about 
 the very light of the Lord our God, why strive we about the 
 thoughts of our neighbour which we cannot so see, as the 
 unchangeable Truth is seen : for that, if Moses himself had 
 appeared to us and said, " This I meant ;" neither so should 
 we see it, but should believe it. Let us not then he puffed up i Cor, 
 for one against another, above that which is written : let ' ^' 
 us love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our 
 soul, and with all our mind : and our neighbour as ourself. 
 With a view to which two precepts of charity, unless we 
 believe that Moses meant, whatsoever in those books he did 
 mean, we shall make God a liar, imagining otherwise of our 
 fellow servant's mind, than He hath taught us. Behold now, 
 how foolish it is, in such abundance of most tiue meanings, as 
 may be extracted out of those words, rashly to affirm, which 
 of them Moses principally meant ; and with pernicious con- 
 
270 Language of Moses iirohahly adapted to convey 
 
 CONF. tentions to offend charity itself, for whose sake he spake 
 
 — -■ every thing, whose words we go about to expound. 
 
 [XXVI.] 36. And yet I, my God, Thou lifter up of my 
 humility, and rest of my labour, Who heai-est my confessions, 
 and forgivest my sins : seeing Thou commandest me to love 
 my neighbour as myself, I cannot believe that Thou gavest a 
 less gift unto Moses Thy faithful servant, than I would wish 
 or desire Thee to have given me, had I been born in the time 
 he was, and hadst Thou set me in that office, that by the service 
 of my heart and tongue those books might be dispensed, 
 which for so long after were to profit all nations, and through 
 the whole world from such an eminence of authority, were to 
 surmount all sayings of false and proud teachings. I should have 
 desired verily, had I then been Moses, (for we all come from the 
 Ps. 8, 8. same lump, and tchat is man, saving that Thou art mindful of 
 him ?) I would then, had I been then what he was, and been 
 enjoined by Thee to write the book of Genesis, have desired 
 such a power of expression and such a style to be given me, 
 that neither they who cannot yet understand how God 
 created, might reject the sayings, as beyond their capacity ; 
 and they who had attained thereto, might find what true 
 opinion soever they had by thought arrived at, not passed over 
 in those few words of that Thy servant : and should another 
 man by the light of truth have discovered another, neither 
 should that fail of being discoverable in those same words. 
 
 [XXVII.] 37. For as a fountain within 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. For some, when they 
 read, or hear these words, conceive that God like a man or 
 some mass endued with unbounded power, by some new and 
 sudden resolution, did, exterior to itself, as it were at a certain 
 distance, create heaven and earth, two great bodies above and 
 below, wherein all things were to be contained. And when 
 
different degrees ofinith, an each is able to bear. 271 
 
 they hear, God said, Let it be made, and it was made ; they 
 conceive of words begun and ended, sounding in time, and 
 passing away ; after whose departure, that came into being, 
 which was commanded so to do ; and whatever of the hke 
 sort, men's acquaintance with the material world would 
 suggest. In whom, being yet little ones and carnal, while 
 their weakness is by this humble kind of speech, carried on, 
 as in a mother's bosom, their faith is wholesomely built up, 
 whereby they hold assured, that God made all natures, which 
 in admirable variety their eye beholdeth around. Which 
 words, if any despising, as too simple, with a proud weakness, 
 shall stretch himself beyond the guardian nest ; he will, alas, 
 fall miserably. Have pity, O Lord God, lest they who go by 
 the way trample on the unfledged bird, and send Thine angel 
 to replace it into the nest, that it may live, till it can fly. 
 
 [XXVIII.] 38. But others, unto whom these words are 
 no longer a nest, but deep shady fruit-bowers, see the fruits 
 concealed therein, fly joyously around, and with cheerful 
 notes seek out, and pluck them. For reading or hearing 
 these words, they see that all times past and to come, are 
 surpassed by Thy eternal and stable abiding ; and yet that 
 there is no creature formed in time, not of Thy making. 
 Whose will, because it is the same that Thou art, Thou 
 madest all things, not by any change of will, nor by a will, 
 which before was not, and that these things were not out of 
 Thyself, in Thine own likeness, which is the form of all 
 things, but out of nothing, a formless unlikeness, which 
 should be formed by Thy likeness, (recurring to Thy Unity, 
 according to their appointed capacity, so far as is given to 
 each thing in his kind,) and might all be made very good ; 
 whether they abide around Thee, or being in gradation 
 removed in time and place, make or undergo the beautiful 
 variations of the Universe. These things they see, and 
 rejoice, in the little degree they here may, in the light of 
 Thy truth. 
 
 39. Another bends his mind on that which is said, In the 
 Beginning God made heaven, and earth ; and beholdeth 
 therein Wisdom, the Beginning because^ It also speaketh John 6, 
 unto us. Another likewise bends his mind on the same^^' 
 
 i See above, p. 331, u. k. 
 
272 Different modes of priority to be distinguished. 
 
 B^xii'^^'^^^' ^°*^ ^^ Beginning understands the commencement 
 
 — ^'of things created; In the beginning He made, as if it 
 
 were said, He at first made. And among them that un- 
 derstand In the Beginning to mean, " In Thy Wisdom Thou 
 createdst heaven and earth" one believes the matter out of 
 which the heaven and earth vs^ere to be created, to be there 
 called heaven and earth; another, natures already formed 
 and distinguished; another, one formed nature, and that a 
 spiritual, under the name Heaven, the other formless, of 
 corporeal matter, under the name Earth. They again who 
 by the names heaven and earth, understand matter as yet 
 formless, out of which heaven and earth were to be formed, 
 neither do they understand it in one way; but the one, that 
 matter out of which both the intelligible and the sensible crea- 
 ture were to be perfected; another, that only, out of which this 
 sensible corporeal mass was to be made, containing in its 
 vast bosom these visible and ordinary natures. Neither do 
 they, who believe the creatures already ordered and arranged, 
 to be in this place called heaven and earth, understand the 
 same; but the one, both the invisible and visible, the other, 
 the visible only, in which we behold this lightsome heaven, 
 and darksome earth, with the things in them contained. 
 
 [XXIX.] 40. But he that no otherwise understands In the 
 Beginning He made, than if it were said. At first He made, 
 can only truly understand heaven and earth of the matter of 
 heaven and earth, that is, of the universal intelligible and 
 corporeal creation. For if he would understand thereby the 
 universe, as already formed, it may be rightly demanded 
 of him, " If God made this first, what made He afterwards ?" 
 and after the universe, he will find nothing ; whereupon must 
 he against his will hear another question ; " How [did God 
 make] this first, if nothing after ?" But when he says, God 
 made matter first formless, then formed, there is no absurdity, 
 if he be but qualified to discern, what precedes by eternity, 
 what by time, what by choice, and what in original. By 
 eternity, as God is before all things ; by time, as the flower 
 before the firuit ; by choice, as the fruit before the flower ; 
 by original, as the sound before the tune. Of these four, the 
 first and last mentioned, are with extreme difficulty under- 
 stood, the two middle, easily. For a rare and too lofty a vision 
 
Priority of original illustrated. 273 
 
 is it, to behold Thy Eternity, O Lord, unchangeably mating 
 things changeable ; and thereby before them. And who, again, 
 is of so sharpsighted understanding, as to be able without 
 great pains to discern, how the sound is therefore before the 
 tune ; because a tune is a formed sound ; and a thing not 
 formed, may exist ; whereas that which existeth not, cannot 
 be formed. Thus is the matter before the thing made"; not 
 because it maketh it, seeing itself is rather made ; nor is it 
 before by interval of time ; for we do not first in time utter 
 formless sounds without singing, and subsequently adapt or 
 fashion them into the form of a chantj as wood or silver, 
 whereof a chest or vessel is fashioned. For such materials 
 do by time also precede the forms of the things made of 
 them, but in singing it is not so ; for when it is sung, its 
 sound is heard ; for there is not first a formless sound, which 
 is afterwards formed into a chant. For each sound, as soon as 
 made, passeth away, nor canst thou find ought to recall and 
 by art to compose. So then the chant is concentrated in its 
 sound, which sound of his is his matter. And this indeed is 
 formed, that it may be a tune ; and therefore (as 1 said) the 
 matter of the sound is before the form of the tune; not before, 
 through any power it hath to make it a tune ; for a sound is 
 no way the workmasterofthetune; but is something corporeal, 
 subjected to the soul which singeth, whereof to make a tune. 
 Nor is it first in time ; for it is given forth together with the 
 tune ; nor first in choice, for a sound is not better than a tune, 
 a time being not only a sound, but a beautiful sound. But it 
 is first in original, because a tune receives not form to become 
 a soimd, but a sound receives a form to become a tune. Bj' 
 this example, let him that is able, understand how the matter 
 of things was first made, and called heaven and earth, because 
 heaven and earth were made out of it. Yet was it not made 
 first in time ; because the forms of things give rise to time ^; 
 
 e " Nor mustG-od be supposed first to afterward, what is made thereof, because 
 
 have made formless matter, and after an though both could be made at once, both 
 
 interval oftime, formed what He had first could not be at once related." Aug. c. 
 
 made formless ; but as intelligible sounds advers. Leg. et Proph. 1. i. c. 9. of. de 
 
 are made by a speaker, wherein the.sound G-en. ad Lit. i. 14. vi 5. and above on 
 
 issues notformless atfirst, andafterwards c. 20. p. 264. n. c. 
 receives a form, but is uttered already f " The course of time began with the 
 
 formed ; so must God be understood to motions of creation, wherefore it is idle 
 
 have made the world of formless matter, to ask about time before creation, which 
 
 but contemporaneously to have created were to ask for time before time. For 
 
 the world. Yet is it not without its use, were there no motion of any creature, 
 
 first to relate, whereof a thing is made, spiritual or corporeal, whereby the future 
 
274 If not Moses, at least the Holy Spirit meant all truth. 
 
 CONF.but that was without form; but now is, in time, an object of 
 
 — ■ sense together with its form. And yet nothing can be related 
 
 of that matter, but as though prior in time, whereas in value it is 
 last (because things formed are superior to things without form) 
 and is preceded by the Eternity of the Creator : that so there 
 might be out of nothing, whereof somewhat might be created. 
 [XXX.] 41. In this diversity of the true opinions, let Truth 
 herself produce concord. And our God have mercy upon us, 
 1 Tim. tbat we may use the law lawfully, the end of the command- 
 ment, pure charity. By this if a man demands of me, 
 " which of these was the meaning of Thy servant Moses ;" 
 this were not the language of my Confessions, should I not 
 confess unto Thee, " I know not ;" and yet I know that those 
 senses are true, those carnal ones excepted, of which I have 
 spoken what seemed necessary. And even those hopeful 
 little ones who so think, [have this benefit that] the words of 
 Thy Book affright them not, delivering high things lowlily, 
 and with few words a copious meaning. And all we who, I 
 confess, see and express the truth delivered in those words, 
 let us love one another, and jointly love Thee our God, the 
 fountain of truth, if we are athirst for it, and not for vanities ; 
 yea, let us so honour this Thy servant, the dispenser of this 
 Scripture, full of Thj' Spirit, as to believe that, when by Thy 
 revelation he wrote these things, he intended that, which 
 among them chiefly excels both for light of truth, and fruit- 
 fulness of profit. 
 
 [XXXI.] 42. So when one says, " Moses meant as I do ;" 
 and another, " Nay, but as I do," I suppose that I speak 
 more reverently, " Why not rather as both, if both be true ?" 
 And if there be a third, or a fourth, yea if any other seeth any 
 other truth in those words, why may not he be believed 
 to have seen all these, through whom the One God hath 
 tempered the holy Scriptures to the senses of many, who 
 should see therein things true but divers ? For I certainly, 
 (and fearlessly I speak it from my heart,) that were I to indite 
 any thing to have supreme authority, I should prefer so to write, 
 that whatever truth any could apprehend on those matters, 
 might be conveyed in my words, rather than set down my 
 
 might through the present succeed to the commencement from the creation, than 
 
 past, there would he no time. But the creation from time, hut hoth from God." 
 
 creature could have no motion, unless it Aug. de Gen. ad Lit. 1, v. c. 6, 
 existed. Time, therefore, rather hath its 
 
Which his words even convey, and which He guides man to see. 27 5 
 
 own meaning so clearly as to exclude the rest, which not 
 being false, could not offend me. I will not therefore, O my 
 God, be so rash, as not to believe, that Thou vouchsafedst as 
 much to that great man. He without doubt, when he wrote 
 those words, perceived and thought on what truth soever we 
 have been able to find, yea and whatsoever we have not been 
 able, nor yet are, but which may be found in them. 
 
 [XXXII.] 43. Lastly, Lord, who art God and not flesh 
 and blood, if man did see less, could any thing be concealed 
 from Thy good Spirit, (who shall lead me into the land of Vs. us, 
 uprightness,) which Thou Thyself by those words wert about to ' 
 reveal to readers in times to come, though he through whom 
 they were spoken, perhaps among many true meanings, thought 
 on some one ? which if so it be, let that which he thought on 
 be of all the highest. But to us, Lord, do Thou, either 
 reveal that same, or any other true one which Thou pleasest ; 
 that so, whether Thou discoverest the same to us, as to that 
 Thy seiTant, or some other by occasion of those words, yet 
 Thou mayest feed us, not error deceive us''. Behold, O Lord 
 my God, how much we have written upon a few words, how 
 much I beseech Thee! What strength of ours, yea what 
 ages would suffice for all Thy books in this manner ? Permit 
 me then in these -more briefly to confess unto Thee, and to 
 choose some one true, certain, and good sense that Thou 
 shalt inspire me, although many should occur, where many 
 may occur; this being the law of my confession, that if 
 I should say that which Thy minister intended, that is 
 right and best; for this should I endeavour, which if I 
 should not attain, yet I should say that, which Thy Truth 
 willed by his words to tell me, which revealed also unto 
 him, what It willed. 
 
 8 " When we read the divine books, sifted, at least that only which sound 
 
 amid such a multitude of true meanings, faith prescribes. For it is one thing, not 
 
 which are extracted from a few words, to distingaish what the writer chiefly 
 
 and are guarded by the soundness of the meant, another to err from the rule of 
 
 Catholic faith, let us by preference choose piety. If both be avoided, the reader 
 
 that, which it shall certainly appear that obtains the full fruit. If both cannot be 
 
 he meant, whom we read. If this is avoided, though we be uncertain about 
 
 beyondus, at least that which the context the mind of the writer, it isjnot without 
 
 (circumstantia) of Scripture prevents not, its use to have extracted a meaning 
 
 and which is in harmony with sound agreeable with the holy faith." Aug.de 
 
 faith. Butifthe context of the Scripture Gen. ad Lit. 1. i. fin. 
 ajso admit not of being handled and 
 
 T 2 
 
THE THIRTEENTH BOOK. 
 
 Continuation of the exposition of Gen. 1 ; it contains the mystery of the 
 Trinity, and a type of the formation, extension, and support of the 
 Church. 
 
 CONF. [I.J 1. I CALL upon Thee, O my God, my mercy. Who 
 
 _: 'createdst me, and forgattest not me, forgetting Thee. I call 
 
 Thee into' my soul, which, by the longing Thyself inspirest 
 into her, Thou preparest for Thee. Forsake me not now 
 calling unto Thee, whom Thou preventedst before I called, 
 and urgedst me with much variety of repeated calls, that I 
 would hear Thee from afar, and be converted, and call upon 
 Thee, that calledst after me; for Thou, Lord, blottedst out all 
 my evil deservings, so as not to repay into my hands, where- 
 with I fell from Thee ; and Thou hast prevented all my well 
 deservings, so as to repay the work of Thy hands wherewith 
 Thou madest me; because before I was. Thou wert; nor 
 was I any thing, to which Thou mightest grant to be; and yet 
 behold, I am, out of Thy goodness, preventing all this which 
 Thou hast made me, and whereof Thou hast made me. For 
 neither hadst Thou need of me*", nor am I any such good, 
 as to be helpful unto Thee, my Lord and God; not in 
 serving Thee', as though Thou wouldest tire in working ; or 
 lest Thy power might be less, if lacking my service: nor 
 cultivating Thy service, as a land, that must remain uncul- 
 tivated, unless I cultivated'' Thee : but serving and worshipping 
 Thee, that I might receive a well-being from Thee, from 
 whom it comes, that I have a being capable of well-being. 
 
 » See b. i. §. 2. de fin. ad Lit. 1. viii. c. 16. 
 
 •> " Nor had He need to make us, who * " Neque ut sic te colam, quasi ter- 
 
 needs us not, made." Aug. u. adv. leg. et ram, ut sis incultus, si non te colam." 
 
 proph. 1. i. c. 4. The French preserves better the strong 
 
 <= "For Heneedeihnot our service, but irony of this play on the word, as if 
 
 we need His rule, and He may work in man's worship was any gain to God, 
 
 and keep us ; and therefore is He the " ailn que vous ne soiez pas comme une 
 
 true and only Lord, because we serve terre incuUe, si je manquais au cuUe, 
 
 Him not to His but to our benefit." Aug. que je te dois." Mart. 
 
Every thing from God^sfree gift, since Creation is. 277 
 
 [II.] 2. For of the fulness of Thy goodness, doth Thy 
 creature subsist, that so a good, which could no ways profit 
 Thee, nor was of Thee, (lest so it should be equal to Thee,) 
 might yet be since it could be made of Thee. For what 
 did heaven, and earth, which Thou madest in the Beginning, 
 deserve of Thee ? Let those spiritual and corporeal natures 
 which Thou madest in Thy Wisdom, say wherein they de- 
 served of Thee, to depend thereon, (even in that their several 
 inchoate and formless state, whether spiritual or corporeal, 
 ready to fall away into an immoderate liberty and far-distant 
 unlikeliness unto Thee ; — the spiritual, though without form, 
 superior to the corporeal though formed, and the corporeal 
 though without form, better than were it altogether nothing,) 
 and so to depend upon Thy Word, as formless, unless by the 
 same Word they were brought back to Thy Unity, indued 
 with form, and from Thee the One Sovereign Good were 
 made all very good. How did they deserve of Thee, to be 
 even without form, since they had not been even this, but 
 from Thee } 
 
 3. How did corporeal matter deserve of Thee, to be even 
 invisible and without form ? seeing it were not even this, but Gen. 1, 
 that Thou madest it, and therefore because it was not, could " 
 not deserve of Thee to be made. Or how could the inchoate 
 spiritual creature deserve of Thee, even to ebb and flow 
 darksomely like the deep", — unlike Thee, unless it had been 
 by the same Word turned to that, by Whom it was created, 
 and by Him so enlightened, become light; though not 
 equally, yet conformably to that Form which is equal unto 
 Thee ? For as in a body, to be, is not one with being beautiful, 
 else could it not be deformed ; so likewise to a created spirit 
 to live, is not one with living wisely; else should it be wise 
 unchangeably. But good it is for it always to hold fast to Ps. 73, 
 TTiee '; lest what light it hath obtained by turning to Thee, it 
 
 ' " The creature, although spiritual it may be and live, to Him it is turned, 
 
 and intellectual and rational, may have that it may live wisely and blessedly." 
 
 a life ' without form.' For turned away Aug. de Gen. ad Lit. 1. i. c. 5. 
 
 from the unchangeable Wisdom, it lives ' " This being so, this nature having 
 
 foolishly and miserably, which is its de- been created in so great excellence, that 
 
 formed estate. For it is formed, by though in itself subject to change, yet 
 
 being turned to the unchangeable light by adhering to the unchangeable good, 
 
 of Wisdom, which is the Word of God. i. e. to the supreme God, it obtains its 
 
 For from Whom it hath existence, that happiness, and is blessed only in the full 
 
278 Celestial beings light, through beholding God. 
 
 COisrF.lose by turning from Thee, and relapse into life resem- 
 
 — ^ bling the darksome deep. For we ourselves also, who as to 
 
 Eph. 6, the soul are a spiritual creature, turned away from Thee our 
 light, were in that life sometimes darkness ; and still labom- 
 amidst the relics of our darkness, until in Thy Only One we 
 Ps.36,6. become Thy righteousness, like the mountains of God. For we 
 have been Thy judgments, which are like the great deep^. 
 [III.] 4. That which Thou saidst in the beginning of the 
 Gen. 1, creation, Let there he light, and there was light; I do, not 
 unsuitably, understand of the spiritual creature: because 
 there was already a sort of life, which Thou mightest illumi- 
 nate. But as it had no claim on Thee for a life, which 
 could be enlightened, so neither now that it was, had it any, to 
 be enlightened. For neither could its formless estate be pleas- 
 ing unto Thee, unless it became light, and that not by existing 
 simply, but by beholding the illuminating light, and cleaving to 
 it; so that, that it lived, and lived happily"", it owes to nothing 
 but Thy grace, being turned by a better change unto That, 
 which cannot be changed into worse or better ; which Thou 
 alone art, because Thou alone simply art ; unto Thee it being 
 not one thing to live, another to live blessedly, seeing Thy- 
 self art Thine own Blessedness '. 
 
 satisfying of its cravings, and nought over to the desires of their heart, so as 
 
 suffices to satisfy it, but God, it is truly now to defend their sins, not confess 
 
 a vitiated state of it not to " hold fast to them, hut say, ' Why P What have I 
 
 Him." Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. xii. c. 1. done? The one also has done this., the 
 
 S The "mountains" S. Aug. explains other that.' But thou art not yet a moun- 
 
 of the eminent saints of God, Apostles, tain, not yet an abyss ; flee the abyss, 
 
 &c. in Joann. Tract, i. &c. and in Ps. look well to the mountains, but remain 
 
 35, 7. where (§. 10.) he thus proceeds, not even in the mountains. ' For thy 
 
 " The ' Abyss' the Psalmist calls the help is from the Lord, who made heaven 
 
 depth of sin, whereat men come by and earth.' " 
 
 despising God. As ' the mountains of ^ "xhenee is both the origin and form- 
 God' are ' His righteousness,' who by ation and blessedness of the holy City, 
 His grace become great, so through His which is above, in the holy Angels. For 
 judgments come they into the ' deep,' who if it be asked, whence it is, God founded 
 are sunk to the uttermost. Hereby then it ; if, whence it is wise, it is by God 
 take pleasure in the mountains, hereby enlightened ; if, whence it is happy, it 
 turn away from the deep and be turned enjoyeth God. Existing, it receives the 
 to that which is said, ' my help is from mode of its existence ; contemplating, it 
 the Lord.' But whence? Because ' I is enlightened; cleaving, it is made joy- 
 have lift up my eyes to the mountains.' ous ; it is, sees, loves; in the eternity of 
 What is this ? I will speak plainly ; God it liveth ; in the truth of God, it 
 in the Church of Christ you wUl find shineth ; in the goodness of God, it joy- 
 a deep, you will find also mountains ; eth." Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. xi. c. 24. 
 you find there fewer good, for the moun- ' " He who is blessed, not in another, 
 tains are few, the deep is large, i. e. but in Himself as His own good, there- 
 many living ill through the wrath of God, fore cannot be otherwise, because He 
 because they so acted as to be given cannot lose Himself." Id. 1. xii. c. 1. 
 
Doctrine of the Trinity conveyed in the Creation. 279 
 
 [IV.] 5. What then could be wanting unto Thy good, 
 which Thou Thyself art, although these things had either 
 never been, or remained without form ; which thou madest, 
 not out of any want, but out of the fulness of Thy goodness, 
 restraining them and converting them to form, not as though 
 Thy joy were fulfilled by them ? For to Thee being perfect, 
 is their imperfection displeasing, and hence were they perfected 
 by Thee, and please Thee ; not as wert Thou imperfect, and 
 by their perfecting wert also to be perfected. For Thy good 
 Spirit indeed was borne over the waters, not borne up by them. Gen. l, 
 as if He rested upon them. For those, on whom Thy good ' 
 Spirit is said to rest. He causes to rest in Himself. But Thy ii, 25. 
 incorruptible and unchangeable will, in itself all-suificient for "''■ 
 itself, was borne upon that life which Thou hadst created ; to 
 which, living is not one with happy living, seeing it 
 liveth also, ebbing and flowing in its own darkness: for which 
 it remaineth to be converted unto Him, by Whom it was 
 made, and to live more and more by the fountain of life, and Ps.36,9. 
 in His light to see light, and to be perfected, and enlightened, 
 and beautified. 
 
 [V.] 6. Lo, now the Trinity appears unto me in a glass 
 darkly, which is Thou my God, because Thou, O Father, in 
 Him Who is the Beginning of our wisdom. Which is Thy 
 Wisdom, bom of Thyself, equal unto Thee and coetemal, 
 that is, in Thy Son, createdst heaven and earth. Much now 
 have we said of the Heaven of heavens, and of the earth 
 invisible and without form, and of the darksome deep, in 
 reference to the wandering instability of its spiritual de- 
 formity, unless it had been converted unto Him, from Whom 
 it had its then degree of life, and by His enlightening 
 became a beauteous life, and the heaven of that heaven, which 
 was afterwards set between water and water. And under the 
 name of God, I now held the Father, who made these things, 
 and under the name of Beginning'', the Son, in whom He 
 made these things ; and believing, as I did, my God as the 
 Trinity, I searched further in His holy words, and lo. Thy 
 
 ''" Under the name The Beginning, creature — created by Himself." Aug. 
 we understand the Son, who is a Be- de (Jen. ad Lit. 1. i. ^. 12. 
 ginning not to the Father, hut to the 
 
280 Why the Holy Spirit named not in Himself, but as "borne over." 
 
 CONF. Spirit moved upon the waters. Behold the Trinity, my God 
 
 — ' Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, Creator of all creation. 
 
 [VI.] 7. But what was the cause, O true-speaking Light? — 
 unto Thee lift I up my heart, let it not teach me vanities, 
 dispel its darkness; and tell me, I beseech Thee, by our 
 mother charity, tell me the reason, I beseech Thee, why 
 after the mention of heaven, and of the earth invisible and 
 without form, and darkness upon the deep, Thy Scripture 
 should then at length mention Thy Spirit'.? Was it because 
 it was meet that the knowledge of Him should be conveyed, 
 as being " borne above;" and this could not be said, unless 
 that were first mentioned, over which Thy Spirit may be 
 understood to have been borne. For neither was He borne 
 above the Father, nor the Son, nor could He rightly be said to 
 be borne above, if He were borne over nothing. First then 
 was that to be spoken of, over which He might be borne; and 
 then He, whom it was meet not otherwise to be spoken of 
 than as being borne. But wherefore was it not meet that the 
 knowledge of Him should be conveyed otherwise, than as 
 being borne above? 
 
 [Vn.] 8. Hence let him that is able, follow with his 
 
 understanding Thy Apostle, where he thus speaks, Because Thy 
 
 Rom.5, /o«e is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost vhich is 
 
 I'cor ff''^^"' unio us: and where concerning spiritual gifts, he teacheth 
 
 12,1.31. and sheicelh unto us a more excellent wayoi charity; and where 
 
 Eph. 3, he bows his knee, unto Tliee for us, that we may know the 
 
 14—19. supereminent knowledge of the love of Christ. And therefore 
 
 from the beginning, was He borne supereminent above the 
 
 waters. To whom shall I speak this .? how speak of the 
 
 weight of evil desires, downwards to the steep abyss; and how 
 
 charity raises up again by Thy Spirit which was borne above 
 
 the waters 'i to whom shall I speak it ? how speak it ? For it 
 
 is not in space that we are merged and emerge. What can 
 
 be more, and yet what less like ? They be affections, they be 
 
 loves; the uncleanness of our spirit flowing away downwards 
 
 with the love of cares, and the holiness of Thine raising us 
 
 upward by lo\ e of unanxious repose "" ; that we may lift oiu: 
 
 ' Aug. repeats this nearly in the same dom (libertate), bnt what it enjoys with 
 
 words. lb. §. 13. freedom from care (securitate). But no 
 
 ■"" The soul enjoys nothing with free- one can be without care as to those 
 
Misery of fallen beings shews their original excellence. 281 
 
 hearts" unto Thee, where Thy Sphit is barne above the waters; 
 and come to that supereminent repose, when our soul shall 
 have passed through the waters which yield no support ". ps. 123, 
 [VII.] 9. Angels fell away, man's soul fell away, and there- ^" ^ "'S" 
 by pointed out the abyss.in that dark depth, ready for the 
 whole spiritual creation, hadst not Thou said from the begin- 
 ning, Let there be light, and there had been light, and every 
 obedient intelligence of Thy heavenly City had cleaved to 
 Thee, and rested in Thy Spirit, Which is borne unchangeably 
 over every thing changeable. Otherwise, had even the 
 heaven, of heavens been in itself a darksome deep ; but now 
 it is light in the Lord. For even in that miserable restless- 
 ness of the spirits, who fell away and discovered their own dark- 
 ness, when bared of the clothing of Thy light, dost Thou 
 sufficiently reveal how noble Thou madest the reasonable 
 creature ; to which nothing will suffice to yield a happy rest, 
 less than Thee''; and so not even herself. For Thou, O 
 our God, shall lighten our darkness: from Thee riseth ourP».18, 
 garment of light ; and then shall our darkness be as the Jioon p,' ]04 
 day. Give Thyself unto me, O my God, restore Thyself 3- 
 unto me : behold I love, and if it be too little, I would love 12. 
 more strongly. I cannot measure so as to know, how much 
 love there yet lacketh to me, ere my life may run into Thy 
 embracements, nor turn away, until it be hidden in the hidden Ps. 31, 
 place'^ of Thy Presence. This only I know, that woe is me ' 
 
 goods, which against its will it may lose." created to see light, and so that member 
 
 Aug. de Lib. Arb. 1. ii. §. 37. which is capable of light is shewn even 
 
 " This sentence was generally in the by its very defect to be more excellent, 
 
 Church Service and Communion. Nor than the other members ; so the nature, 
 
 is there scarce any. one old Liturgy but which enjoyed God, shews that it was 
 
 hath it, Sursum corda, HabertmsadDo- formed good even by its very defect, in 
 
 minum. [Old Ed.] that it is therefore miserable because it 
 
 " " Aqua sine substantia." Vulg. -enjoyeth not God." Aug. de Civ. Dei, 
 
 " What is that unsubstantial water, but 1. xxii. o. 1. 
 
 the water of sins which have no sub- <1 " What place is this P He said not, 
 
 stance. For sins have no substance; Thou shalt hide them in Abraham's 
 
 they have emptiness, not substance, bosom. Poor be every thing unto you, 
 
 poverty, not substance." Aug. ad loc. which is beside God. He who protects 
 
 |, 9. us in the place of this life, be, after this 
 
 P " Its very sin being witness, it is life, Himself our place, as the Psalmist 
 convicted of having been created a good said to Him above, ' Be Thou my pro- 
 nature. For unless it also had been a tecting God and my house of refuge.' 
 great good, though not equal to the We shall be hidden then In the coun- 
 Creator, the desertion of God, as its tenance of God. What bosom is there 
 light, could not have been its evil. For in the face of God, look ye to hear of 
 a« blindness is the defect of the eye, me? Purify the heart, that He may 
 and the same indicates that the eye was enlighten, and He, whom you call on 
 
282 The Holy Spirit spoken o/as" above,"" asbearing us'^ abovey 
 
 CONF. except in Thee : not only without but within myself also ; 
 
 — ^'and all abundance, which is not my God, is emptiness 
 
 to me. 
 
 [IX.] 10. But was not either the Father, or the Son, 
 
 borne above the waters? if this means, in space, like a body, 
 
 then neither was the Holy Spirit ; but if the unchangeable 
 
 supereminence of Divinity above all things changeable, then 
 
 were both Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost borne upofi. the 
 
 waters. Why then is this said of Thy Spirit only, why is 
 
 it said only of Him ? As if He had been in place, Who is not in 
 
 place, of Whom only it is written, that He is Thy gift'? In 
 
 Thy Gift we rest; there we enjoy Thee. Our rest is our place. 
 
 Ps. 9, Love lifts us up thither, and Thy good Spirit lifts up our 
 
 Luke 2 lowliness from the gates of death. In Thy good pleasure is 
 
 14. our peace. The body by its own weight strives towards its 
 
 "' own place. Weight makes not downward only, but to his own 
 
 place. Fire tends upward, a stone downward. They are urged 
 
 by their own weight, they seek their own places. Oil poured 
 
 below water, is raised above the water ; water poured upon 
 
 oil, sinks below the oil. They are urged by their own 
 
 weights to seek their own places. Wlien out of their order, 
 
 they are restless ; restored to order, they are at rest. My 
 
 weight, is my love ; thereby am I borne, whithersoever I am 
 
 borne". We are inflamed, by Thy Gift we are kindled ; and 
 
 are carried upwards ; we glow inwardly, and go forwards. 
 
 Ps. 83, We ascend TJiy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of 
 
 ^' degrees ; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, 
 
 and we go ; because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem : 
 
 Ps. xiA.ior gladdened was I in those who said unto me, Wewillgoup to 
 
 ^' '■ the hmise of the Lord. There hath Thy good pleasure placed 
 
 us, that we may desire nothing else, but to abide there for 
 
 ever. 
 
 [X.] 11. Blessed creature, which being itself other than 
 
 may enter in. Be His house, and He of God. By which gift, what else is 
 
 will be thy house ; let Him dwell in properly to be understood but Charity 
 
 thee, and thou shalt dwell in Him. If which leadeth up to God, and without 
 
 in this world thou shalt receive Him in which any other gift of God, leadeth not 
 
 thy heart, He after this world will up to God ."" Aug. de Trin. 1. xv. c. 18. 
 
 receive theein His Countenance." Aug. = " The body is borne by its weight, aa 
 
 ad Ps. 30, 21. Enarr. 4. §. 8. the soul is borne by love, whithersoever 
 
 r " Most rightly is the Holy Spirit, it is borne." Aug, de Civ. Dei, 1. xi. 
 
 being Himself God, called also the Gift e. 28. 
 
Faint type of the Trinity in man. 
 
 283 
 
 Thou, has known no other condition, than that, so soon as it was 
 made, it was, without any interval, by Thy Gift, Which is borne 
 above every thing changeable, borne aloft by th at calling where- 
 byThou saidst,ie/ there be light, andthere was light. Whereas 
 in us this took place at different times, in that we were dark- Eph. 5, 
 ness, and are made light : but of that is only said, what it "' 
 would have been, had it not been enlightened. And, this is 
 so spoken, as if it had been unsettled and darksome before; 
 that so the cause whereby it was made otherwise, might 
 appear, namely, that being turned to the Light unfailing it 
 became light. Whoso can, let him understand this ; let him 
 ask of Thee. Why should he trouble me, as if I could 
 enlighten any man that cometh into this world? John l, 
 
 [XI.] 12. Which of us comprehendeth the Almighty ' 
 Trinity? and yet which speaks not of It, if indeed it be It? 
 Rare is the soul, which while it speaks of It, knows what it 
 speaks of. And they contend and strive, yet, without peace, 
 no man sees that vision. I would that men would consider 
 these three, that are in themselves'. These three be indeed 
 
 ' S. Aug. pursues this illustration 
 elsewhere, not to explain the mystery of 
 the Holy Trinity, but to shew that God 
 " did not leave Himselfwithout witness" 
 in the human mind, " And we recog- 
 nize in ourselves an image of God, that 
 is, of the Supreme Trinity, not indeed 
 equal, yea far and widely different, not 
 eoeternal, and (to express the whole 
 more briefly) not of the same substance 
 with God, yet that, than which, of all 
 things made by Him, none is in nature 
 nearer to God, which image is yet to be 
 perfected by re-formation, that it may be 
 nearest in likeness also. For we both 
 are, and know that we are, and love to 
 be this and to know it. In these three 
 moreover which I have named, no false- 
 hood resembling truth perplexes." Aug. 
 de Civ. Dei, 1. xi. c. 26. " As there 
 are, in a manner, two things, the mind 
 and its love, when it loves itself; so 
 there are two, in a manner, the mind, 
 and its knowledge, when it knows itself. 
 The mind itself, and its love, and its 
 knowledge are, in a manner, three, and 
 these three are one, and when perfect, 
 are equal. For if its love to itself is in- 
 ferior to its being, as, for instance, if the 
 mind of man were to love itself, as 
 much as man's body ought to be loved, 
 being more than (ie body, its love of- 
 
 fends, and is not perfect. So if its love 
 to itself is greater than its being, as if it 
 were to love itself as much as God is to 
 be loved, being itself incomparably in- 
 ferior to God, so also it sins tno deeply, 
 and hath not its love of itself perfect. 
 Still more perversely and iniquitously 
 does it sin, when it loves the body as 
 God is to be loved. So knowledge, if 
 it be less than that which is known, and 
 yet may be fully known, is not perfect. 
 But the mind, when it knows itself, does 
 not surpass itself by its knowledge ; for 
 itisitwhichknoweth, it which is known. 
 When then it knows itself wholly, and 
 nothing else with itself, its knowledge is 
 equal to itself; because neither is its 
 knowledge when it knows itself, of any 
 other nature. And when it perceives itself 
 wholly, and nothing more, it is neither 
 greater nor less. Rightly therefore said 
 we, these three when they are perfect, 
 are consequently equal We are like- 
 wise given to understand, if we can in 
 any measure see, that these things exist 
 in the soul, and as being involved 
 therein, are evolved so that they may be 
 perceived, and numbered substantially, 
 or, so to speak, essentially, not as colour 
 or figure in a body, or any other quality 
 or quantity. For whatever is of that 
 sort, doth not go beyond the subject. 
 
284 The Trinity inscrutable when man bears a type of It. 
 
 CONF. far other than the Trinity: I do but tell, where they may 
 
 — ^'practise themselves, and there prove and feel how far 
 
 they be. Now the three I spake of, are, To Be, to Know, 
 and to Will. For I Am, and Know, and Will: I Am 
 Knowing and Willing : and I Know myself to Be, and to 
 Will : and I Will to Be, and to Know. In these three then, let 
 him discern that can, how inseparable a life there is, yea one 
 life, one mind, and one essence, yea lastly how inseparable a 
 distinction there is, and yet a distinction. Surely a man hath 
 it before him; let him look into himself, and see, and tell 
 me. But when he discovers and can say any thing of these, 
 let him not therefore think that he has found that which 
 is above these Unchangeable, which Is unchangeably, and 
 Knows unchangeably, and Wills unchangeably ; and whether 
 because of these three, there is in God also a Trinity, or 
 whether all three be in Each, so that the three belong to 
 Each ; or whether both ways at once, wondrously, simply and 
 yet manifoldly, Itself a bound unto Itself within Itself, yet 
 unbounded"; whereby It is, and is Known unto Itself, and 
 
 wherein it is. For a certain colour or 
 figure cannot belong to this body, and 
 also to another. But the mind, with 
 that love wherewith it loves itself, can 
 love another thing beside itself. So 
 again the mind does not know itself 
 only, but many other things besides. 
 Wherefore love and knowledge exist not 
 in the mind, as in a subject, but they 
 also exist substantially, just as the mind 
 itself, because although they are spoken 
 of relatively to each other, still they 
 exist each in its own substance.— But in 
 those three, when the mind knoweth and 
 loveth itself, there remaineth a trinity, 
 mind, love, knowledge, and it is not 
 confounded by any intermixture, al- 
 though each exists in itself, and all 
 mutually in all, or each in the other 
 two, or the other two in each. There- 
 fore all in all. For the mind existeth 
 in itself, since by itself it is called mind, 
 althoughitissaidtobeknowing.orknovra, 
 or knowable relatively to its knowledge ; 
 and again loving, or loved, or loveable 
 relatively to the love, wherewith it loves 
 itself. And although knowledge is re- 
 ferred to the mind, which knoweth or is 
 known, yet in relation to itself also, it is 
 spoken of as known or knowing; for 
 that knowledge whereby the mind itself 
 
 knows itself is not unknown to itself. 
 And love, although it is referred to the 
 mind, as loving, whose love it is, yet it 
 existeth also by itself, so as to be also in 
 itself; because the love is also loved, 
 nor can it be loved by any other than by 
 love, that is, by itself. So then these 
 exist, each in themselves. But they are 
 also each in the other, because in love, 
 there is also a loving mind, and in the 
 knowledge of that which loveth is love, 
 and in the mind which knoweth, know- 
 ledge." Aug. de Trin. 1. ix. c. 4, 6. 
 S. Augustine pursues further this ap- 
 peal to the mysterious structure of the 
 human mind, as bearing testimony to, 
 and being a sort of type of, its Maker, in 
 Whose Image it was formed, and as an 
 argument that it should not question 
 about Him, until it understood itself. 
 He sums up by an analogy bearing upon 
 the very depth of that Mystery. " The 
 mind itself, and its knowledge, and love, 
 as the third, is a sort of image of the 
 Trinity ; and these three are one, and 
 one substance. Nor is the offspring less 
 (than the parent) since the mind know- 
 eth itself just as much as it is ; nor the 
 love less, since it loveth itself, as much 
 as it knoweth and as much as it is." 
 " i. c. I conceive, " Each Person in 
 
History of the Creation type of the Church. 285 
 
 sufficeth to Itself, unchangeably the Self-same, by the abun- 
 dant greatness of its Unityi — who can readily conceive this? 
 who could any ways express it ? who would, any way, pro- 
 nounce thereon rashly ? 
 
 [XII.] 13. Proceed in thy confession, say to the Lord 
 thy God, my faith. Holy, Holy, Holy, O Lord my God, 
 in Thy Name have we been baptized, Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost; in Thy Name do we baptize, Father, Son, and HolyMntiS, 
 Ghost, because among us also, in His Christ did God make ^^' 
 heaven and earth, namely, the spiritual and carnal people' 
 of His Church. Yda and our earth, before it received the 
 
 form of doctrine, was invisible and without form ; and we were Rom. e, 
 covered with the darkness of ignorance. For Thou chastenedst ''• 
 man for iniquity, and Thy judgments were like the great deep \\\ ' 
 unto him. But because Thy Spirit was borne above the waters, Ps.36,6. 
 Thy mercy forsook not our misery, and Thou saidst, Let Gen. i, 
 there be light. Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ^ q 
 Repent ye, let there be' light. And because our soul was 11. 
 trovbled within us, we remembered TJiee, OLoi'd,from the land P^-^^.e. 
 of Jordan, and that mountain • equal unto Thyself, but little 
 
 for our sakes: and our darkness displeased us, we turned unto 
 Thee and there was light. And, behold, we were sometimes Eph. 5, 
 darkness, but now light in the Lord. ^■ 
 
 [XIII.] 14. But as yet hy faith and not by sight, for by hope 2 Cor. 6, 
 we are saved; but hope that is seen, is not hope. As yet doth ' 
 deep call unto deep'', but now in the voice of Thy waterspouts, u. 
 
 Ps.42,7. 
 
 the Blessed Trinity having the attributes dom] but "the earth" to the faith of 
 of the Others, so that the distinction of the " little ones," simple but most surely 
 Persons whereby They be, in some in- founded on the prophetic and evangelic 
 comprehensible way, distinguished from preaching, which is established hy bap- 
 Each Other, coalesces in the Unity tism,whereforehesubjoins," He founded 
 of the Godhead." Mart, renders, " or the earth above the water." Aug. de 
 whether it he both, so that the Three Gen. ad Lit. 1. ii. $. 4. op. "Serm. 56. in 
 Persons after an ineffable and incom- Matt. vi. §. 7. and 57. §. 6. 
 prehensible manner, blend (allient) in- f His putting repentance and light 
 finitely, within themselves, simplicity together is, for that Baptism was an- 
 and multiplicity, whereby the Sovereign oiently called illumination, as Heb. 6, 4. 
 Being is, and knows Itself, and suffices Psal. 42, 2. [Old Ed.] 
 to Itself." , '^ " This is said on account of Christ 
 * So that since under the name of Himself, Who in Scripture is continually 
 "heaven and earth" the spiritual and called a mountain." Aug. de div. Qusest. 
 carnal in the Church are often signified, 83. See above p. 159. n. f. on b. ix. 
 he shews that the heavens belong to the §. 5. 
 
 serene intelligence oftruth, saying," who » What is that " deep which calleth 
 
 made the heavens in intelligence" [wis- upon deep ?" If " deep" means depth. 
 
286 longing and reality. 
 
 ^^^^: ^^ y^t ^^^^ ^^ that saith, / could not speak unto you as unto 
 -^ — ^spiritual, but as unto carnal, even he as yet, doth not think 
 
 1. ■ ' himself to hate apprehended, and forgetteth those things which 
 Phil. 3, are behind, and reacheth forth to those which are before, and 
 
 ■ groaneth being btirthened, and his soul thirsteth after the Living 
 4. ' God, as the hart after the water-brooks, and saith, When shall 
 Ps. 42, I come ? desiring to be clothed, upon with his house lohich is 
 2 Cor. 5 Z^'"'* heaven, and calleth upon this loiver deep, saying, Be not 
 
 2. conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing 
 J|°"i' of your mind. And, be not children in understanding, but in 
 
 1 Cor. malice be ye children, that in understanding ye may he perfect; 
 14i 20. and O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you ? But now no 
 
 * ■ ' ■ longer in his own voice ; but in Thine who sentest Thy 
 . 2 Spirit from above ; Xhron^Hmiwho ascended up oji high, a.uA 
 Eph. 4, set open the flood-gates of His gifts, that the force of His 
 Mai. 3 streams might make glad the city of God. Him doth \h\s friend 
 lO- of the bridegroom sigh after, having now ihe first-fruits of the 
 T J, <j ^pif^t If^'i^ '^P 'with Him,yet still groaning within himselfwait- 
 29. ' ingfor the adoption, to wit, the redemption of his body; to Him 
 Rom. 8, he sighs, a member of the Bride; for Him he is jealous, as 
 hemg a friend of the Bridegroom; for Him he is jealous, not 
 Ps.41,8. for himself; because in the voice of Thy waterspouts, not in his 
 own voice, doth he call to that other depth, over whom being 
 
 2 Cor. jealous hefeareth, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his 
 , I , ' ' subtilty, so their minds should be corrupted from the purity 
 3, 4. tJiat is in our Bridegroom Thy only Son. O what a light of 
 Ps.42,3. beauty will that be, when we shall see Him as He is, and those 
 
 tears be passed away, which have been my meat day and night, 
 whilst they daily say unto me, Wliere is now thy God ? 
 
 think we tlie lieart of man is not a What a depth of infirmity lurked in 
 
 " deep." For what is deeper than this Peter, when he knew not what passed 
 
 "deep." Men can speak, can see within him, and he rashly promised that 
 
 through the operation of the members, he would die with the Lord, and for the 
 
 can be heard in discourse ; but whose Lord ! "What a deep he was ! Wliich 
 
 thoughts can be penetrated, whose heart deep was yet naked to the eyes of God. 
 
 looked into ? What he beareth within, Therefore every man, although holy, 
 
 what he can within, what he doth although just, although making profici- 
 
 withln, what he ordereth within, what ency in many things, is a " deep" and 
 
 he willeth within, what he willeth not " calls upon deep," when he preaches 
 
 within, who shall comprehend ? I think to man, any thing of faith, any thing of 
 
 that man is not ill understood to be the truth, unto life eternal. But deep is 
 
 " deep." " Deep calleth upon deep," then useful to the deep which is called 
 
 man upcn man. The holy preachers of upon, when it is done " in the voice of 
 
 the word of God " call upon the deep." Thy waterspouts." Aug. ad Ps. 41, 8. 
 
 Are they themselves also not a " deep ?" j. 13. 
 
In this state of hope, God only knows who are His. 287 
 
 [XIV.] \5. Behold, I too say, my God, Where art Thou ? 
 see, where Thou art! in Thee I breathe a little, when /jooMrP».42,4. 
 out my soul hy myself in the voice of joy and praise, the sound 
 of him that keeps holy-day. And yet again it is sad, because ver. 5. 
 it relapseth, and becomes a deep, or rather perceives itself still 
 to be a deep. Unto it speaks my faith which Thou hast 
 kindled to enlighten my feet in the night, Why art thou sad, 
 O my soul, and why dost thou trouble me ? Hope in the Lord; Pa. 1 19, 
 His word is a lanthorn unto thy feet : hope and endure, until . . " , 
 the night, the mother of the wicked, until the wrath of the 14—16. 
 Lord, be overpast, whereof we also were once children, who Eph. 2, 
 were sometimes darkness, relics whereof we bear about us in our ' , „ 
 
 ' lb. 5, 8. 
 
 body, dead because of sin; until the day break, and the shadows Rom. 8, 
 Jly away. Hope thou in the Lord ; in the morning * 1 shall ' 
 stand in Thy presence, and contemplate Thee: I shall for ever n. 
 confess unto Thee. In themorning I shallstand in Thy presen,ce,^^-*'^<^- 
 and shall see the health of my countenance, my God, Who also ' 
 shall quicken ourmortal bodies,by the Spirit that dwelleth inus, 12. 
 because He hath in mercy been borne over our inner dark- P3.43,5. 
 some and floating deep : from Whom we have in this pil- ^'""' ^' 
 grimage received an earnest, that we should now be light: 2 c<v.i, 
 whilst we are saved by hope, and are the children of light, and ^' 
 the children of the day, not the children of the night, nor of the 8. 
 darkness, which yet sometimes we were. Betwijpt whom and us, E^"™- 8, 
 in this uncertainty of human knowledge, Thou only dividest; j xhess. 
 Thou, wyioprovest our hearts, and callest the ligJd, day, and the 5. 5. 
 darkness, night. For who discerneth us, but Thou? And^^-^' 
 what have we, that we have not received of Thee '^ out of the ps_ 7^ 9 
 same lump vessels unto honour, v/hexeoi others also are made*"=' 
 
 ^ J. / lCor.4, 
 
 unto dishonour. 7_ 
 
 [XV.] 16. Or who, except Thou, our God, made for usEom. 9, 
 that firmament of authority over us in Thy divine Scripture ? '" 
 as it is said. For heaven shall be folded tip like a scroll ; and e. 
 now is it stretched over us like a skin. For Thy Divine Ps.34,4. 
 
 Ij "He perceives that he sees not as can be seen by those from whose eyes 
 
 what he longs, and yet ceases not to the night of sin has not yet departed ; 
 
 hope. For hope which is seen is not when then the night of my errors is 
 
 hope. Yet he understandeth why he ended, and the darkness depart, which 
 
 seetb not, because the night is not spent, I have made for myself by my sins, 
 
 i. e. the darkness which sin hag de- Thou wilt hear my voice." Aug. in 
 
 scribed,"Thou,"hesays,"artnotsueh, Ps. 5, 4. 
 
288 The firmament a type of God's word. 
 
 CONF. Scripture is of more eminent authority, since those mortals 
 
 — .'by whom Thou dispensest it unto us, underwent mortality. 
 
 Gen. 3, And Thou knowest, Lord, Thou knowest, how Thou with 
 skins' didst clothe men, when they by sin became mortal. 
 Whence Thou hast like a skin stretched out the Jirmament of 
 Thy book, that is, Thy harmonizing words, which by the 
 ministry of mortal men Thou spreadest over us. For by 
 their very death was that solid Jirmament^ of authority, in 
 Thy discourses set forth by them, more eminently extended 
 over all that be under it ; which whilst they lived here, was 
 not so eminently extended. Thou hadst not as yet spread 
 abroad the heaven like a skin ; Thou hadst not as yet enlarged 
 in all directions the gloiy of their deaths' 
 
 Ps. 8,3. 17. Let us look, O Lord, tipon the heavens, the work of Thy 
 fingers; clear from our eyes that cloud, which Thou hast 
 
 Ps.19,7. spread under them. There is Thy testimony, which giveth 
 wisdom unto the little ones: perfect, O my God, T\\^ praise out 
 
 P9. 6,^. of the mouth of babes and sucklings. For we know no other 
 books, which so destroy pride, which so destroy the enemy and 
 the defender^, who resisteth Thy reconciliation by defending 
 his own sins. I know not. Lord, I know not any other such 
 
 Vs.\Qfi.pure words, which so persuade me to confess, and make my 
 neck pliant to Thy yoke, and invite me to serve Thee for 
 nought. Let me understand them, good Father : grant this 
 to me, who am placed under them : because for those placed 
 under them, hast Thou established them. 
 
 18. Other waters there be above thin firmament, I believe 
 
 ' See above, p. 126. u. u. on b. vii. were His, who ' stretched out the hea- 
 
 §. 24. vens as a skin,' remain to our posterity. 
 
 d " For we have the authority of the For after death the Prophets and Apo- 
 Divine Scriptures, whence our mind sties were more widely known ; for they 
 ought not to deviate, nor leaving the were not so known, when they lived; 
 solid firmament of the Divine speech, JudasaalonepossessedtheProphetswhen 
 be cast headlong down the precipices living ; dead, all nations. For while they 
 of its own conjectures, where neither lived, the ' skin' was not yet stretched 
 the bodily senses guide them, nor the out, not as yetwere the heavens stretched 
 clear reason of Truth is self-apparent." out to cover the whole world." Aug. ib. 
 Aug. de Trin. iii. 10. "God first He variously illustrates this type where- 
 placed this authority in His Church j by the " heavens" designate the " minis- 
 then proceeded to execute the rest ; for ters of God," on this place, and Ps. 8, 4. 
 He placed the heaven, and ' stretched §. 7. Ps. 18, 1. Ps. 32, 6. §. 4 — T. Ps. 
 it out like a skin.' " Id. in Ps. 103. 146, 8. §. 15. 
 §. 8. f The Manichees, see above, b. iv. 
 
 « " The sayings of dead men, because §. 26. and note A. §. ii. a. 
 they were not theirs, but through them 
 
In heaverii no need qf the word, as seeing the Word. 289 
 
 immortal, and separated from earthly corruption. Let them 
 praise Thy Name, let them praise Thee, the supercelestial 
 people, Thine angels, who have no need to gaze up at this 
 firmament, or by reading to know of Thy Word^. For they 
 always beheld Thy face, and there read without any syllables Mat. 18, 
 in time, what willeth Thy eternal will ; they read, they choose, " 
 they love*". They are ever reading; and that never passes 
 away which they read ; for by choosing, and by loving, they 
 read the very unchangeableness of Thy counsel. Their book 
 is never closed, nor their scroll folded up ; seeing ThouT'hy-Is.S4,4. 
 self art this to them, and art eternally ; because Thou hast 
 ordained them above ^i& firmament, which Thou hast firmly 
 settled over the infirmity of the lower people, where they 
 might gaze up and learn Thy mercy, announcing in time 
 Thee Who madest times. For Thy mercy, Lord, z«Pa.36,5. 
 in the heavens, and Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. The 
 clouds pass away, but the heaven abideth. The preachers of 
 Thy word pass out of this life into another; but Thy Scripture 
 is spread abroad over the people, even unto the end of the 
 world. Yet heaven and earth also shall pass away, but Thy Mat. 24, 
 words shall not pass away. Because the scroll shall be rolled^^'^^ ^ 
 together: and the grass ovexwhichitwas sprea,d,sAallwith the^s.4iO,6. 
 goodliness qf it pass away ; but Thy Word remainethfor ever, ' 
 which now appeareth unto us under the dark image of the l Cor. 
 c\ouds,aadthrough theglassof thehea,vens,notasitis : because ' 
 we also, though the well-beloved of Thy Son, yet it hath not i John 
 yet appeared what we shall be. He looketh through the lattice c^ni, 2 
 of our flesh, and He spake us tenderly, and kindled us, and ^■ 
 we ran after His odours. But when He shall appear, then shall 3.4. 
 we be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. As He is. Lord, ^ "**" ^' 
 will our sight be. 
 
 [XVI.] 19. For altogether, as Thou art, Thou only know- 
 est ; Who art unchangeably, and knowest unchangeably, and 
 wiliest unchangeably. And Thy Essence Knoweth, and Willeth 
 
 8 " For thelaw is therefore read, be- read to us, syllables sound and pass 
 
 cause we hare not yet come to that away ; that light of truth passes not by, 
 
 Wisdom, which-fills the hearts and but remaining fixed, inebriates the hearts 
 
 minds of those who gaze thereon, and of the beholders." Aug. in Ps. 93. |. 6. 
 
 there will be no need that any thing h legunt, eligunt, et diligunt, 
 should be read to us. For in what is 
 
 U 
 
290 Sea, type of world, fruit-hearing earth qf Church. 
 
 CONF. unchangeably ; and Thy Knowledge Is, and Willeth un- 
 
 _: : changeably ; and Thy Will Is, and Knoweth unchangeably. 
 
 Nor seemeth it right in Thine eyes, that as the Unchangeable 
 
 Light knoweth Itself, so should it be known by the thing 
 
 Ps.63,1. enlightened, and changeable. Therefore is my soul like a 
 
 land where no water is, because as it cannot of itself enlighten 
 
 Ps.36,9. itself, so can it not of itself satisfy itself. For so is the 
 
 fountain of life with Thee, like as in Thy light we shall see 
 
 light. 
 
 Gen. 1, [XVII.] 20. Who gathered the embittered together into one 
 
 society ? For they have all one end, a temporal and earthly 
 
 felicity, for attaining whereof they do all things, though they 
 
 waver up and down with an innumerable variety of cares. 
 
 Who, Lord, but Thou, saidst. Let the waters be gathered 
 
 together into one place, and let the dry land appear, which 
 
 Ps. 143, thirsteth after Thee ? For the sea also is Thine, and Thou hast 
 
 Ps.95 5. fJ'i^de it, and Thy hands prepared the dry land. Nor is the 
 
 bitterness of men's wi[\s,hvit the gathering together qf the waters, 
 
 called sea; for Thou restrainest the wicked desires of men's 
 
 Ps. 104, souls, and settest them their bounds, how far they may be 
 
 Job 38 3'llow'ed to pass, that their waves may break one against 
 
 10. 11. another: and thus makest Thou it a sea, by the order of Thy 
 
 dominion over all things". 
 
 21. But the souls that thirst after Thee, and that appear 
 
 before Thee, (being by other bounds divided from the society 
 
 Gen. 1, of the sea,) Thou waterest by a sweet spring, that the earth 
 
 ^1- may bring forth her fruit\ audi Thou, Lord God, so com- 
 
 • " ' The hope of all the ends of the designates the arrival at the end of the 
 
 earth, and in the sea far away,' and he- world. Meanwhile, brethren, let iis lire 
 
 cause ' in the sea' therefore ' far away.' well within the nets, not, bursting the 
 
 For the sea in a figure is used of this nets, depart out." Aug. in Ps. 64, 6. 
 
 world, bitter through braetishness, tur- §. 9. 
 
 bulentthroughstonns,whenmenthrough l' " God therefore above all things, 
 
 their perverse and depraved desires, are who created all things, and ruleth all 
 
 become like the fish, devouring one things, ereateth all things, being Good, 
 
 another. If He were not the ' hope' ordereth all wills, being Just." Aug. de 
 
 even, ' in the sea far away,' He would Gen. ad Lit. 1. viii. c. 9. see above, b. i. 
 
 - not say to the disciples, ' I will make c. 10. and b. v. c. 2. p. 66. nott. b. c. d. 
 you fishers of men.' Let us, who have ' " 'Let the people praise Thee, O 
 
 been taken in the sea by the nets of God, let all the people praise Thee ; the 
 
 faith, rejoice that we are still swimming earth brought forth her fruit.' 'What 
 
 vrithin the nets ; for this sea still rages ' fruit p" ' Let the people praise Thee.', 
 
 with storms, but the nets which have It was 'ear*,' it was full of thorns; the 
 
 taken us, vrill be brought safe to shore, uprooting hand approached, there ap- 
 
 The shore is the end of the sea ; and so preached the calling of His majesty and 
 
Contemplation the reward of practical duties. ' 291 
 
 manding, our soul may bud forth works of mercy according to Ps. 86, 
 their kind, loving our neighbour in the relief of his bodily ' 
 necessities, having seed in itself according to its likeness, when 
 from feeling of our infirmity, we compassionate so as to 
 relieve the needy ; helping them, as we would be helped, if we 
 were in like need ; not only in things easy, as in herb yielding 
 seed, but also in the protection of our assistance, with our best 
 strength, like the tree yielding fruit : that is, well-doing in 
 rescuing him that suffers wrong, from the hand of the power- 
 ful, and giving him the shelter of protection, by the mighty 
 strength of just judgment. 
 
 [XVIII.] 22. So, Lord, so, I beseech Thee, let there 
 spring up, as Thou doest, as Thou givest cheerfulness and 
 ability, let truth sp-ing out of the earth, and righteousness look Ps. 85, 
 down from heaven, and let there be lights in the firmament. Let Qe„_ ] 
 us break our bread to the hungry, and bring the houseless ^oor J5- 
 to our house. Let us clothe the naked, and despise not those ofT.'s. 
 our own flesh. Which fruits having sprung out of the earth, 
 see it is good: smdletouitemTporary light break forth; and our- Gen. i, 
 selves, from this lower fruitfulness of action, arriving at the is.' 58, 
 delightfulness of contemplation, obtaining the Word of Life '• ^• 
 above, appear like lights in the world, cleaving to the firma- Pi"''- 2, 
 ment of Thy Scripture. For there Thou instructest us, to 
 divide between the things intellectual, and things of sense, as 
 betwixt the day and the night ; or between souls, given either 
 to things intellectual, or things of sense, so that now not 
 Thou ordy in the secret of Thy judgment, as before the 
 firmament was made, dividest between the light and the darkness, 
 but Thy spiritual children also set and ranked in the same 
 firmament, (now that Thy grace is laid open throughout the 
 world,) may give light upon the earth, and divide betwixt 
 the day and the night, and be for signs of times, that old things 2 Cor. 5, 
 are passed away, and, behold, all things are become new; and 
 
 that our salvation is nearer than when we believed : and that the Kom. 
 
 13, 11. 
 12. 
 
 mercy, the earth began to ' confess,' then there took place what we read of in the 
 
 ' the earth gave her fruit.' Should it Gospel ; and upon His raining by His 
 
 giye its fruit, unless the rain first came clouds, sending the Apostles to preach 
 
 down upon it? Should the earth give the truth, the earth further gave her 
 
 her fruit, unless the mercy of God fruit, and that harvest has now filled the 
 
 camefromabove? — -Thisthentookplace, earth." Aug. adPs. 66, 6. §. 8. 
 the Lord riuning through His words ; 
 
 V 2 
 
292 The word of wisdom, contemplation, knowledge, action. 
 
 CON F. night is far spent, and the day is at hand : and that Thou unit 
 Pg gg ' crown Thy year with blessing, sending the labourers of Thy 
 11. goodness into Thy harvest, in sowing whereof, others have 
 38? ' laboured, sending also into another field, whose harvest shall be 
 Mat. 13, w ^Ae ewe?. Thus grantest Thou the prayers of him that 
 P6.6,i2.^sketh,and JfessesHheyearsof <AeyM«?; but Thouart the same. 
 Vs. i02, and in Thy years which ya«7 not, Thou preparest a gamer 
 for our passing years. For Thou by an eternal counsel dost 
 in their proper seasons bestow heavenly blessings upon the 
 lCor.i2, earth. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, as 
 it were the greater light, for their sates who are delighted with 
 the light of perspicuous truth, as it were for the rule of the 
 day. To another the wordof knowledge by the same Spirit, as it 
 were the lesser light: to another faith; to another the gift of 
 healing; to another the working of miracles ; to another pro- 
 phecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds 
 of tongues. And all these as it were ster*. ¥ox all these worketh 
 the one and self -same spirit, dirdding toeveryman hisown asHe 
 will; and causing stars to appear manifestly, to profit withal, 
 myste- ]3q(; u^g i^ord of knowledge, wherein are contained all Sacra- 
 
 ries, 1-1 • J • T ■ 
 
 E. v. ments, which are varied in their seasons " as it were the 
 
 ™ " Action, whereby we use aright Greek copies.) And what of things eter- 
 
 thingstemporal, isdifferentfromthecon- nal is more excellent than God, whose 
 
 templationofthings eternal; and contem- Nature alone is unchangeable." andwhat 
 
 plation is assigned to ' wisdom,' action to is His worship, but the lore of Him, 
 
 ' knowledge.' For although that also, whereby we now long to see Him, and 
 
 which is wisdom, may be called ' know- believe and hope that we shall see Him, 
 
 le3ge,' as the Apostle also speaks, when and in proportion to our advances, do 
 
 he says, ' Now I know in part, then shall ' now see through a glass, in a figure, 
 
 I know, like as also I am known,' where but then manifestly.' Aug. de Trin. 
 
 by knowledge he means the contem- 1. xii. §. 22. and §. 25. 1. xiii. §. 1. de 
 
 plation of God, which will be the highest Liv. quaest. ad Simplic. 1. ii. §. 3. and in 
 
 reward of the saints ; yet when he says, Ps. 135. ^. 8. 
 
 ' To one is given by the Spirit the word " " If we distinguish the two Testa- 
 
 of Wisdom, to another the word of ments, the Old and the New, there are not 
 
 knowledge, according to the same Spirit,' the same Sacraments, nor the same pro- 
 
 without question he means two distinct mises,butforthemo8tpartthesamecom- 
 
 things, although he does not there ex- mands. Not the same Sacraments ; for 
 
 plain what the difference is, or how each Sacraments which impart salvation are 
 
 may be distinguished. But searching different from Sacraments which pro- 
 
 the manifold copiousness of the Holy mise a Saviour. The Sacraments of the 
 
 Scriptures, I find that it is written in the New Testament impart salvation, the 
 
 book ofjob, where that holy man speaks. Sacraments of the Old Testament pro- 
 
 ' Behold piety is wisdom, and to abstain mised a Saviour. When then you al- 
 
 from evil is knowledge.' In this dis- ready have the things promised, why 
 
 tinction, it is to be understood that wis- seek you the things which promised, 
 
 dom belongs to contemplation, know- since you already have the Saviour p 
 
 ledge to action. For ' piety' he has here The Sacraments are changed; they have 
 
 set for the worship of God, in Greek been made easier, fewer, more healthful, 
 
 iiiri^iM, (for this is the word in the more blessed." Aug. in Ps. 73. §. 2. 
 
Obedience and self-denial the path to be as stars. 293 
 
 moon, and those other notices of gifts, which are reckoned 
 up in order, as it were stars, inasmuch as they come short of 
 that brightness of wisdom, which gladdens the forementioned 
 day, are only /or- the rule of the night °. For they are neces- 
 sary to such, as that Thy most prudent servant could not i Cor. 
 speak unto as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal ; even he, j^ j 6 
 who speaketh wisdom among those that are perfect. But the^^^, 14, 
 natural man, as it were a babe in Christ and fed on milk, 1 Cor. 
 until he be strengthened for solid meat and his eye be enabled ' 
 to behold the Sun, let him not dwell in a night forsaken of 
 all light, but be content ^ with the light of the moon and the 
 stars. So dost Thou speak to us, our All-wise God^ in Thy 
 Book, Thy firmament ; that we may discern all things, in an 
 admirable contemplation; though as yet in signs, and in 
 times, and in days, and in years. 
 
 [XIX.] 24. But &Tst,wash you, be clean'^; put away evil from Is. 1, 
 your souls, and from before mine eyes, that the dry land may ~ 
 appear. Learn to do good. Judge the fatherless, pleadfor the 
 widow, that the earth may bring forth the green herb for Gen. 1 , 
 meat, and the tree bearing fruit; and come, Ipt us reason ' 
 together, saith the Lord, that there may be lights in the 11. 30.' 
 firmament of the heaven, and they may shine upon the earth, is. 1, 18. 
 That rich man asked of the good Master, what he should do i™' *' 
 to attain eternal life. Let the good Master tell him, (whom Mat. 19, 
 he thought no more than man ; but He is good because He 
 is God,) let Him tell him, if he would enter into life, he mustver. 17. 
 keep the commandments: let him put away from him the 
 bitterness of malice and wickedness ; not kill, not commit 1 Cor. 5, 
 adultery, not steal, not bear false witness; that the dry land' 
 may appear, and bring forth the honouring qf, father andie. 
 mother, and the love of our neighbour. All these (saith he) ^^''' ^^• 
 have I kept. Whence then so many thorns, if the earth be ^ "^^ ' 
 fruitful? Go, root-up the spreading thickets of covetousness ; 
 
 • " For there are none of these things, of religion handled, till they were en- 
 whioh are not necessary in the night of lightened, that is, baptized ; yet these 
 this world, which, when it shall pass he advised to rest contented with their 
 away, they wiU be no longer necessary, Catechetical knowledge. [Old Ed.] 
 therefore are they ' for the rule of the 1 He alludes to the Sacrament of Bap- 
 night.' " Aug. in Ps. 135. §. 8. tism. [Old Ed.] The words of Is. 1, 16, 
 
 P He alludes to the primitive practice, are so explained in the ancient Liturgies, 
 
 which admitted not their Catechumenos and the ancient commentators, and the 
 
 or unbaptized, to hear the higher points Fathers generally. 
 
294 Self-denying weakness God's ministry in His Church. 
 
 CONF. sell that thou hast, and be filled with fruit, by giving to the 
 
 -^—^ poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; axid/oUow the 
 
 Lord if thou wilt be perfect, associated with them, among 
 
 whom He speaketh wisdom. Who knoweth what to distribute 
 
 to the day, and to the night, that thou also mayest know it, 
 
 and for thee there may be lights in the firmament of heaven ; 
 
 Mat. 6, which will not be, unless thy heart be there : nor will that 
 
 Mat. 19 either be, unless there thy treasure be; as thou hast heard 
 
 22. of the good Master. But that barren earth was grieved'; and 
 
 ^*'- ^^' the thorns choked the word. 
 
 1 Pet. 2, 25. But you, chosen generation, you weak things of the 
 
 ^' world, who hare forsaken all, that ye may follow the Lord ; 
 
 27. ' ' go after Him, and corfound the mighty ; go after Him, ye 
 
 Mark beautiful feet, and shine ye in the firmament, that the heavens 
 
 ls.'62,7.may declare His glory, dividing between the light of the 
 
 ^^\ perfect, though not as the angels, and the darkness of the 
 
 Ps. 19, 1. little ones, though not despised. Shine over the earth; and 
 
 let the day, lightened by the sun, utter unto day, speech of 
 
 wisdom; and night, shining with the moon, shew unto night, 
 
 the word of knowledge. The moon and stars shine for the 
 
 night ; yet doth not the night obscure them, seeing they give 
 
 it light in its degree. For behold God saying, as it were. 
 
 Acts 2, Let there be lights in the firmament qf heaven ; there cam£ 
 
 ' ' suddenly a sound from heaven, as it had been the rushing qf 
 
 a mighty wind, and there appeared cloven tongues like as qf 
 
 fire, and it sat upon each of them. And there were made 
 
 iJohni, lights in the firmament of heaven, having the word of life. 
 
 Run ye to and fro every where, ye holy fires, ye beauteous 
 
 Mat. 5, fires; for ye are the light qf the world, nor are ye put under a 
 
 ' ' bushel; He whom you cleave unto, is exalted, and hath 
 
 exalted you. Run ye to and fro, and be known unto all 
 
 nations. 
 
 Gen. 1, [XX.] 26. Let the sea also conceive and bring forth your 
 
 works ; and let the waters bring forth the moving creature that 
 
 jer. 15, hathlife. 7orye,separating the preciousfromthevile,axeva.aLAe 
 
 the mouth of God, by whom He saith. Let the waters bringforth, 
 
 not the living creature which the earth brings forth, but the 
 
 ' "Because he wished to pass from he departed, grieved, to his earthly trea- 
 one pleasure to another, and feared to sures." Aug. Serm. 38. u. 5. 
 abandon those wherein he took pleasure, 
 
God's mercy in conveying His truth by various symbols. 295 
 
 moving creature having life, and the fowls that Jly above the 
 earth. For Thy Sacraments, O God, by the muiistry of Thy 
 holy ones, have moved amid the waves of temptations of the 
 world, to hallow the Gentiles in Thy Name, in Thy Baptism. 
 And amid these things, many great wonders were wrought, as 
 it were great whales: and the voices of Thy messengers 
 flying above the earth, in the open firmament of Thy Book; 
 that being set over them, as their authority under which they 
 were to fly, whithersoever they went. For there is no speech Ps. 19, 
 nor language, where their voice is not heard : seeing their ' 
 sound is gone through all the earth, and their words to the 
 end of the world, because Thou, Lord, m,ultipliedst them by Gen. l, 
 blessing. 
 
 27. Speak I untruly, or do I mingle and confound, and not 
 distinguish between the lucid knowledge of these things in the 
 
 firmament of heaven, and the material works in the wavy sea, and 
 under the firmament of heaven ? For of those things whereof 
 the knowledge is substantial and defined, without any increase 
 by generation, as it w^ere lights of wisdom and knowledge, yet 
 even of them, the material operations are many and divers; 
 and one thing growing out of another, they are multiplied by 
 Thy blessing, O God, who hast refreshed the fastidiousness 
 of mortal senses ; that so one thing in the understanding of 
 our mind, may, by the motions of the body, be many ways* 
 set out, and expressed. These Sacraments have the waters 
 brought forth; but in Thy word. The' necessities of the people 
 estranged from the eternity of Thy truth, have brought them 
 forth, but in Thy Gospel; because the waters themselves cast 
 them forth, the diseased bitterness whereof was the cause, 
 why they were sent forth in Thy Word. 
 
 28. Now are all things fair that Thou hast made ; but 
 behold, Thyself art unutterably fairer, that madest all ; from 
 whom had not Adam fallen, the brackishness of the sea 
 had never flowed out of him, that is, the human race so pro- 
 
 ' "Our Lord God hath In sundry ofexpression, to obviate satiety, but may 
 
 ways anddirersmannersdiflused through be retained the same to preserve har- 
 
 the Holy Scriptures that faith whereby mony." Aug. in Ps. 46. init. 
 we live and whereof we live, varying the ' He alludes to Baptism in water, ao- 
 
 sacraments of the words, but inviting us companied with the word of the Gospel ; 
 
 to one faith. For one and the same of the institution whereof, man's misery 
 
 thing is therefore expressed in different was the occasion. £01d Ed.] 
 ways, that it may be varied in the form . 
 
296 Baptism gives, the Eucharist maintains, life, 
 
 B*xifl ^"""^^y curious, and tempestuously swelling, and restlessly 
 
 -: ■ tumbling up and down ; and then had there been no need of 
 
 Thy dispensers to work in many waters, after a corporeal and 
 sensible manner, mysterious doings and sayings. For such 
 those moving and flying creatures now seem to me to mean, 
 whereby people being initiated and consecrated by corporeal 
 Sacraments, should not further profit, unless their soul had a 
 spiritual life, and unless after the word of admission, it looked 
 forwards to perfection ". 
 
 [XXI.] 29. And hereby, in Thy Word, not the deepness of 
 
 the sea, but the earth separated from the bitterness of the 
 
 Gen. 1, waters, brings forth, not the moving creature that hath life, 
 
 ^ ^ 7. l"it the living soul. For now hath it no more need of baptism, 
 
 as the heathen have, and as itself had, when it was covered 
 
 John 3, with the waters; (for no other entrance is there into the 
 
 kingdom of heaven, since Thou hast appointed that this 
 
 should be the entrance:) nor does it seek after wonderfulness 
 John 4, of miracles to work belief; for it is not such, that unless it sees 
 
 48 
 
 signs and wonders, it will not believe, now that the faithful 
 earth is separated from the waters that were bitter with 
 
 1 Cor. infidelity; and tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, 
 ' ' but to them that believe not. Neither then does that earth 
 
 Ps. 136, which Thou hast founded upon the waters", need Xhzi flying 
 kind, which at Thy word the waters brought forth. Send 
 Thou Thy word into it by Thy messengers : for we speak of 
 their working, yet it is Thou that workest in them that they 
 may work out a living soul in it. The earth brings it forth, 
 because the earth is the cause that they work this in the soul; 
 as the sea was the cause that they wrought upon the moving 
 creatures that have life, and the fowls that fly under theflrma- 
 ment of heaven, of whom the earth hath no need ; although 
 it feeds upon that fish which was taken out of the deep, upon 
 
 P3.23,5. that table which Thou hast prepared in the presence of them 
 that believe. For therefore was'' He taken out of the deep, 
 
 " He means that Baptism, which is hath established the earth upon the 
 
 the Sacrament of initiation, was not so waters.' " Aug. in Ps. 135. §. 8. 
 profitable without the Lord's Supper, y " He means Christ; the first letters 
 
 which ancients called the Sacrament of of whose Names did in Syhiles acrostic 
 
 perfection, or consummation. [Old Ed.] verses make up the word ix^iis, a fish. 
 
 ^ " And because they abide with un- He was also resembled by Jonsis drawn 
 
 shaken belief in the Baptism , which they out of the fish and deep. And Himself 
 
 taTe received, therefore it is said, ' He was raised from the grave and hell. He 
 
Teaching in the Church, other than to the unbelieving. 297 
 
 that He might feed the dry land ; and Hhefowl, though bred 
 in the sea, is yet multiplied upon the earth. For of the first 
 preachings of the Evangelists, man's infidelity was the cause ; 
 yet are the faithful also exhorted and blessed by them mani- 
 foldly, from day to day. But the living soul takes his be- 
 ginning from the earth: for it profits only those already 
 among the Faithful, to contain themselves from the love of 
 this world, that so their soul may live unto Thee, which was 
 dead while it lived in pleasures; in death-bringing pleasures, i Tim. 
 Lord, for Thou, Lord, art the life-giving delight of the pure ' ' 
 heart. 
 
 30. Now then let Thy ministers work upon the earth, — not 
 as upon tlie waters of infidelity, by preaching and speaking 
 by miracles, and Sacraments, and mystic words; wherein 
 ignorance, the mother of admiration, might be intent upon 
 them, out of a reverence towards those secret signs. For 
 such is the entrance unto the Faith for the sons of Adam 
 forgetful of Thee, while they hide themselves from Thy face, Gen. 3, 
 and become a darksome deep. But — let Thy ministers work 
 now as on the dry land, separated from the whirlpools of the 
 great deep : and let them be a pattern unto the Faithful, by 
 living before them, and stirring them up to imitation. For 
 thus do men hear, so as not to hear only, but to do also. 
 Seek the Lord, and your soul shall live, that the earth may Pg. 69, 
 bring forth the living soul. Be not conformed to the world. ^^' 
 Contain yourselves from it: the soul lives by avoiding 12, 2. 
 what it dies by affecting. Contain yourselves from the un- 
 govemed wildness of pride, the sluggish voluptuousness of 
 luxury, and the false name of knowledge': that so the wildi Tim. 
 beasts may be tamed, the cattle broken to the yoke, the ' 
 serpents, harmless. For these be the motions of our mind 
 under an allegory ; that is to say, the haughtiness of pride, 
 the delight of lust, and the poison of curiosity, are the motions 
 
 is fed upon at the Communion. See also of the Font, so that what was water, is 
 
 Luke 24, 36. [Old Ed.] " We little from Piscis called Piscina. The name 
 
 fish, are born in water according to our of which, in Greek, comprises in one 
 
 IX0TS (' ItirtSi X(iirrat &uS Tft; 2mt»{) Name a host of holy Names through its 
 
 Jesus Christ, nor are we safe other- severallettersIxeTS.z.e. Jesus Christ, 
 
 wise than by remaining in the water." Son of God, Saviour." Optat. cont. Par- 
 
 Tert. de Bapt. c. 1. " This is that Fish, men, 1. iii. p. 62. 
 which in Baptism is by the invocation » See above, p. 205. n. x. 
 [of the Trinity] brought into the waters 
 
^98 Man must Jirst follow examples given him in the Church, 
 B xm' °^ ^ ^^^^ *°"^' ^°^ ^^ ^°^ *^^^® °"* ^'^ ^^ ^'^ ^°^^ ^^^ motion ; 
 
 because it dies' by forsaking the fountain of life, and so is 
 
 13 ■ ' taken up by this transitory world, and is cow^r»»ed M«^o »Y. 
 
 Kom. 31. But Thy word, O God, is the fountain of life eternal; 
 and passeth not away: wherefore this departure of the soul is 
 restrained by Thy word, when it is said unto us. Be not con- 
 formed unto this world; that so tlie earth may in the fountain 
 of life Iring forth a living soul; that is, a soul made continent 
 
 1 Cor. in Thy Word, by Thy Evangelists, hy folloudng the followers 
 of Thy Christ. For this is after his kind; because a man 
 
 Gal. 4, is wont to imitate his friend. Be ye (saith he) as I am, for I 
 also am as you are. Thus in this living soul shall there be 
 good beasts, in meekness of action; (for Thou hast com- 
 
 Eccli. manded. Go on vdth thy business in meekness, so shall thou 
 ' ' be'beloved by all men;) and good cattle, which neither if they 
 
 1 Cor. eat, shall they over-abound, nor, if they eat not,> have any 
 ' ■ lack; and good serpents, not dangerous, to do hurt, but 
 
 16. ' wise to take heed ; and only making so much search into this 
 
 Kom. 1, temporal nature, as may suffice that eternity be clearly seen, 
 being understood by the things that are made. For these 
 creatures are obedient rnito reason'*, when being restrained 
 from deadly prevailing upon us, they live, and are good. 
 
 * " There is no life which is not of deatructive pleasures, and make us like 
 God, because God is the supreme life, all kinds of brute beasts. But when 
 and Himself the fountain of fife. — Life, goyemed and kept subject, they become 
 then, which, by a voluntary failure, fall- altogether tame, and live in harmony 
 eth away from Him Who made it, and with us. For the emotions of our mind 
 Whose Essence it enjoyed, and wishing are not alien from ourselves. For, to- 
 against the law of God to enjoy things gather with us, they are fed on the kuow- 
 bodily, which God made subject to it, ledge of grounds, and good moral action, 
 tends towards nothing. For if those and life eternal, as it were on seed-bear- 
 things which die, died altogether, they ing herbs, and fruit-bearing trees, and 
 would without doubt come to nothing ; green herbs. And this is the blessed 
 but they only die, so far as they partake and peaceful life of man, when all his 
 less of the Essence." Aug. de vera Bel. emotions are in unison with reason and 
 y;. 11. truth; and these are called joys, and 
 
 " "And what was said to them, holy, pure, and good loves. But if they 
 
 < Have dominion,' &c. (always retaining are not in unison, (and- not less when 
 
 the plain meaning, that man by reason they are treated negligently,) they rend 
 
 has dominion over all these animals,) is and dissipate the mind, and make life 
 
 yet rightly understood also spiritually, most miserable ; and are called pas- 
 
 that we should keep in subjection all the sions, and lusts, and evil concupiscences, 
 
 affections and emotions of the mind, Which we are now enjoined, with all 
 
 which we have, resembling those ani- the exertion we can, to crucify in us, 
 
 maJs, and have dominion over them until 'death, be swallowed up in victory.' 
 
 through temperance and modesty. For For the Apostle saith, ' they who are 
 
 when those ernotions are not governed, Christ's, have crucified their flesh with 
 
 they burst out and lead on to most foul its passions and lusts.' " Aug. de Gen. 
 
 habits, and hurry us along divers and c. Manich. 1. i. c. 20. 
 
and then, renewed, shall be guided on alone. 299 
 
 32. For behold, O Lord our God, our Creator, when our 
 
 affections have been restrained from the love of the world, by 
 
 which we died through evil-living ; and begun to be a living 
 
 soul, through good living ; and Thy word which Thou spakest 
 
 by Thy apostle, is made good in us. Be not conformed to this Rom. 
 
 world: there follows that also, which Thou presently sub- ^'*' ^' 
 
 joinedst, saying, But he ye transformed by the renewing of 
 
 your mind; not now after your kind, as though following 
 
 your neighbour who went before you, nor as living after the 
 
 example of some better man, (for Thou saidst not, " Let 
 
 man be made after his kind," but, Let us make man after ov/r Gea. l, 
 
 *• 26 
 
 ou?n image and similitude^ that we might prove what Thy 
 
 will is. For to this purpose said that dispenser of Thine, 
 
 (who begat children by the Gospel,) that he might not for l Cor. 
 
 ever have them babes, whom he must be fain to feed with ' ' 
 
 milk, and cherish as a nurse; be ye transformed (saith he) ^ '^hes. 
 
 by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is Eom. 
 
 that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Where- ^^' *• 
 
 fore Thou sayest not, " Let man be made," but Let us make 
 
 man. Nor saidst Thou, " according to his kind;" but, after 
 
 our image and likeness. For man being renewed in his mind, 
 
 and beholding and understanding Thy truth, needs not manJer, 31, 
 
 as his director, so as to follow after his kind ; but by Thy ^^' 
 
 direction proveth what is that good, that acceptable, and 
 
 perfect will of Thine : yea, Thou teachest him, now made 
 
 capable, to discern the Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity 
 
 of the Trinity ''. Wherefore to that said in the plural. Let us 
 
 make man, is yet subjoined in the singular. And God made Gen. i, 
 
 man : and to that said in the plural. After our likeness, is 
 
 subjoined in the singular, After the image of God. Thus is 
 
 man renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image qfCol.3, 
 
 Him that created him : andheingraaAe spiritual, he judgeth ' 
 
 all things, (all things which are to be judged,) yet himself is^ Cor. 
 
 judged of no man. 
 
 [XXIIL] 33. But that he judgeth all things, this answers to 
 
 his haying dominion over thejish of the sea, and over the fowls 
 
 ^ " That then is the full satiety of highest Existence. Which then shew to 
 
 souls, that the blessed life, holily and those who understand. One God, and 
 
 perfectly to know, by 'Whom you are led One Substance, excluding the vanities 
 
 into Truth, the Truth 'Whom thou enjoy- of various superstitions." Aug. de Vit& 
 
 est, by 'Whom thou art united to the Beata, §. 26. 
 
300 The spiritual, not to judge of Holy Scr., nor state of souls, 
 
 ^0 "Jf • °f tf^e o,ir, and over all cattle and wild beasts, and over all the 
 
 earth, ana over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the 
 
 earth. For this he doth by the understanding of his mind, 
 
 1 Cor. whereby he perceiveth the things of the Spirit of God; 
 
 Ps.49 whereas otherwise, man being placed in honour, had no 
 
 20. understanding, and is compared unto the brute beasts, and is 
 become like unto them. In Thy Church therefore, O our 
 God, according to Thy grace which Thou hast bestowed 
 
 Eph. 2, upon it, [for we are Thy workmanship created unto good 
 works,) not those only who are spiritually set over, but they 
 also who spiritually are subject to those that are set over 
 
 Gen. 1, them, — (for in this way didst Thou make man male and 
 female, in Thy grace spiritual, where, according to the 
 
 Gal. 3, sex of body, there is neither male nor female, because 
 neither Jew nor Grecian, neither bond nor free.) — Spiritual 
 persons,' (whether such as are set over, or such as obey ;) 
 do judge spiritually ; not of that spiritual knowledge which 
 shines in the firmament, (for they ought not to judge as to so 
 supreme authority,) nor may they judge of Thy Book itself, 
 even though something there shineth not clearly ; for we 
 submit our understanding unto it, and hold for certain, that 
 even what is closed to our sight, is yet rightly and truly 
 spoken. For so man, though now spiritual and renewed in 
 the knowledge of God after His image that created him, 
 
 Jam. 4, ought to be a doer of the law, not a judge. Neither doth he 
 judge of that distinction of spiritual and carnal men, who are 
 known unto Thine eyes, O our God, and have not as yet 
 
 Mat. 7, discovered themselves unto us by works, that by their fruits 
 
 *"• ice might know them: but Thou, Lord, dost even now know 
 them, and hast divided and called them in secret, or ever the 
 firmament was made. Nor doth he, though spiritual, judge 
 
 1 Cor. the unquiet people of this world ; for what hath he to do, to 
 
 ^' ^'^' judge them that are without, knowing not which of them 
 shall hereafter come into the sweetness of Thy grace; and 
 which continue in the perpetual bitterness of ungodliness ? 
 
 34. Man therefore, whom Thou hast made after Thine 
 own image, received not dominion over the lights of heaven, 
 nor over that hidden heaven itself, nor over the day and the 
 night, which Thou calledst before the foundation of the 
 heaven, nor over the gathering together of the waters, which 
 
nor those uit/ioiit, but whom and what he may correct. 301 
 
 is the sea ; but He received dominion over the fishes of the 
 sea, and the fowls of the air, and over all cattle, and over all 
 the earth, and over all creeping things which creep upon the 
 earth. For He judgeth and approveth what He findeth right, 
 and He disalloweth what He findeth amiss, whether in the 
 celebration of those Sacraments by which such are initiated, 
 as Thy mercy searches out in many waters: or in that, in 
 which that Fish"^ is set forth, which, taken out of the deep, 
 the devout earth feedeth upon: or in the expressions and 
 signs of words, subject to the authority of Thy Book, — such 
 signs, as proceed out of the mouth, and sound forth, flying as 
 it were under the firmament, by interpreting, expounding, 
 discoursing, disputing, consecrating, or praying unto Thee, so 
 that the people may answer. Amen. The vocal pronouncing 
 of all which words, is occasioned by the deep of this world, 
 and the blindness of the flesh, which cannot see thoughts; 
 so that there is need to speak aloud .into the ears ; so that, 
 although flying fowls be multiplied upon the earth, yet they 
 derive their beginning from the waters. The spiritual man 
 judgeth also by allowing of what is right, and disallowing 
 what he finds amiss, in the works and lives of the faithful ; 
 their alms, as it were the earth bringing forth fruit, and of 
 the living soul, living by the taming of the affections, in 
 chastity, in fasting, in holy meditations ; and of those things, 
 which are perceived by the senses of the body. Upon all 
 these is he now said to judge, wherein he hath also power 
 of correction. 
 
 35. But what is this, and what kind of mystery ? Behold, 
 Thou blessest mankind, O Lord, that they may increase and 
 multiply, and replenish the earth; dost Thou not thereby 
 give us a hint to understand something ? why didst 
 Thou not as well bless the light, which Thou calledst day ; 
 nor the firmament of heaven, nor the lights, nor the stars, nor 
 the earth, nor the sea? I might say that Thou, O God, who 
 created us after Thine Image, I might say, that it had been 
 Thy good pleasure to bestow this blessing peculiarly upon 
 man ; hadst Thou not in like manner blessed the fishes and 
 the whales, that they should increase^ and multiply, and 
 replenish the waters of the sea, and that the fowls should be 
 ' See above, §. 29. not. 
 
302 Nothing superfluous in Holy Scr.— Words of God have 
 
 bIxiu.'""^^*-^^*^'' ^^'^ '''^ ^"''^^^- ^ ™'Sht say likewise, that this 
 
 ^blessing pertained properly unto such creatures, as are bred 
 
 of their own kind, had I found it given to the fruit-trees, and 
 plants, and beasts of the earth. But now neither unto the 
 herbs, nor the trees, nor the beasts, nor serpents is it said. 
 Increase and multiply; notwithstanding all these as well as 
 the fishes, fowls, or men, do by generation increase and con- 
 tinue their kind. 
 
 36. What then shall T say, O, Truth my Light? "that 
 it was idly said, and without meaning ?" Not so, O Father 
 of piety, far be it from a minister of Thy word to say so. 
 And if I understand not what Thou meanest by that phrase, 
 let my betters, that is, 'those of more understanding than 
 myself, make better use of it, according as Thou, my God, 
 hast given to each maa to understand. But let my confession 
 also be pleasing in Thine eyes, wherein I confess unto Thee, 
 that I believe, O Lord, that Thou spakest not so in vain ; nor 
 will I suppress, what this lesson suggests to me. For it is 
 true, nor do I see what should hinder me from thus under- 
 standing the figurative sayings of Thy Bible. For I know a 
 thing to be manifoldly signified by corporeal expressions, 
 which is understood one way by the mind ; and that under- 
 stood many ways in the mind, which is signified one way by 
 corporeal expression. Behold, the single love of God and 
 our neighbour, by what manifold sacraments, and innumerable 
 languages, and in each several language, in how innumerable 
 modes of speaking, it is corporeally expressed. Thus do the 
 oflFsprings of the waters increase and multiply. ' Observe again, 
 whosoever readest this ; behold, what Scripture delivers, and 
 the voice pronounces one only way, In the Beginning God 
 created heaven and earth; is it not understood manifoldly, 
 not through any deceit of error, but by various kinds of true 
 senses ? Thus do man's ofispring increase and multiply. 
 
 37. If therefore we conceive of the natures of the things 
 themselves, not allegoricaUy, but properly, then does the 
 phrase increase and multiply, agree unto all things, that 
 come of seed. But if we treat of the words as figuratively 
 spoken, (which I rather suppose to be the pmrpose of the 
 Scripture, which doth not, surely, superfluously ascribe this 
 benediction to the oflfspring of aquatic animals and man only;) 
 
manifold meaning; things of God, manifoldly expressed. 303 
 
 then do we find " multitude'" to belong to creatures spiritual 
 as well as corppreal, as in heaven and earth, and to souls both 
 righteous and unrighteous, as in light and darkness; and to 
 holy authors who have been the ministers of the Law unto us, 
 as in the firmament which is settled betwixt the waters and 
 the waters ; and to the society of people yet in the bitterness 
 of infidelity, as in the sea ; and to the zeal of holy souls, as 
 in the dry land; and to works of mercy belonging to this 
 present life, as in the herbs hearing seed, and in trees hearing 
 fruit ; and to spiritual gifts set forth for edification, as in 
 the lights of heaven; and to affections formed unto temper- 
 ance, as in the living soul. In all these instances we meet 
 with multitudes, abundance, and increase ; but what shall in 
 such wise increase and multiply that one thing may be ex- 
 pressed many ways, and one expression understood many 
 ways; we find not, except in signs corporeally expressed, 
 and in things mentally conceived. By signs corporeally 
 pronounced we understand the generations of the waters, 
 necessarily occasioned by the depth of the flesh ; by things 
 mentally conceived, human generations, on account of the 
 fruitfulness of reason. And for this end do we believe 
 Thee, Lord, to have said to these kinds. Increase and mul- 
 tiply. For in this blessing, I conceive Thee to have granted 
 us a power and a faculty, both to express several ways what 
 we understand but one ; and to understand several ways, 
 what we read to be obscurely delivered but in one. Thus 
 are the waters of the sea replenished, which are not moved 
 but by several significations: thus with human increase is 
 the earth also replenished, whose dryness appeareth in its 
 longing**, and reason ruleth over it. 
 
 [XXV.] 38. 1 would also say, O Lord my God, what the 
 following Scripture minds me of; yea, I will say, and not 
 fear. For I will say the truth, Thyself inspiring me with 
 what Thou willedst me to deliver out of those words. But 
 by no other inspiration than Thine, do I believe myself to 
 speak truth, seeing Thou art the Truth, and every man a Rom. 3, 
 liar. He therefore that speaketh a lie, speaketh of his own ; *' 
 that therefore I may speak truth, I will speak of Thine. Behold, 4. ' 
 Thou hast given unto ws, for food every herb bearing seed Gen. i, 
 * See above, §.21. 
 
304 Not a gift, but a gift out of a right mind, entitled "fruit." 
 
 CONF. which is upon all the earth; and every tree, in which is the 
 
 — 'fruit of a tree yielding seed. And not to us alone, but also 
 
 to all th^ fowls qf the air, and to the beasts of the earth, and 
 
 to all creeping things; but unto the fishes and to the great 
 
 whales, hast Thou not given them. Now we said that by 
 
 these fruits qf the earth were signified, and figured in an 
 
 allegory, the works of mercy which are provided for the 
 
 necessities of this life out of the fruitful earth. Such an 
 
 2 Tim. earth was the devout Onesiphorus, unto whose house Thmi 
 
 ' ' gavest mercy, because he often refreshed Thy Paul, and was not 
 
 2 Cor. ashamed of his chain. Thus did also the brethren, and such 
 
 ' ■ fruit did they bear, who out of Macedonia supplied what was 
 
 lacking to him. But how grieved he for some trees, which did not 
 
 2 Tim. afford'hxm \he fruit due unto him, where he saith, At my first 
 
 ' ' answer no man stood by me, but all men forsook me. I pray 
 
 God that it may not be laid to their charge. For these fruits 
 
 are due to such as minister the spiritual' doctrine unto us 
 
 out of their understanding of the divine mysteries ; and they 
 
 are due to them, as men ; yea and due to them also, as the 
 
 Zmw^'sowZ, which giveth itself as an example, in all continency ; 
 
 and due unto them also, as flying creatures, for their blessings 
 
 Ps.19,4. which are multiplied upon the earth, because their sound 
 
 went out into all lands. 
 
 [XXVI.] 39. But they are fed by these fruits, that are 
 
 delighted with them; nor are they delighted with them, 
 
 Phil. 3, whose God is their belly. For neither in them that 
 
 *^' yield them, are the things yielded the fruit, but with what 
 
 Kom. mind they yield them. He therefore that served God, and 
 
 *®' '^" not his own belly, I plainly see why he rejoiced; I see it, 
 
 and I rejoice with him. For he had received from the 
 
 Phil. 4, Philippians, what they had sent by Epaphroditus unto 
 
 ^^' him: and yet I perceive why he rejoiced. For whereat 
 
 ver. 10. he rejoiced upon that he fed ; for, speaking in truth, / 
 
 rejoiced (saith he) greatly in the Lord, that now at the last 
 
 your care of me hath flourished again, wherein ye were also 
 
 careful, but it had become ^ wearisome unto you. These 
 
 = Bationalem. An old epithet to most Apost. 1. vi. c. 23, the Eucharist is styled, 
 
 oitheholj things. So, reasonable service, A reasonable Sacrifice. The word was 
 
 Rom. 12 1. Xiymh -yiii-x, 1 Pet. 2, 2. used to distinguish Christian mysteries 
 
 smcere m'ilk. Clem. Alex, calls Baptism from Jewish. Rationale est spirittiale. 
 
 so, Psedag. 1. i. c. 6. And in Constitut. [Old Ed.] 
 
St. Paul desired a gift, for the givers, not for himself. 305 
 
 Philippians then had now dried up, with a long weariness, 
 and withered as it were as to bearing this fruit of a good 
 work; and he rejoiceth for them, that they flourished again, 
 not for himself, that they supplied his wants. Therefore 
 subjoins he, not that I speak in respect of want, for I havevtr. 11, 
 learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to he content. ' 
 I know both Jiow to be abased, and I know how to abound; 
 every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full, 
 and to he hungry; both to abound, and to suffer need. I can 
 do all things through Him which strengtheneth me. 
 
 40. Whereat then rejoicest thou, O great Paul? whereat 
 rejoicest thou ? whereon feedest thou, man, renewed in the 
 knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created thee, 
 thou living soul, of so much continency, thou tongue like 
 
 flying fowls, speaking mysteries? (for to such creatures, is 
 this food due;) what is it that feeds thee ? Joy. Hear we what 
 follows : notwithstanding, ye have well done, that ye did com- Phil. 4, 
 municate mth my affliction. Hereat he rejoiceth, hereon ' 
 feedeth ; because they had well done, not because his strait 
 was eased, who saith unto Thee, Thou hast enlarged meps.4, i. 
 when I was in distress; for that he knew to abound, and to"^^'- 13- 
 suffer want', in Thee Who strengthenest him. For ye Philip- 
 pians also know, (saith he,) that in the beginning of the Gospel, ver. 1 5. 
 when I departed from Macedonia, no Church communicated ' 
 with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For 
 even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my 
 necessity. Unto these good works, he now rejoiceth that 
 they are returned; and is gladdened that they flourished 
 again, as when a fruitful field resumes its green. 
 
 41. Was it for his own necessities, because he said. Ye 
 sept unto my necessity? Rejoiceth he for that ? Verily not for 
 that. But how know we this ? Because himself says imme- 
 diately, not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit. I ver. 1 7. 
 have learned of Thee, my God, to distinguish betwixt a gift, 
 
 anA. fruit. A gift, is the thing itself which he gives, that 
 imparts these necessaries unto us; as money, meat, drink, 
 clothing, shelter, help : but the fruit, is the good and right 
 
 * "Any may suffer want, but to 'know to abound' belongs only to those whom 
 to suffer want' belongs to great souls, abundance does not corrupt." Aug. de 
 So, abound, who cannot? But to ' know Bono Conjug. o. 21. 
 
306 Things given by carnal men to religions ends, not " gifts." 
 
 CONF. will of the giver. For the Good Master said not ouly, He that 
 Mat 10 ^'^^^^"^^^ ^ prophet, but added, in the name of a prophet : nor 
 41. did He only say, He that receiveth a righteous man, but 
 added, in the name of a righteous man. So verily shall the 
 one receive the reward of a prophet, the other, the reward of 
 a righteous man ; nor saith He only. He that shall give to 
 drink a cup of cold water to one of my little ones ; but added, 
 in the name of a disciple : and so concludeth. Verily I say 
 unto you, he shall not lose his reward. The gift is, to receive 
 a prophet, to receive a righteous man, to give a cup of 
 cold water to a disciple: but \he fruit, to do this in the name 
 of a prophet, in the name of a righteous man, in the name of 
 a disciple. With fruit was Elijah fed by the widow that 
 knew she fed a man of God, and therefore fed him : but by 
 the raven was he fed with a gift. Nor was the inner man of 
 Elijah so fed, but the outer only; which might also for want 
 of that food have perished. 
 
 [XXVII.] 42. I will then speak what is true in Thy sight, 
 O Lord, that when carnal men and infidels (for the gaining 
 and initiating whom, the initiatory Sacraments and the mighty 
 workings of miracles are necessary, which we suppose to be 
 signified by the name oi fishes and whales) undertake the 
 bodily refi-eshment, or otherwise succour Thy servant with 
 something usefiil for this present life ; whereas they be igno- 
 rant, why this is to be done, and to what end; neither do 
 they feed these, nor are these fed by them ; because neither 
 do the one do it out of an holy and right intent ; nor do the 
 other rejoice at their gifts, whose fruit they as yet behold 
 not. For upon that is the mind fed, of which it is glad. 
 And therefore do not ihe fishes and whales feed upon such 
 meats, as the earth brings not forth until after it was 
 separated and divided fi-om the bitterness of the waves of 
 the sea. 
 Gen. 1, [XXVIII.] 43. And Thou, O God, sawest every thing that 
 ^'' Thou hadst made, and, behold, it teas very good. Yea we also 
 see the same, and behold, all things are very good. Of the 
 several kinds of Thy works, when Thou hadst said " let them 
 be," and they were. Thou sawest each that it was good. Seven 
 times have I counted it to be written, that Thou sawest that 
 that which Thou modest was good: and this is the eighth, that 
 
Harmony qf creation, its exceeding excellence. 307 
 
 Thou sawest every thing that Thou hadst made, and, behold, 
 it was not only good, but also very good, as being now 
 altogether. For severally, they were only good; but altogether, 
 both good, and very good. All beautiful bodies express the 
 same; by reason that a body consisting of members all beauti- 
 ful, is far more beautiful than the same members by themselves 
 are, by whose well-ordered blending the whole is perfected ; 
 notwithstanding that the members severally be also beautifuP- 
 [XXIX.] 44. And I looked narrowly to find, whether 
 seven, or eight times Thou sawest that Thy works were good, 
 when they pleased Thee ; but in Thy seeing I found no times, 
 whereby I might understand that Thou sawest so often, what 
 Thou madest. And I said, " Lord, is not this Thy Scripture 
 true, since Thou art true, and being Truth, hast set it forth ? 
 why then dost Thou say unto me, ' that in Thy seeing there 
 be no times ;' whereas this Thy Scripture tells me, that what 
 Thou madest each day. Thou sawest that it was good : and 
 when I counted them, I found how often." Unto this Thou 
 answerest me, for Thou art my God, and with a strong voice 
 tellest Thy servant in his inner ear, breaking through my 
 deafness and crying, " O man, that which My Scripture saith, 
 I say: and yet doth that speak in time; but time has no 
 relation to My Word; because My Word exists in equal 
 eternity with Myself. So the things which ye see through 
 My Spirit, I see; like as what ye speak by My Spirit, I 
 
 S " That is not to be passed over beingseTeraUybeautifal,contributetheir 
 
 lightly, which is said, ' and God saw all beauty! so that a beautiful hand, which 
 
 things which He had made, that they being in the body was praised even by 
 
 were very good.' For when He was itself, if it be separated from the body, 
 
 speaking of individuals, he said only, both itself loses its beauty, and the other 
 
 ' God saw that it was good ;' but when parts, without it, are deformed. So great 
 
 all were spoken of, it ■was too little to say is the force and power of entireness and 
 
 ' good,' unless there were added ' very.' unity, that even amultitude of things, in 
 
 For if the several works of God, when themselves good, please not until they 
 
 they are considered by thoughtful per- meet and harmonize in one universal 
 
 sons, are found, each within itself and [one whole]. And ' universal' indeed 
 
 its kind, to have excellent proportions hath its name from ' unity,' which, if 
 
 and numbers and order, how much more the Maniehees would consider, they 
 
 all together, i.e. the universe itself, which would praise God, the Author and Maker 
 
 is composed of these several things col- of the universe ; and whatever, being a 
 
 lected into one. For aU beauty, which result of our mortal nature, does, in any 
 
 consistsof parts,ismuchmore commend- part, offend them, they would assign its 
 
 able as a whole than in part ; as in the place in the beauly of the whole, and see 
 
 human body, if we commend the eyes how God made all things, not only 
 
 only,ortheseveralotherbeautifulpoint3, 'good,' but also ' very good.'" Aug. de 
 
 singly and alone, how much more the Gen. c, Man. i. e. 21 . 
 whole body, to which all the members, 
 
 x2 
 
308 Ood sees, knows, speaks, in us what of these we do aright. 
 
 CONF. speak. And so when ye see those things in time, I see them 
 
 ' not in time ; as when ye speak in time, I speak them not in 
 
 time." 
 
 [XXX.] 45. And I heard, O Lord my God, and drank up 
 a drop of sweetness out of Thy truth, and understood, that 
 certain " men there be who mislike Thy works ; and say, that 
 many of thera Thou madest, compelled by necessity ; such as 
 the fabric of the heavens, and harmony of the stars ; and that 
 Thou madest them not of what was Thine', but that they were 
 otherwhere and from other sources created, for Thee to bring 
 together and compact and combine, when out of Thy con- 
 quered enemies '' Thou raisedst up the walls of the universe ; 
 that they, bound down by this structure, might not again be 
 able to rebel against Thee. For other things, they say Thou 
 neither madest them, nor even compactedst them, such as all 
 flesh and all very minute creatures, and whatsoever hath its 
 root in the earth ; but that a mind at enmity with Thee, and 
 another nature not created by Thee, and contrary unto Thee, 
 did, in these lower stages of the world, beget and frame these 
 things. Phrenzied are they who say thus, because they see 
 not Thy works by Thy Spirit, nor recognize Thee in them. 
 
 [XXXI.] 46. But they who by Thy Spirit see these things. 
 Thou seest in them. Therefore when they see that these 
 things are good, Thou seest that they are good ; and what- 
 soever things for Thy sake please. Thou pleasest in them, and 
 what through Thy Spirit please us, they please Thee in us. 
 
 1 Cor. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a 
 ' man, which is in him ? even so the things of God knoweth no 
 one, hut the Spirit of God. Now we (saith he) have received, 
 not the spirit of this world, tut the Spirit which is of God, 
 that we might know the things that are freely given to us of 
 God. And I am admonished, " Truly the things of God 
 knoweth no one, but the Spirit of God: how then do we also 
 know, what things are given us of God?" Answer is made 
 me; " because the things which we know by His Spirit, even 
 these no one knoweth, but the Spirit of God. For as it is 
 rightly said unto those that were to speak by the Spirit of 
 
 Mat. 10, God, it is not ye that speak : so is it rightly said to them 
 
 20. " 
 
 h The Manichees, see Note k. beg. ^ See Note A. §. ii. 
 
 • See Note A. §. i. and i. b. 
 
Heonly sees God's works to begood, who loves Him in them. 309 
 
 that know through the Sphit of God, ' It is not ye that 
 know.' And no less then is it rightly said to those that see 
 through the Spirit of God, ' It is not ye that see ;' so what- 
 soever through the Spirit of God they see to be good, it is not 
 they, but God that sees that it is good." It is one thing then 
 for a man to think that to be ill which is good, as the fore- 
 named do ; another, that that which is good, a man should 
 see that it is good, (as Thy creatures be pleasing unto many, 
 because they be good, whom yet Thou pleasest not in them, 
 when they prefer to enjoy them, to Thee ;) and another, 
 that when a man sees a thing that it is good, God should in 
 him see that it is good, so, namely, that He should be loved 
 in that which He made'. Who cannot be loved, but by the 
 Holy Ghost which He hath given. Because the love of God Rom. 5, 
 is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Which is 
 given unto us: by Whom we see that whatsoever in any 
 degree is, is good. For from Him it is, who Himself Is not 
 in degree, but what He Is, Is. 
 
 [XXXII.] 47. Thanks to Thee, O Lord. We behold the 
 heaven and eorf//, whether the corporeal part, superior and infe- 
 rior, 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 ihe Jinnament 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 
 vapours 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 
 
 ' " We see these things, and if His made them." Aug. in Joann. Tract. 8. 
 
 Spirit be in us, they will please us in §. 1. See above, b. iv. §. 18. p. 56. n. m. 
 
 suchwisethat weshallpraisetheirMaier, and b. x. §. 53. p. 212. n. i. 
 
 not so that turning to the works, we should ■" " This was not said considerately 
 
 turn away from the Maker ; and setting enough ; for the matter is hidden exceed- 
 
 our face in a manner to the things which ing deep." Aug. Retr. ii. 6. 
 He made, turn our backs on Him who 
 
310 Summary of the Creation, and of 
 
 CONF. to suffice for the day, tJie moon and the stars to cheer the 
 
 ■p 'Y'TTT 
 
 '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 Tliy 
 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 sub- 
 ject, that it might obey ; so was there for the man, corporeally 
 also, made a woman, who in the mind of her reasonable 
 imderstanding 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 tiie 
 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. 
 
 " Cf. de Gen. e. Manich. ii. 15. more evidently in two human beings, the 
 
 " " Concipiendam," or the reading man and the woman, may be contem- 
 
 may be " concupiscendam," according plated in the one, man ; viz. that the 
 
 to S. Aug.'s interpretation of Gen. 3,16. inward man, as it were manly reason, 
 
 in the de Gen. c. Manich. ii. §. 16. should have in subjection the appetite of 
 
 " As an instance hereof was woman the soul, whereby we act through the 
 
 made, who is in the order of things made bodily members." 
 subject to the man ; that what appears 
 
its correspondence to that qf the Church. 311 
 
 [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 Gen. l, 
 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; forincom- 
 our sins hung over us, and we had sunk into the dark deep, P°^' j' 
 and Thy good Spirit was home over us, to help us in due -RomU, 
 season; and Thou dxdiSt justify the ungodly, and dividedst^- 
 them from the wicked; and Thon modest the firmament of'*'"'*' 
 authority of Thy Book between those placed above, who were 
 to be docile unto Thee, and those under, who were to bever. 7. 
 subject to them: and Thou gatheredst together the society ofver.9. 
 unbehevers into one conspiracy, that the zeal of the faithful 
 might appear, and they might bring forth works of mercy, ver. 11. 
 even distributing to the poor their earthly riches, to obtain 
 heavenly. And after this didst Thou kindle certain lights inver. 14. 
 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 vigour of 
 continency : and after that, the mind subjected to Thee alone 
 and needing to imitate no human authority, hast Thou re- 
 newed 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 Tliy Ministry, neces- 
 sary 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 p. 
 
 P " Heavenly peace, which truly is in and each other in God; .whither, when 
 
 such wise peace, that it alone should be we shall arrive, life will no longer be 
 
 accounted or called the peace of the ra- mortal, but merely and assuredly living j 
 
 tional creature, being the flilly-ordered, nor shall the body be mortal, which 
 
 andharmonioua society, of enjoying God, when ' corrupted presseth down the soul,' 
 
312 Our rest from God's works in us, in His Eternal rest. 
 CONF. 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. 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 ever- 
 lasting continuance; that that which Thou didst a/ler Tliy 
 works -which, were very good,resting the seventh dlay, 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 i. 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 
 
 but spiritual, without einy thing lacking, whatsoever we do, He working in us, so 
 
 wholly suhdued to the will.' Aug. de is God rightly said to rest, when by His 
 
 Civ. Dei, ix. 17. gift we rest." Aug. de Gen. ad Lit. 
 
 1 " For as God is rightly said to do, iv. 9. 
 
The Mysteries of God can be revealed only by Him. 313 
 
 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 Mat. 7, 
 shall it be received, so shall it he found, so shall it be opened. 
 Amen. 
 
 GRATIAS TIBI DOMINE. 
 
314 Origin of 3IanichcBism. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 NOTE. The allusions to the Manichaean errors scattered up and down in 
 the Confessions may for the most part be more clearly illustrated', 
 by being taken in the order in which they lie in the system, rather 
 than as they happen to be mentioned in the several books. The 
 whole is an attempt to solve the question, " Whence is evil ?" 
 (lib. iii. c. 7.) In answering this question, the system of Manes 
 evades the whole difiSculty, by assuming (according to the belief of 
 his country) two first principles, an evil and a good; but to conceal 
 that it has made this assumption, it glides from this question into 
 another, " Whence is evil in this world?" And here again Manes 
 seems to have been determined by his habits of mind, chiefly to 
 dwell upon physical evils, or what seemed physical defects. " De- 
 vising of his own mind, not discovering in holy Scripture or through 
 the voice of the Holy Spirit, but from the miserable reasonings of 
 human nature, he devised this system ; saying, whereby could 
 every thing in the whole mass of creation be thus unequal — black 
 and white, fiery red and pale, wet and dry, heaven and earth, night 
 and day, soul and body, good and bad, just and unjust — but that 
 these things are compounded of two several substances ? So Satan 
 put into his heart to conceive that which is not, [has no independent 
 existence, evil being, as S. Aug. frequently insists, the corruption 
 of good, see p. 36. Conf. xii. c. 1 1. Aug. c. Secundin. Man. c. 12.] 
 and not to know Him who is." (Epiph. Hser. Ixvi. 92.) [The 
 Manichaeans] " offended by some things, and, again, pleased with 
 others, would have God the author of those things, wherewith they 
 are pleased, and not of those whereat they are offended." (Aug. de 
 vera relig. c. 9. comp. Conf. vii. c. 14 and 16. xiii. c. 30.) At the 
 time of the appearance of Manes, there were two main dualistic 
 systems in the East, the one that of his country, Persia, the religion 
 of Zoroaster, the other, Bouddhism in India. Of these, that of 
 Persia was principally moral, Bouddhism chiefly philosophic. Both 
 were also pantheistic; yet in the Persian, as far as we can judge, 
 the pantheistic portion was but little developed, and practically did 
 not influence the system. A " boundless time or space," Zeruane 
 
 * In this brief statement of the chief Baur Manichiische Eeligions-system ; 
 
 pointe of Manichaeism, the main object though with careful study of the original 
 
 was to illustrate those parts of the system sources. Beausobre's work on Mani- 
 
 touched upon by S. Augustine ; and that chaeism is altogether confused by its 
 
 chiefly out of S. Aug. himself, and in his liberalist principles. It is not a history, 
 
 own words. In the selection of passages, but an apology of a system which he 
 
 much use has been made of the full col- ill understood, 
 lections in Mosheim de rebus Christ, and 
 
Manichceism a corruption of the old Persian religion. 315 
 
 akerene •" is incidentally mentioned as the source of the two 
 principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman ; and so far the system is pan- 
 theistic ; the two principles are also co-existent, and so far it is 
 diialistic; but, practically, the evil Principle is exhibited as 
 altogether inferior to the good, not only in the result of the struggle, 
 but in its course ; the world was formed by the good Principle alone, 
 and Ahriman introduced only what was evil, as a corruption, not, 
 or in some slight exceptions only, as a Creator. The creation was 
 still good, and Ormuzd's, as far as it had not been corrupted. The 
 Persian system then approached much nearer to the truth than any 
 other ; whether the erroneous elements had never taken any deep root 
 in the popular religion, (to which the remains principally belong,) 
 or they had been softened by its contact with their captives, the 
 people of God. Bouddhism"^, on the other hand, is a philosophical 
 speculation on the union of Spirit and matter, as combined in the 
 formation of the world, and their ultimate separation, when matter 
 was to be annihilated, and Bouddha to be every thing. It regards 
 matter not principally as evil, but as empty, and having no intrinsic 
 existence, although evil is the result of the formation of the material 
 world. It also makes the combination of Spirit and matter therein, 
 to take place in a pantheistic way, differing herein from the system 
 of Zoroaster. These two points, in the foundation of his system. 
 Manes combined with the system of his country, viz. the contrast of 
 matter with Spirit, (identifying matter with the evil Principle,) and 
 the combination of matter and Spirit, as the original of the universe, 
 instead of its Creation. This combination he supposed to take 
 place through an inroad of the evil upon the good, of matter upon 
 light, retaining from Zoroastrism the notion of an assault of evil 
 upon the good. So far then from really combining Zoroastrism with 
 Christianity, (as has often been represented,) he united it with an 
 element far more alien from the Gospel, than that upon which he 
 innovated, and greatly injured both its religious and moral character. 
 Its own utterly unpractical character is remarkably illustrated by 
 the grounds assigned by one of themselves for believing in it. He 
 is accounting for their ascribing to Manes, the office of the Paraclete 
 or Comforter, in finishing the revelation of the will of God. " We, 
 hearing Paul say, ' we know in part and prophesy in part; but, 
 when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall 
 be done away,' — Manichseus came with his preaching, and we 
 received him, according to what Christ said, ' I send you the Holy 
 Spirit;' and Paul came and said that ' he should come,' and no one 
 came after; therefore we have received Manichaeus. And because 
 Manichseus came, and by his preaching taught us the beginnino-, 
 middle, and end ; taught us of the fabric of the world, why and 
 whence it was made, and what beings made it; taught us why there 
 
 b See Kleuker Anhang zum Zend rioally implied in the well-known ana- 
 
 Avesta, pt. ii. p. 281 &c. vol. i. thema against those who held that 
 
 ' The internal connexion of Mani- " Zaradas, Boudas, Christ, and Mani- 
 
 chseism with Bouddhism is traced very cheeus, were one and the same." Tollii 
 
 ably by Baur, p. 434 sqq. as it is histo- Insign. Itin. Ital. p. 135. 
 
316 Manes' teaching materialist and pantheistic. 
 
 NOTE, was day, and why night ; taught us of the course of the sun and 
 moon; because we have not heard this in Paul, nor in the writings 
 of the other Apostles, we believe that he is the Paraclete." (Felix 
 ap. Aug. Acta c. Fel. Man. i. 9.) Such were the things, accord- 
 ing to themselves, which the Apostles " could not bear," when their 
 Lord was in the flesh ; such the whole truth, into which the Holy 
 Spirit was to guide ! 
 
 i. Two ■principles. — (L, v. c. 10. n, 20. c. 11. L. vii. c. 2. and 3. 
 n. 5. L. xiii. c. 30.) " Manes assumed two principles, diverse and 
 adverse to each other, and these eternal and coeternal, i. e. existing 
 in all past time; and, following other ancient heretics, imagined 
 two natures and substances, of good and evil." Aug, Hseres. n. 46. 
 " Satan was evil, and never was he not, for he ever was ; nor was 
 he of any, for he was. And he was a root (of things), and was a 
 Lord, and was of himself." Manes ap. Tit. Bostr. 1. i. " Manichaeus 
 says, that there are two natures, one good, the other evil ; the good, 
 which made the world, the evil, of which the world was made." 
 Euod. de fide, c. 49. 
 
 i. a. Good Principle, or God. — Each of these natures was material ; 
 so that the notion of God, in relation to what belonged to God, was 
 pantheistic. Whatever emanated from God was coeternal with 
 Him, and material, and Himself. Felix ap. Aug. Acta c. Fel. 
 Manich. 1. i. c. 18. " You asked whether that earth wherein God 
 dwells, was made, or begotten by Him, or coeternal with Him; and 
 I say, that as God is eternal, and there is no creature with Him, 
 the whole (totum) is eternal. Aug. He did not then beget it, nor 
 make it? F. No; but it is coeternal with Him — He who begat, 
 and they whom He begat, and that where they are placed, are all 
 equal. A. Are they then of one substance? F. Of one. A. Are 
 these sons of God, and that earth, that same thing, which God the 
 Father is? F. All are that one thing. A. He is not then so much 
 the Father, as an inhabitant, of this earth ? F. Even so. A. If He 
 neither begat it nor made it, 1 see not how it belongs to Him, except 
 by mere vicinity, just as if any one had a neighbouring property, 
 and then there will be two things, each unbegotten, the earth and 
 the Father. F. Yea, there are three unbegotten, a Father unbe- 
 gotten, an earth unbegotten, and an air unbegotten. A. And all 
 this is one substance? F. One." 
 
 However personally, then, they may have attempted at times to 
 speak of God, their belief came to this, that He was a refined material 
 substance, contained in space, which space they endeavoured to 
 extend on all sides but one^ infinitely; but still it was but the 
 extension of a corporeal substance, a pure aethereal mass of light, 
 which was by bulk superior to the mass of darkness opposed to it. 
 It was a system of materialism, of which they would only by refining 
 terms disguise to themselves the grossness. " Think not again," 
 says S. Aug. with reference to these errors, " that God is therefore 
 not the same as the sun because the _sun is like a great orb, nor a 
 boundless space of light, nor say to thyself, ' God then is an 
 unbounded immeasurable light,' as if you were to extend the sun. 
 
Manichoean God impersonal and corporeal. 317 
 
 so that it should have no bound either this way or that, above or 
 below, yet still conceiving to yourself God as an unbounded light ; 
 neither is this God." Serm. 4. \, 5 " Wishing to comprehend God, 
 they arrived as far as to conceive that visible light, further they could 
 not go ; and they made such fields of light in the kingdom of God, 
 as they saw this sun to be, as if it were a result of that light." 
 (Aug. in Ps. 146. §. 13. corap. Conf. vii. §. 16. p. 121.) They 
 endeavoured indeed by terms to distinguish between the " visible" 
 and " intelligible" light, (ap. Tit. Bostr. i. §. 19.) but in fact the 
 materialism of their system made these two again coincide. They 
 laboured to unmaterialize matter and they materialized God, so that 
 this " earth" and " air" were conceived as fine matter, and as part 
 of God. The whole region was of subtle but still of material light, 
 and so also was God. They gave infinitude to this region of light 
 except on the side of the region of darkness, and so betrayed that 
 they conceived of it materially, and as in fact bounded on other sides 
 also. " Let them take which side they will," says S. Aug. in 
 answer to their own description of the region of darkness, (c. ep. 
 Manich. c, 20, 21.) " it is plain, to speak of ' one side' implies the 
 existence of more sides. Let them say then, on the other side or 
 sides, what adjoined the land of light, if on one side was the nation 
 of darkness? They cannot say ; but when pressed to say, say that 
 there are infinite other sides of that which they call the land of light, 
 i. e. that it is extended over infinite space, and on no side restrained ; 
 nor do they understand that such are not ' sides.' For sides are 
 what are terminated by certain boundaries. How too, although slow 
 and carnal, do you not even see, that those two lands could not be 
 joined, unless they were both corporeal? Why then were we told, 
 (infatuated by a strange blindness,) that the land of darkness only 
 was or is corporeal ; but that the so-called land of light must be 
 believed to be incorporeal ? I ask again, whether the land of dark- 
 ness also has one side, or is otherwise infinite, like the land of light? 
 They believe not, lest it should seem equal to God." The whole 
 language, as well as this last expression, shews how completely this 
 land or region of light was identified with God, and consequently 
 how gross was their materialism, since the mere local extension of 
 that land seemed to involve its being equal with God ; " 1 set up," 
 says S. Aug. of himself, " two opposed masses, each unbounded, 
 but the evil narrower, the good larger." (Conf. v. 10. comp. §. 20. 
 p. 80. vii. |. 2.) ' Some conceived that God could not be other than 
 a body of fire. Others (the Manichees) fabled of the brightness of 
 an unbounded light stretched over infinite spaces every way, but on 
 one side split as it were by a sort of dark wedge, conceiving them as 
 two opposed kingdoms, and setting opposed Principles over them." 
 (Aug. de vera rel. §. 96.) One of themselves argues, that God is 
 finite, " must be finite, if evil exists; for evils" (he passes suddenly 
 to the things of every day life, and would, by appeal to ordinary 
 experience, determine the attributes of God) " then begin, when there 
 is an end of good things;" and so he would argue, God ends where 
 evil begins. So much does he concede or maintain this, that he is 
 
318 Good and evil Principle in fact equally Gods. 
 
 NOTE, only anxious to prove that the Catholics do the same. (Faustus 
 XXV. 1.) These errors will explain S. Augustine's diligence in 
 inculcating anti-materialist conceptions of God, (Conf. i. 3. 10, 
 not.) as contrasted with his own former low thoughts of Him (iii. 
 12. iv. §. 31. vii. 1. 14.) when, as a Manichee, he had no notion of 
 a " spiritual substance," (v. 10. vi. §. 4. vii. §. 1.) as also how he 
 says that he had at that time, no God, an unreal God, (iv. §. 9.) 
 a phantasm, (ib. and §. 12.) "glittering fantasies," {iii. §. 10. p. 34.) 
 " corporeal brightnesses," (iv. §. 3.) " a vast and bright body, (iv. 
 31.) a mass of bodies," (v. §. 19. 21.) since the Manichees thought 
 of God only as an abstraction of things visible, of visible light; and 
 such is no God : a " Deity," " Divinity," is no God; a personal, 
 intelligent, directing, preserving Being alone is God. 
 
 i. b. Land of darkness, or evil principle or matter. — (L. iii. c. 11. 
 L. v. c. 10. n. 20.) This is thus stated in a book, ascribed to Mani- 
 ch%us, and recognized by the Manich8eans, (Acta c. Fel. Man. 1. ii. 
 c. 1.) as " containing the beginning, middle, and end" of their 
 system, the " Epistle of the Foundation," (ap. Aug. c. Ep. Mani- 
 chaei, c. 15.) " On the side of that bright and holy land was the 
 deep and immense land of darkness, wherein dwelt fiery bodies, 
 pestilent races. There were boundless darknesses, emanating from 
 the same nature, countless with their progeny ; beyond which were 
 muddy and turbid waters with their inhabitants, within which were 
 horrible and vehement winds with their prince and producers. Then 
 again a destructive fiery region with its leaders and nations. In 
 like manner, within, a nation full of darkness and vapor, wherein 
 abode the savage prince and leader of all, having around him innu- 
 merable princes, of all which he was the mind and source; and 
 these five nations were five pestilent regions." Aug. (ib. c. 18.) 
 calls them " the five caves of the nation of darkness :" and again, 
 (de Haeres. c. 46.) they assign to the " people of darkness five 
 elements, which each produced its own chief; and these elgments 
 they call vapor, darkness, fire, water, wind. In the vapor they 
 suppose bipeds, and among them men, to have been produced, in 
 darkness reptiles, in fire quadrupeds, in water creatures that swim, 
 in wind such as fly." (See Conf. xii. 6.) It further illustrates the 
 materialism of the Manichsean notion of God, that they spake of 
 this " matter" in exactly the same way as of Him. Both were 
 called Principles, Natures, Substances, Gods. " The Pagans main- 
 tain that good and evil have one principle. To these I am much 
 opposed, confessing God to be the Principle of all good things, and 
 matter (Hyle) of the contrary, for so our teacher of God, (Theologus) 
 Manes, calls the Principle and Nature of evil." (Faustus, 1. xx. c. 1.) 
 " We confess two Principles, but one of these we call God, the 
 other Hyle, or, to speak in ordinary language. Daemon. Nor yet 
 do I deny that we sometimes call the opposed nature, God, 
 though not as a part of our faith, but as the name has been 
 appropriated by its worshippers. I teach two Principles, God and 
 Hyle. All maleficent influence we ascribe to Hyle, all beneficent 
 to God, as is fitting." (Id. 1. xxi. c. 1.) " Hear what took place 
 
Manes' good and evil principles abstractions, not Beings. 319 
 
 before the forming of the world, that you may be able, to separate 
 the nature of light from darkness. For there were in the beginning 
 two Substances, divided from each other." (Manes, ap. Aug. c. Ep. 
 Fund. c. 12, 13.) " Tyrbo related to them, how IVIanes introduced 
 two Origins of things, themselves unoriginated, being eternally, and 
 never ceasing to be, opposed to each other ; and that to the one he 
 gave the name Light, to the other darkness and evil, God, namely, 
 and the Devil. And sometimes he calls both Gods, a good God and 
 an evil God." (Epiph. Haer. 66. §. 8.) Both God and matter are 
 equally personified, and equally material; one is the abstraction of 
 light, the other of darkness. " The Devil they sometimes call mat- 
 ter (Hyle), sometimes the ruler of matter ;" (Theodoret;) i. e. some- 
 times they conceive of him materially, sometimes personally ; and 
 in just the same way they sometimes speak of God personally, some- 
 times as the " land of light" itself. " The question," says S. Aug. 
 (c. Faust, xxi. 3, 4.) '« is not about the name, but the works."— 
 " In your discussions we commonly hear of two Gods, which, though 
 you first denied, soon after yourself confessed. When you ask what 
 he means by Hyle, you will hear a second God described. For if 
 they meant by Hyle a shapeless mass, capable of receiving corporeal 
 shapes, (as the ancients did,) none of us would charge them with 
 calling it God. But now what error and madness it is, either to say 
 that the matter of bodies is the maker of bodies, or to deny that the 
 maker of bodies is God! Since then ye say, that some other makes that 
 which the true God indeed makes, (i. e. the qualities and forms of 
 bodies, elements, and animals, so that they should be bodies, ele-. 
 ments, and animals,) then, by whatever name ye call that other, ye 
 are rightly said to introduce by your error a second God." And so 
 Alex. Lycop. having stated (§. 2.) that " Manes does not speak of 
 matter, as Plato, as that which receives form — but the disorderly 
 motion of things existing," remarks, (§. 6.) " but then he does not 
 perceive, that he is introducing a second creative cause, namely an 
 evil one ; nor, what follows, viz. that if we must assume the exist- 
 ence of God and matter, then another matter must be conceived as 
 subject to God, so that each of the two creative causes may have a 
 ' matter' subject to them; and so instead of two, we shall have 
 four original substances." i. e.. Manes had assumed two principles, 
 God, and " matter" in the sense of a " tangible substance," but 
 now he gives to matter the attributes rather of " evil disorderly 
 being," and this disorder presupposes some subject in which the 
 " disorderly existence" is ; and so we have two evil principles ; and 
 since it was assumed, that God had matter subject to Him, and that 
 matter is eternal, so would there be two original good substances. 
 It seems as if Manes tried to think of God principally spiritually, and 
 matter principally materially, but his system made him conceive of 
 God as a material, and of matter as a living being. 
 
 ii. Rebellion of people of darkness, and consequent mixture and 
 imprisonment of light in darkness. — (L. vii. c. 2.) " They confess 
 that the world was formed by the nature of good, i. e. of God, but 
 out of the intermingling of good and evil, when the two natures 
 
320 The very substance qfCtodheldto bemingled with the world. 
 
 NOTE, fought." " In order to subdue those five evil elements, (see i. b.) five 
 other elements were sent of the kingdom and substance of God, and 
 m that battle were intermingled; air with vapor, light with dark- 
 ness, with evil fire good fire, with evil water good water, with evil 
 wind good wind." (Aug. Hser. 46.) " Ye confess, when asked, that 
 God is incorruptible, and can suffer no violence or defilement from 
 without ; yet when ye begin to explain your other tenets, ye are 
 compelled to profess that He is corruptible, liable to impression from 
 without, and to partake of defilement. For ye say that some people 
 of darkness, I know not what, rebelled against the kingdom of God ; 
 but that God, the Almighty, seeing what injury and desolation 
 threatened His kingdoms, unless He should oppose something to 
 the adverse people and resist it, sent a power, out of whose com- 
 binations with evil, and the people of darkness, the world was 
 formed. That hence is it, that good souls are in trouble here, slavery, 
 error, corruption, so that they need a deliverer, who shall cleanse 
 them from error, and loose them from this combination, and free 
 them from slavery." (Disp. i. c. Fortunat. Manich. §. 1. cf. Manes 
 ap. Tit. Bostr. L. i. c. 16 sqq.) To the accuracy of this statement 
 Fortunatus assented. The " power" thus sent was a portion of 
 Deity ; " The people of darkness having rebelled. He sent hither 
 His members. His substance, that which Himself is ; light, if He 
 be light — whatever His substance is, that He sent, and mingled it, 
 they say, with the entrails of the people of darkness, and hence 
 formed the world. And we souls (they say) are of the very members 
 of God, but are here oppressed in the entrails of the people of dark- 
 ness, and whatever we are said to sin, it is that people sinneth. 
 Thus they seem to excuse themselves from sin — but not the sub- 
 stance of their God from liability to corruption. — For they, being a 
 fragment and portion of His nature, prove what is the case as to the 
 whole. As is that which He sent hither, such is what there re- 
 mained. So say themselves; themselves confess that there are two 
 natures, one on this side (God), the other on that (matter). This 
 their books contain, and if they deny it, may be read, and convict 
 them." (In Psalm cxl. |. 10. comp. Conf. vii..§. 3, p. 109.) S. Aug. 
 again calls (de Vera Relig. c. 9.) the soul thus mingled with the 
 world " a good soul, a particle of His own substance, by whose 
 intermingling and misery they dream that the enemy was softened 
 and the world formed." Titus of Bostra calls it " a power of the 
 Good," " an emanation of God." Theodoret adds some particulars ; 
 (Haeret. Fab. i. 26.) " They say that God was altogether removed 
 from matter, and knew not of it, nor it of Him; and that God 
 occupied the North, East, and West, matter the South. Many 
 ages after, matter was at variance with itself, and its products with 
 one another ; and war having arisen, some pursuing, some pursued, 
 they arrived at the boundaries of light, where seeing the light, they 
 were pleased with it, and admired it, and wished with their whole 
 host to war against and seize it, and mingle their own darkness 
 with the light. Matter then, (as this inconsistent and senseless 
 fable says,) with the demons and phantoms, and fire and water. 
 
Speculations on union qf matter and Spirit. 321 
 
 went against the discovered light. But God, dreading the tumul- 
 tuous attack, (for He had not, saith it, fire, so as to use lightning 
 or thunderbolts, nor water, so as to bring a flood, nor steel nor any 
 other weapon,) deviseth this. Taking a portion of light. He used it 
 as a sort of bait and hook for matter. And it eagerly stretching 
 itself upon it, swallowed what was sent, and was bound, and taken 
 as in a snare. Thence, say they, God was compelled to create the 
 world; but the portions of the world, they say, are not His, but the 
 works of matter ; and He created, wishing to quell the strife, and 
 to harmonize the contending parts, so as gradually to free that part 
 of light, which was mingled with matter." (So Manes ap. Tit. Bostr. 
 p. 68.) Matter, in itself confused and at strife, was thus held 
 together by the presence of this good influence, but the influence 
 itself suffered, from being thus combined with what was radically 
 evil. This in their fabulous language they express, " That in that 
 battle, when their ' first man' [the ' power' above spoken of, by which 
 they would assimilate their theory with the truth, that through 
 the fall of man, evil came into the world] roused the longings of the 
 nation of darkness by means of those phantastic elements, and 
 chiefs of each sex were taken, the world was constructed out of 
 them, and most of them were bound down in the heavenly fabrics." 
 (Aug. c. Faust, vi. 8.) " Ye are not ashamed, when ye place, not 
 indeed under the witness of a star, [Matt. ii. 2. at which the Mani- 
 chees cavilled,] but bound in all the stars, your fictitious Christ, the 
 son of your fictitious ' first man,' because forsooth ye believe that he 
 was mingled with the princes of darkness in that war in which your 
 ' first man' fought with people of the darkness, so that the universe 
 was formed out of the very princes of darkness, captured by this in- 
 termingling." (ib. ii. 5. comp. Conf. b. xiii. §. 45.) 
 
 As Manes' system was materialist, so in this " emanation" of 
 God we have almost the very Pantheistic term " anima mundi," 
 Manes calling it the " soul of all things;" (ap. Tit. Bostr. i. 29.) 
 Epiphanius, (Haer. 66. c. 24.) " the mother of all,"Tyrbo, (ap. Epiph. 
 §. 25.) " the mother of life," and Alexander of Lycopolis expressly 
 saying, " a certain power which we [the Heathen] call soul." (c. 3.) 
 In agreement then with the Pantheistic system, this soul was sup- 
 posed to be bound up with every thing possessing animal or vegeta- 
 ble life ; for it was that life. 
 
 ii. a. Imprisonment of portions of God, as the human soul. — The 
 human soul especially was the chief part of this light and life mingled 
 with the world ; " they are compelled by their vain and impious fables 
 to say, that the good souls, which they think are to be freed from the 
 commixture of the bad souls, i. e. of the opposed nature, are of the 
 same nature as God" (Aug. de Haer. see also the passage from his 
 Com. on the Ps. p. 311.) Manes (ap. Aug. Op. Imperf. 1. iii. §. 186.) 
 calls it " the soul which emanated from the God of light." ," The 
 ManichaBans,thinkingthat they are thenature and substance of God." 
 (c. Faust. 1. xii. c. 13.) " Your soul ye call a part of God,, a 
 member of God, not the temple of God." (ib. 1. xx. c. 15.) The 
 Manichaeans then held, that the soul was ' of God' as an emana- 
 
322 Soul from Qod, not of God. 
 
 NOTE, tion; the Church, ' of God' as a creation; and of this ambiguity 
 the former took advantage. " Fel. You said of the soul, that it is 
 not of God. Aug. No ; I said it was of God, as having been made 
 by God, not as having been born of God. Fel. You said of the 
 soul, that it is not ' of God,' but made by God, because without 
 God is nothing ; why then not assert that the soul is ' of God ?' 
 Aug. It is ' from God,' but as made by God. Fel. It is either 
 made, or sent, or given by God. If then it is of God, and is 
 polluted, and Christ came to free it from pollution, why blame you 
 Manichaeus? Aug. Because I say that the soul, not being the Nature 
 of God but made by God, sinned through free-will, and is polluted with 
 sin, and by the mercy of God freed when repentant ; but you say that 
 the very Nature of God, that which God is, God from God, was 
 taken and polluted among the nations of darkness ; and there is 
 much diiference between that which God begat of Himself, and what 
 He made not of Himself, but out of nothing ; i. e. what having no 
 previous existence, received of God existence, i. e. that it should be 
 made." (Actt. c. Fel. Manich. 1. ii. c.l8.) 
 
 From the first soul they held all other souls to be propagated, as 
 bodies from bodies, (Manes, ap. Aug. Op. Imp. iii. §. 172.) but, 
 through the birth of the whole man after the flesh, more corrupted. 
 (De Mor. Manich. c. 19.) The corruption of nature admitted by the 
 Manichseans was a necessary, not a voluntary, corruption, (resulting 
 from the pure soul being confined within the impure matter,) phy- 
 sical, not moral; of the body, not of the soul. Like all heretics who 
 depreciated the flesh, they diminished man's responsibility, while 
 they avowed the evil in him ; and did away with the guilt of ori- 
 ginal sin while they maintained total corruption. The one part, the 
 soul, was good, as a part of God; the other, matter, wholly bad. "In 
 that they (the Pelagians) say that death, not guilt, passed to us from 
 Adam, they are not opposed to the Manichaeans ; since neither do 
 these maintain an original sin, from a first man, at first pure and 
 sound in body and spirit, and afterwards by free-will corrupted, and 
 that afterwards sin passed and doth pass with death upon all ; but 
 they say that the flesh was from the beginning formed evil of an 
 evil body, and by an evil spirit, and with an evil spirit ; but 
 the soul good, being a part of God, comes into man, in consequence 
 of its defilement through the food, wherewith it was before united, 
 and is now bound down through the carnal birth with the chains of 
 flesh also. And thus the Manichaeans agree with the Pelagians, 
 that the sin of the first man did not pass to the human race, either 
 through the flesh which they say was never good, or through the 
 soul which, they say, for its defilement, whereby it was polluted 
 before it came into the flesh, did come into the flesh of man." (c. 2, 
 Epp. Pelag. 1. iv. §. 6.) Again, " The origin of sin they ascribe not 
 to the free choice of the will, but to the substance of the adverse 
 race ; which asserting to be mixed with man, they hold all flesh to 
 be the work not of God but of the evil mind, which, as an opposed 
 principle, is coeternal with God. The ' lust of the flash,' whereby 
 the flesh lusteth against the spirit, they would have to be — not 
 
Evils in doctrine and practice from this deviation. 3'i;} 
 
 infirmity in us, derived from the corrupt nature in the first man, 
 but — a contrary substance, in such wise cleaving to us, that, when 
 we are freed and cleansed, it is separated from us, and it too in its 
 own nature lives immortally ; these two souls or two minds, one 
 good, the other bad, strive in the same man, when ' the flesh lusteth 
 against the spiiit and the spirit against the flesh.' Nor is this cor- 
 ruption healed in us, as we say, nor will it be : but that substance 
 of evil, separated and detached from us, will, after the end of this 
 order of things and the conflagration of the world, live in a certain 
 globe as in an eternal prison." (De Haeres.) It is hardly a question, 
 whether this second soul be distinct from the body, or be only the 
 vegetative or animal life of the body. This last seems best to 
 satisfy the language used, and corresponds v/ith the materialist 
 character of the system, whose highest spirituality was to conceive 
 of matter abstractedly and as a living being. 
 
 The deviation in doctrine, then, although it might easily be made 
 to appear as slight, and the Pelagians endeavoured to parallel it 
 with the Catholic doctrine of the transmission of original sin, was 
 indeed fearful, both in doctrine and practice. The complete separa- 
 tion of the individual into two selves, brought with it, 1. the ready 
 excuse, which S. Aug. often charges them with using, that it was 
 not they who sinned, but the " nature of darkness" in them, (Conf. 
 iv. §. 26. V. §. 18. vii. §. 4. viii. §. 11. and 22. ix. §. 10.) 
 " The Manichseans hold, that the soul is a particle of God, and 
 through the commixture of an evil nature, has sin." (c. 2. Epp. 
 Pelag. 1. ii. c. 2.)" " It is led by the commixture of the flesh, not 
 by its own will." (Secundin. ep. ad Aug. §. 2.) " If we do good, 
 it is not of the flesh, for the works of the flesh are manifest, &c. ; if 
 evil, not of the soul, for the fruit of the Spirit is love, &c." (Manes 
 ep. ad Henoch ap. Aug. Op. Imperf. iii. 177.) " Concupiscence 
 (it must often be repeated) Manichseus holds not to be the defect of 
 a good substance, but the evil substance." (Aug. ib. §. 186.) 2. 
 Blasphemy against God, that His nature was thus bound down and 
 tainted by sin. (Conf.iv. 15. v. §. 18. viii. §. 22.x. §. 7.) " They seem 
 to excuse themselves from sin, but they do not excuse their God 
 from the charge of fear, [see above, p. 320.] nor the very substance 
 of their God from the charge of corruptibility." (In. Ps. cxl. §. 10.) 
 " Let the soul recognize its own condition. It is not God." When 
 it thinks itself God, it offends God; it finds God not a deliverer but 
 a condemner. Therefore am I not a part of God, because the sub- 
 stance of God, the nature of God, cannot err. As thou confessest, 
 thou hast erred. Did therefore the nature of God err ? Did the 
 nature of God plunge into uncleanness ? Did the nature of God 
 commit adulteries ? the nature of God commit unlawful lusts ? the 
 nature of God rush blindly it knew not whither ? the nature of God 
 plunged in acts of foulness and violence ? Blush for shame, give 
 glory to God." (Aug. Serm. 183.) " How can I call him poor in spirit, 
 who is so proud as to believe his own soul to be God, and not blush at 
 its being held captive?" (c. Faust, vi. 7.) 3. An outward view of 
 holiness, limiting moral action to a few outward practices with 
 
 y2 
 
324 Manichceism akin to Pelagianism. 
 
 NOTE.regard to the flesh, and these of a physical not of a moral nature. 
 For the ' flesh' being understood in the narrow sense of the bodily 
 nature, the subduing of the flesh became but the maceration of the 
 body. 4. Exaggerations of their own free-will, or of the necessity to 
 sin, as they regarded prominently the one or the other nature ; as 
 indeed this vacillation, whereby men at one time think all in their 
 power, at another nothing, is the character of practical Pelagianism, 
 wherewith Manicbaeism had much which was kindred. Those who 
 have not struggled against sin in God's strength, hold in the 
 abstract that they could conquer it, if they would; but excuse 
 themselves generally for what they see wrong in themselves, as if 
 they could not help it ; i. e. they maintain at once, like the Mani- 
 chseans, liberty and necessity. The Manichseans evinced an undue 
 notion of their free-will, in that they thought, that knowledge alone, 
 setting forth persuasive motives, removing ignorance, and the like, 
 were sufficient to restore the soul. This was the only office of their 
 Redeemer. (See below, §. iii. iii. a.) But, as S. Aug. says of himself, 
 " being flesh they blamed flesh," (Conf. iv. §. 26.) their faults they 
 threw upon their nature. " We sin against our will, and are 
 compelled by the nature contrary and hostile to us." (Fortunat. 
 Disp. ii. §. 20.) " We say this, that the soul is compelled by the 
 contrary nature to offend." (ib. §. 21. See also note e, p. 110. on 
 b. vii. §. 5.) 
 
 ii. b. Union of God with the physical world. — In a Pantheistic 
 system, life, wherever found, is not a gift or creation, but an 
 emanation, a portion of God, vivifying matter, which, in substance, 
 though not in form, is coeternal with itself. The dualistic system 
 only so far modified this, as to limit it to ' good life,' since evil also 
 was self-existing; the Pantheistic character remained; the world 
 was formed by the blending of a portion of God with matter; and 
 the very theory required that it should penetrate the whole. (See 
 §. ii.) They ascribed such life then even to stones. " Manes is not 
 ashamed to say that even stones are animate, including all things 
 animate, and things clearly inanimate, as if that same power of 
 Good were confined even in stones." (Tit. Bostr. ii. §. 35.) " They 
 think that all things have souls, fire, and water, and air, and plants, 
 and seeds." (Theodoret.) " (Manes) says that all souls are equal, and 
 that there is one soul in all, in men and cattle, and wild beasts, and 
 fowl, and creeping things, and winged creatures, and sea animals, 
 and beasts, and the seeds of vegetables, in trees, and every other 
 object of sight." (Tyrbo ap. Epiph. Haer. 66. §. 33.) " The sub- 
 stances of the two principles are in the world, the one principle 
 having made the body, the soul being of the other. And that this 
 is the soul in men and in all animals, &c. and that also the vital 
 moisture in plants is the motion of that same soul, which they say 
 is in men." (Id. ib. §. 8.) Thus far there seems little difference 
 between this and Pantheism ; the " tenet of the more eminent 
 among the Manichseans," " mind is all existing things," (Alex. 
 Lycop. §. 24.) is a brief statement of Pantheism ; but Manichaeism 
 in assuming not only the e ernity but the intrinsicbadnessof 
 
Attempts to dress up Manichceism in Christian language. 325 
 
 matter, conceived of God not only as the animating principle of the 
 world, but as bound down in it. " They say that this very part of 
 the Nature of God is mingled every where, in heaven, in earth, 
 under the earth, in all bodies dry and liquid, in all flesh, in all seed 
 of trees, herbs, &c. — not as being present, through the power of 
 Deity, undefilably, unimpaired, incorruptibly, governing and direct- 
 ing all things, as we speak of God; but bound, oppressed, polluted." 
 (Aug. de Nat. Boni c. Manich. c. 44.) This soul they thought to 
 be distributed in different proportions and in different degrees of 
 purity in different portions of the system, contracting more or less of 
 impurity from the matter in which it was infused, " like somewhat 
 poured into a bad vessel." " The sun and moon were formed of 
 what had not at all suffered ; of what had but little suffered, the stars 
 and whole heaven ; and in other elements and plants and animals 
 in this universe the Divine power was contained, unequally mingled." 
 (Alex. Lye. §. 3.) To release this was the object of the existing 
 order of things. 
 
 iii. Mode of restoration of the portions of God thus imprisoned in 
 the world, — These portions of God in men or in the world were 
 severally to be released, partly by a power, whom, in compliance with 
 the Christian doctrine, they called Christ; partly by man himself. 
 " The names of the Persons of the Trinity (says S. Aug. Conf. 
 1. iii. c. 6.) are often in their mouth, but not in their heart;" and, 
 accordingly, though we find confessions professing to contain the 
 belief in the Holy Trinity, (Ep. Fundam. ap. Aug. de Actis c. Fel. 
 Manich. i. 16. Faust, ap. Aug. c. Faust, xx. 1. Fortunat. ap. Aug. 
 Disp. i. §. 3. Secundin. Manich. Ep, ad Aug. init. Aug. c. Faust, xx. 
 6.) they have no functions or place in the system relatively to man. 
 Except in some general salutations, adapted to the language of 
 St. Paul, the Holy Spirit is named only as residing in the air. The 
 fundamental maxim of the intrinsic evil of matter and the degraded 
 state of mind, which their speculations on the birth after the flesh 
 brought with it, involved the denial of the Incarnation of our Lord, 
 and (as a consequence) of the reality of His whole life. As far as 
 He was any thing to man. He was (according to this theory) a 
 phantom of light made visible through the appearance of human 
 nature. " The Light," says Manes, " touched not the substance of 
 flesh, but was shaded only with a likeness and form of flesh, lest it 
 should be overcome by the substance of the flesh, and suffer and be 
 spoiled, the darkness spoiling its operations as Light." (Ep. ad 
 Zeben. ap. Fabric. B. G. v. 284. comp. Euodius' answer above, p. 80. 
 n. i. on b. V. |. 20.) Of Christ then, it is only said negatively, that He 
 did not really take human flesh, (comp. Conf. v. §. 16. vii. §. 25. ix. 
 §. 6. 9.) was not born, died not, nor rose again, was not circumcised, 
 baptized, or tempted, (Faust. 1. xxxii. c. 7. et alias. Actt. Archelai, 
 §. 47-50. Secundin. Ep. ad Aug. Fortunatus Disp. i. c. Aug. fin.) 
 nor had any of the affections of man, (Faust. 1. xxvi. c. 1.) but, 
 positively, scarcely any thing; only in a general way, that " man 
 needed a deliverer to cleanse him from error and free him from 
 slavery;" (Aug. c. Fortun. i. 1.) that " Christ came from heaven as 
 
326 General confessions no test qf soundness qf faith. 
 
 NOTE, a Saviour to do the will of the Father, which was to free our souls 
 from this enmity, having slain the enmity ;" (Fortunat. 1. c. §.17.) 
 that " the soul could not otherwise be reconciled to God ;" (ib.) 
 that " Christ came forth as a Saviour to restore us to God ;'' (ib. 
 §. 18.) " Christ the Son of God, for our salvation, hung upon the 
 tree." (Faust. 1, xiv. c. 1.) " The living Father, seeing that the 
 soul was afflicted in the body, being compassionate and of tender 
 mercies, sent His own beloved Son for the salvation (salus) of the 
 soul," (Tyrbo ap. Actt. Archelai, §. 8.) or to take a full confession ; 
 " Our profession is this, that God is not subject to corruption; and 
 that He sent a Saviour like Himself; the Word, born from the 
 foundation of the world, when He formed the world, came, after the 
 formation of the world, among men ; chose souls worthy of Himself 
 after His own holy will, sanctified by His heavenly commands, 
 embued with faith and knowledge (ratione) of heavenly things ; 
 that these same souls should, He being their guide, return to the 
 kingdom of God, according to His holy promise, who said, ' I am 
 the way, the truth, and the life,' and ' no one can come to the 
 Father, but by Me.' These things we believe, because souls cannot 
 be restored to the kingdom of God otherwise, i. e. through any other 
 mediator, unless they find Himself to be the way, the truth, and the 
 life, (quoting John 14,9; 5,24.) These things we believe, and 
 these are the -principles of our faith, and with all the strength of 
 our mind to obey His commands, following one faith of this Trinity, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;" (Fortunatus 1. c. §. 3.) and again, 
 " We also confess that the soul came from God, and shew this 
 from the coming of the Saviour, from His holy preaching, from His 
 election, in compassion to souls, and after His choice the soul is 
 said to have come, that He might free it from death, and lead it 
 on to eternal glory, and restore it to the Father." (ib. §. 11.) 
 They could speak of the " piercing of the Saviour's side." (Secundin. 
 ad Aug. §. 3.) 
 
 This, though indeed coinciding with Arianism in one positive 
 statement, would, in itself, to some sound, as a full and in part a 
 warm confession of the truths of the Gospel, and so may stand in 
 warning against assuming certain doctrines, arbitrarily selected, and 
 certain language, to be characteristics of right faith ; for it is sound 
 only ; it is but the ordinary device of Heretics, to adopt the language 
 of the Church, in a sort of general way, approaching as nearly as 
 they can, but eluding the " form of sound words." As soon as these 
 Manichasan statements are explained, the illusion is dissipated; as 
 far as they convey any moral or religious truth, they mean only that 
 Christ was, and did this, " as a teacher," and that, so far only as 
 they could give a Manichasan sense to His words. "We cannot be 
 reconciled to God save through a master, who is Christ Jesus." (ib.) 
 " Sinning against our will, and compelled by a substance contrary 
 and hostile to us, therefore we follow [when offered] the true 
 knowledge." " By which knowledge the mind being admonished, and 
 restored to the memory of its former state [in the realm of light], 
 recognizes whence it is derived, in what evil state it is, by what 
 
Manichees held Scripture doctrines only as exhibitions nf Truth. 327 
 
 good things correcting that wherein unwillingly it sinned, it may, 
 through the correction of its offences, by the value of good works, 
 establish for itself with God the means of reconciliation, our Saviour 
 being the author thereof, who teaches us both to practise the good, 
 and avoid the bad." (Fortunat. Disp. ii. §. 20.) — " if after the 
 admonition of our Saviour and His sound doctrine, the soul separate 
 itself from that stock which is contrary and adverse to it, and adorn 
 itself with purer things, otherwise it cannot be restored to its own 
 substance. — Whence it appears [from John 15,22.] that repentance 
 was given after the coming of the Saviour, and after this knowledge 
 of things, whereby the soul, as though washed by a divine fountain 
 from all the filth and fault of the whole world, as also of the bodies 
 wherein it dwells, may be restored to the kingdom of God, whence 
 it came forth." (lb. §. 21.) " As the bodies of men are the instru- 
 ments of sin, so the salutary precepts are the instruments of 
 righteousness." (Secundini Manich. Ep. ad Aug.) " The Gospel 
 is nothing else than the preaching and precepts of Christ." (Faust. 
 V. 1.) Thus far looks like mere modern Humanitarianism, (and it 
 is remarkable to see, in connection with it, the same language as to 
 Baptism, which occurs in modern schools); but when the substance 
 of this teaching is mentioned, it appears that under this apparent 
 moral restoration of mankind, the physical system of Manichseism 
 alone was all along intended. The crucifixion of Christ is to teach 
 men the condition of the soul suffering and crucified in matter; 
 (Fortunat. ap. Aug. Disp. i. §. 7. Faust. 1. xxxii. c. 7.) " At last 
 Christ, by being crucified in this way , furnished the knowledge that 
 the Divine Power was incorporated, was crucified in matter." (Alex. 
 Lycop. §. 4.) It set forth the excellence of death, which detaches 
 the soul from matter. (Aug. c. Faust. 1. xxx. c. 6.) " They say 
 that the Divine power was crucified in matter, and that He (Christ) 
 underwent this suffering to exhibit somewhat ; as if He could not do 
 the same, which Manichseus himself hath assayed to do, teach by 
 words. — The Church-doctrine that He gave Himself for the for- 
 giveness of sins, [it is a heathen speaking,] has some ground of 
 support ; — but to subject Christ to suffering, only to exhibit some- 
 thing, is exceeding ignorance, ' the word' being suflScient for 
 knowledge and instruction in things." Such travesties of the 
 Church's doctrine were obviously resorted to, as a mere means of 
 appropriating the language of the Church and deceiving the unwary. 
 Such semblance, as a physical system could possess to Christian 
 truth, occurs not in the moral system which it attempted to ingraft, 
 but in the physical ; in the separation of life from matter, not in the 
 deliverance of the soul from sin. In that supposed deliverance 
 occur stich analogies as the physical world, (being also " made 
 subject to vanity," and also " waiting for a deliverance,") presents 
 to the moral ; but instead of earthly things furnishing the emblems 
 of spiritual, and the spiritual being spoken of in figures taken from 
 the earthly, the language of spiritual truth is brought down to 
 describe things physical. We have, then, a hideous caricature, or 
 distortion, rather than any likeness ; but in that distortion, not in 
 
328 Morals in Manichmism subordinate to physical truth. 
 
 NOTE, their moral teaching, is the application which the Manichees made 
 " of the Christian system to be found. They came to the Gospel 
 
 with an e.xtensive ready-formed physical, and a narrow moral, 
 system ; and to each they adapted such portion of the Gospel as 
 they could ; the doctrines of the Gospel to their own doctrines, by 
 aid of such analogy as there is between moral and physical light and 
 darkness, or such laws as are stamped on the whole creation, as the 
 necessity of suffering in order to deliverance : their moral system 
 admitted of no application of Christian doctrine ; here the only 
 agreement was in the fact, that the New Testament contained com- 
 mands, with a blessing annexed to obedience, and in such corre- 
 spondence as there might be between Christian self-denial and ab- 
 renunciation, and an asceticism v\hich ended in itself. 
 
 iii. a. Deliverance of the human soul from its imprisonment. — 
 Such, then, was what had been done for man; he had been shewn 
 the state to which his soul had originally belonged — freedom from 
 matter — and he was by his own will, and as the simple effect of that 
 knowledge, to return to it ; " Through whom," says Manes, " thou 
 art restored to brightness, by recognizing of what nature thou 
 formerly wast, of what kind of souls emanated." (Ep. to Menoch 
 ap. Aug. Op. Imperf. iii. 172.) " He is to be accounted blessed, 
 who shall be instructed in this divine knowledge, whereby he shall 
 abide in eternal life. For had they [the nations] attained to know 
 plainly of the generation of Adam and Eve, they would never be 
 subject to corruption and death." (Manes Ep. Fundam. ap. Aug. c. 
 earn c. 11, 12.) On this turned the whole system of Manichsean 
 morals, to avoid things connected with matter, in and for itself; 
 whether it were forbidden or sanctioned by the law of God was 
 alike ; marriage was with them no better than fornication, and they 
 made the marriages of their inferior members (as S. Aug. reproaches 
 them) a sort of fornication. The one duty of a Manichsean was to 
 avoid confining the substance of God in matter, or to release it; 
 and for this end to keep himself detached from matter, and not to 
 injure any thing wherein was any portion of God. Not the moral 
 effect of any action, nor, again, any ordinance of God, made it 
 binding or valuable ; not (to take one instance, in which they might 
 seem to border upon Christian doctrine) any spiritual fruit of 
 celibacy, (1 Cor. 7, 32 — 34.) is taken into account, but simply that 
 in every child born, a portion of the Divine substance was supposed 
 to be confined in the soul, and in each successive generation more 
 closely bound down. Again, not any spiritual exercise of fasting, 
 nor indeed was fasting itself at all a part of their system, but absti- 
 nence from certain kinds of fpod, flesh especially, as having less in 
 them of the Good, and more of the evil. Principle. Voluntary 
 poverty, again, — abstaining from building houses or planting the 
 earth,— r-not to avoid the cares and deceitfulness of riches, but 
 because riches, as matter, belonged to the evil princjple, or portions 
 of the good soul existing in the earth might be injured. All was 
 concentrated in this : their poverty, their " forbidding to marry, 
 and commanding to abstain from meats," lying on rushes, and the 
 like ; then also, keeping from labour, from kiUing or plucking any 
 
Momichwan asceticism /leathen. 329 
 
 Uving thing, from planting, building, worldly honours, — the sum, as 
 it seems, of Manichsean morals. They were forbidden to engage in 
 any of the objects of the world, but without substituting devotional 
 exercises ; for, however some moderns (Mosheim de rebb. Christian. 
 Saec. iii. p. 854, 873. Neander, KG. I. 2. p. 852.) speak of their 
 " contemplative life," this has been taken from the analogy of 
 ascetics generally ; history has no traces of it. And thus they 
 were a sort of monument of asceticism without its privileges, in the 
 flesh and with arms of the flesh warring against the flesh, witnesses 
 at once against the luxury and worldliness of the world, and against 
 themselves. Theasceticism wasindeedinnosenseChristian.but again 
 a compound of Zoroastrism and Buddhism; the abstinence from meats, 
 or from slaying any of the animal creation, is a precept of Buddhism, 
 (Baur, p. 445 sqq.) but Manes, by identifying the " matter" of the 
 Indian, with the " evil" of the JPersian, system, gave this rule a 
 prominence which it had not even in Buddhism. While it was 
 altogether contrary to the system of Zoroaster, and has scarcely a 
 superficial connection with any Christian self-denial, its details (as the 
 prohibition to have houses) and its principles, remarkably coincide with 
 Buddhism. (Baur, 1. c.) Consistently indeed with their principles, 
 the Manichseans should have abstained from all food, as S. Aug. 
 suggests to them, (c. Faust, vi. 6.) as a reductio ad absurdum, but 
 who would expect consistency in such a system ? 
 
 Those who bound themselves to observe these rules were entitled 
 " Elect," and constituted the real Manichjean body, although out of 
 necessity, as well as to increase their sect, they were obliged to 
 admit others to a connection with them on easier terms. " The just, 
 the more eminent, and those who hold the first place of righteousness 
 among them, are called ' Elect.' (See Conf. iii. 1 0. iv. 1 .) " The Elect 
 of God are all saints, and this we have in Scripture, but these have 
 taken to themselves the name, and familiarly assumed it, so as to be, 
 as it were, ' the Elect.'" (Aug. in Ps. cxl. §. 10.) " Of these two 
 professions, the ' Elect' and ' Hearers," they would have their Church 
 consist." (De Hseres.) " They are called ' Hearers,' because they 
 cannot observe the so-called belter and greater precepts, which are 
 observed by those, whom they think right to honour by the name of 
 ' Elect.'" (Aug. c. lit. Petil. iii. 7.) To all the " Elect" a priestly 
 character appears to have been attributed, and almost the priestly 
 name ; " your ' hearers,' who you said were distinct from the class 
 of priests." (c. Faust. XXX. 6.) All the " Elect" were lay missionaries, 
 to be sent as occasion served, " to support and enlarge this error 
 where it existed, or .plant it where it did not," (Aug. de Hser.) all 
 gave the priestly blessing, (see p. 331.) all interceded for the rest of 
 the community (ib.) on account of their supposed inherent sanctity. 
 Still, within the Elect, although they retained the three orders of 
 Clergy, Manes, with an unconscious blasphemy, again" assimilated 
 himself to our Lord, in that he formed a college of twelve " Masters," 
 with another, as chief, and seventy-two Bishops, ordained by these 
 Masters, the Bishops ordaining the Priests and Deacons (Ib.) It is 
 remarkable how in two instances he missed the Apostolic system, by 
 copying it upon a theory of his own, in part like a recent religious sect. 
 
330 Licence allowed to the " hearers" among the Manichees. 
 
 NOTE . The following passages illustrate what has been said of their 
 mode of life, and the principles upon which it was founded. (The 
 statements are frequently repeated, and especially in the de Moribus 
 Manich.) " They do not eat flesh, as if the Divine substance had fled 
 from things dead or slain, and only so little remained, as not to be 
 worth cleansing. (See below, p. 336 sqq.) Nor do they eat eggs, 
 as if these also died by breaking. — Nor milk, although taken from 
 the body of the living animal ; not because they suppose nothing of 
 the Divine substance to be mingled there, but because they are incon- 
 sistent in their error. Nor do they drink wine, saying it is the gall 
 of the prince of darkness, (though they eat grapes,) nor any must, 
 or only very new-made. They think that herbs and trees in such 
 wise live, that the life which is in them both feels and grieves when 
 it is injured ; and that no one can pluck or gather them without 
 their feeling pain. (Conf. iii. c. 10.) Wherefore they think it un- 
 lawful to clear a field even of thorns. Hence they condemn agricul- 
 ture, the most innocent of all arts, as if guilty of manifold murders." 
 (Aug. de Hseres.) " It is better, they say, to be an usurer, than an 
 husbandman. Why ? The one doth not, the other doth, much 
 injure the ' cross of light.' Ask you, what is this ' cross of light?' 
 They say, those members of God, which in that battle were taken 
 captive, are mingled with the whole world, and are in trees, herbs, 
 fruit, corn. Whoso cuts the earth with a furrow, harasses the members 
 of God ; whoso plucks a herb from the earth, harasses the members 
 of God ; whoso plucks an apple from a tree, harasses the members 
 of God." (Aug. in Ps. c.xl.) This comparison between the usurer 
 and husbandman might look like an illustration only, and may 
 therefore shew how in other places, where moderns think that S. Aug. 
 is speaking rhetorically, he is alluding to facts. " Ye often venture 
 to say, ' that an usurer is more innocent than a labourer,' so much 
 more friends are ye of melons than of men." (de Mor. Manich. 1. ii. 
 c. 17.) " The ' Elect' themselves, not working in the fields, nor 
 gathering fruits, nor even plucking any leaves, look for these things 
 to be brought for their use by their ' Hearers,' living, according to 
 their vain fables, on these manifold and great murders wrought by 
 others. They think these are forgiven their ' Hearers,' because 
 they thence furnish food for their ' Elect,' that the Divine substance, 
 which is by their eating purified, obtains pardon for them, by whose 
 offering it is given to be purified." (Aug. de Ha;res.) 
 
 The " Hearers" on the other hand, who were left free from almost 
 all restrictions, although with diminished privileges, formed the 
 great body of the Manichaeans. These had a degree of privilege 
 from their connection with and serving the ' Elect,' were for their 
 sake forgiven what was in itself sin, had the easy duties of providing 
 for them, and in other respects were left free, e.xcept that they were 
 not themselves to slay the animals they ate, and fasted (in opposition, 
 as it seems, to the Church) on the Lord's Day. " If any give not 
 due reverence, [pious charity, i. e. food,] he shall be punished for all 
 generations, and be reembodied in the bodies of Catechumens, until 
 he shall give many charities. Wherefore all the best food they bring 
 to the ' Elect ;' and these, when about to eat bread, first pray, thus 
 
Manichcean asceticism, first real, then hypocritical. 331 
 
 addressing the bread ; ' I neither mowed thee, nor ground thee, nor 
 kneaded thee, nor cast thee into the oven ; but another did these 
 things, and brought to me; I eat guiltless.' (See Conf. iii. 18.) 
 And having said this to himself, he says to the Catechumen, ' I have 
 prayed for thee,' and so he departs." (Tyrbo ap. Acta Archelai, §. 9. 
 Epiph. Haer. 66. §. 28.) " The ' Hearers' eat flesh, and cultivate 
 fields, and, if they will, have wives, none of which do the ' Elect.' 
 But the ' Hearers' kneel before the ' Elect,' that their hands may 
 be laid upon them, not only by the Presbyters, or Bishops, or 
 Deacons, but by any ' Elect.' " (Aug. Ep. 236. ad Deuter.) And 
 thus freed from the asceticism, which was the single corrective of 
 the * Elect,' and with one demoralizing injunction, (de Haeres.) they 
 were rather like the worst heathen, though accounted Manichseans, 
 (Aug. c. Faust. 1. XX. c. 23.) " all whose blasphemies they similarly 
 believed." (Ep. ad Deuter. 1. c.) 
 
 Such was the theory of Manichsean morals. It is probable that, in 
 the first instance, the asceticism of the ' Elect' was real, and that 
 the more, since no false system probably ever gained admittance, 
 without some pretensions of sanctity ; Mohammedanism, gross as it 
 was, was recommended by the self-denying habits of the first suc- 
 cessors of the impostor ; " their lives," says a native writer of 
 eminence, " were more those of ascetics than of chieftains." But 
 asceticism and contempt of the world were the single virtues of 
 Manichaeism. It continued too among individuals at least, even 
 after it had for the most part become a name, and their abstinences 
 (as in other more recent cases) had become often luxurious. And 
 so it is the more probable that S. Aug. means to ascribe asceticism 
 to Manes himself, though I know not that this fact elsewhere appears, 
 (see ab. Conf. b. v. §. 9. p. 71.) Faustus, himself luxurious, (see 
 ab. p. 66. n. c. on Conf. v. 3.) appealed in his declamatory way 
 (see ib.) to the ascetic theory of the Manichees, as indeed S. Aug. 
 bears testimony to the influence of the shew of this virtue in gaining 
 them proselytes. (Conf. b. vi. §. 12. fin. p. 95.) Faustus' well-as- 
 sumed indignation at being asked, " Dost thou receive the Gospel ?" 
 aifords a full testimony to their then pretensions. " Askest thou me 
 whether I receive it, whose reception of it appears by my doing what 
 it commands? Ought I not rather to ask thee, whether thou receives! 
 it, in whom are no traces of receiving it ? I have forsaken father 
 and mother, wife, sons, and the rest, which the Gospel commands, 
 and askest thou, whether I receive the Gospel ? I have cast away 
 " gold and silver," and have ceased to have " brass in my purse," 
 content with daily food, nor anxious as to the morrow, whence the 
 belly shall be filled, or the body clothed, and enquirest thou of me, 
 whether I receive the Gospel ? Thou seest in me the beatitudes 
 which constitute the Gospel, and askest thou, whether I receive it ? 
 Thou seest me poor, seest me meek, seest me a peace-maker, pure 
 in heart, mourning, hungry, thirsty, [Aug. observes " Faustus omits 
 ' after righteousness,' I suppose lest he should appear deficient, if he 
 should confess that he still hungered and thirsted after it,"] suffering 
 persecutions and hatred for righteousness sake, and doubtest thou. 
 
332 Eigid theory of transmigration of souls. 
 
 NOTE, whether I receive the Gospel? As Jesus did not deign to answer 
 Jolin Baptist, but referred him to the works which he had before heard 
 of; so when thou askest me whetlier I receive the Gospel, I might 
 answer, I have forsaken all, father, mother, wife, sons, gold, silver, 
 eating, drinking, luxurious pleasures ; take this as your answer, and 
 that blessed will you be, if' — " [one need not finish the profane parallel.] 
 An expression of S. Aug., that they were " in body bloodless, but 
 gross in mind," (de Util. Cred. c. 18.) and what is elsewhere said of 
 their " paleness" perhaps goes to the same point, but that this might 
 also be a result of excess, which S. Aug. continually attributes to 
 them, and which was also involved in a portion of their system, 
 (see below, p. 337.) 
 
 It was not, however, to be expected at any rate, that a system of 
 self-denial, (however modified by subsequent luxury, de Mor. Man. 
 c. 13, 16.) could be permanently carried on by a body of men, except 
 on the principles of the Gospel. " For nine whole years," (says 
 S. Aug. ib. c. 19.) " I was a very careful and diligent ' Hearer' of you, 
 and no one of the ' Elect' could I hear of, who, according to these 
 precepts, was not either detected in sin, or at least subject to sus- 
 picion." The history of one remarkable attempt at reform, and its 
 complete failure, (ib. c. 20.) implies that in S. Aug.'s time the whole 
 Manichaean discipline existed in name only; and so was a source 
 only of abomination, (ib. c. 19. c. Faust, xx. 23.) 
 
 The chief engine for upholding this system was a rigid theory of 
 transmigration of souls. And this, again, was unknown to the 
 system of Zoroaster, and a debasement of it, borrowed from Buddhism. 
 (Baur, p. 440.) The souls of the ' Elect,' as not having contributed 
 to detain the " members of God" in the flesh, returned immediately 
 to the realm of light; those of the ' Hearers' were rewarded bypassing 
 into bodies of the ' Elect,' or into plants whence they might most 
 readily be detached. (Aug. Hser.) " Ye deceive your hearers, who, 
 with their wives, sons, families, houses, and lands, serve you. For 
 ye promise them not a resurrection, but a return to this mortal state, 
 that they should be again born, and live the life of your ' Elect ;' or 
 if they deserve better, enter into melons, cucumbers, or other food, 
 which ye shall eat, that they may be cleansed by your out-breathings." 
 [See below, p. 336.] (c. Faust, v. 10.) The rest of mankind, having no 
 interest in the merits of the ' Elect,' by whose means the ' Hearers' 
 were purified, (Conf. iv. 1.) were all subjected to a transmigration, 
 which should involve more or less of suffering. The following particu- 
 lars from a contemporary, and one acquainted with Manes, bear the 
 character of truth, (although put together miscellaneously, as is 
 naturally the case, when a person, as here, is giving an oral account 
 of a new heresy, which perhaps was not yet wholly systematized, 
 and of which he only had to convey a general impression.) All 
 the instances given have the same impress of a strict retribution 
 to those, who should in any way injure animate being, not being 
 entitled so to do (as above). " I will tell you how the soul is 
 transfused into five bodies. First, some little portion of it is purified 
 [by pains in hell, see below,] then it is transfused into the body of a 
 
Vegetable and human Ijfe equally par l^oj Bmine Substance. 333 
 
 dog, or camel, or some other animal. If a soul have committed 
 murder, it is transfused into the body of [the word is corrupt] ; if it 
 be found to have reaped, into stammerers. But — reapers, who 
 [habitually] reap, are like the Rulers, who from the beginning belong 
 to darkness, when they swallowed part of the armour of the first 
 man. They then must be transfused into grass, beans, barley, corn, 
 or herbs, that they may be reaped or cut. If any one eat bread, he 
 must become bread and be eaten ; if any slay a bird, he shall be a 
 bird; if a mouse, he also shall be a mouse. If, again, he is rich 
 in this world, and depart from his tabernacle, he must be transfused 
 into the body of a poor man, so as to go about begging, and after 
 this go into everlasting punishment. Since also this body belongs 
 to the Rulers and to matter, whoso planteth a peach, [in Epiph. §. 9. 
 several trees are named, as instances probably,] must go through 
 many bodies, until that peach be cut down. If any build himself a 
 house, he shall be dispersed abroad into all bodies. If any one wash 
 in water, he freezes his own soul. — For, as I said a little before, if 
 any reap, he shall be reaped ; so if he cast wheat into a mill, he 
 shall be cast ; or knead, he shall be kneaded ; or bake bread, he 
 shall be baked. Wherefore they are forbidden to do any work." 
 (Tyrbo ap. Actt. Archelai, §. 9. Routh, Reliq. S. t. iv. p. 161 sqq. 
 Epiph. Haer. Ixvi. §. 28.) Aug. says briefly, " The souls of the rest 
 (not Manichaeans) they suppose to return into cattle, and into all 
 things which are held fast by roots [^deeply rooted, in contrast with 
 those into which the souls of the ' Hearers' passed], and nourished 
 in the earth." (de Haeres.) 
 
 iii. b. Deliverance of portions of God confined in inanimate mat- 
 ter. — The moral part of the Manichsean system (as far as any could 
 be so called) was subordinate ; the physical vras the largest and 
 most dwelt upon. To the Manichaean, the soul of the world was 
 one, whether it was distributed through the several parts of vegeta- 
 ble nature, or concentrated in the human soul (see above, p. 32 1 -5.) ; 
 vegetable or human life were equally portions of the Divine sub- 
 stance or light ; the detaching of these from matter, whether con- 
 fined in animate or inanimate matter, and their restoration to God, 
 was the end of all things : the formation of moral habits and 
 personal moral agents had no place in a Pantheistic system : the 
 soul was derived (according to them) from the particles of Deity 
 scattered through vegetable nature, and the souls half-purified 
 returned again oftentimes to that matter ; man was but one of 
 many receptacles of this Divine substance, differing only in that in 
 him it was more liable to be confined". Whether that portion of 
 the Divine substance which formed his soul retained any distinct 
 personality, after it was restored to the realm of light, or whether 
 Manes had any view thereon, we know not ; it were difficult to 
 imagine, but for man's instinctive longing for personal existence; 
 otherwise it would seem that portions of the Divine substance, when 
 
 * " He thinketh that the good soul, things therein ; hut in man is deceived 
 being a part, and the nature of God, ia by concupiscence." Aug. Op. Imp. iii. 
 mingled throughout the universe and all 186. 
 
334 Meaning of*'^ Jesus" atid " CArisi" among the Manichees. 
 
 NOTE, detached from that in which they were placed, and re-fused into It, 
 could retain no distinct existence ; as in Buddhism, the restoration 
 of all things was the annihilation of individual existence, whereby 
 " all became Buddha," a dogma strangely contrasting with the 
 Christian, (with which in words it might on a superficial view be 
 paralleled,) when " God shall be all in all," God being pre- 
 sent, and glorified, in all, instead of their being merged and lost in 
 God. However, they held the same Divine substance to be in 
 both, and it is in the deliverance of this from its tenement by 
 physical agency, that the larger part of the Manichaean scheme of 
 redemption (as it would have itself esteemed) is employed. 
 
 And here, in mimicry of the Gospel, the offices of the Redeemer 
 are divided into those of suffering and of power ; in the one they 
 entitled Him .lesus, in the other, Christ ; the one placed in the 
 vegetative power of nature, whereby the life of the world seems to 
 be brought forth out of the earth, and so portions, as they held, of 
 the anima mundi, were detached, and brought to the surface, ready 
 to be removed ; and this they called " Jesus patibilis," because 
 through suffering and death were these portions to be detached and 
 delivered : and this " Jesus patibilis" was (it serves to shew the 
 entire physical transformation of Divine truth) born by the agency 
 of the Holy Spirit, whose seat was in the air. (Faustus xx. 2.) It 
 is a parody of the Truth, that they proceeded to call this " the life 
 and health of man, suspended on every tree," and " lying," as S. 
 Aug. adds, " in every herb," (c. Faust, xx. 11.) in that the life thus 
 extracted from the earth was through the fruits of the earth the 
 sustenance of the human body. So however they were able to 
 afiSrm in an impious way, the life and death of Jesus, " that he was 
 daily born, daily suffered, daily died." " What?" says Euodius, 
 " in them who believe in Him, and for His Name suffer tribulation 
 and death ? No, they say, but in gourds, and onions, and the like." 
 (Euod. de Fide, c. 34.) " Lo, these are they," (says S. Aug. c; 
 Faust, ii. 5.) " who feign themselves indignant at the injury done 
 to the Son of God, when His birth is said to have been pointed out 
 by a star, as if It were thereby placed under the influence of a con- 
 stellation, when they themselves so place it not simply in connexion 
 with the stars, but mixed and polluted in the bands of all earthly 
 things, the juices of all herbs, and the corruption of all flesh. Yet 
 this gave them the plea of speaking, with a blasphemous ambiguity, 
 of " the Saviour crucified in the whole world and in every soul," 
 (Secundin. Ep. ad Aug. §. 3.) " and this, they say, is Christ crucified 
 in the whole world." (Aug. in Ps. cxl. §. 12.) " We believe the rest 
 [of the Gospel], especially the mystic placing of the cross, whereby 
 the wounds of the passion of our soul are set forth." (Faust, xxxii, 
 7.) It need be added only, that there was herein no idea of purifying 
 matter, or, throng, the indwelling of the Divine substance, regaining 
 it from the dominion of the evil Principle ; nothing which could be 
 termed even a physical restoration or redemption ; rather the sup- 
 posed purpose was to destroy and punish, matter, (considered as 
 living and conscious, but radically bad,) since, when forsaken by the 
 
They use Christian titles, confessing their inappropriateness. 333 
 
 Divinity, thus for a time imparted to it, then would it be really dead. 
 " He sent a certain power, by us called the soul, (see above, p. 321.) 
 to matter, to be mingled throughout it, for that the subsequent 
 separation of this power would be the death of matter." (Alex. 
 Lycop. c. 3.) A statement, strangely typifying the moral truth of 
 the two-fold deadness of those, in whom the Spirit of God has 
 dwelt but has been grieved away ; but, in the Manichaean system 
 confined to things corporeal. 
 
 To this power they also gave the holy name of the " Word," as 
 being connected with rather than engaged in the creation of the 
 world, (Secundin. Ep., Disp. c. Fortun.) and in their sense with its 
 restoration. (Conf. vii. §. 3.) " Christ," on the other hand, (as they 
 distinguished the name, though to them, as they own, unmeaning, 
 " designating neither the nature nor the essence ;" Manes Ep. ad 
 Odan ap. Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. 285.) they said (perverting 1 Cor. 1, 
 24.) was " two-fold. His power dwelling in the Sun, His wisdom in 
 the Moon," (c. Faust, xx. 6.) And here again, the name contains 
 the whole semblance of Christian character; and it much illustrates 
 the whole character of the Manichaean system, that they took the 
 sacred names, and tricked out their own system with them, while 
 confessing their inappropriateness. The Sun is called Christ, is 
 worshipped as, at least, the residence of Christ ; but we have merely 
 a physical theory of the influence of Sun and Moon on that vegeta- 
 tion which was to detach the life or divine substance from the 
 world, tricked out in offensive allegory, which S. Aug. insisted on 
 as a brand-mark to stamp and testify and warn against Mani- 
 chaeism'', but which it were now pernicious to dwell on. The Sun 
 and Moon were, as being bodies of purer light, an intermediate 
 resting-place for the portions of Divine substance detached ; the 
 Moon receiving them first, and then transmitting them to the Sun, 
 whence (as they gladly intermixed astronomical fables, Conf. v. 
 %. 12.) they accounted for its alternate fulness and waning. " They 
 call the Sun and Moon Gods, sometimes calling the Sun Christ, 
 sometimes saying that they are vessels, which convey the souls of 
 the departed from matter to light ; for that thus they are freed from 
 the evil commixture. Moreover, that the Moon is reduced to a half- 
 moon or a crescent, by being emptied, receiving the luminous souls 
 from matter and transferring them to the light, and that thus the 
 light is gradually freed from the evil mixture." (Theodoret, Haeret. 
 Fab. 1. i c. 26. so Aug. Ep. Iv. c. 4.)" Were ye kindled with the love of 
 spiritual good, ye would not (to speak briefly what is notorious of 
 you) worship that corporeal sun as a divine substance and the light 
 of wisdom." (c. Faust. I. v. fin.) " They know of no light but what 
 they see with their fleshly eyes. And therefore they worship that 
 sun, calling it a particle of that light wherein God dwells," &c.(deGen. 
 c. Manich. 1. i. c. 3. comp. Conf. xii. §. 7.) " Your carnal thoughts 
 part not from corporeal place, so that ye call that visible and more- 
 
 •> e. g. de Nat. Boni e. Manich. c. 44. we cannot auppress it." Aug. Acta c. 
 " Ye say what is offensive to hear, but Fel. Man. ii. 7. 
 to confound, and perchance to save, you, 
 
336 Office of the Sun and Moon in Manichcean system. 
 
 NOTE, over corporeal snn, which must be contaiQed in corporeal space, 
 both God and a part of God." (c. Secundin. Manich. c. 20.) It was 
 perhaps again an attempt to associate their fables with Christian 
 doctrine, that they used the strange symbol mentioned by S. Aug. 
 " First, ye say that the sun is a sort of ship ; then, whereas it 
 shines, as an orb, upon the eyes of all, ye state that it is a 
 triangle, i. e. that through a certain triangular wini^ow in heaven, 
 that light streams upon the world anil the earth. So it is, that 
 a sort of ship which ye have pictured to yourselves gleaming and 
 shining through a triangular opening, ye — worship." (c. Faust, xx. 6.) 
 This same relation of the Sun to the good Principle, in that so far 
 as it was pure light, it was a part of God, enabled them to speak of 
 Christ, as the " Son of the eternal Light" (Manes Ep. ad Scyth. ap. 
 Fabric.) sent forth from the substance of God. (Conf. v. §. 20. p. 80.) 
 On returning to the Church, in the East, they were required to 
 anathematize such as worshipped the sun, moon, or stars, or honoured 
 them as Gods. (Form, abjur. Manich. ap. Toll. Itin. Ital. p. 134.) 
 
 The Sun and Moon, then, in part acted directly, in part seconda- 
 rily ; we hear that " the portion of God mingled in the world is 
 set loose, freed and cleansed, by the courses of the Sun and Moon, 
 and the powers of light," (de Nat. Boni c. Man. c. 44,) and (as far 
 as any thing can be clearly understood under their monstrous alle- 
 gories) of the process of evaporation, whereby some souls (as they 
 are termed), i. e. parts of the anima mundi, are directly set free, and 
 taken back to their country, the land of light, others still detained 
 in vegetation. (Manes, Thesaurus, ib.) Elsewhere this same portion 
 is said to be " daily cleansed out of every part of the world, and 
 taken back into its own kingdoms; but this, exhaling through the 
 earth, and tending toward heaven, meets with plants, (since they are 
 fixed by roots in the ground,) and so gives life and fruitfulness to 
 all herbs and plants." (Aug. de Mor. Man. c. 15. The soul of the 
 world was detached then thus far, or rather held less fixed ; the 
 process was to be finished by man ; and this practically was made 
 the largest portion of the system ; the Sun and Moon wereJooked 
 upon as receptacles for the souls thus purified ; the Moon attracting 
 them from the earth, and delivering them over to theSun, (seep 335.) 
 man was the purifier. It was the privilege of the holiness of the 
 Elect to set free such portions of the Divine substance, as were con- 
 fined in the vegetables which they fed on, and so man became the 
 centre of his own system, and, a wandering star, would have it turn 
 round him. " Fruit prepared of corn and fruit, if brought to the 
 ' Saints,' i. e. Manichseans, through their purity and prayers and 
 psalms, whatever is excellent and divine therein, is purified, i. e. 
 altogether perfected, so that it may be restored without any impedi- 
 ment from defilement to its own kingdoms. — Some portion of that 
 Divine part, as ye say, escapes, when corn or fruit is gathered or 
 ill-treated by bruising, or grinding, or dressing, or even by biting 
 and chewing. Some escapes in all motions of animals, in their 
 sport, or motion, or work, or whatever they do. Some escapes in 
 our very repose, when digestion takes place in the body through the 
 
Office of the " Elect" and perversions involved therein. 337 
 
 internal heat," (de mor. Manich. ii. 15.) " The cleansing and freeing 
 of good from evil, they say, is effected not only by the powers of 
 God [in the sun and moon] through the whole world and all its 
 elements, but by their Elect through the food which they take. For 
 in this food, as in the whole world, they believe the substance of 
 God to be commingled, which they suppose is, in their ' Elect,' 
 cleansed by the sort of life they lead, as being holier and more ex- 
 cellent than their ' Hearers." In others, even their own ' Hearers,' 
 they think this part of the good and Divine substance, which is 
 detained by being mingled and bound up in meat and drink, is 
 bound up more closely and more defiled." (Aug. de Hseres.) " That 
 same part and Nature of God so mingled is, they say, by their 
 ' Elect' cleansed, by eating, namely, and drinking : for they say 
 that it is held bound in all food ; which when it is taken by their 
 ' Elect,' as being Saints, for the refreshment of the body by eating 
 and drinking, is, by their sanctity, released, signed over, and freed." 
 (de Nat. Boni, c. 45. c. Faust, xxxi. 6.) This can be hardly made 
 more degrading by any additional circumstances ; yet, it being ac- 
 counted a duty to release the portions of Divinity so consumed, nay 
 this being naturally the great practical duty of life, the end of life, 
 not to confine the Deity embodied in their own persons, and to 
 release what was confined in vegetable substances, they might not 
 refuse the food offered ; and thus it became a duty for ascetics to 
 eat to excess. (To this S. Aug. often alludes. Conf. iii. 10. c. Faust. 
 ii. 5. V. 10. vi. 4. &c.) " Since it is accounted sacrilege, either to 
 give away what is over and above, or to throw it away, ye are 
 forced into violent indigestions, in your desire to cleanse, as you say, 
 what is given you &c." (de mor. Manich. ii. 16.) Children also, 
 given to be trained in their way of life, had been killed by surfeiting, 
 (ib,) Yet these are accessories only ; the chief perversion of this 
 doctrine (which took so prominent a place in the system) was that 
 man, instead of being redeemed by God, was indeed the redeemer 
 of God. " These your sacrilegious phrenzies compel you to believe 
 Christ [more strictly in their language, Jesus] to be fixed down, and 
 tied down, and amalgamated not only with the heaven and all the 
 stars, but even with the earth, and all things which grow thereon, 
 not now your Saviour, but to be saved by you, when ye eat and 
 burst-out with these things." (c. Faust, ii. 6.) " We, (say they,) 
 because we are enlightened by the faith of Manichaeus, by the 
 prayers and psalms of us the Elect, cleanse thence the life which is 
 in that bread, and send it to the treasures of heaven. Such are the 
 " Elect" as not to be saved by God, but to be saviours of God. In the 
 Gospel I had received that Christ was the Saviour; in your books 3'e 
 are the saviours of Christ. Therefore are ye blasphemers of Christ, and 
 so not to be saved by Christ." (Aug. in Ps. 140. §. 12.) There is yet a 
 further consequence from this doctrine, which the Manichaeans subse- 
 quently in a degree shrunk from, but could not deny. Since the soul 
 was actually a portion of the Divine substance, and the Divine sub- 
 stance which was contained in vegetable matter was confined in those 
 who were not of the Elect, and that,as theysaid,moreandmorein sue- 
 
338 Part qf the Divine Nature never restored. 
 
 NOTE.cessive generations, then it followed that some portions of the 
 Divinity were never restored at all ; i. e. that God had, to resist the 
 inroads of matter into the realms of light, sent portions of Himself 
 into matter, and some of these were never recovered. And this is 
 independent of the question, how, since vegetable life was the means 
 of detaching the substance of God imprisoned in the world, that 
 portion of God, which remained in the vegetable world, should at 
 the last be restored ? Was vegetation to cease ? This also is a part 
 of the theory, which would account for things, itself unaccounted 
 for. Again, " If" (says Alex. Lycop. c. 23.) " the Divine power in- 
 fused into matter be infinite, these e£Fbrts of Sun and Moon can 
 effect nothing to diminish it. For what remains is still infinite, 
 that which is taken being finite. But if it be finite, we ought in so 
 long time to have perceived how much this Divine power has been 
 diminished from the world. But all things remain the same." But 
 the other point is more serious. " Why did He fight ? Why give 
 His substance to the enemy to be corrupted and defiled, and forced 
 into all sorts of sins? This dilemma ye shall never escape. Ye think 
 ye have found an excellent and safe answer, when ye say, ' It is a 
 great iniquity to covet what belongs to others, and to this iniquity 
 God had assented, had He not willed to defeat that nation [of dark- 
 ness] who assayed this,' [to get possession of light.] This answer might 
 have had some colourable shew, had the nature of your God, in this 
 same war, at least maintained itself pure and unpolluted ; and, 
 though mingled with the members of the enemy, had neither by 
 compulsion nor seduction, done any iniquity. But when ye say that 
 it, while captive, assents to so great crimes and abominations; when, 
 lastly, ye say, that the whole of it cannot be purified from that un- 
 natural impiety, whereby it becomes at enmity even with that Holy 
 Light, whereof it is a portion, whence ye believe that He deservedly 
 requites them with the eternal punishments of that dreadful ball ; — 
 who sees not how much better it had been to leave the enemy in his 
 iniquity, making fruitless efforts, than to deliver over to it a portion 
 of God whose strength it might appropriate, whose beauty it might 
 corrupt and associate with its own iniquity? Who so obstinately 
 blinded as not to perceive or observe how much less the iniquity had 
 been, that the nature of darkness should in vain endeavour to seize 
 upon a foreign Nature, than that God should give His own to be 
 seized on, forced to iniquity, and some portion of it to be condemned 
 to punishment. The nature of God is led captive, made unholy, 
 cannot be all of it cleansed, is necessitated at last to be condemned." 
 (c. Secundin. Manich. c. 20.) It is no answer which is made by one, 
 (Felix Disp. ii. c. 15.) that " Manes did not say that these souls were 
 condemned, but were placed as a guard over the nation of darkness;" 
 (it were indeed only an additional heresy, the denial of retribution 
 and future punishment ; if the soul be part of God, then if it is punished, 
 part of God is punished, if not, then is there no retribution. But 
 Manes says distinctly, " Souls, which by this negligence do not allow 
 themselves to be cleansed from the stain of the aforesaid spirits, and 
 have not entirely obeyed the Divine commands, and have not fully 
 
Practical inhumanity qf the Manichcean system. 339 
 
 kept the law given by their Deliverer, nor governed themselves as 
 He taught, — who through love of the world allowed themselves to 
 stray from their former nature of light, — are kept from the bliss and 
 glory of the holy land. — Which shall happen to them, because they 
 have so bound themselves to evil works, as to be alienated from the 
 life and freedom of the holy light. They cannot then be received 
 into those realms of peace, but shall be fastened in the aforesaid 
 horrible ball, over which moreover a guard must be set. Whence 
 these same souls will cleave to these things which they loved, 
 being left in that same globe of darkness, having obtained this as 
 their deserts." (Thesaurus, 1. ii. and Ep. Fundam. ap. Euod. de 
 fide, c. 5, in App. ad Aug. T. 8.) Plainly then there is no ques- 
 tion but that they are left in the place of punishment, and not 
 merely as a guard, since this also is introduced by the way. Another 
 radical inconsistency is noticed by S. Aug. de Nat. Boni c. Manich. 
 c. 42. " if the souls of light are therefore condemned, because they 
 loved darkness, the people of darkness are unjustly condemned, 
 because they loved light. And from the beginning they loved it, 
 wishing to gain possession of it, not to extinguish it," [according to 
 the fable.] 
 
 One remarkable practical effect remains to be noticed, to which 
 S. Aug. alludes, (Conf. iii. 10. above, p. 42.) shewing how erroneous 
 doctrine re-produces practical sin, even in a direction where we 
 should least expect it. This is the conduct to the poor, who were 
 not Manichaeans. Since, namely, it was by the purity of the 
 ' Elect' that the particles of the Divine nature inclosed in the fruits 
 of the earth were detached, and, on the contrary, they \:ere fixed in 
 matter, if their fruits were consumed by such as were no ways con- 
 nected with them, it became a sin to give food to a hungry person not of 
 this sect. This is repeatedly urged not as a theoretical consequence, 
 but as a practical error, and a heavy charge ; and not in one country 
 only. " Hence it is, that you forbid to give a mendicant who is not 
 a Manichaean, bread or any fruits of the earth, or even water which 
 is common to all, lest he, through his sins defiling the portion of 
 God intermingled therewith, should hinder it from returning to 
 Him." (Aug. de mor. Manich. c. 15.) " This being so, you forbid 
 even bread to be given to a mendicant ; but you think, for pity's 
 sake, or rather to avoid odium, that money may be given. Which 
 is therein the rather to be blamed, the cruelty or the senselessness ?" 
 (ib. c. 16.) " Rather than a morsel be given to a mendicant, and in 
 that morsel a member of God should grieve, a mendicant is to die of 
 hunger. False mercy to a morsel causes real manslaughter of a 
 man." (In Ps. cxl. §. 12.) " Among the Manichaeans is no com- 
 passion, but with them it is a hateful thing to pity the poor." 
 (Athanasius Hist. Arian. ad Monach. c. 61.) " They blame hu- 
 manity to the poor, alleging that it is a ministering to matter." 
 (Theodoret. Haer. fab. I. 26.) (See also above, p. 44. not.) Such is 
 the result of the consistent following out of doctrinal error. 
 
 VI. iSuch was the system which insolently avowed that it received 
 as much only of God's word as suited its own a priori notions of the 
 
 z2 
 
340 Manichceism promised conviction, required unreasoning 
 
 NOTE, dignity of our Lord; " if ye [the Catholics], out of the Old Testa- 
 ment, receive only the prophecies &c. and have superseded circum- 
 cision &c. what is there strange, if we [the Manichees] receiving out 
 of the New Testament also, those things only which we find said to 
 the honour and praise of the majesty of the Son, either by Himself 
 or by His Apostles, (i. e. when these were perfected and faithful.) 
 pass by the rest, whether said simply and ignorantly by them when 
 uninstructed, — or affirmed unadvisedly by the writers, and so trans- 
 mitted to posterity ; such as that He was born of a woman, &c. 
 Excepting these, and any false appeal to the Old Testament 
 interpolated by the writers [of the Gospels], we believe the rest." 
 (Faust. 1. xxxii. c. 7.) Such was the system, which boasted of being 
 alone in possession of " Truth, Truth;" (Conf. iii. 10.) of requiring 
 nothing to be believed upon authority; (ib. and not. a, p. 33, 4.) 
 which taunted its opponents, " ye rashly believe every thing, ye 
 condemn that good gift of nature, reason, and deny it to man ; ye 
 make a scruple of judging between true and false, and fear to 
 separate what is good from the contrary, as much as children do 
 hobgoblins." (Faust, xviii. 13.) " They rashly, profanely, inveigh 
 against those, who following the authority of the Catholic faith, 
 before they can see that truth, which is beheld by the purified mind, 
 are fortified by believing, and prepared for the enlightening of God." 
 (de Util. Credendi, c. 1.) " Whence will he prove this [the battle 
 between the two kingdoms], or whence did he know it? Alarm me not 
 with your title of Paraclete. First, because I came not to believe 
 things unknown, but to know things certain, having been by you 
 made mistrustful. For yourselves know, how exceedingly ye are 
 wont to insult such as believe rashly, especially if he who thus 
 begins to tell of things uncertain, shall, a little before, have pro- 
 mised full and certain knowledge. Then, because if I am to take 
 belief upon trust, that Scripture would have a stronger hold over 
 me, where I read that the Holy Spirit did come and inspired the 
 Apostles, to whom the Lord promised to send Him. Wherefore 
 either prove to me that what he says is true, demonstrating what I 
 cannot believe, or prove him, who says them, to be the Holy Spirit, 
 that I may believe what you cannot demonstrate. For I profess the 
 Catholic faith, and expect thereby to come to certain knowledge ; 
 you, who endeavour to shake my faith, give me certain knowledge, 
 convincing me, that what I have believed, I believed rashly. — But 
 you will take neither, only extolling what you believe, and mocking 
 at what I believe. If then I in turn extol what I believe, and mock 
 at what you believe, how is any to decide between us, or what can 
 one do, but quit those who invite us to certain knowledge, and after, 
 enjoin us to believe things uncertain, and follow those who first 
 invite to believe what as yet we cannot see, that becoming stronger 
 through that belief, we may be counted worthy to understand what 
 we believe ; God Himself, not men, enlightening and settling our 
 mind within ? And now having asked, how he would prove this to 
 me, now I would ask, whence himself knew it? If he say. it was 
 revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, and that his mind was divinely 
 
assent; Catholicism requires assent, then gives conviction. 341 
 
 enlightened, to know clearly and certainly what he says, himself 
 shews the difference between knowing and believing. For he, to 
 whom these things are so plainly shewn, knows ; but to whom he 
 relates them, he does not convey knowledge, but invites to credulity. 
 And whoever rashly assents to him, becomes a Manichsean, not by 
 knowing things certain, but by believing things uncertain, as he 
 once deceived me, in the inexperience of youth. He ought then not 
 to promise us absolute and certain knowledge, or that we should, 
 without any unclearness, arrive at what we sought, but rather tell 
 us that those things had been shewn him, and that they, to whom 
 they were told, were, without knowing, to believe him. But did he 
 say this, who would not answer him, ' If I am to believe things 
 without knowing, why not rather believe what is publicly attested 
 by the consent of all, learned and unlearned, and by authority the 
 most weighty, in all nations V Fearing lest this should be said to 
 him, he throws a mist over the unskilful, first promising knowledge 
 of certain truth, and after, enjoining belief in things uncertain. Yet 
 if he be bid to prove that these things were shewn even to himself, 
 he is equally at a loss, and bids us believe this too." (Aug. c. Ep. 
 Manich. c. 13, 14. see Conf. vi. §. 7.) And so, condemning Catholic 
 truth, as irrational, because unreasoning, " they changed the glory 
 of the incorruptible God," into corruptible matter, and " turning 
 away their ears from the truth, they were turned unto fables," which 
 they propounded in the name of human reason, " having" (as S. Aug, 
 concisely characterizes them, c. Faust, xxviii. 5. although almost too 
 shocking to repeat) " for the beginning a war of God, in the middle 
 the defilement of God, in the end the damnation of [what was] God." 
 Or in another way, God was subject to necessity, or " He sent His 
 own Nature, cruelly to be mingled [in matter], foully to be freed, 
 unjustly to be damned." (Comp. ib. xxi. 16. xxxii. 19. de Nati Boni, 
 c. 42, 43. &c.) At last, one of their " hearers" and apologists 
 (Secundinus Ep. ad Aug. §. 6.) turns round and says, " that there 
 are some things, which cannot be explained so as to be understood, 
 for Divine reason surpasses the hearts of men ; such are, how there 
 are two natures, or why He who could suffer nothing, fought, and of 
 the new world, which he (Manes) mentions, that it is built through 
 the cutting off of the motions of that vast region ;" and so, after 
 having devised a system to explain what God has left a mystery, 
 and reproached the Catholic faith for requiring unreasoning assent, 
 they, when pressed by the contradictions of the scheme which they 
 had proposed in the name of right reason, fled to the same plea of 
 the necessary mysteriousness of Divine things, as a cloak for their 
 own inventions. " How much better is it, (says S. Aug. c. Faust. 
 xxi. 3.) so to wonder with the Apostle, (Rom. xi. 33.) than to feign 
 a second evil God, because you cannot understand One good God." 
 
 It may, to some, seem strange that such a system should have 
 had followers, and that its extravagances and impieties are not 
 worth this serious detail. But, (besides that it held captive for 
 many years, perhaps the most powerful mind of the Christian 
 
M'iManichceism, like Rationalism, gained admittance/or itself, 
 
 ■^Q-y^-£^Ch\xTc\i,) the mode of their success is an earnest lesson. The 
 
 position which they took up, was in the first instance negative and 
 
 on the ofifensive, like modern Rationalism ; they declaimed against 
 authority, and set up the claims of human reason; they required 
 people to compare Scripture with Scripture, and see whether such 
 or such things were consonant to their notion of what could be true ; 
 they promised them clear and rational knowledge, and thus having 
 persuaded the unstable to take them for their guides, and shaken 
 their faith, they led them whither they would, not perhaps alto- 
 gether believing the whole of their fictions, (see on b. iii. §., 10. p. 34. 
 not. c; b. viii. §. 17.) but still content to believe on authority, what, 
 for the sake of avoiding authority they had listened to. (See on b. iii. 
 §. 10. p. 33. not. a. and §. 21. not. n. p. 43.) Neither modern nor 
 ancient Rationalism could have been established, had they begun by 
 exhibiting their own systems positively, and shewn at first the full 
 exchange men were to make, %^virioi, ;^j«Axe(«v, and what gold for 
 what brass ! but Satan leads men first from their Father's house, and 
 then they must be fain to fill themselves with any husks. " Who," 
 asks S. Aug. having sketched the Manichaean theory, " who would 
 not execrate these things? Who would not understand them to be 
 impious and abominable ? But they, when they catch men, do not 
 utter these things at first, for so should they be laughed at, or 
 avoided by all; but they choose passages out of Scripture, which 
 simple men do not understand, and thereby deceive unskilful souls, 
 asking ' whence is evil?' (see above, b. iii. §. 12. and not. e. p. 36. 
 and §.21. not. n. p. 43.) As in that of the Apostle, ' the rulers of this 
 darkness, and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.' (Eph. vi. 12.) 
 For those deceivers ask one, who understands not divine Scripture, 
 ' whence are there, in heaven, rulers of darkness?' that when he 
 cannot answer, he may be led over to them by curiosity, all 
 unlearned souls being curious. But whoever has well learnt the 
 Catholic faith, and is armed by a good life and true piety, answers 
 them, though he know not their heresy. For he cannot be deceived, 
 who knows what belongs to the Christian faith, which is called 
 Catholic, spread over the whole world, and is, under the governance 
 of God, safe against all ungodly and sinners, yea and her own care- 
 less members." (de Agon. Christian, c. 4.) " They deceive not, but 
 by promising the knowledge which they give not." (de Div. Quaest. 
 83. qu. 68.) " There has arisen an accursed sect of the Manichees, 
 which takes the Scriptures, reads and scoffs at them, criticises what 
 it understands not, and by tossing to and fro and criticising them, 
 thus not understood, has ensnared many." (in Ps. cxlvi. §. 13.) 
 " You know that the Manichees censuring the Catholic faith, and 
 especially, mangling the Old Testament, perplex, the unskilful, who 
 know not how these things are to be understood, and how they may 
 be healthfully received into the very veins and marrow of these, as 
 it were, infant souls. And since there are therein some things, 
 which go against ignorant minds careless of themselves, as is the 
 great mass, they may in a popular way be censured ; but popularly 
 maintained they cannot be by many, on account of the mysteries 
 
by criticising the truth, and veiling itself. 343 
 
 contained in them. But the few who can so do, love not the petty 
 fame of open. disputations, and so are not known, except to such as 
 most earnestly desire it." (de Util. Credendi, c. 2.) This their pro- 
 ceeding may account (by the way) for the severe mockery with 
 which (in some passages above quoted) S. Augustine retaliates upon 
 their senseless system. Mockery was the constant weapon of the 
 Manichee ; a profane and insolent sarcasm characterizes the attacks 
 of Faustus and Secundinus : a reckless, heartless, self-sufficient, 
 supercilious scoffing at things holy, such as seems not to belong to 
 simple human agency ; and it seems to be in righteous indignation, 
 that S. Augustine exposes the hypocrisy which could be so sensitive to 
 what in God's book passes the ordinary measures of " man's judg- 
 ment," yet perceived not the monstrousness of the system which they 
 would substitute as the revelation of God ; in mercy also to those 
 deluded, he would shew how they who laughed at God's book, them- 
 selves became a laughing-stock; (see Conf. iii. 10.) and how 
 " mocking at the obscurity of the Scriptures, which were closed, 
 not against the little ones, but to make trial of those who mock, 
 they were ' brought down to the earth/ so as to be able to conceive 
 no more than what is perceived through earth, i. e. the flesh which 
 is of the earth." (in Ps. cxlvi.) 
 
 The followers then of Manes would be reformers of revelation 
 according to an ideal of their own. Standing nominally within it, 
 but in fact (as must every criticiser thereof) without it, they would 
 try it by the rule, professedly, of right reason, and, for the system 
 so constructed by themselves out of the fragments of the Gospel, 
 claim the authority of the Gospel whose substance they set aside. 
 They would be vindicators of the law against those who had mingled 
 therewith precepts (as of circumcision) foreign to its substance ; they 
 would receive an original law, would " undertake the defence of the 
 law and the prophets," would separate its essence from its form, the 
 divine original from the spurious additions, the character of the 
 patriarchs from their written history, the laws and doctrines from 
 their writers; (Faustus, xxii.) and so, in like manner, original 
 Christianity from the accessions it had received from " Judaizers." 
 (Aug. de Util. Cred. c. 3. Conf. v. 1 1. Faust. 1. xxxiii. c. 3. xix. 5.) 
 Manes himself indeed was but an ordinary impostor, altogether 
 without the bounds of Christianity; (Cyril, Catech. vi. 21. Aug. Acta 
 c. Fel. Man. i. 8.) his own system was ready-formed, before he had 
 troubled himself to enquire what Christianity was ; and it was only 
 when he found Christianity an obstacle to his schemes^ that he set 
 himself to ascertain how far he might colour his own system, so as 
 in some degree to resemble it. (Acta Archel. c. 53 sqq. Epiph. Hser. 
 Ixvi. 5.) He was the organ of impiety which he understood not ; he 
 would promote his own ambitious ends by aid of the Gospel ; and he 
 was engaged in a work of dishonesty, against the voice of his natural 
 
 ' " Irrisemnt" is the word used by tism,) ib. §. 24. p. 83. Serm. 51. de 
 
 S. Aug. continually of the Maniehsean Concord. Evang. §. 5. 12. ed. Ben. de 
 
 objections to Holy Scripture. See Coirf. fide rer. quae non videntur. init. &c. 
 iv. note a. p. 49. b. v. §. 16. (on Bap- 
 
344 Manes, like Mohammed, the or gan of impiety he Jcnewnotqf. 
 
 NOTE, conscience, although like Belshazzar in his drunken feast he knew 
 not what he was touching ; and so he was given over to profaneness 
 beyond what he wished or knew, the instrument and sport of one, to 
 wliom he had unconsciously sold himself. The Bible, examined for 
 private ends, yielded no other fruit than he sought; he there found 
 such outward resemblances to his system, as served his end, so that, 
 though wholly alien from its meaning, he still would use the words 
 of Scripture, and thereby deceive the unstable. (Aug. c. Faust, xxii. 
 13. 16.) He used the words, which he sought, but the meaning, 
 which he sought not, he found not. So neither knew he, any more 
 than Mohammed or his followers, the full impiety of his act in as- 
 suming the title of " the Paraclete;" (Conf. v. §. 8.) in both, it 
 probahly meant only that they were instruments of God, perfecters 
 of His revelation ; in the mind of Manes, it probably was equivalent 
 to the title, which he prefi.xed to his epistles, " the Apostle of Jesus 
 Christ ;" and signified only that he was appointed to fill up the yet 
 incomplete revelation, by the disclosure of unknown truth. Yet the 
 more impious portion of the title was involved by his system ; for in 
 a Pantheistic system, in which God is impersonal, and each human 
 soul a portion of God, the truth thus disclosed was, of necessity, 
 imparted by him, not through him, since he himself was that same 
 thing which God was, His Nature, Substance; he was God, — God 
 from God — (see above p. 321 sqq); and so his disclosures were neces- 
 sarily identified with the workings of his ownmind, which was God! in 
 other words, with human reason. Manes involved himself no further 
 with Christian truth, than to serve his own purposes; but he had by 
 his claims entailed a difficult problem upon his followers ; for by enti- 
 tling himself the " Apostle of Jesus Christ," he had acknowledged, and 
 compelled them to acknowledge, Truth, with which his own system 
 was fundamentally at variance: they were Manichaeans; they would 
 be, or would be accounted. Christians : this, which in Manes' 
 narrower circle was scarcely felt, became more perplexing, as his 
 followers were continually brought in contact with Christians; their 
 system must then be developed, and they had to give up Manes, or 
 consciously to oppose Christ ; they chose the latter; and so they 
 shewed how the self-styled " Apostle of Jesus Christ," was in fact 
 an Antichrist; they furnished a specimen, how systems which 
 begin with adapting the truth to themselves, end by openly opposing 
 the truth which at first they secretly distorted. Manichseism then 
 assumed, on the plea of its petty thefts, that it was that Christianity 
 of which it had borrowed phrases and some of its holy Names, took 
 what it would of it, laid aside tacitly what of it it did not under- 
 stand, and wherever its narrower system did come in collision with 
 the Gospel, declared the Gospel to have been " corrupted." " Ye 
 hold yourselves privileged, as it were, to say that Scripture has been 
 corrupted, that ye may not be overwhelmed by it." (Aug. de mor. 
 Manich. 1. ii. §. 55.) " So little have they to urge against this, that 
 they are in the habit of saying that these things have been interpo- 
 lated by corrupters of Scripture; but, who sees not that this is the 
 last resource of persons convicted?" (de mor. Eccl. Cath. 1. i. c. 9.) 
 
Manichwism set asideautkority, by appeal to notioiisqf fitness. ^^b 
 
 They pretended not of course to any historical evidence ; " Ye should 
 produce," says S. Augustine, " some other copy, which should contain 
 the same, only uncorrupted and more faithful, where those things only 
 should be missing, which ye censure as interpolated. ' I will not,' say- 
 est thou, ' lest I should be thought to have corrupted them myself.' 
 For this are ye wont to say." (Aug. de mor. Eccl. Cath. §. 61.) 
 " When ye hear objected to you ' prove,' ye have recourse not to truer 
 copies, or the majority of MSS. or more ancient MSS. or those of 
 the original tongue, but ye say, ' I thence prove that this is his, the 
 other not,*because this is for me, that against me.' Art thou then the 
 rule of truth?" (c. Faust, xi. 2. cp. xxxii. 16. de Util. Cred. §. 7. 
 Ep. 82. §. 6.) They proceeded entirely upon internal evidence, or what 
 has in modern times been called, the principles of " higher criticism." 
 " The Paraclete, promised by the New Testament, teaches us in like 
 manner what we ought to receive out of the same, what to reject." 
 (Faustus, xxxii. 6.) " With good reason," (says he again in language 
 only a little more unveiled than that of modern days,) " with good 
 reason do we never without sound judgment and discretion give our 
 minds to Scriptures [of this sort, so inconsistent and varying], but 
 surveying all, and comparing one with another, weigh, whether each 
 thing could have been said by Christ or no." (Faustus, xxxiii. 3.) 
 " I, (says he again in a passage just preceding one already quoted,) 
 I am fore-armed against the binding force of this passage by the Mani- 
 chasan faith, which first of all has persuaded me not to believe what- 
 ever has been written in the name of the Saviour ; but to examine 
 whether they be true, sound, undefiled ; for there are many tares &c." 
 (Faustus, xviii. 3.) " See you not," answers S. Augustine in golden 
 words, " that ye are destroying altogether the whole authority of 
 Scripture, so that every one's judgment is to decide for him, what 
 in Scripture he shall approve, what disapprove ; in other words, he 
 is not for his faith to subject himself to the authority of Scripture, 
 but to subject Scripture to himself, and not therefore approve of a thing, 
 because it stands written in that so high authority, but therefore 
 judge it to be rightly written, because himself approves of it." Nor 
 less striking the warning; " If then thou hast submitted to an 
 authority, utterly unknown and phrenzied, so as to believe a thousand 
 fabulous phantoms, because they are written in those books, which, 
 by a miserable error, thou hast judged right to believe in, why not 
 rather submit to the Evangelical authority, so founded, so established, 
 so gloriously spread abroad, and commended to us by the most cer- 
 tain successions [of Bishops''] from the Apostles' times to our own, 
 that you may believe, may see, may learn that all those things also, 
 which offend thee, offend thee through a vain and perverse imagina- 
 tion." (c. Faust, xxxii. 19.) 
 
 <) Successiones certissimas. Themean- agreement of brethren, so faithful, so 
 ing is altogether determined hy a passage numerous, could not guarantee that their 
 shortly following ; (c. Faust, xxxiii. end.) writings should be faithfully transmitted 
 " These things being so, who can he to posterity, whereas they have pre. 
 blinded with such phrenzy, as to say served their Chairs by a most certain sue- 
 that the Church of the Apostles, the cession down to the present Bishops P" 
 
346 Principles fixed inS, Aug.'smindthrough his Manichcean errors. 
 
 ^" ^' This might unhappily be too closely paralleled in modern times ; 
 it may be more useful to set down two principles, which were forcibly 
 brought out in S. Augustine's mind by his own acquaintance with 
 Manichaeism. 1. That in order to understand the things of God, one 
 must first believe them. " True religion can no ways be entered upon, 
 unless those things be believed, which each shall afterwards attain 
 and perceive, if he conduct himself nell and be worthy, nor alto- 
 gether, without a grave weight of authority." (de Util. Cred. c. 9.) 
 " Nor doth any one become fit to find out God, unless he first believe, 
 what he shall afterwards know." (de Lib. Arb. ii. §. 6.) '' Faith is 
 to believe what as yet you see not, of which faith the reward is to 
 see what you believe." (Serm. 43. init.) " Understand, that you may 
 know, is my word; believe, that you may understand, is God's 
 word." (ib. fin.) " Art thou not convicted of pride when thou sayest, 
 ' Let- me first see, so will I believe?' The Light would fain shew 
 itself. To whom? To the blind it cannot, he sees not. Whence sees 
 he not? His eye being weighed down with many sins. — Let these 
 iniquities be removed, sins parted with, the weight removed from the 
 eye, the wounds healed, the caustic command be employed as an 
 ointment. First do what is enjoined thee ; heal the heart, cleanse 
 the heart. ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' " 
 (in Ps. xxxix. 13.) " Further to behold and fully to know the 
 substance of God, Who without change in Himself maketh things 
 changeable, and without any motion in time createth things of time, 
 is difficult ; and therefore is the purifying of our mind necessary, 
 whereby That Ineffable may in an ineffable way be seen ; which 
 before we have attained, we are nourished, and are led by easy 
 stages, where we may be rendered fit and capable of receiving it." 
 (de Trin. 1. i. §. 3.)^ 
 
 2. The unlovingness of this sceptical habit of mind, which 
 receives nothing but what is demonstrated to it, and suspects every 
 thing, which is at variance with its own preconceived opinions. 
 " If this belief be removed from human affairs, who sees not what 
 disturbance, and what horrible confusion would follow ? For what 
 mutual affection could there be, since affection itself is invisible, if 
 I am not to believe what I see not? If then human society cannot 
 exist, unless we believe what we cannot see, since all harmony would 
 be destroyed, how much more is credit to be given to divine things, 
 although they are not seen ; which if it be not given, violence is done 
 not to the friendship of some few men, but to the very height of 
 religion, whence must needs follow the very height of misery." 
 (de fide rerum quae non videntur^ §. 4. cf. Conf. vi. §. 7.) 
 
 " The same was said much earlier hy hecause they believed not," (utpote non 
 
 TertuUian ; " On which [the Baptism intelligentes, quia nee credentes.) De 
 
 of John] they could not answer consist- Bapt. c. 10. 
 ently, in that they understood not, 
 
CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF S. AUGUSTINE, 
 
 (as given, nearly, in the BENEDICTINE.) 
 
 354. Augustine born at Thagaste, 
 Nov. 13; his parents, Patricias 
 and Monnica ; shortly after- 
 wards enrolled among the Cate- 
 chumens. 
 
 37O-I. Returns home from studying 
 Rhetoric at Madaura, after an 
 idle childhood, and from idle- 
 ness falls into dissipation and 
 sin. 
 
 371. Patricius dies ; Augustine sup- 
 ported at Carthage by his mo- 
 ther, and his friend Romani- 
 anus ; falls into profligacy. 
 
 372. Birth of his son Adeodatus. 
 
 373. Cicero's Hortensius awakens in 
 him a strong desire for true 
 wisdom. 
 
 374. He falls into the Manichsean 
 heresy, and seduces several of 
 his acquaintance into it. His 
 mother's earnest prayers for 
 him ; she is assured of his re- 
 covery. 
 
 376. Teaches Grammar at Thagaste ; 
 but soon returns to Carthage to 
 teach Rhetoric — gains a prize. 
 
 379. Is recovered from study of 
 Astrology — writes his books 
 de pulchro et apto. 
 
 383. Discovers the Manichees to be 
 in error, but falls into scepti- 
 cism. Goes to Rome to teach 
 Rhetoric. 
 
 385. Removes to Milan j his errors 
 gradually removed through the 
 teaching of S. Ambrose, but he 
 is held back by the flesh ; be- 
 comes again a Catechumen. 
 
 386. Studies St. Paul; converted 
 through a voice from heaven; 
 gives up his profession ; writes 
 against the Academics ; pre- 
 pares for Baptism. 
 
 337. Is baptized by S. Ambrose, 
 
 with his son Adeodatus. Death 
 of his mother Monnica, in her 
 fifty-sixth year, at Ostia. 
 
 388. Aug. returns to Africa. Adeo- 
 datus, full of promise, dies. 
 
 389. Aug. against his will ordained 
 Presbyter at Hippo by Valerius 
 its Bishop. 
 
 392. Writes against the Manichees. 
 394. Donatists. 
 
 395. Ordained Assistant Bishop to 
 Valerius, towards the end of 
 the year. 
 
 396. Death of Valerius. 
 
 397. Aug. writes the Confessions, 
 and the De Trinitate against 
 the Arians. 
 
 398. Is present at the fourth Coun- 
 cil of Carthage. 
 
 402 Refutes the Epistle of Petili- 
 anus, a Donatist. 
 
 404. Applies to Caecilianus for pro- 
 tection against the savageness 
 of the Donatists. 
 
 408. Writes de urbis Romae obsi- 
 dione. 
 
 411. Takes a prominent part in a 
 conference between the Catho- 
 lic Bishops and the Donatists. 
 
 413. Applies himself to write the 
 De Civitate Dei. 
 
 417. Writes de gestis Palsestinae 
 synodi circa Pelagium. 
 
 420. Writes against the Priscilli- 
 anists. 
 
 424. Semipela- 
 
 gians. 
 
 426. Appoints Heraclius his succes- 
 sor. 
 
 428. Writes the Retractations. 
 
 429. Answers the Epistles of Prosper 
 and Hilary. 
 
 430. Dies Aug. 28, in the third 
 month of the siege of Hippo 
 by the Vandals. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Abraham's bosom, 169, n. 
 
 Abstinence, not in keeping from meat 
 but lusting, 201. vid. Food. 
 
 Abundance, otber than God, mere emp- 
 tiness, 282. 
 
 Academics, not, as commonly thought, 
 universal Sceptics, 78, n. 83, 100. 
 
 Adeodatus, Aug.'s natural son, 165. his 
 extraordinary talent as a boy a sub- 
 ject of awe to his father — is baptized in 
 his 15th year at the same time with 
 Aug. by S. Ambrose, 166, n. in his 
 16th year bears his part in Aug.'s 
 dialogue de Magistro — dies early, ib. 
 
 .SIgyptian food, 119, n. 
 
 .iEneas, 13. 
 
 ^neid, quoted, 12, 13, 15, 136. 
 
 Affections, darkness of, true measure of 
 distance &om God, 16, 252. 
 
 Agents for public affairs, 144, n. Two 
 converted by reading the life of S. 
 Antony, 144. 
 
 Air, thought to be God by Anaximenes, 
 186. 
 
 Altar, 180, 181. The holy sacrifice 
 thence dispensed, ib. commemoration 
 of the dead in Christ thereat, ib. 
 
 Alypius, born at Thagaste in Africa of 
 parents of chief rank there, of virtuous 
 and ingenuous disposition, 24. Aug.'s 
 junior, and loved and loving friend ; 
 studies Khetoric under Aug. first at 
 Thagaste, then at Carthage, ib. drawn 
 into the dissipation of the Circus, but 
 reclaimed by God though a casual 
 illustration of Aug.'s, 95. thoughinno- 
 cent, apprehended as a thief, 97. how 
 freed, 98. drawn into Manichseism by 
 Aug. 96. goes to Kome to study law, 
 ib. betrayed into a love of .ihows of 
 gladiators, 96. accompanies Aug. to 
 Milan, ib. is thrice assessor to the 
 Count of the Italian Treasury, 98. his 
 
 singular firmness and honesty, 98. 
 admirable continency, 102. opposes 
 Aug.'s wish to marry, as interfering 
 with their purposed pursuit of wisdom, 
 ib. disputes with him of the nature of 
 good and evil, 105. for a time miscon- 
 ceives of the Catholic faith concerning 
 the nature of Christ, deeming it the 
 same with that of the ApoUinarians, 
 127. at length knowing his error, he 
 gladly becomes a Catholic, 128. his 
 conversion completed at the same time 
 vrith Aug.'s, 164. Both now Catechu- 
 mens, retire together to the villa of 
 Cassiciacum,150,161.his discussions 
 with Aug. occur in the Disp. c. Acad. 
 'De beata vita,' and ' de ordine,' 160, 
 n. Returns to Milan to give in his 
 name for baptism, 165. and is baptized, 
 166. afterwards receives ordination, 
 98. and becomes Bishop of Thagaste, 
 98, n. 
 
 Ambition, misery of, 93. 
 
 Ambrose, S. Bishop of Milan, his far- 
 famed worth, 82. celibacy,88. mode of 
 life, ib. every Lord's day expounds the 
 Scriptures to the people, 89. frequently 
 recommending as a rule of interpreta- 
 tion, 2 Cor. 3, 6. 90. Beceives Aug. 
 as a father and a bishop, 82. Is 
 loved by Monnica as an ' angelofGod,' 
 86. Recommends to Aug. the study 
 of Isaiah preparatory to his baptism, 
 165. is persecuted by the Empress 
 mother Justina, an Arian, 166. to 
 induce him to give up to that sect a 
 Church, 166, n. The devout people 
 keep watch in the Church ready to 
 die with their bishop, 166. (see Church 
 music.) The persecution is stayed, 
 168. by miracles wrought through the 
 remains of the Martyrs Gervasius and 
 Protasius, 167. which S. Ambrose, 
 in obedience tx) y vision from God, 
 discovers and translates, ib, vid. nn. 
 
 * For this Index, (with the exception of the part relating to the Manichaeans,) 
 the Editors are indebted to the care and pains of the Rev. J. A. Ashworth, B.A. 
 Chaplain of Christ Church, who also made use, with judgment, of the excellent 
 Benedictine Index to the 1st vol. of the Works of S. Aug. 
 
350 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ad loc. He forbids certain feasts held 
 in the Churches of the Saints and 
 Martyrs, 87. Hymn of his, 178. 
 
 Ambrosiana Basilica, 167. 
 
 Amphitheatre. Shows of Gladiators 
 given there, 95. 
 
 Anaximenes, 186, 
 
 Angels, holy, are of a nature subject to 
 change, 258, n. yet through conti- 
 nually cleaving unto God suffer none, 
 255, 258. are intended by the ^heaven 
 of heavens,' ib. are called God's house, 
 ib. 268. " created Wisdom," 259. 
 God, their Book, 289. 
 
 Anima mundl among the Manich. 321, 
 336. 
 
 Antony, S. an Egyptian monk, 143, n. 
 153, n. converted by accidentally 
 hearing read S. Matt. 19, 21. 153. 
 Influence of this upon Aug. ib. Two 
 courtiers {see Agents) converted by 
 reading the history of his life, 144. 
 
 Anubis, 136. 
 
 Apollinarians, their heresy concerning 
 the nature of Christ, 127, n. 
 
 Apostles, ' Lights in the firmament,' 
 Gen. 1, 15. explained of them, 294. 
 
 Apostles' Creed delivered orally to the 
 Catechumen to commit to memory, 
 and by him publicly repeated before 
 baptism, 137, n. 
 
 Appetite, complete governance of, gift 
 of God in his great saints, 208. 
 
 Arians, 166, 167, n. 
 
 Aristotle's Categories or Predicaments, 
 62, n. 
 
 Astrology, false, 48, 113. unchristian, 
 and profane, shifting the blame of sin 
 from man to God, 47. 
 
 Astronomy, state of, in the fifth Cen- 
 tury, 67. 
 
 Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, 
 caused Psalms to be chanted, not 
 sung, 210. 
 
 AUGTJSTINE. 
 
 From his birth to his 16th year. 
 
 Bom at Thagaste, atown of Africa, 
 21. Nov. 13th, 160, n. of parents 
 Patricius and Monniea, 181. His in- 
 fancy, 4 — 7. Boyhood, 7 — 17. Edu- 
 cated from his mother's womb in the 
 faith of Christ, 10. sealed with the 
 mark of His Cross, and salted with 
 His salt, ib. n. and placed by his 
 parents in the order of Catechumens, 
 84, 100. Falling while a boy into a 
 sudden and desperate sickness, ear- 
 nestly recjuests baptism — on his sud- 
 den recovery, his baptism wrongly 
 deferred, 10. Sent to school, 8. dis- 
 likes early lessons, reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, 12. Hates Greek 
 for its difiiculty, 13, 12. but loves 
 Latin (his mother tongue, 13.) as 
 
 taught by the Grammarians, 12. his 
 excessive fondness for poetry, 12, 13. 
 is considered a boy of promise, 15. 
 his declamation applauded above his 
 class-fellows, 16. petty thefts and 
 other boyish sins, 17. Goes to Ma- 
 daura, a city near Thagaste, to learn 
 grammar and rhetoric, 21. 
 
 His 16th year, 20—28. 
 
 Spends at home in idleness, dissi- 
 pation, 21. and ill society, ib. gives 
 no heed to his mother's warnings, as 
 womanish, 22. usinghowevernoharsh 
 or reproachful language towards her, 
 177. his parents' care not to have him 
 many, 20, 22. their views in this, ib. 
 his gratuitous theft, 23. 
 
 From his l7th to his 29th year, 
 29—84. 
 
 Is sent to Carthage to study elo- 
 quence and rhetoric, 31, 32. in his 
 17th year, 29. ("about which time he 
 loses his father, 32.) his mother and 
 Eomanianus (104, n.) support him 
 there, 32. is chief in the Rhetoric 
 school, 31. associates with the ' Suh- 
 verters' so called, but instinctively 
 abhors their doings, 32. falls into 
 love, 29. and a passion for stage 
 plays, ib. is guilty of an act of sacri- 
 legious impiety, 31. sorely punished 
 of God, ib. has a mistress — to whom 
 however he remains faithful, 46. by 
 her has a son, ib. 105. Adeodatus, 
 165. In his youth had prayed for 
 chastity and. continence, but with re- 
 serve, 146. In his 19th year is in- 
 flamed by Cicero's Hortensius with 
 the love of wisdom, 32. but missing 
 therein the name ' Christ,' 33, 83. 
 out of curiosity takes up Holy Scrip- 
 ture, 33. this distasteful from unpre- 
 tendingness of style, ib. his extra- 
 ordinary quickness at 20. 62, 63. 
 
 Falls into Manichseism through 
 rationalizing, and dislike of authority, 
 34, n. in which he continues 9 years, 
 i. e. from his 19th to his 28th, 43, 45, 
 34, n. 71. very carefully listening to 
 it, 332. deceived and deceiving others, 
 45, 49, 95, 104, n. throughout, a 
 sincere lover of truth, 34. 
 
 His errors concerning God, 34, 61, 
 63, 79, 47. Christ, 76, n. 79. rational 
 and irrational substance, 60. fruits and 
 vegetables, 41. the Mosaiclaw and the 
 morality of the Patriarchs, 36, 38, 81. 
 the nature of evil, 39, 79. the cause 
 of sin, 78, n. 111. His mother Mon- 
 niea, in abhorrence of his blasphemies, 
 forbids him her table and house for a 
 time, but his conversion being fore- 
 signified to her, she again receives 
 him, 42, 43. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 351 
 
 He teaches rhetoric, 46. first at 
 Thagaste, 48. then at Carthage, 63, 
 74. whither excessive grief for the 
 loss of a dear friend had driven him, 
 63. rejects the assistance of a wizard 
 who offered him victory in a theatri- 
 cal contest, 46. but uses to consult 
 the Mathematicians, (Astrologers,) 
 47. from which vanity Vindicianus 
 and Nebridius inetfectually try to 
 reclaim him, 48. how convinced of its 
 emptiness, 113. 
 
 Writes two or three books of the 
 'Fair and Fit,' 58. when about 26 
 or 27, 61. which he dedicates to 
 Hierius an orator of Rome, 58. 
 Whilst at Carthage, his confidence 
 in Manichaeism shaken by the argu- 
 ments of one Helpidius, drawn out of 
 Scripture, 81. and an unanswerable 
 one of his friend Nebridius, 109. he 
 is still more estranged thereirom when 
 about 29, on discovering the igno- 
 rance of Faustus, 70 sqq. but mis- 
 conception of what the Catholic 
 Church really held, causing him to 
 despair of finding truth in the Church , 
 79. he does not c[uite abandon it, 79, 
 78. but inclines to the Sceptical phi- 
 losophy, ib. n. 83. 
 
 Disgusted at licence of the scholars 
 of Carthage, 74. sails for Kome, de- 
 ceiving his mother, who would have 
 hindered or accompanied him, 75. 
 
 At B-ome falls sick dangerously in 
 the house of a Manichee — now madly 
 scoflfs at Baptism, 76. recovers, 11. 
 still partial to, and intimate with, 
 Manichees, 77, 79. teaches Rhetoric 
 there, 81. butisliking the dishonesty 
 of the Roman students, ib. is at his 
 own request sent by Symmachus, pre.- 
 fect of Uie city, as Rhetoric reader to 
 Milan, 82. At Milan received by its 
 Bishop S. Ambrose with fatherly 
 kindness, 82. whom he loves — ^be- 
 comes his diligent hearer — is delighted 
 with his eloquence, 82. The Catholic 
 faith seems no longeruntenable against 
 the Manichees, 83. whom he now 
 resolves quite to abandon. But still 
 doubting and wavering between aU, 
 determines to be a Catechumen in the 
 Catholic Church till some certain 
 light should dawn upon him, 84. 
 His 30th year, 84, 99. 
 Aug. no longer a Manichee, nor 
 yet a Catholic Christian, 65. but 
 from hearing S. Ambrose, more and 
 more inclined to the Catholic faith, 
 betterknowing what it really was, 89, 
 90. admits necessity of belief without 
 demonstration, and authority of H. 
 Scr. 91. Still set upon honours, wealth. 
 
 and marriage, 92, 101, n. Writes 
 panegyric on the Emperor Valen- 
 tinian the younger, 92, n. His vain 
 ambition reproved by the sight of a 
 drunken beggar, 93. perplexities and 
 vacillations in the choice of a course 
 of life, 100. Defers his conversion 
 from day to day, 101. his design of 
 marrying opposed by Alypius, 101. 
 favoured and facilitated by his mother 
 with a view to his baptism — a maiden 
 is promised him, 103. his mistress, as 
 in the way of his marriage, is dis- 
 missed to Africa, 104. leaving with 
 Aug. his son by her, Adeodatus, and 
 vowing chastity, 106. he procures 
 another, 106. Fears of death and 
 judgment to come, which he never 
 lost, checks in his worst career, 106, 
 100. forms with his friends a plan of 
 retirement, 103. this found impracti- 
 cable, and abandoned, 104. 
 
 In his 31st year, 107. 
 
 Still erroneously conceives of God, 
 His works, and nature of evil, 108, 
 110 sqq. Reads the books of the 
 Platonists, 117. their usefulness to 
 him, 128 sq. those errors at length 
 removed, 126. but as yet he perceives 
 not Christ to he Very God as well as 
 Very man, 127. holding with the 
 Photinians, 128. Takes to reading 
 Holy Scripture, and chiefly S. Paul, 
 129. great effects of these, 132, 
 
 In his 32d year, 146. 
 
 Is displeased with a secular life, 
 134. but still enslaved to love, ib. 
 shrinks from the straitness of a 
 Christian life, 133. consults and re- 
 lates the history of his wanderings to 
 Simplicianus, 132, 135. who tells him 
 the story of Victorinus' conversion, 
 135 sqq. Aug. burns to imitate him 
 and devote himself to God, but is held 
 in thraldom to his old habits, 141. 
 hears from Pontitianus an account of 
 S. Anthony, 143. and the conversion 
 of two courtiers on reading his Life, 
 1 44. Much agitated by the relation, 
 147. retires into the garden of his 
 lodging-house, followed by his friend 
 Alypius, in great trouble of spirit, ib. 
 his severe struggle with himself, but 
 gradual victory, -151 sq. leaves Aly- 
 pius, throws himself alone under a fig- 
 tree, bursts into a flood of tears, and 
 implores God's help and forgiveness, 
 153. A voice oft repeating bids him 
 ' Take up and read,' which interpret- 
 ing as God's command to open the 
 Bible, and read the first Chapter he 
 should find,he opens St. Paul, and reads 
 Rom. 13, 13. 14, 153. His doubts va- 
 nish,and his conversion completed,154. 
 
252 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 He acquaints Ms mother with his 
 conversion — embraces celibacy, and 
 renounces all the hopes of the world, 
 154. about end of August or beg. of 
 Sept. A.D. 386, 158, n. Yet con- 
 tinues his profession on to the Vintage 
 vacation, a very few days, 156. 
 Reasons for this delay, 157. not such 
 as to justify it, 158. resigns his 
 Rhetoric Professorship, 160, 164. 
 Grounds of his resignation, 157, and 
 n. Retires with his mother, Alypius, 
 and Adeodatus to Vereoundus' villa 
 of Cassiciacum, 158, 164. writes 
 thence to S. Ambrose, asking what 
 he had best read preparatory to his 
 Baptism — who recommends Isaiah, 
 165. probable reasons for this, ib. 
 Writes there his 3 Disp. c. Acad. Lib. 
 de Vita Beata begins, but lays it 
 aside as too difficult, ib. and the 2 
 Lib. de Ordine and Epp. ad Nebri- 
 dium, 160, u. 
 
 His 33d year. 
 
 Is wonderfully afifected by the 
 Psalms of David, 161. Applies the 
 4th Psalm to himself and the Mani- 
 chees, 161 sqq. suddenly delivered 
 from severe pain on prayer, 164. 
 Betums to Milan to give in his 
 name previous to being baptized, 165. 
 Is baptized by S. Ambrose together 
 with Alypius and Adeodatus, 166. 
 Spiritual comfort of that sacrament, 
 ib. Effect of Church music upon him, 
 ib. 210. Writes now his two Boots 
 ' de Mor. Eccl. Cath.' and ' de Mor. 
 Man.' as also the Book ' de Quant. 
 Animse,' and the first Book ' de Lib. 
 Arb.' 168, n. He and his mother set 
 out to return to Africa, and get as far 
 as Ostia, 169. his last conversation 
 with his mother, 173 sqq. who dies 
 there after nine days' illness, 176. his 
 exceeding sorrow for her loss, ib. his 
 self-command, 178. He prays for the 
 forgiveness of her sins, 180. 
 
 In his 34th year. 
 
 Writes his book ' De Magistro' a 
 real dialogue between himself and his 
 son Adeodatus, then about 16, 166. 
 
 In his 46th year. 
 
 He edits his Confessions, A.D. 400, 
 having been a long while bishop, to 
 which office he was brought against 
 his vriU, 225, n. 
 
 Proceeds to confess what he now is, 
 183. with reference to the three kinds 
 of temptation described i. S. John 2, 
 16. Lusts of the flesh, 205—213. ii. 
 Lust of the eyes, or curiosity, 213 — 
 215. iii. Pride, 215—219. His 
 earnest love of God, 186 sq. in whose 
 exceeding great mercy is through the 
 
 blood of Christ, 223. his only hope, 
 204, 210. Afifrighted and burdened 
 with his sins, he contemplated retire- 
 ment from the world, but forbidden of 
 God, 223. two principles fixed in his 
 mind by his Manichaean errors, 346. 
 view of his former self, 223, 4, n. 
 Authority, value of that of Holy 
 Scripture, 90. derived from its univer- 
 sal acknowledgment by the Church, 
 91, 92. value of the authority of the 
 Church, 1 00. itself a miracle, ib. n. 
 we must believe on authority, that we 
 may afterwards see, 346. declama- 
 tions against that of the Church, a 
 chief instrument in the delusions of 
 the Manichees, 33, 340. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baptism the fount of that water ' which 
 springeth up unto everlasting Ufe,' 86. 
 the only entrance into the ' kingdom 
 of heaven,' 296. a health-giving Sa- 
 crament, a cleansing, 10. a healing, 
 11. water of God's grace, 76. water 
 of salvation, 180. the grace of God, 
 135, n. 137. medicine of God, 77. 
 administered in the name of the Holy 
 Trinity, 285. process of admission 
 to — time of, 137, n. Public profes- 
 sion of faith in a set form of words, 
 (Apostles' Creed, 137, n.) then wont 
 to be made by the Catechumen from 
 an elevated place, 137. Plenary 
 remission of sins therein, 158, 164, 
 166, 183. vulgar abuse of that doc- 
 trine, 11. Sin after baptism brings 
 greater and more perilous guilt, 10. 
 Aug.'s baptism wrongly deferred, 11. 
 Wonderful effect of baptism adminis- 
 tered to a friend of Aug.'s while in- 
 sensible, 50. change of the soul 
 thereby, 183. The Manichees reject 
 Baptism, 49, n. Pelagians deny its 
 mysteriousness, 49. 
 
 Beauty, the object . of love, -58. two 
 sources of it are unity and fitness, ib. 
 
 ' Beginning' (Gen. 1, 1. John 8, 25. 
 Old Vers.) is Christ, 231, n. 
 
 Belief required in some things by the 
 Church without demonstration, 91. 
 necessary in order to understand the 
 things of God, 90, 340, 346. different 
 from knowledge, 341. see Faith. 
 
 Bishops, hearers of secular causes, 98, a. 
 their succession from the Apostles, a 
 strong testimony to Holy Scripture, 
 345, n. 
 
 Blessing at the creation, why given only 
 to men, fowls, and fishes, 301 sq. 
 
 Blindness the natural consequence of 
 lawless desire, 17. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 353 
 
 Boyhood, sins of, differ in their objects, 
 not nature, from those of later life, 1 7. 
 
 Buddhism, a dualistio system chiefly 
 philosophio,314.pantheistic,314,315, 
 334. its tenets a.% to matter, 315. en- 
 grafted by Manes on the Persian, 315, 
 329, 332, 334. 
 
 Candour and modesty please rather than 
 great parts and attainments, 73. 
 
 Carthage — Aug. studies, 31, 32. after- 
 wards teaches Khetoric there, 53, 74. 
 Disgraceful licence of the Cartha- 
 ginian scholars, 74. 
 
 Cassiciacum, a villa of Verecundus', 
 whither Aug. retired to prepare him- 
 self for baptism, 158. 
 
 Catechumens, name given to believers 
 who had been signed with the Cross 
 and salted with salt, 10. but not yet 
 baptized, 10, n. 21, 84, 49, n. 137, n. 
 
 Categories or Predicaments of Aristotle, 
 
 62, n. 
 Catholic, see Church. 
 Catiline, 24. 
 Chastity, the gift of God. through prayer, 
 
 101. 
 Christ, the Word, the Power, the 
 Wisdom, the Truth of God, the Begin- 
 ning, 232. His coming in the flesh a 
 condescension to human weakness — a 
 lesson of humility, 126, 222. the true 
 Mediator between God and man, being 
 both God and man, 222. Mediator as 
 man, not as the Word, ib. the only 
 way of life, 126. his innocence in suf- 
 fering our security, 180. Victor and 
 Victim, Priest and Sacrifice, 222. his 
 Body and Blood communicated at the 
 Altar, our Bansom, 223. and Justifi- 
 cation, 180. not a teacher only but 
 also an example, 185. Holy men of 
 old saved through faith in the future 
 Passion-of Christ, 222, name of Christ 
 of itself a mighty safeguard to Aug. 
 
 63, 83, 90. 
 Christians forbidden by a law passed 
 
 under Julian to teach the liberal 
 sciences or oratory, 141. 
 
 Church typified by the Creation, 285. 
 Benefit of Heresies to it, 128. a se- 
 cure shelter and support for humble- 
 minded ignorance, 63, 342. her con- 
 duct contrasted with that of Mani- 
 chaeism, 91, 340, 341. requires in 
 some things belief without demonstra- 
 tion, 91. which those who believe shall 
 afterwards know, 340. weight of her 
 testimony, 341, 342. see Authority. 
 
 Churches open for morning and evening 
 prayer at Carthage, 77. 
 
 Church of the Manichees consisted of 
 ' Elect' and ' Hearers,' 41. see Mani- 
 chees. 
 
 Church-music introduced into the West 
 through the persecution of S. Ambrose, 
 167, n. more ancient in the Eastern 
 Churches, 167, n. Great usefulness 
 thereof, 210. Cautions to be observed 
 respecting it, 211. 
 
 Cicero more admirable for his eloquence 
 than his heart. His Hortensius, 32. 
 blames the fictions of Homer, 15. 
 
 Circensian games, 94, 144. 
 
 Classical study, evils of, 14. 
 
 Clouds, emblematic of Preachers of the 
 Gospel. — Heaven, of the Scriptures, 
 289. 
 
 ' Coats of skins,' figure mortality, 126, 
 n. 288. 
 
 Commandments of God kept through his 
 grace, 204. 
 
 Competentes, ' Seekers,' Candidates for 
 Baptism so called after giving in their 
 names, 165, n. 
 
 Concupiscence, three-fold division of, 
 pleasure of the flesh, pride, and curi- 
 osity, 205, n. 
 
 Confession, does not teach God but 
 praise Him, 65. what it is to confess 
 to God, 182. its usefulness, 225, 21. 
 Use of the ' Confessions,' 183. 
 
 Conscience, law written therein, iniquity 
 cannot efface, 23. 
 
 Continency, see Chastity. Praise of, 205, 
 ;52. 
 
 Contritions though silent, yet loud criea 
 to God's mercy, 116. 
 
 Conversion of the great, a subject of 
 greater joy — rightly, 140. God and 
 His angels joy in the conversion of a 
 sinner, 138. 
 
 Corruptibility implies goodness and im- 
 perfection, 122. 
 
 Corruption of nature. Error of Manich. 
 thereon, 322. 
 
 Count of the Italian Treasury, 98, n. 
 
 Creation of ' Heaven and earth' ex- 
 plained as the formation of spiritual 
 and corporeal natures, 249 sqq. typi- 
 cal of that of the Church, 311. Reply 
 to the question ' What did God before 
 he made heaven and earth?" 233. 
 God formed all things out of nothing, 
 229, 310. two created natures without 
 relation to time, 256. goodness of 
 the whole of creation asserted against 
 the Manichees, 122 sq. creature, a 
 help, gradually less needed to the 
 love of the Creator, 65, n. its law 
 is imperfection, as part of a system, 
 64. 
 
 Criticising of Scripture and Catholic 
 Truth, a chief instrument of success 
 of the Manichees. see Manichees. 
 A a 
 
354 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cross, mark of, on the forehead used at 
 Baptism, 136. Cross of light, Manich. 
 331, 334. 
 
 Custom, force of, 220. — a strong fetter — 
 its links are successive acts, — if not 
 resisted, hecomes necessity, 141. 
 
 Customs of men, if not against the law 
 of God, not to he violated, 39. 
 
 No human custom can excuse a 
 violation of God's law, 7i' 
 
 Curiosity, of more force in learning than 
 fear, 14. described as the ' lust of the 
 
 eyes' in St. John i. 2, 16 Difference 
 
 between its objects and those of plea- 
 sure, — its nature, 213. and dangers, 
 214, 215. 
 
 Cyprian, Martyr, Oratory in his me- 
 mory at Carthage near the sea side, 75. 
 
 D. 
 
 t)anae, 15. 
 
 Darkness of affection, true measure of 
 distance from God, 16, 252. 
 
 Daughters, how to be educated, 169. 
 
 Dead in Christ. Commemoration of them 
 wont to be made at the Altar, 175, 
 181. Prayers for them, 180, 181. 
 Aug. prays for his departed parents, 
 and requests the prayers of such as 
 read his Confessions, 181. The sacri- 
 fice of the Eucharist, in Italy, offered 
 for the dead just before interment, 
 178, u. 
 
 Debtor. God condescends to become 
 debtor by his promises, 77. 
 
 Decalogue. ' Psaltery of ten strings,' 
 (Ps. 141, 9.) 40, 39, n. 
 
 Demonstration not to be required in 
 every thing, 90. Men act on proba- 
 bility and on faith, 91. 
 
 Devils, why and as what some have 
 worshipped them, 221. 
 
 Devil tempts Aug. to desire a sign, 214. 
 
 Dido, 12. 
 
 Differences between man and vrife how 
 to be smoothed, 171. how between 
 others, 172. 
 
 Divination, vanity of, 47, 48, 113 sqq. 
 
 Dualistie systems, two kinds of, 314. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eclipses accurately foretold by Astrono- 
 mers in the fifth Century, 67. 
 
 iKTiiri, its meaning in Prov. 8 , 22. 130, n. 
 
 ' Elect,' of the Manichees, 41, 71. see 
 Manichaians. 
 
 Elements, 6 evil, 6 goodof Manichseans, 
 35,320. 
 
 Epicurus denied the soul's immortality, 
 and a state of retribution, 105. 
 
 Esau lost his birthright for Egyptiail 
 
 food, 119, n. 
 Eternity and Time, differing in kind, 
 
 cannot be compared, 233. 
 Eucharist, always celebrated on the 
 
 Birthday of the Martyr, 87, n. 
 Eve, inheritance of, 76. 
 Evil, perplexity of enquiry into the origin 
 
 thereof, 36, and n. 110—113, 116. 
 Evil, no substance, but only a privation 
 
 of good, 122,36,60. 
 Evil of two kinds, active and passive, 
 
 their causes, man's free will and God's 
 
 just judgment, 110, n. 
 Evil Principle, see Manichees. 
 Evodius, bom atThagaste in Africa,-^ 
 
 an officer of court — converted andbap- 
 
 tized before Aug. 168. with whom he 
 
 purposes retirement from the world, 
 
 and returns to Africa, 169. sings a 
 
 Psalm on the death of Monnica, 177r 
 Eyes, lust of the — why interpreted of 
 
 curiosity, 213. pleasures of the eyes, 
 
 211. 
 
 r. 
 
 Fair and fit, defined, 60. 
 
 Faith the way to divine knowledge, 90. 
 necessary to all human action, 91. 
 Faith in the passion of Christ tocome, 
 justified the old Fathers, as faith in it 
 passed justifies us, 222. Profession of 
 faith previous to Baptism used to be 
 made before the Church, 137, u. see 
 Belief. 
 
 ' Faithful' or ' Believers,' baptized per- 
 sons so called, 168, 172, 143, 22, 
 S6, n. 
 
 Falsehood, not a substance, but a nega- 
 tion, 124. 
 
 Faustus, a bishop of the Manichees — of 
 great eloquence, 70. but little learn- 
 ing, 72. talented, luxurious, despiser 
 of parents, 66, n. a snare of death to 
 many, 73, 66. a means of deliverance 
 to Aug. 73. banished, 66. n. 
 
 Feasting in the Churches of the Martyrs, 
 forbidden by S. Ambrose, 87. 
 
 Firmament, type of God's word, 288. 
 
 Firminus, his tale cures Aug. of belief 
 in Astrology, 114. 
 
 Fishes and whales, Gen. I, 21. what is 
 meant by them, 306, 68, n. Fish 
 taken out of the deep, figures Christ, 
 296, n. 301. 
 
 Flattering friends pervert, reproachful 
 enemies mostiy correct, 170. 
 
 Food, necessity of taking it, a calamity — 
 the snare ofconcupiscence laid therein, 
 — and the attendant pleasure danger- 
 ous, 207. No food in itself defiUng, 
 but only immoderate desire thereof; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 355 
 
 instances — Noah, Elijah, John Bap- 
 tist, Esau, David, our Lotd, 208. joy, 
 the food of the mind, 306. i 
 
 Food, measure of, ' what is 'enough for 
 hesilth not pleasure,' 207. to he taken 
 as physio, ib. 
 
 Forgetfulness, not present in the me- 
 mory by itself but by its image, 195. 
 
 " Formed," how the Son may be said 
 ' to "be, 130, n. 
 
 Free-will the cause of sin, 110, n. 
 
 Friend. Blessed he who loving God, 
 loveth his friend in God, his enemy 
 for God, 54. 
 
 Friendship, its charm the unity of many 
 souls, 24. itself a tendency to unity, 
 62. True friendship cannot be without 
 love of God, 49. Friendship of perish- 
 able things a cause of misery, 51. 
 Friendship of the bad, unfriendly, 28. 
 
 G. 
 
 Genesis, cap. 1. explained in the three 
 last Books of the Confessions, 225 sqq^. 
 
 Gervasius and Protasius, Martjrrs, their 
 bodies discovered to S. Ambrose and 
 dug up, 167. 
 
 Gestures, universal language, 8. 
 
 Gift and fruit (Phil. 4, l/.)distingnished, 
 306. 
 
 GOD. 
 
 One Trinity and Trine Unity, 252. 
 Supremely Essence and Life, 6. is 
 not material, 121, 36. «ee Manichees. 
 
 I Sketch of His attributes, 2, 3, 6. to 
 man contradictory or inexplicable, 3. 
 inseparable from Himseljf even in 
 idea, 62. His Beauty, Greatness, 62. 
 Power, and Will, 111. Blessedness, 
 278. are Himself. 
 
 His To-day is Eternity. — He pre- 
 cedes all things past — overpasses all 
 things future, 234. Things past and 
 to come wrought in His To-day, 6. is 
 before all that can be called ' before,' 
 6. knows no times, 234. 
 
 God's Beauty, the source of all other, 
 212, 229. 
 
 God created heaven and earth without 
 distraction of his action, 248. without 
 any new will, 258. Summary of the 
 Creation, 310. God notthe Creator, 
 only the Disposer of sin, 9. 
 
 God's Goodness, out of the fulness 
 thereof the Creation subsists, 277. 
 Man's good ever lives with Him, 63. 
 He is the life-giving delight of the 
 pure in heart, 297. a perfect and self- 
 sufficient good, 312,277. He forsakes 
 not, if not forsaken, 65, 64. 
 
 God's grace, it alone keeps men from 
 
 sin, 27. strengthens, by making to 
 know one's weakness, 163. 
 
 God incomprehensible, 2, 3. Mystery 
 of invoking Him, 2. 
 
 God's knowledge, not in succession, nor 
 subject to variation, 248, 258. un- 
 changeable as his Will and Essence, 
 290, 284, ib. Human knowledge com- 
 pared therewith is ignorance, 229. 
 
 God is supremely and essentially Life, 
 6. the life of fives, the life of souls, 
 35, 187. 
 
 God's mercifiil severity, 14, 20. Con- 
 fessions of his great mercy, 4, 26, 29, 
 31. AU need his mercy even the 
 holiest of men, 179. 
 
 God's Omnipresence the cause of 
 things existing, 2, 66 . Errors of the 
 Manichees concerning, see Mani- 
 chees. God wholly every where, 
 contained wholly by nothing, 3. is to 
 be sought for within us, 121, 36, 188. 
 is near those even who remove far 
 from Him, the wicked, 66. 
 
 God's providence, draws all things to 
 good, both errors, 11, and sins of 
 men, 11, 158. so cares for every one 
 as if for him alone, for all, as if for 
 one only, 42. 
 
 God's Rest is Himself,— ever working 
 and ever at rest, 312. the only rest of 
 man, 1, 5Q. 
 
 God is eternal Truth, 121. Truth 
 presiding over all, 221. cannot be 
 possessed together with a lie, 221. 
 
 God unchangeable, not one in one 
 place, and otherwise in another, but 
 the Self-Same, 252. see 258, 290, 
 284, 6. 
 
 God's Will and Power are Himself, 
 111. not Creatures, 232. nchange- 
 able, 232, 290, 284, 268. 
 
 God, praise of, 1, 3, 7, 18, 65. the 
 whole creation praises Him, 63, 230, 
 65. 
 
 God's best servants, who, 203. 
 
 Gold and silver taken from the Egyp- 
 tians, symbolical of truth, 120, n. 
 (Vain> glory, contempt of, often a 
 subject of vain-glory, 219. 
 
 Good. Whatsoever is, is good, 132, 
 though nothing good compared with 
 God, 229. 
 
 Good deeds of man, are God's gifts and 
 appointments, 184. good only as being 
 God's gifts, 179, u. 169, 276. 
 
 Goodness — the essence of things — diver- 
 sity of goodness their difference, 122, 
 n. 
 
 Grammar-schools, entrances of, covered 
 by vails, 12, u. 
 
 Great — the Church's joy in their con- 
 version rightly greater, 140. 
 
 Grief, cured by time, which introduces 
 
366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 sources of fresh grief, 53. The soul 
 cleaving to any thing else than God 
 cleaves but to sorrows, 54. Some 
 sorrow may he allowed, none loved. 
 
 Happiness the aim of all, 200. true 
 happiness is joy in the truth — in 
 God, 201. ' to rejoice to God, of God, 
 for God,' 200. to cleave to God with 
 one's whole self, 204. God himself, 
 200, 281. not to he found in the 
 world, 57. 
 Hatred, what is perfect, 81. 
 ' Hearers' of the Manichees, 74, 34, n. 
 why introduced, 329. laxity of moral 
 system, 328, 329, 330, 331. easy 
 duties, 331. 
 Hearing, pleasures of, how dangerous, 
 
 210. 
 Heaven a type of God's word — the 
 
 clouds of its Preachers, 289. 
 ' Heaven and earth,' (Gen. 1, 1.) Dif- 
 ferent interpretations of, 262. signify 
 the spiritual and cai'nal in the' 
 Church, 285. 
 ' Heaven of Heavens,' the heaven we 
 see not, to which all we see is the 
 earth, 250. the Holy Angels, 253, 
 259. 
 Hebrew kingdom one great prophet, 
 
 38, n. 
 Helpidius disputes successfully at Car- 
 thage with the Manichees out of 
 Scripture, 81. 
 Heresies, why God permits them — their 
 
 benefit to the Church, 128. 
 Heretics not to he argued with, hut 
 prayed for, 43. rejection of, gives 
 prominence to the Church's teaching, 
 128. 
 Hierius a learned orator of Rome — 
 Aug. dedicates to him his Books, de 
 Pulchro et Apto, 58. 
 Hippocrates, 48. 
 
 Homer, distasteful to Aug. in his hoy- 
 hood as being Greek, 13. Evil ten- 
 dency of his fictions — Cicero's and 
 Aug.'s judgment thereon, 15. 
 Horace, quoted, 52. 
 Horteusius of Cicero, its effect upon S. 
 
 Aug. 32, 146. 
 Humility necessary to exalt us to God, 
 68, 57. the lowly in heart the dwell- 
 ing-place of the high God, 248. 
 Christ's humiliation exalts the hum- 
 ble, 126. Lowly stature of childhood 
 commended by Christ as a type of 
 humihty, 18. 
 
 I. J. 
 
 Idleness, its efTecis on Augustine, 21. 
 Ignorance the mother of admiration, 
 
 297. 
 Ignorance of the material world no 
 
 moral injury, 70. 
 Incarnation of the Word, a condescen- 
 sion to man's weakness, 126. Christ 
 took upon Him whole and perfedt 
 human nature, 127. Error of the 
 Apollinarians concerning the Incar- 
 nation, 127, n. Manichees denied it. 
 see Manichees. 
 Infancy, its innocence is in its weakness 
 not its will, — not exempt from sin- 
 ning, 7. majioious — envious, 7. 
 Inheritance of Eve, 76. 
 Iniquity not a substance, hut a per- 
 version, 124. the heads of iniquity 
 spring from the lust of the flesh, of 
 the eye, of rule, 39. 
 Is, that truly is which is unchangeably, 
 122. things are true, (and from God, 
 252,) so far as they are, 124. 
 Isaac, not by knowing blessed his sons, 
 
 but by blessing knew them, 211. 
 Isaiah, study of, recommended by S. 
 Ambrose to Aug. preparatory to his 
 baptism, 165. 
 Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph, 
 
 though blind not blindly, 211. 
 Jesting, irreverent, ends in gross error, 
 
 41. 
 Jesus patibilis Manich. 334. Manich. 
 distinction between Jesus and Christ, 
 334, 337. 
 Jews, their history prophetic as a whole, 
 that of the Patriarchs in each separate 
 action, 38, a. 
 John Baptist, 208. 
 
 Joy, universally, in proportion to past 
 fear, 138 sq. increased by reflex sym- 
 pathy, 140. 
 JiUian the Emperor forbids the Chris- 
 tians to teach the liberal sciences or 
 oratory, 141. 
 Juno, 16. 
 Jupiter, 15. 
 
 Justina, the mother of Valentiniau the 
 younger, seduced to Arianism, per- 
 secutes S. Ambrose, 166. 
 
 njp Prov. 8, 22. meaning of, 130. n. 
 
 Knowledge of God, not attainable by 
 the senses — else by the brutes, 188. 
 nor by proud though learned search, 
 68. use of sensible objects towards it, 
 186 sq. 65, n. happiness thereof not 
 lessened by other ignorance, 69. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 267 
 
 Knowledge not to be sought for its own 
 eake, 214. Man's Imowledge, com- 
 pared with God's, only ignorance, 
 229. Word of knowledge, and word 
 of wisdom, typified by ' lesser' and 
 ' greater lights,' Gen. i. 16. 
 
 Knowledge and power, when miauaed, 
 withdrawn, 141. 
 
 Latin commonly spoken in Africa in 
 Ang.'s time, 13. 
 
 Law. Man ought to be a doer of it, 
 not a judge, 300. the law of sin is 
 the violence of custom, 142. Law of 
 conscience, 23. 
 
 Law of God in itself the same, in appli- 
 cation varies, 37. 
 
 Learning. Curiosity hath more force 
 to adyance it than fear, 14. the usual 
 method of imparting it to youth, full 
 of evil, 14, 15. how abstract truths 
 are learned, 192. 
 
 Learning to speak, process of, 8. 
 
 Pirst lessons, reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, distasteful to Aug. 12. 
 
 Life, misery of, 204. 
 
 Light of the eye, the queen of colours, 
 various, material. Light of the soul, 
 unvarying, one, and uniting, 211, 
 212. God immaterial, etemsul, and 
 unchangeable laght, 290, 121. 
 
 ' Lights in the firmament of heaven,' 
 Gen.l, 14. typical meaning explained, 
 291 sq. 
 
 Likeness to God is nearness to Him, 
 unlikeness, distance from Him, 16, 
 121, n. 
 
 Love. Nature enjoins love for love, 53. 
 
 Love, the momentum of the soul, 282. 
 its object is the ' beautiful,' 58. 
 Blessed and secure in God only, 64. 
 others to he loved in God and drawn 
 to His love, 56. 
 
 Love of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit j 
 309, 280. The whole creation bids 
 man love God, 186. God demands 
 his love, or else threatens misery, 3. 
 The love of other things must be 
 subordinate not coordinate, 205, n. 
 is never forsaken, if itself forsake not, 
 55. 
 
 M. 
 
 Madaura, a city of Africa near Tha- 
 gaste. Aug. goes there to learn 
 grammar and rhetoric, 21. 
 
 Magic, its original, a vicious curiosity, 
 214, 221. 
 
 Man, creation of, aUegorioaJly ex- 
 
 plained, 299, 310. God made man, 
 but not sin in man, 6. The spiritual 
 man, what he may judge of, what 
 not, 300, 301. Man left to himself 
 a guide only to his own downfall, 45. 
 a mystery to himself, 59, 185. bears 
 within him a type of The Trinity, 
 283. what makes men to he beloved, 
 53. they must be loved as men, 52. 
 man's good deeds, God's gifts, and 
 appointments; his evil, his own of- 
 fences and God's judgments, 184. 
 good only as being God's gifts, 1 79, 
 n. 169, 276. see Rest, his dominion 
 over the woman analogous to that of 
 the reason over the will, 310, 300. 
 
 Manes. Origin of his errors, 314. a 
 common-place impostor, 343. his 
 reputed sanctity, 71, 331. in no sense 
 a Christian, ib. employed Christian 
 terms only as a veil to his doctrine, 
 ib. knew nothing of Christianity be- 
 yond names, 344. called himseft the 
 Paraclete, 70. probably knew nothow 
 great his impiety, 344. nor how far 
 his system opposed the Gospel, ib. 
 his title " Apostle of Jesus Christ," 
 ib. committed his system at great 
 length to vniting, 34, 69. his hooks 
 full of prolix fables, 72, 79. and false 
 physical philosophy, 70, 72. 
 
 Manichseism, a physical, not a moral or 
 religious system, 314, 322, 327, 328, 
 334, 335. Pantheistic, 60, n. 316, 
 324, 333, 344. and materialist, 47, 
 .63, 79,80, 108,112,316—18. neces- 
 sitarian, 110, a. 322, 324. corruption 
 of the old Persian religion, 315. by 
 intermixture of Bouddhism, 315, 329, 
 332, 334. 
 
 Assumes two coeternal opposed 
 principles, 60, 314, 316, 318, 9. origin 
 of this error, 123, 308, 314. speaks of 
 Good and evil Principle in the same 
 way, 80, 318. notion of God taken 
 from physical light of the sun, 34, 47, 
 63, 121, 162, 316, 318, 335. believed 
 the Good Principle to be finite,80, 317. 
 to be capable of suffering evil from 
 the Evil, 109, 111, 320. held the co- 
 existence of a pure matter with God, 
 252, 260, 316. and so, two creative 
 causes, and two opposite kinds of mat- 
 ter, 319. spoke much of the Persons of 
 the Trinity, but believednot in Them, 
 34, 325. attempt to dress up its errors 
 in the language of the Gospel, 325, 
 326, 327, 334, 335, 336, 344. though 
 confessing it to be inappropriate, 335. 
 perverted sacred symbols, 336. denied 
 Incarnation and reality of the actions 
 and sufferings of our Lord, 76, 80, 
 127, 158, 162, 325. held that His 
 Flesh was in appearance only, 76, 
 
358 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 326. that He came only to furnish 
 knowledge, 326, 327. coincidence 
 with Arianism, 326. in what way 
 they state the Only Begotten to be of 
 the Substance of God, 80, 336. speak 
 of the "Word," 108, 335. " the Savi- 
 our," 326. distinguish between Jesus 
 and Christ, 334, 337. " Jesus patibi- 
 lis," 334. connection of His attributes 
 with the sun and moon in their system, 
 335. office of these, 335, 6. worship 
 paid to them, ib. astronomical fables, 
 34, 69, 70, 72, 335, 345. offensiveness 
 of their allegories, 335. why dwelt 
 upon by S. Aug. ib. and n. 343. 
 held evil to be a substance, 79, 80, 
 250, 251, 318. their fables with regard 
 to its kingdom, 35, 79, 80, 251, 318. 
 and the creation of the world, 308, 
 319, 321. matter whereof the earth 
 was made, from the Evil principle, 
 308, 321. 
 
 Agreement with Pelagianism, 322, 
 324. opposed to Catholic doctrine of 
 human corruption, ib. held complete 
 corruption of the nesh and themselves 
 irresponsible, 78, 110, u. 322, 323. 
 but exaggerated free-will, 324, 328. 
 deny free-vrill to have been the cause 
 of sin, 110, a. threw the blame of their 
 sins upon their flesh, 61 , 78, 162, 288, 
 324. held themselves to be distinct 
 from the body, 78. account human 
 soul part of Grod, 60, 61, 63, 78, 109, 
 110, n. 320 — 3. hold two souls to be 
 in each man, 149 — 151. nature of this 
 second soul, 322, 3. transmigration of 
 souls, 322, 3. some souls never re- 
 stored, 338. blasphemy herein in- 
 volved, 338, 341. 
 
 Division of its " Church" into 
 "Elect" and "Hearers," 329. "Elect" 
 lay missionaries, 329. their priestly 
 character, ib. supported by their 
 " Hearers," 45, 329— 31. their office 
 in restoring parts of the " anima 
 mundi, "336. their asceticism outward, 
 323, 328, 330. in time hypocritical, 
 67, n. 95, 331, 2. accounted flesh 
 impure food, 208. on what ground, 
 330. their pretensions to sanctity, 41 , 
 45, 66, n. 77, 95, 329, 331, 336, 7. 
 atoned for their " Hearers," 45, 330, 
 X. not a contemplative nor devotional 
 body, 229. their excesses, 41, 332, 
 337. as involved in their system, 
 337. as also inhumanity, 44, n. 
 337, 8. 
 
 " Hearers," origin of, 329. privi- 
 leges, 330, 332, 3. laxity permitted, or 
 enjoined them, 328 — 331. easy duties, 
 331. 
 
 Three Orders of Clergy, 329. eccle- 
 siastical system erroneously copied. 
 
 ib. Baptism rejected and scoffed at, 
 49, and n. 76. 
 
 Life, wherever existing, held to be 
 part of Crod, 324, 6. even stones 
 animate, 324. feeling ascribed to vege- 
 tables, 41, 330. and so agriculture 
 condemned, 330. 
 
 inconsistencies in their system, 41, 
 319, 320, 324, 330, 338, 339. blas- 
 phemies, 41, 323, 329, 334, 337, 338, 
 341. practical evils, 323, 328, 332, 
 339. 
 
 opposed to revealed truth and belief 
 in One God on grounds a priori, 314. 
 and superficial experience, 317. 
 adopted avowedly so much of H. Scr. 
 as it could adapt to its own views, 339, 
 340. pronounced the rest interpolated, 
 81, 344. as unworthy of God, 345. 
 but disclaimed all proof of this, 81, 
 345. made man's own judgment the 
 test of truth, 345. pretended thus to 
 vindicate H. Scr. 343. charged the 
 Church vrith Judaizing, 81, 343, 
 
 Its profane scoffing, 41, 83, 340, 
 343. deluded the unstable by criticising 
 H. Scr. or Catholic Faith, 34, n. 36, 
 43, 81, 89, 90, 100, 146, 164, 342. 
 perplexing q[uestions, 36, n. 61. public 
 disputations, 43, n. 343. keeping back 
 its own positive statements till after- 
 wards, 342. setting the weak against 
 authority, 33, 340. promising grounds 
 of reason for all which was to be 
 believed, 34, n. 340. and certain truth, 
 34, 89, 91, 340, 341, 342. ended by 
 requiring unreasoning assent to its 
 own fables, 91, 340, 1. because the 
 things of God pass human under- 
 standing, 341. 
 
 Manichees, many of them secretly exist- 
 ing in Bome, 79. subject to banish- 
 ment, 67, n. 
 
 Marriage writings, 171. 
 
 Martyrs, Oratories in memory of them 
 called Memoria, or Confessio, or Mar- 
 tyrium, 75, n. Temples not built to 
 them, but only as memorials of them, 
 nor Sacrifices, priestly offices, prayers, 
 or rites, made to them, 75, n. 86. n. 
 the holy Eucharist used to be cele- 
 brated annually on their birth-day, 
 i. e. day of their Martyrdom, 87, n. 
 
 Mathematicians or Astrologers, 47, 48, 
 113. 
 
 Matter without form, not altogether 
 nothing, 250. but something betwixt 
 formed and nothing, a formless almost 
 nothing, 251. was made from nothing, 
 all other things from it, 253 S(^. an- 
 terior to what was made of it, by pri- 
 ority of original, not of time, 272 sq. 
 different views of, in Persian religion, 
 Bouddhism, Manichseism, 316. pe- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 359 
 
 culiar character of Manichaeism from 
 \)l«ndiiig the other two, 329, 336. 
 difference from Platonism, 319. 
 
 Measure of time, the impression of things 
 on the mind, 246. 
 
 Medea, 35. 
 
 Mediator between Grod :ind man must 
 he God and man. — Christ the true 
 Mediator, 221. false Mediators, who, 
 221. 
 
 Memory, 188. its great capacity, 190 sqq. 
 and power — boundless manifoldness, 
 189, 196. Beasts aai birds have 
 memory, 197. 
 
 Merits, man's real merits are but God's 
 gifts, 179, u. 
 
 Milan, Aug. professor of Rhetoric there, 
 82. 
 
 Mind, not comprehended of itself, 190. 
 four perturbations of, 194. is obeyed 
 «f the body but not of itself, 148. 
 Beason of this, 149. 
 
 Ministers of Christ, their lives should be 
 a pattern to the Faithful, 297. main- 
 tenance due to them, 304. 
 
 Miracles wrought at the translation of 
 the bodies of the Martyrs Protasius 
 and Gervasius, 167. To ask for mira- 
 cles merely to make trial of , is a tempt- 
 ing of God — Aug. tempted by the devil 
 to desire some sign, 214. 
 
 Monasteries, 144, n. a large one at 
 Milan, without the city wall, under 
 the superintendence of S. Ambrose, 
 144, n. 
 
 MONNICA. 
 
 Wife to Patricius, mother of Augus- 
 tine, 181. brought up modestly and 
 soberly, 169, 171. not so much 
 through the care of her mother, 
 as of an old and discreet maid- 
 servant — in a Christian house, a 
 good member of the Church, 169. 
 reclaimed from a love of wine, when 
 a girl, through the taunt of a maid- 
 flervant, 170. 
 
 Being bestowed in marriage upon 
 Patricius her only husband, 181. 
 served him as her lord, and did her 
 ■diligence to win him to Christ, whom 
 she preached to him in her conver- 
 ■sation, 171. Her conduct to her hus- 
 band, 171. to her mother-in-law, 172. 
 to parties at variance together — to 
 the servants of God — to her parents 
 and her family, 173, 171. Her advice 
 to matrons who blamed the lives of 
 their husbands, 171. 
 
 She brought up children (175) so 
 often travailing in birth of them as 
 she saw them swerving from God, 
 173. Her exceeding affection and 
 concern for Aug. 77, 10. whom at 
 a very tender age she places in the 
 
 rank of Catechumens,- 10, 33, 84. 
 hut delays to have him baptized, 
 wrongly, 10. In his sixteenth year 
 extremely anxious and fearing for her 
 son, warns him with great earnestness 
 against fornication and adultery, still 
 would not have him marry, 22. her 
 own state at that time, 21. Gains her 
 husband towards the end of his life, 
 to the faith of Christ, 172. After his 
 death, still supplies Aug. with 
 means to complete his studies at Car- 
 thage, 32. who having in the mean 
 time become a Maniohee, she deeply 
 laments that his spiritual death, and 
 weeps and prays to God for him un- 
 ceasingly, 42. during nine years, 43. 
 abhorring his blasphemies, she refuses 
 to live or eat with him, till forewarned 
 of his conversion, by a vision, 42. and 
 the reply of a Catholic Bishop whom 
 she would have had argue with him, 
 44. Her life of devotion and charity — 
 strictness in religious duties, 77, 86, 
 87. follows her son, who had deceived 
 and left her, 75. to Milan, 85. in a 
 storm assures the sailors of safety, 
 herself assured by God in a vision, 85. 
 finds him, through the ministry of S. 
 Ambrose,estraDgedfromManichaeism, 
 though not as yet a Catholic, 85. She 
 prays and weeps for him the more, in 
 full confidence of his complete conver- 
 sion, 86. Her ready obedience and 
 reverential love to S. Ambrose, and 
 his value for her, 86, 87. Her piety, 
 zeal, and attachment to him in his 
 persecution by the Arian Empress 
 Justina, 167. 
 
 News of her son's conversion, she 
 receives with great joy and thankful- 
 ness, blessing God for it, 154. retires 
 with him to the Villa of Cassiciacum, 
 158. and after his baptism sets out 
 with him to return to Africa, 169. 
 They get as far as Ostia on the 
 Tiber — their last conversation to- 
 gether, 173. All her hopes having 
 been accomplished in her son's con- 
 version, she declares that this life has 
 no longer any delight to offer her. Five 
 days afterwards she falls sick of afever, 
 175. of which she expires after 9 days' 
 illness in the 56th year of her age, 
 and the 33d of Aug.'s, 176. Her last 
 request that she might be remembered 
 at the altar of the Lord, 176. Her 
 funeral, 177, 178. Sacrifice of the 
 Eucharist offered for her, previous to 
 the interment of the corpse, 178. Her 
 character, 169 sqq. Aug. prays for 
 the final forgiveness of all her sins, 
 180, and desires the prayers of others, 
 181. 
 
360 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Morality of the Patriarchs and Jewish 
 law asserted against Manichee ohjeo- 
 tious, 36 sqq. 
 
 Mortality of man, thewitnessof hissin, 1. 
 
 Music, see Church Music. 
 
 N. 
 
 Names of the Candidates usually given 
 in before Baptism, 165, n. 
 
 Navigius brother of S. Augustine — 
 present at the death and burial of 
 Monnica, 175, n. 
 
 Nebridius, born near Carthage, 99. a 
 Tory dear friend of Aug.'s, 43, 159. of 
 gentle and retiring disposition, 143. 
 excellent moral character, 48. admi- 
 rable talents, 113. endeavours with- 
 out effect to convince Aug. of the 
 vanity of Astrology, 48, 113. his un- 
 answerable argument against the 
 Manichees, 109. leaves his family 
 estate and house and mother to live 
 with Aug. at Milan in the search of 
 truth and wisdom, 99. Character of 
 his mind, 99, u. teaches under Vere- 
 eundus a grammarian of Milan, 143. 
 sometime in error on the doctrine of 
 the Incarnation — at length becomes a 
 Catholic. — Serves God in perfect 
 chastity and continence amongst his 
 people in Africa, — converts his whole 
 house to Christianity — dies shortly 
 after Aug.'s baptism, 159. Aug.'s 
 Epistles to him, 160. 
 
 Necessity, the result of unresisted 
 custom, 141. 
 
 0. 
 
 Obedience to princes, a general compact 
 
 of human society, 39. 
 Oratory in memory of the Martyr 
 
 Cyprian near the sea at Carthage, 75. 
 Orestes and Pylades, 51. 
 
 Pain proves a degree of soundness in 
 that wherein it exists, 105, n. 
 
 Paraclete, 34. grounds assigned for be- 
 lieving Manes to be, 315. 
 
 Parts, their offensiveness consists in not 
 harmonizing with their whole, 39. 
 
 Patriarchs, not their words only pro- 
 phetic but their actions also, 38, n. 41. 
 defended against Manichaean objec- 
 tions, 36 sqq. nn. 
 
 Patricius, father ofS. Augustine, a poor 
 freeman of Thagaste in Africa, 21, 
 181. goes beyond his means in bis 
 
 son's education, 21. admitted a Ca- 
 techumen when Aug. was about 16, 
 21. dies the year following, a bap- 
 tized Christian, 172. His character, 
 171. Aug. prays for his soul's rest, 
 and requests the prayers of others, 
 181. 
 
 St. Paul, his name why changedfrom 
 Saul, 140, n. His vrritings Aug.'s 
 chief study, 129, 153. 
 
 Paulus the Proconsul, by baptism 
 made a provincial of the Great King, 
 140. 
 
 Persian religion — comparative purity, 
 315. not practically pantheistic, 314. 
 nor dualistic, 315. 
 
 Perturbations of the mind, are four ; 
 desire, joy, fear, sorrow, 194. 
 
 Petilian, his malice against Augustine, 
 35, n. 
 
 Philosophy, an exhortation to the study 
 of, in the Hortensius of Cicero, 32. 
 
 Photinus, his heresy, 128, n. 
 
 Platonism, its doctrines contrasted with 
 those of Holy Scripture, 118—132. 
 held the Divinity, but not the Humili- 
 ation, of the Logos, 118 sqq. cannot 
 teach the way of life, 132. Aug. reads 
 the Books of the Platonists when ex- 
 tricating himself from Manichseism, 
 117. Their usefulness to him at that 
 time, 128, 129. 
 
 Pontitianus, an African Christian of 
 great piety, 143. relates to Aug. the 
 life of Antony the Monk, 143, 153. 
 and the conversion of 2 courtiers, 144. 
 
 Prffitorian prices, 98, n. 
 
 Praise, a dangerous and deceitful tempt- 
 ation, 216. accompanies a good life — 
 not to be avoided by living iU, 217. 
 to he cared for, not for one's own 
 sake, but one's neighbour's, 218. 
 
 Prayers for the dead in Christ at the 
 altar, 178. Aug. prays for his father 
 and mother, 180, 181. 
 
 Preachers of God's word, their transi- 
 toriness figured by the clouds — per- 
 manency of God's word by the 
 Heavens, 289. maintenance is due to 
 them, 304. their joy therein not for 
 themselves, but for the givers, 305. 
 
 Pride, temptation of, 216. separates 
 man from God, 117, 67, 124, n. 
 Proud though learned search finds 
 not God, 67. 
 
 Priority, four modes of it, by eternity, 
 time, choice, original, 272. 
 
 Prodigal son, what is meant by his 
 going into a far country, 16. joy in 
 his return, 138. 
 
 Psalms and Hymns, custom of singing 
 
 them, first in the Eastern Churches 
 
 begun at Milan during persecution of 
 S. Ambrose— in Aug.'s time general 
 
INDEX. 
 
 361 
 
 throughout the whole Christian world, 
 167, 210. S. Athanaslus's judgment 
 thereon, 210. S. Aug.'s, 210, 211. 
 Sung anciently at the death, 177. 
 and burial of the faithful, 177, n. 
 
 Explanation of Pa. iv. ' When 1 
 called.' Force and excellence of the 
 Psalms, 161, 164, 166, 177, n. their 
 effects on S. Aug. 161. 
 
 ' Psaltery of ten strings,' the Deca- 
 logue, 39, n. 
 
 Pylades and Orestes, 61. 
 
 S. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Questions of three kinds, 131. 
 
 R. 
 
 Reason, Maniehseism deluded, by pro- 
 mising to satisfy human reason, 34, 
 n. 340. apologized for its own contra- 
 dictions by the principle that the 
 things of God must surpass it, 341. 
 Reasonable, an old epithet to most of 
 the holy things — the same with ' spi- 
 ritval,' 304, n. 
 Regeneration through Baptism, 179, 
 
 137, 159, &c. 
 Rest is to he found in God alone, 1, 25, 
 67. in the Word, 55. not in the un- 
 stable creature, 67, 54. this a proof 
 of the excellency of man's nature, 
 281. 
 Rhetoric, Aug. a professor of, 46. first 
 at Thagaste, 48. then at Carthage, 
 S3, next at Rome, 74, 81. last at 
 Milan, 82. where, upon his conrer- 
 sion, he finally forsakes his profession, 
 160, 166. 
 Riches, ' a wealthy beggary,' 11. 
 Romanianus, a rich citizen of Thagaste, 
 Alypius' kinsman, a famiiiar friend 
 of Aug.'s from childhood, 104. whom 
 he aided -with means on his setting 
 out t)o foreign study, and otherwise 
 feeftiended and encouraged, 104, n. 
 phinged into Manichseism with and 
 by Aug. coming to Milan whilst 
 Aug. was Rhetoric Professor there, 
 he is chief abettor of a plan of retire- 
 ment, 104. his talents benefits of his 
 misfortunes, 104, n. 
 Rome, the nobility there given up to 
 idol-worship, 136. Dishonesty of thd 
 Roman students, 81. Aug, goes thi- 
 ther to teach Rhetoric, 74. Many 
 Manifchees secretly residing there, 
 79. some Church customs there, dif- 
 ferent from those of Africa, 137, 178. 
 
 Sacraments, their cause, man's estrange- 
 ment from God, 295, n. 296. their 
 etficacy; the one, life-giving, the 
 other, life-sustaining, 296, n. God 
 works in those who minister them 
 296. ' 
 
 Sacraments initiatory, 306. Difference 
 of the Sacraments of the new and old 
 Dispensations, 292, n. 
 Sacrifice of the Eucharist used at Rome 
 to be offered for the dead just previous 
 to interment, 178. 
 Saints, those of the first ages justified 
 by faith in the future passion of 
 Christ, 222. they live mindful of us 
 in Abraham's bosom, 169. Oratories 
 in their memory, 86. 
 ' Saints' of the Manichees, 45, 329. 
 331,336,7. ' 
 
 Sallust quoted, 24. 
 
 Salt used in the Western Churehra on 
 the admission of Catechumens, 10, n. 
 Samson did not destroy himself unbid- 
 den, 41, n. 
 Scepticism, its unloviugness, 346. 
 Scripture, Holy, the venerable writing 
 Of the Spirit of God, 129. God Him- 
 ,seif speaks therein, 275. its divine 
 and universally acknowledged Au- 
 thority, 91, 261, 345. is needed by 
 man's weakness to discover truth 
 91. its amazing depths, 257, 92, 33' 
 and simplicity, ib. Benefits of these 
 Its characters, 92. all its contents to 
 be received, because they stand there 
 not because they approve themselves 
 to us, 345. testimony yielded to it by 
 Apostolical succession, ib. its great 
 excellence in comparison of profane 
 learning, 270. 
 
 Different interpretations thereof 
 may be true together, 264 sq it 
 means all the truth which may be 
 seen in it, 274 sq. the highest mean- 
 mg was in the mind of the writer 
 275. rules for its safe interpretation! 
 lb. n. Not to be subject to human 
 understandings but they to it 300 
 to study it, requires a humble is well 
 as mature mind, 33. used to be read 
 in the Churches, 77. 
 Sea, a type of the world, 290. of man's 
 
 nature smoe the fall of Adam, 295 
 Security may not be indulged in, in 
 this life, seeing the whole of it is a 
 trial, 200. 
 Senses of the body, messengers of know- 
 ledge to the soul, 187. Highest de- 
 lights of sense not worthy of mention 
 with the sweetness of the life to come 
 
 X/d. 
 
 b 
 
362 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sense, objects of, their use and gradual 
 disuse, 66, n. 
 
 Severus, a butcher of Milan, cured of 
 blindness by touching the remains 
 of the Martyrs Gervasius and Pro- 
 tasius, 167, n. 
 
 Shows and games, popularity of, 9. 
 
 Sight, sense chiefly used in attaining 
 knowledge, 213. 
 
 Simplicianus, first, presbyter, after- 
 wards, Bishop of the Church at 
 Milan, 133, n. 135, u. baptized S. 
 Ambrose, by whom he was loved as 
 a father, 135. provokes Victorinus to 
 a public profession of his faith, 136. 
 Augustine consults him, 135. praise 
 of, 133, n. 
 
 Sin, before baptism vulgarly held in- 
 different — guilt of, after baptism 
 greater and more perilous, 10. Mani- 
 chaeans held to be necessary, 322. 
 
 Sin, not a substance, 27, 122, 124. but 
 a perversion of the will turned aside 
 from God towards lower things, 124. 
 a forsaking of the highest for a lower 
 good, 24, 254, u. 18. a sacrifice to 
 devils, 16. All sin imitates pervert- 
 edly some excellence of God, 25, 26. 
 three classes of sins, 38, 39, 205, and 
 II. 217, 220. 
 
 The cause of sin is man's free will, 
 not God, 105. who is the Disposer of 
 it, not the Creator, 9. All sin pro- 
 poses some end, 24. 
 
 How there arises a sort of necessity 
 of sinning, 141. Law of sin, 142. 
 Self-will and self-love its sources, 
 40. 
 
 Punishment of sin. Blindness of 
 heart, 17, 254. Kestlessness, 65, 
 254. Loss of the chief good, itself 
 its own punishment, 11. 
 
 Sinners disturb not the beauty of God's 
 universe, 66, nn. 124. nor the order 
 of His government, 255. their sin 
 injures not, nor can injure God, 66, 
 u. 255. 
 
 Confession of sins before God, in- 
 spires hope, 113. 
 
 Skins, coats of, (Gen. 3, 21.) figure, 
 mortality, 126, n. 288. 
 
 Son, The. His coming forth to ore- 
 ate the world, 130, n. in what sense 
 He may be said to be " formed" or 
 " produced," ib. how they used to 
 be answered who ask, " is He a 
 creature," ib. Prov. 8, 22^explained 
 of Him, ib. 
 
 Sons, education of — common system 
 how faulty, 12 sq^q. 
 
 Soul, excellent nature of, 281. its life 
 and death, 297. pride, lust, and curi- 
 osity, the motions of a dead soul, ib. 
 Maniehffians held to be part of God, 
 
 60, 61, 63, 78, 109, 110, u. 320—3. 
 believed in transmigration of, 332. 
 
 Sound prior to tune in original, 273. 
 
 Spirit, Holy. 
 
 The Holy Spirit sees, knows, 
 speaks in us what of these we do 
 right, 308. why He alone, and not 
 the Father and the Son, is said to be 
 ' borne above the waters,' Gen. 1, 2. 
 282. 
 
 The gifts of the Holy Spirit typi- 
 fied by the ' stars,' 292. 
 
 Spirits, blessed, see Angels. 
 
 Spirit, its struggle with the flesh in S. 
 Aug. described, 151. 
 
 Subverters, 32, 81. 
 
 Sun, Manichsean errors relating to. see 
 Manichees. 
 
 Symmaohus, preefect of Eome, sends 
 Aug. to fill the Bhetorio chair at 
 Milan, 82. 
 
 Sympathy. DiSerence between false 
 and real, 30. injury of former, 31. 
 
 Talents, God's gift, and to be used in 
 His service, 63. without piety do not 
 profit but hinder, 63, 62. 
 
 Temporal things, love thereof, expelled 
 only by the sweetness of things eter- 
 nal, 156, n. 
 
 Temptation, Man ignorant of his 
 strength or weakness till proved, 
 185. 
 
 Terence, censured, 15. alluded to, 201. 
 
 Thagaste a town of Africa the birth- 
 place of Aug. 21. He first teaches 
 Rhetoric there, 48. 
 
 Theft against the law of nature, — how 
 proved, 23. 
 
 Time and Eternity difiering in kind 
 cannot be compared, 233. 
 
 Time, nature of, discussed, 232 — 248. 
 difficulty of explaining it, 234. what 
 it is, understood practicaUy, not 
 really, 235. not the motion of the 
 heavenly bodies, 241. nor of any 
 other, 242. but the measure rather of 
 such motion, 242. not proper to say 
 there be three times, past, present, 
 and future, — past and future existing 
 only in the soul, 239. the present has 
 no space, 236. Time the impression 
 of things upon the mind — and mea- 
 sured therein, 245. itself a creature, 
 could not be before the Creation, 234^ 
 has no relation to Eternity, 233. 
 
 Tobias, 21. 
 
 Triers, 144, 
 
 Trinity, mystery of, shadowed forth 
 in Gen. 1, 1. 2. 279, 299. type there- 
 of in man, 283. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 363 
 
 Troubles and difAculties. Ood com- 
 mands that they be endured, not loved, 
 204. 
 
 Truth, the common property of all, 
 error, of Individuals only, 268. All 
 love truth in itself— how then does 
 ' truth generate hatred?' 201. all 
 truth is spoken by God's inspiration, 
 303. who is the sole Teacher thereof, 
 71 , 303. to be found, must be sought 
 with piety, .61, 67. Oold and silver 
 taken by Israel from Egypt symbolical 
 of truth, 120, n. 
 
 Twins, theirdiffering fortunes conclusive 
 against Astrology, 115. 
 
 U. 
 
 Unity, the condition and measure of all 
 existence, 18, n, a source of beauty, 
 68. 
 
 Vacation of the Vintage, 156, n. 
 
 Veils drawn over the entrances of the 
 grammar schools — of what emblem- 
 atic, J 3, n. 
 
 Verecundus, a citizen and grammarian 
 of Milan, very intimate with Aug. 
 and his friends, 143. to whom, when 
 resolved to leave the world, he gives 
 up his country house of Cassicia- 
 cum — baptized in his last illness, and 
 died whilst Aug. was at Kome, 158. 
 
 Victorinus Professor of Rhetoric at 
 Home, well read in the liberal 
 sciences and philosophy, — translated 
 into Latin some Books of the Flato- 
 nists — for his excellence in his pro- 
 fession had a statue erected to him 
 in the Forum — an idolater till late in 
 life, 135. becomes a Christian from 
 studying the Scriptures — provoked by 
 Simplician to an open profession of 
 his faith, 136, 138. is admitted a 
 
 Catechumen,137. andbaptized: quits 
 his profession on account of the law 
 of Julian, 141. his theological writings 
 obscure, as not having been trained 
 therein, 135, n. 
 
 Vintage Vacation, 156, n. 
 
 Vindicianus, an aged physician, 47, 
 113, as proconsul crowns Aug. in a 
 rhetorical contest, 47. ineffectually 
 attempts to reclaim him from belief 
 in Astrology, 48. 
 
 Virgil, 12, 13, 15. 
 
 Visions and answers granted to Mon- 
 nica, 42, 77, 85, 103. Some of them 
 not recorded, 77. 
 
 Void, not the same with Nothing, 108. 
 
 W. 
 
 ' Waters above the firmament,' (Gen. 1, 
 
 7.) explained of the Holy Angels, 
 
 289. 
 Weeping why sweet to the miserable, 
 
 51. 
 Wife, a prudent and Christian wife de- 
 scribed, l7l sqq. 
 Will. Two apparently conflicting wills 
 
 imply not two natures in man, 149. 
 
 in such case no will at all, 149. 
 Wizards offered sacrifices to devils, 47. 
 
 one offers assistance to Aug. in a 
 
 theatrical contest, 46. 
 Woman, her subjection to the man, 
 
 analogous to that of the will to the 
 
 reason, 310, 300. 
 The Word, God with God. Itself 
 
 spoken eternally, and all things by 
 
 It, 230. is the ' Beginning.' (Gen. 
 
 1, 1. John 8, 25. Old Vers.) 231, n. 
 
 Zeruane Akerene, 314, 5. 
 Zoroaster, see Persian religion. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BAXTEK, PBINTEK, OXFORD. 
 
DEDICATED (bY PERMISSION) 
 TO HIS GRACE THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. 
 
 A 
 
 LIBHARY OF FATHERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
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 ANTERIOR TO THE DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MEMBEES Ot THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 
 
 WITH NOTICES OF THE RESPECTIVE FATHERS, AND BRIEF NOTES BY THE EDITORS, 
 
 WHERE REQUIRED, AND SUMMARIES OF CHAPTERS AND INDICES. 
 
 edited by 
 The Rev. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. 
 
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 wants, some peculiar to our own Church and times, others more general. 
 
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 value of Catholic Antiquity, vvliich is disparaged by Romanists in order to 
 make way for the later Councils, and by others in behalf of modern and 
 private interpretations of Holy Scripture. The character of Catholic anti- 
 quity, and of the scheme of salvation, as set forth therein, cannot be ap- 
 preciated through the broken sentences of the Fathers, which men pick up 
 out of controversial di\)n!ty. 
 
 11. The great danger in which Romanists are of lapsing into secret infi- 
 delity, not seeing how to escape from the palpable errors of their own 
 Church, without falling into the opposite errors of Ultra-Protestants. It 
 appeared an act of especial charity to point out to such of them as are dissa- 
 tisfied with the state of their own Church, a body of ancient Catholic truth 
 free from the errors, alike of modern Rome and of Ultra- Protestantism. 
 
 12. Gratitude to Almighty God, who has raised up these great lights 
 in the Church of Christ, and set them there for its benefit in all times 
 
PLAN OF THE WORK. 
 
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 RIVINGTOKS, LONDON; J. H.PARKER, OXFORD. 
 
Works already published. 
 
 AUGUSTINE, S Confessions, wllh Ihe Latin )-,, „, , ., ._, . . ,, „„_ __ 
 
 ' original >OldTranslatlonaniText,revtsedliyE.B.Piiat)i,J}.D- 
 
 CIElL.S.OFJEKUSALEMCaleclietical Disconrses B.W. Church, B.A. Fellow of Oriel- 
 
 CYPIUAN, S Treatises, Bev. C. Thornton, M.A. ChHtt Church. 
 
 In the Press. 
 
 CHRYSOSTOM, S First Epistle to the Corintbians 
 
 Galatians, Ept"" — ~-'' 
 Pbilippians 
 
 CYRIL,S.OFJERUSALEM The Original. 
 
 tirst li'pistleto (ne conntDians ^ 
 Galatians, Ephesians, and S Vide below- 
 Pbilippians ^ 
 
 Preparing for Publication. 
 
 AMBROSE, S Doctrinal Treatises F. Rogers, M.J. Fellow of Oriel. 
 
 Epistles. 
 
 ATHANAS1US,S four^Orations against ^i'^-t^Om of the Editors. 
 
 Tracts oD the Incarnation and 
 
 Holy Spirit. 
 Historical Documents Ret: M. Atkinso'i, M.J- Fellow of Lincoln, 
 
 AUGUSTINE, S Anti-Pelagian Tracts Rev. F. Oakeley, M.J. Fellow of BalUol. 
 
 Homilies on St. John's Gospel jftef. C. J. Heurtley, M.J. Fellow ofC< C. C. 
 ■ First I 
 
 Epistle 
 - the Psalms 
 
 Practical Treatises Rev. C. h Cornish, M.J. Fellotv of Exeter. 
 
 Epistles Rev. H. iV. fVilberforce, M.J Oriel. 
 
 City of God Old Translalim revised. 
 
 BASIL, S. THE GREAT .... Letters, Treatises, and HoO j^j^y, j^ Williams, M.J. Fellow of Trinity. 
 milies J ./ ^ 
 
 [i 
 
 CHRYSOSTOM, S Homilies on St. Matthew Rei). Sir G. Preimt, M.A. Oriel. 
 
 St. John Rev. J. Nelwrt, M.A. St. John^s. 
 
 rRev. T. Keble, M.A late Fellow of C. C. C. 
 Rev. IV. J. Copeland, M.A. Fellow of TrinUy. 
 Rev. J. Medley, U A. Wadham. 
 <-. T> 1 I^v. C. Miller, M.A. late J}emy of Magdalen. 
 
 ■ ="'■ "°' < Rev. H. K. Cornlih, M A. late Fellow of Exeter. 
 
 Rev. W. C. Cotton, M.A. Student offh. Ch. 
 I Rev. A. Grant, M.A. Fellow of New College. 
 IS. F. Wood, M.A. Oriel. 
 
 On the Priesthood The late Bp. Jehb, finished by Ret: J. Jebb, M.A. 
 
 Epistles Rev. E. Chuiton, ill. A. Christ Church. 
 
 CYPRIAN.S Epistles Rev. TJ. Carey, M.A. Worcester College. 
 
 '^ I)r\^ '^!.°^.^.^?^f.^"}'*S»*°s' Nestorins Rev. J. H. Xewman, B.D. 
 
 EPHRAEM STRUS, S. Homilies Rev. J. B. Morris, M-A. Felloa qf Exeter. 
 
 EUSEBIUS Ecclesiastical History. Rev. G. B. S.Johnson, M..4. Queen's. 
 
 *^GUS?0F NAzTaNZUm}^'™""" ''™- ^- ^- W''""'' "^-A. Oriel. 
 
 GU EGO RY,S. OF NYSSA.. Sermons and Commentaries.. iSeii. c. Seager, M.A. late Scholar of Worcester. 
 
 HILARY, S On the Trinity Rev. A. Slwrt, M.A. late Student of Chriit Chare) , 
 
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 JEROME, S Epis'.les • Rev. J. Motley, M.A. Oriel. 
 
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 LEO, S. THE G RE AT Sermons and Epistles Rev.J.H. Newman, B.D. 
 
 MACARIUS, S Sermons Old Translation revised. 
 
 OPTATUS, S On the Douatist Schism Rev F. A. Faber, B.J. Fellow of UrdverHty. 
 
 ORIGEN Against Celsus Rev T. Mozley, MA. late Fellow of Oriel. 
 
 TERTULLIAN Works Bev. C. Dodgson, M.A. late Student of Ch. Ch. 
 
 THEODORET, Ac Ecclesiaslical History Rev. C. Marriott, M.J. Fellow of Oriel. 
 
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6 
 
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8 
 
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 Jelf.Rev. Richard William, D.D. Canon 
 of Ch. Ch. 
 
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 Jennings, Rev. J. Preb. of Westminster 
 
 Je'remie, Rev. F. J. Guernsey 
 
 Jeremie, Rev. T. T. Trinity College, 
 Cambridge 
 
 lUingworth, Rev. E. A. 
 
 Ince, Rev. Edward, Wigtopft 
 
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 Inman, Rev. W. J. 
 
 Johnson, Miss 
 
 Johnson, Rev. E. M. Brooklands, Long 
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10 
 
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 Johnson, Mr. Bookseller, Cambridge 
 
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 Jones, Rev. H. J. Edinburgh 
 
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 Jones, Rev. H. 
 
 •Jones, Rev. R. J. Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 
 •Jones, William, Esq. M.A. Ball. Coll. 
 
 Jones, Mr. James, Manchester 
 
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 •Irvine, Rev. A. Leicester 
 
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 Irving, Rev. J. Kendal 
 
 Isaacson, Rev. John Fred. Freshwater, 
 
 Isle of Wight 
 Isham, Rev. A. All Souls Coll. 
 
 Kane, Joseph, Esq. Exmouth 
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 Molton, Devon 
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 •Kebbel, G. C. D. Esq. University Coll. 
 Keble, Miss 
 
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 Cornwall 
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 Kennaway, Sir John, Escot 
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 tKing's College Library, Loudon 
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 Lloyd, Rev. C. W. 
 
 Lockwood, Rev. John, Rector of King- 
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 Lomax, T. G. Esq. Litchfield 
 
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 Lott, Mr. 
 
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12 
 
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 Mayow, Bev. M. W. Magdalen Hall 
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 Nutt, Rev. Charles, Magdalen College 
 
 Oakeley,Rev.SirHerbert, Bart.Bocking 
 
 •Oakeley, Rev. Frederick, Balliol Coll. 
 
 O'Brien, S. August, Esq. Blatherwycke 
 Park, Wansford 
 
 O'Brien, Bev. H. Dublin 
 
 O'Bryen, Bev. Hewitt, Heywood, Lan- 
 cashire 
 
 •Oldknow, Rev. J. Uppingham 
 
 Ogilvie, Rev. C. A. Balliol Coll. 
 
 Ogle, J. A. M.D. Clinical Professor 
 of Medicine, Oxford 
 
 Ogle, Maurice, Esq. Glasgow 
 
 ■fOldham, Joseph, Esq. Hatherleigh, 
 Devon 
 
 Ormandey and Son, Liverpool 
 
 tOrmerod, Rev. Thomas J. Bras, Coll. 
 
 Osborne, J. Esq. 
 
SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 13 
 
 Oswald, Alexander, Esq. 
 
 Oswell, Rev. Lloyd 
 
 Ouviy, Rev. P. T. 
 
 Overton, Rev. J. G. Corpus C. Coll. 
 
 Owen, Rev. E. Wendover 
 
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 Page, Rev. Cyril 
 
 Page, Rev. F. L. Woolfit 
 
 Paget, Rev. F. Elford, Litchfield, Chap- 
 lain to the Bishop of Oxford 
 
 Palk, Rev. W. Exeter Coll. 
 
 Falk, Rev. Wm. Ashcombe 
 
 Palmer, Rev. J. 
 
 Palmer, Rev. W. Worcester Coll. 
 
 Palmer, Rev. W. Magd. Coll. 
 
 Palmer, R. Esq. 
 
 Palmer, G. H. Esq. Lincoln's Inn 
 
 Papillon, Rev. John 
 
 Pardoe, Rev. J. 
 
 Parker, Rev. Charles 
 
 tParker, Rev. W. Appleton-le-Street 
 
 tParkes, Rev. W. 
 
 Parkinson, Rev. R. Manchester 
 
 Parlby, Rev. Hall 
 
 *Parson8, Rev. G. L. Benson ►■ 
 
 •Patteson, Hon. Mr. Justice 
 
 tPattison, Mark, Esq. Oriel 
 
 Paul, Rev. Charles, Bath 
 
 Peake, Rev. G. E. Taunton 
 
 tPearse, T. Esq. Magdalen Coll. 
 
 Pearson, the Very Rev. Hugh N. D.D. 
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 Pearson, Kev. Charles, Knebworth, 
 Stevenage, Herts 
 
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 Peck, J. Esq. Temple Combe 
 
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 *Perceval, Hon. and Rev. A. P. 
 
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 Peters, Rev. Henry, St. Johnlee, 
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 Petley, Henry, Esq. Wadham Coll. 
 
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 Pocock, C. J. Esq. Bristol 
 
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 Pole, Rev. R. Chandos, Radbourne, 
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 Powell, Rev. H. T. Coventry 
 
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 Powell, John, Esq. 
 
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 Pownall, Rev C. C. B. Milton Ernest 
 
 Pratt, Rev. Mr. Cruden, N. B. 
 
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 Preston, Rev. George Dean's Yard, 
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 Pretyman, Rev.John, Sherington, Bucks 
 
 Prevost.Rev.Sir George,Bart, Oriel Coll 
 
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 Prideaux, Esq. 
 
 Praen.Rev.W.A.Snitterfield, Worcester 
 Pryce, John, Esq. Delvidere, Sussex 
 
 Radcliffe, Rev. J. F. Hucclescote 
 Raikes, R. Esq. Exeter Coll. 
 Ramsay, Rev. E. B. St. John's Chapel, 
 
 Edinburgh 
 Randall, Rev. H. G. Queen's Coll. 
 Randolph, Rev. E. J. Eastry, Sandvfich 
 Randolph, Rev. G. 
 "Randolph, Rev. Herbert 
 Randolph, Rev. S. Hadham 
 Randolph, Rev. Thomas 
 Ranken, Rev. Mr. Old Deer 
 Rashdall, Rev. John, Exeter 
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 •Rawle, Mr. Trinity Coll. Cambridge 
 Rawlins, Rev. C. AUerthorpe, Pock- 
 
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 Ray, Rev. Cecil, Liverpool 
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 Reece, Rev. James, Tinsley 
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 •Richards, Rev. J. L. D.D. Rector of 
 
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 Richards, Rev. George, Warrington 
 Richards, Rev. Henry, Horfield, near 
 
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 Richards, Rev. J. Stowlingtopft 
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 Ridings, Mr. George, Bookseller, Cork 
 
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 Robertson, Rev. J. C. Trinity Coll. 
 Cambridge 
 
 Robertson, Rev. J. C. Univ. Coll. Oxford 
 
 •Robson, J. U. Esq. Magdalen Hall 
 
 Robins, Rev. S. 
 
 Rochester, Very Rev. the Dean of 
 
 •Rodmell, Rev. John, Burford, Salop 
 
 Rodd, Rev. C. North Hill 
 
 Rodwell, Rev. Mr. Tenbury 
 
 Rodwell, Mr. Bookseller, Bond Street 
 
 Rogers, E. Esq. Ch. Ch. 
 
 Rogers, W. Esq. Balliol CoU. 
 
 Rogers, Rev. John, Canon of Exeter 
 
 Rogers, Rev. J. Foston, Leicestershire 
 
 Rogers, Mrs. Percy's Cross, Fulham 
 
 Rohde, Mrs. Eleanor, Croydon 
 
 Rooper, Rev. Wm. Abbots' Ripton 
 
 Boss, Rev. J. L. Oriel Coll. 
 
 Round, Rev. James F. Colchester 
 
 Routh, Rev.Marrin Joseph, D.D. Presi- 
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 •Rowley, Rev. T. Ch. Ch. 
 
 Rump, James, Esq. Swanton Morley, 
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 Russell, J. Watts, Esq. Ham Hall 
 
 tRussell, Mr. Bookseller, Aberdeen 
 
 Russell, Rev. J. F. St. Peter's Church 
 Walworth 
 
 Russell, Rev. Samuel Henry 
 
 Ryder, Rev. G. D. Easton 
 
 •Ryder, T. D. Esq, Oriel 
 
 Salter, Rev. John, Iron Acton, Bristol 
 Sanders, Rev. Mr. 
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 Sandham,J. M. Esq. St. John's Coll. 
 
SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 15 
 
 Sandilands, Hon. and Rev. J. 
 
 SaAdilands, Rev. R. S. B. 
 
 Saunders, Rev. A. P. Charterhouse 
 
 Savage, Mrs. Henleaze, near Bristol 
 
 Schneider, Rev. H. 
 
 Scobell, Rev. John, Southover, Lewes 
 
 »Scott, Rev. R. Balliol Coll. 
 
 Scott, Rev. W. 
 
 Seaton, Rev. Mr. Cleckheaton 
 
 Selwyn, Rev. Wm. Ely 
 
 •Sewell, Rev. J. E. New Coll. 
 
 Seymour, Rev. Sir J. H. Bart. North- 
 church, Herts 
 
 Seymour, Rev. Robert Kinwartou, 
 Alcester 
 
 Shadwell, Rev. J. E. Southampton 
 
 Sharp, Rev. John, Horbury 
 
 Sharp, Rev. W. Addington, Cumberland 
 
 Sharpies, Rev. T. Blackburn 
 
 Shaw, Rev. E. B. Narborongh, Leices- 
 tershire 
 
 Shearly, W. J. Esq. St. Peter's Coll. 
 Cambridge 
 
 Shedden, S. Esq. Pembroke College 
 
 Shepherd, Rev. Samuel 
 
 tSheppard, W. Esq. Oriel Coll. 
 
 *Sherlock,Rev.H.H. Ashton, in Winwick 
 
 Shields, Rev. W. T. Durham 
 
 Shillcto, W. Esq. Univ. Coll. 
 
 •Shillibeer, Rev. John, Oundle 
 
 •Short, Rev. Thomas V. D.D. Ch. Ch. 
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 Short, Rev. T. Trinity Coll. 
 
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 Sidebottom, Rev. W. Buckden 
 
 Simms, George, Bookseller, Manchester 
 
 •Simms, Rev. E. Great Malvern 
 
 •Simpson, Rev. Joseph, Whitchurch, 
 Salop 
 
 Simpson, Rev. J. Pemberton, Wakefield 
 
 Simpson, Rev. T. W. Thurnscowe Hall 
 
 Sinclair, Rev. John, Edinburgh 
 
 Skelton, Henry, jun. Esq. 
 
 Skene, W. F. Esq. Edinburgh 
 
 Skipsey, ^ev. Mr. 
 
 Skrine, Harcourt, Esq. Wadham Coll. 
 
 Small, Rev. N. P. Market Bosworth 
 
 Smart, Thomas, Esq. 
 
 Smart, N. P. Market Bosworth 
 
 Smirke, Sir Robert 
 
 tSmith, Rev. Dr. Leamington 
 
 Smith, Rev. Jeremiah, Long Buckby, 
 Northampton 
 
 Smith, C. Esq. Liverpool 
 
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 Smith, Rev. Edward 0. Hulcote, near 
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 Smith, Rev. H. R. Somers,Little Bentley, 
 Essex 
 
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 Smith, Rev. Edward, Booking 
 
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 Smith, Henry, Esq. 
 
 Smith, Rev. Joseph, Trinity Coll. 
 
 Smith, Rev. P. P. Washford Pyue 
 
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 Soltau, Mr. 
 
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 Southouse, Rev. George, Oriel Coll. 
 
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 Sparke, J. Esq. Clare Hall, Cambridge 
 
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 Spreat, Mr. Bookseller, Exeter 
 
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 Spry, Rev. John Hume, D.D. Oriel 
 Coll. Rector of St. Mary-le-bone 
 
 •Stackhouse's Library, the Trustees of 
 
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 •Stafford, Rev. J. C. Magdalen Coll. 
 
 Stanfield, Mr, J. Bookseller, Wakefield 
 
 Stanley, Rev. E. Rugby 
 
 Staveley, J. Bookseller, Nottingham 
 
 Stead, Rev. A. Metfield, Suffolk 
 
 Stephens, Ferdinand, Esq. Exeter Coll. 
 
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 Stewart, Mrs. Col. Bath 
 
 Stewart, Mr. Pembroke Coll. Cambridge 
 
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 Stonhouse, Rev. W. B. Fery 
 
 •Storer, Rev. John, Hawksworth, Notts 
 
 Story, A. B. Esq. St. Alban's 
 
 Storks, T. F. Esq. Jesus College, Camb. 
 
 2 
 
16 
 
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 Straker, Mr. Bookseller, West Strand, 
 London 
 
 Street, Rev. A. W. Pembroke Coll. 
 
 Strong, Mr. W. Bookseller, Bristol 
 
 Sturrock, Rev. W. Calcutta 
 
 Sutherland, Dr. A. J. Ch. Ch. 
 
 Swainson, Rev. C. L. Crick, Northamp- 
 tonshire 
 
 Swainson, Rev. Mr. Clunn, Salop 
 
 •Swete, Rev. B, Cork 
 
 Swete, Rev. Wm. Downgate, Sandhurst 
 
 tSymons, Rev. B. P. D.D. Warden of 
 Wadham Coll. 
 
 •Syms, Rev. Wm. Wadham Coll. 
 
 •Tait, Rev. A. C. Balliol Coll. 
 Talbot, Hon. and Rev. W.C.Ingestrie, 
 
 Litchfield 
 tTalboys and Co. Booksellers, Oxford 
 Tarbutt, Rev. Arthur, Dover 
 Tatham, Rev. Arthur 
 Taylor, Miss, London Road, Brighton, 
 
 (Cftrj/sosfom) 
 Taylor, Rev. M. J. Harold, Bedfordshire 
 Taylor, Rev. Joseph, Upwell, Wisbeach 
 Taylor, Rev. Robert, Leeds 
 Taylor and Walton, Booksellers 
 Taylor, Mr. Jas. Bookseller, Brighton 
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 *Terry, JWiehael, Esq. Queen's Coll. 
 Thomas, Rev. C. N. St. Columb's 
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 •Thompson, Rev. Sir H. Bart. Fareham 
 Thompson, Rev. W. D. Trinity College, 
 
 Cambridge 
 •Thompson, Rev. W. H. Trinity Coll. 
 
 Cambridge 
 Thompson, Captain, R. N. Hayes' Com- 
 mon, Kent 
 Thompson, Mr. G. Bookseller, Bury St 
 
 Edmunds 
 Thomson, Rev. George, Andover 
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 London 
 •Thornton, H. S. Esq. Battersea Rise 
 Thornton, Rev. Wm. Dodford,Weedon, 
 
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 Thornton, Rev. W. J. Llanwarne, 
 
 Hereford 
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 Thorold, Mr. W. Barnstaple 
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 Thwaytes, Rev. J. Carlisle 
 tTickell, G. Esq. University Coll. 
 Tidswell, Rich. Esq. Upper Clapton 
 Tindal, J. Esq. Huddersfield 
 •Todd,Rev. J. H. TrinityCoUege, Dublin 
 Tomkins, Rev. John, Greenford 
 Toralinson's Library 
 •Tottenham, Rev. E. Bath 
 Townsend, Rev. George, Prebendary of 
 
 Durham 
 •Townsend, Rev. G. F. Northallerton 
 Tripp, Rev. Dr. Sampford Brett, 
 
 Somerset 
 Trollope, Rev. Arthur 
 Trotman, Rev. J. F. 
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 •Truro Clerical Society 
 Tucker, Rev. M. jun. 
 Tufnell, Rev. G. Wormingford, near 
 
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 •Turbitt, Rev. W. Halford 
 Turner, Rev. J. F. Kidderminster 
 Turner, Rev. J. Stourbridge 
 Turner, Rev. J. F. Exeter 
 Turner, Sharon, Esq. 
 Turner, Rev. Thomas, Exeter Coll. 
 Turner, Miss E. 
 Turner, Rev. W. H. Norwich 
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 Twopeny, Rev. D. S. Sittingbourne 
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 •TyrrelljRev.W.Cippenham, near Eton 
 Tyrrell, E. Esq. 
 Tytler, Patrick Eraser, Esq. 
 
 Underbill, Mr. E. B. Oxford 
 Upton,Rev. J.S. Wentworth, Rotherharo 
 tUtterton, Rev. J. S. Oriel Coll. 
 
SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
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 Vaui, Ker. Bowyer.CoUegiate Church, 
 
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 Vernon-Harcourt, Kev. L. 
 Vicars, Kev. M. Exeter 
 Vickers, Ven. Archdeacon, Chetton, 
 
 Bridgenorth 
 Vigne, F. Esq. 
 Vincent, General 
 
 •Vincent, Rev. O. P. Everton, Liverpool 
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 Vogan, Rev. T. S. L. 
 
 •Wackerbarth, Rev. F. D. Peldon 
 Wainwright, Rev. Dr. Boston, U. S. A. 
 Walford, Rev. Wm. Hatfield, Essex 
 Walker, Mrs. Tunbridge Wells 
 Walker, Rev. G. A. Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 Walker, Rev. R. Wadham Coll. 
 Walker, Rev. S. W. Bampton, Devon 
 Walker, Rev. T. Beckleigh, Plymouth 
 Walker, C. H. Esq. Exeter 
 Walker, Mr. Queen's Coll. Cambridge 
 * Walker.Rev.Thos. Christ's Coll. Camb 
 Walkey, Rev. C. C. Head Master of 
 
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 Wall, Rev. Henry, Vice-Principal of 
 
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 Wallace, Rev. Geo. Canterbury 
 Wallas, John, Esq. Queen's Coll. 
 Wallinger, Rev. W. 
 Walter, J. Esq. Exeter Coll. 
 W^alter, Rev. Edtv. Langton Rectory 
 
 Horncastle 
 Walter, Rev. Ernest, Tachbrook 
 Walter, Rev. Keats 
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 Ward, Right Hon. Lady 
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 Dorchester 
 Ward, Rev. Richard, Leeds 
 Ward, Rev. W. G. Balliol Coll. 
 Ward, Mr. 
 
 Wardroper, Rev. Charles Christ Coll. 
 Cambridge' 
 
 Ware Rural Deanery Book Club 
 Warren, Rev. John, Exeter 
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 Wason, James, Esq. Stroud 
 
 Sussex 
 Watkins, Rev. Fred. Emmanuel Coll. 
 
 Cambridge 
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 Lewes 
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 Watson, Rev. J. D. Guilsborough 
 
 Northampton 
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 Blandford 
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 Workington 
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 Webb, J. W.Esq. Clare Hall, Camb. 
 * Webster, Rev. William, Christ'sHospital 
 tWebster, Rev. Mr. Drumlithie 
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 West, Hon. R. W. Balliol Coll. 
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 Whatman, W. G. Esq. Ch. Ch. 
 Wheeler, Mr. Bookseller, Oxford 
 White, Rev. R. M. Magdalen Coll. 
 White, Rev. James, Manchester 
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 White, Rev. R. M. Aveley, Essex 
 White, R. Esq. Idle, near Bradford 
 White, Mr. Bookseller, Piccadilly, 
 
 London 
 Whitford, Rev. R. W. 
 •Whitfield, Rev. G. T. Bockleton 
 Whitley, Mr. Manchester 
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 Wight, Isle of. Clerical Library 
 •Wilberforce, Rey.H. Bransgore, Hants. 
 Wilberforce, Rev. R. J. East Farleigh 
 Wilberforce, Rev. Samuel, Brightstone, 
 
 Isle of Wight 
 Wilde.Rev.S.D. Fletching, near Uckfield 
 
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 Williams, Rev. I. Trinity Coll. 
 
 Williams, Rev. F. V. 
 
 Williams, Rev. J. West Hackney 
 
 Williamson, Rev. R. H. Gateshead 
 
 •Williams, Robert, Esq. M.P. 
 
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 Willis, H. Esq. Catherine Hall, Cam- 
 bridge 
 
 Wilson, Rev. John, Trinity Coll. 
 
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 chester 
 
 Wilson, Thomas, Esq. Bath 
 
 Wilson, Charles T. Esq, Magd. Hall 
 
 Wilson, Walter, Esq. Bath 
 
 Winchester, The Dean and Chapter of 
 
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 tWingfield, Rev. William 
 
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 Wix, Rev. E. Archdeacon of New- 
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 Wodehouse, Thos. Esq. Balliol Coll. 
 
 Wood, Rev. H. Fenstanton,nearSt.Ives 
 
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 Wood, Rev. R. 
 
 Wood, Rev, Jas. Settrington, nr. Malton 
 
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 Woodyer, Mrs. Guildford 
 
 tWoolcombe, E. C. Esq. Oriel Coll. 
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 Woolcombe, Wm. W. Esq. Exeter Coll. 
 tWooUcombe, G. Esq. Ch. Ch. 
 t Wordsworth, Rev. Dr.Master of Trinity 
 
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 t Wordsworth, Rev. Chas. SecondMaster 
 
 of Winchester School 
 Wrangham, Rev. G. W. Thorpe- 
 
 Bassett 
 Wrench, Rev. Frederick, Stowting 
 
 Rectory, Ashford 
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 Wright, John, Esq. Marples 
 Wright, Rev. J. A. 
 Wright, Rev. R. BridgruU 
 Wright, Rev. T. B. Wrangle Vicarage, 
 
 near Boston 
 Wright, H. P. St. Peter's College, 
 
 Cambridge 
 Wyalt, Rev. W. Snenton, Notts. 
 Wylde, Rev. T. Bellbroughton, 
 
 Worcestershire 
 • Wynter.Rev.Dr. President of St. John's 
 
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 Wynter, Rev. J. C. St. John's Coll. 
 
 Yarde, G. B. Esq. 
 
 Yard, Rev. J. Havant 
 
 Yates, Dr. Brighton 
 
 Yates, Rev. E. T. Aylsham, Norfolk 
 
 Young, P. Esq. Exeter Coll. 
 
 Young, R. G. Esq. Oriel Coll. 
 
 Young, Rev. Walter, Lisbellaw 
 
 Zillwood, Rev. 1. O. Compton, Win- 
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