The Learning Curve/The Learning Curve (Weird Science, 1996).iso/religion/augustine/book5

Text File | 1995-01-17 | 39KB | 560 lines

     BOOK V

     Accept the sacrifice of my confessions from the ministry of my
   tongue, which Thou hast formed and stirred up to confess unto Thy
   name. Heal Thou all my bones, and let them say, O Lord, who is like
   unto Thee? For he who confesses to Thee doth not teach Thee what takes
   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 hide 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.
     Let the restless, the godless, depart and flee from Thee; yet Thou
   seest them, and dividest the darkness. And 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, is just and perfect? For whither fled they, when they
   fled from Thy presence? or where dost not Thou find them? But they
   fled, that they might not see Thee seeing them, and, blinded, might
   stumble against Thee (because Thou forsakest nothing Thou hast
   made); that the unjust, I say, might stumble upon Thee, and justly
   be hurt; withdrawing themselves 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 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!
     I would lay open before my God that nine-and-twentieth year of
   mine age. There had then come to Carthage a certain Bishop of the
   Manichees, Faustus by name, 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 I so much regard the
   service of oratory as the science which this Faustus, 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 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 the humble, but
   the proud Thou beholdest afar off. Nor dost Thou draw near, but to the
   contrite in heart, nor art found by 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.
     For with 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
   foreshowed. 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 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 their own diving curiosities (wherewith, like
   the fishes of the seal 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 burn up those dead cares of
   theirs, and re-create themselves immortally.
     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 number, and the understanding, out
   of which they number; or that of Thy wisdom there is no number. But
   the Only Begotten is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
   and sanctification, and was numbered among us, and paid tribute unto
   Caesar. They knew not this way whereby to descend to Him from
   themselves, and by Him ascend unto Him. They knew not this way, and
   deemed themselves exalted amongst the stars and shining; and behold,
   they fell upon the earth, and their foolish heart was darkened. They
   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 God, they glorify
   Him not as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their
   imaginations, and profess themselves to be wise, 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 changing the glory of uncorruptible God into an
   image 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.
     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 frenzy 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
   whatever of this sort I had learned in the books of secular
   philosophy. But I was commanded to believe; and yet it corresponded
   not with what had been established by calculations and my own sight,
   but was quite contrary.
     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 God,
   and is thankful, and becomes not vain in his imaginations. For as he
   is better off who knows how to possess a tree, and return 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 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 stars, and poise the elements, yet
   neglecteth Thee who hast made all things in number, weight, and
   measure.
     But yet who bade that Manichaeus write on these things also, skill
   in which was no element of piety? For Thou hast said to man, Behold
   piety and wisdom; of which 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 knowledge
   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 convicted
   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 sacrilegious 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.
     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 he 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, borne by our mother Charity, till the new-born 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 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.
     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 whencesoever 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 falsely, because
   the utterance of the lips is inharmonious; nor, again, therefore true,
   because rudely delivered; nor therefore false, because the language is
   rich; but that wisdom and folly are as wholesome and unwholesome food;
   and adorned or unadorned phrases as courtly or country vessels; either
   kind of meats may be served up in either kind of dishes.
     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 Tully'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 Thy
   providence, and didst set those shameful errors of mine before my
   face, that I might see and hate them.
     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, sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able
   satisfactorily to decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison
   of these things with the calculations I had elsewhere read, the
   account given in the books of Manichaeus were preferable, or at
   least as good. Which when I proposed to he 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.
     My zeal for the writings of Manichaeus being thus blunted, and
   despairing yet more of their other teachers, seeing that in divers
   things which perplexed me, he, so renowned among them, had so turned
   out; I began to engage with him in the study of that literature, on
   which he also was much set (and which as rhetoric-reader I was at that
   time teaching young students at Carthage), and to read with him,
   either what himself desired to hear, or such as I judged fit for his
   genius. But all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that
   sect, upon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I
   detached myself from them altogether, but as one finding nothing
   better, I had settled to be content meanwhile with what I had in
   whatever way fallen upon, unless by chance something more eligible
   should dawn upon me. Thus, that Faustus, to so many a snare of
   death, had now neither willing nor witting it, begun to loosen that
   wherein I was taken. For Thy hands, O my God, in the secret purpose of
   Thy providence, did not forsake my soul; and out of my mother's
   heart's blood, through her tears night and day poured out, was a
   sacrifice offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst deal with me by
   wondrous ways. Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps of a man are
   ordered by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how shall we
   obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re-making what it made?
     Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome,
   and to teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage. And how
   I was persuaded to this, I will not neglect to confess to Thee;
   because herein also the deepest recesses of Thy wisdom, and Thy most
   present mercy to us, must be considered and confessed. I did not
   wish therefore to go to Rome, because higher gains and higher
   dignities were warranted me by my friends who persuaded me to this
   (though even these things had at that time an influence over my mind),
   but my chief and almost only reason was, that I heard that young men
   studied there more peacefully, and were kept quiet under a restraint
   of more regular discipline; so that they did not, at their
   pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of one whose pupils they
   were not, nor were even admitted without his permission. Whereas at
   Carthage there reigns among the scholars a most disgraceful and unruly
   licence. They burst in audaciously, and with gestures almost
   frantic, disturb all order which any one hath established for the good
   of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit, with a wonderful
   stolidity, punishable by law, did not custom uphold them; that
   custom evincing them to be the more miserable, in that they now do
   as lawful what by Thy eternal law shall never be lawful; and they
   think they do it unpunished, whereas they are punished with the very
   blindness whereby they do it, and suffer incomparably worse than
   what they do. The manners then which, when a student, I would not make
   my own, I was fain as a teacher to endure in others: and so I was well
   pleased to go where, all that knew it, assured me that the like was
   not done. But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of the
   living; that I might change my earthly dwelling for the salvation of
   my soul, at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn
   from it; and at Rome didst proffer me allurements, whereby I might
   be drawn thither, by men in love with a dying life, the one doing
   frantic, the other promising vain, things; and, to correct my steps,
   didst secretly use their and my own perverseness. For both they who
   disturbed my quiet were blinded with a disgraceful frenzy, and they
   who invited me elsewhere savoured of earth. And I, who here detested
   real misery, was there seeking unreal happiness.
     But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet
   showedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, who grievously bewailed
   my journey, and followed me as far as the sea. But I deceived her,
   holding me by force, that either she might keep me back or go with me,
   and I feigned that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he
   had a fair wind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother,
   and escaped: for this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me,
   preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements, from the waters
   of the sea, for the water of Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed,
   the streams of my mother's eyes should be dried, with which for me she
   daily watered the ground under her face. And yet refusing to return
   without me, I scarcely persuaded her to stay that night in a place
   hard by our ship, where was an Oratory in memory of the blessed
   Cyprian. That night I privily departed, but she was not behind in
   weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so many tears
   asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldest not suffer me to sail? But
   Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her
   desire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make
   me what she ever asked. The wind blew and swelled our sails, and
   withdrew the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there,
   frantic with sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears,
   Who didst then disregard them; whilst through my desires, Thou wert
   hurrying me to end all desire, and the earthly part of her affection
   to me was chastened by the allotted scourge of sorrows. For she
   loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many; and
   she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her out of my
   absence. She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail, and by this
   agony there appeared in her the inheritance of Eve, with sorrow
   seeking what in sorrow she had brought forth. And yet, after
   accusing my treachery and hardheartedness, she betook herself again to
   intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted place, and I to Rome.
     And lo, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness,
   and I was going down to hell, carrying all the sins which I had
   committed, both against Thee, and myself, and others, many and
   grievous, over and above that bond of original sin, whereby we all die
   in Adam. For Thou hadst not forgiven me any of these things in Christ,
   nor had He abolished by His Cross the enmity which by my sins I had
   incurred with Thee. For how should He, by the crucifixion of a
   phantasm, which I believed Him to be? So true, then, was the death
   of my soul, as that of His flesh seemed to me false; and how true
   the death of His body, so false was the life of my soul, which did not
   believe it. And now the fever heightening, I was parting and departing
   for ever. For had I then parted hence, whither had I departed, but
   into fire and torments, such as my misdeeds deserved in the truth of
   Thy appointment? And this she knew not, yet in absence prayed for
   me. But Thou, everywhere present, heardest her where she was, and,
   where I was, hadst compassion upon me; that I should recover the
   health of my body, though frenzied as yet in my sacrilegious heart.
   For I did not in all that danger desire Thy baptism; and I was
   better as a boy, when I begged it of my mother's piety, as I have
   before recited and confessed. But I had grown up to my own shame,
   and I madly scoffed at the prescripts of Thy medicine, who wouldest
   not suffer me, being such, to die a double death. With which wound had
   my mother's heart been pierced, it could never be healed. For I cannot
   express the affection she bore to me, and with how much more
   vehement anguish she was now in labour of me in the spirit, than at
   her childbearing in the flesh.
     I see not then how she should have been healed, had such a death
   of mine stricken through the bowels of her love. And where would
   have been those her so strong and unceasing prayers, unintermitting to
   Thee alone? But wouldest Thou, God of mercies, despise the contrite
   and humbled heart 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, 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 endureth for
   ever, vouchsafest to those to whom Thou forgivest all of their
   debts, to become also a debtor by Thy promises.
     Thou recoveredst me then of that sickness, and healedst the son of
   Thy handmaid, for the time in body, that he might live, for Thee to
   bestow upon him a better and more abiding health. And even then, at
   Rome, I joined myself to those deceiving and deceived "holy ones"; not
   with their disciples only (of which number was he, in whose house I
   had fallen sick and recovered); but also with those whom they call
   "The Elect." For I still thought "that it was not we that sin, but
   that I know not what other nature sinned in us"; and it delighted my
   pride, to be free from blame; and when I had done any evil, not to
   confess I had done any, that Thou mightest heal my soul because it had
   sinned against Thee: but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse I know
   not what other thing, which was with me, but which I was not. But in
   truth it was wholly I, and mine impiety had divided me against myself:
   and that sin was the more incurable, whereby I did not judge myself
   a sinner; and execrable iniquity it was, that I had rather have
   Thee, Thee, O God Almighty, to be overcome in me to my destruction,
   than myself of Thee to salvation. Not as yet then hadst Thou set a
   watch before my mouth, and a door of safe keeping around my lips, that
   my heart might not turn aside to wicked speeches, to make excuses of
   sins, with men that work iniquity; and, therefore, was I still
   united with their Elect.
     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 everything, and laid down that no truth can be
   comprehended by man: for so, not then understanding even their
   meaning, I also was clearly convinced that they thought, as they are
   commonly reported. Yet did I freely and openly discourage that host of
   mine from that over-confidence which I perceived him to have in
   those fables, which the books of Manichaeus are full of. Yet I lived
   in more familiar friendship with them, than with others who were not
   of this heresy. Nor did I maintain it with my ancient eagerness; still
   my intimacy with that sect (Rome secretly harbouring many of them)
   made me slower to seek any other way: especially since I despaired
   of finding the truth, from which they had turned me aside, in Thy
   Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible
   and invisible: and it seemed to me very unseemly to believe Thee to
   have the shape of human flesh, and to be bounded by the bodily
   lineaments of our members. And because, when I wished to think on my
   God, I knew not what to think of, but a mass of bodies (for what was
   not such did not seem to me to be anything), this was the greatest,
   and almost only cause of my inevitable error.
     For hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of substance,
   and to have its own foul and hideous bulk; whether gross, which they
   called earth, or thin and subtile (like the body of the air), which
   they imagine to be some malignant mind, creeping through that earth.
   And because a piety, such as it was, constrained me to believe that
   the good God never created any evil nature, I conceived two masses,
   contrary to one another, both unbounded, but the evil narrower, the
   good more expansive. And from this pestilent beginning, the other
   sacrilegious conceits followed on me. For when my mind endeavoured
   to recur to the Catholic faith, I was driven back, since that was
   not the Catholic faith which I thought to be so. And I seemed to
   myself more reverential, if I believed of Thee, my God (to whom Thy
   mercies confess out of my mouth), as unbounded, at least on other
   sides, although on that one where the mass of evil was opposed to
   Thee, I was constrained to confess Thee bounded; than if on all
   sides I should imagine Thee to be bounded by the form of a human body.
   And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have created no evil
   (which to me ignorant seemed not some only, but a bodily substance,
   because I could not conceive of mind unless as a subtile body, and
   that diffused in definite spaces), than to believe the nature of evil,
   such as I conceived it, could come from Thee. Yea, and our Saviour
   Himself, Thy Only Begotten, I believed to have been reached forth
   (as it were) for our salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid
   substance, so as to believe nothing of Him, but what I could imagine
   in my vanity. His Nature then, being such, I thought could not be born
   of the Virgin Mary, without being mingled with the flesh: and how that
   which I had so figured to myself could be mingled, and not defiled,
   I saw not. I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest I
   should be forced to believe Him defiled by the flesh. Now will Thy
   spiritual ones mildly and lovingly smile upon me, if they shall read
   these my confessions. Yet such was I.
     Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures,
   I thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to
   confer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in
   those books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the
   words of one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face
   against the said Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage:
   in that he had produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily
   withstood, the Manichees' answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this
   answer they liked not to give publicly, but only to us in private.
   It was, that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by
   I know not whom, who wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the
   Christian faith: yet themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies.
   But I, conceiving of things corporeal only, was mainly held down,
   vehemently oppressed and in a manner suffocated by those "masses";
   panting under which after the breath of Thy truth, I could not breathe
   it pure and untainted.
     I began then diligently to practise that for which I came to Rome,
   to teach rhetoric; and first, to gather some to my house, to whom, and
   through whom, I had begun to be known; when to, I found other offences
   committed in Rome, to which I was not exposed in Africa. True, those
   "subvertings" by profligate young men were not here practised, as
   was told me: but on a sudden, said they, to avoid paying their
   master's stipend, a number of youths plot together, and remove to
   another; -breakers of faith, who for love of money hold justice cheap.
   These also my heart hated, though not with a perfect hatred: for
   perchance I hated them more because I was to suffer by them, than
   because they did things utterly unlawful. Of a truth such are base
   persons, and they go a whoring from Thee, loving these fleeting
   mockeries of things temporal, and filthy lucre, which fouls the hand
   that grasps it; hugging the fleeting world, and despising Thee, Who
   abidest, and recallest, and forgivest the adulteress soul of man, when
   she returns to Thee. And now I hate such depraved and crooked persons,
   though I love them if corrigible, so as to prefer to money the
   learning which they acquire, and to learning, Thee, O God, the truth
   and 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.
     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
   sent him at the public expense, I made application (through those very
   persons, intoxicated with Manichaean vanities, to be freed wherefrom I
   was to go, neither of us however knowing it) that Symmachus, then
   prefect of the city, would try me by setting me some subject, and so
   send me. To Milan I came, to Ambrose the Bishop, known to the whole
   world as among the best of men, Thy devout servant; whose eloquent
   discourse did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the flour of
   Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy
   wine. To him was I unknowing led by Thee, that by him I might
   knowingly be led to Thee. That man of God received me as a father, and
   showed me an Episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to
   love him, at first indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which I
   utterly despaired of in Thy Church), but as a person kind towards
   myself. And I listened diligently to him preaching to the people,
   not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, trying his eloquence,
   whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than
   was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I
   was as a careless and scornful looker-on; and I was delighted with the
   sweetness of his discourse, more recondite, yet in manner less winning
   and harmonious, than that of Faustus. Of the matter, however, there
   was no comparison; for the one was wandering amid Manichaean
   delusions, the other teaching salvation most soundly. But salvation is
   far from sinners, such as I then stood before him; and yet was I
   drawing nearer by little and little, and unconsciously.
     For though I took no pains to learn what he spake, but only to
   hear how he spake (for that empty care alone was left me, despairing
   of a way, open for man, to Thee), yet together with the words which
   I would choose, came also into my mind the things which I would
   refuse; for I could not separate them. And while I opened my heart
   to admit "how eloquently he spake," there also entered "how truly he
   spake"; but this by degrees. For first, these things also had now
   begun to appear to me capable of defence; and the Catholic faith,
   for which I had thought nothing could be said against the Manichees'
   objections, I now thought might be maintained without shamelessness;
   especially after I had heard one or two places of the Old Testament
   resolved, and ofttimes "in a figure," which when I understood
   literally, I was slain spiritually. Very many places then of those
   books having been explained, I now blamed my despair, in believing
   that no answer could be given to such as hated and scoffed at the
   Law and the Prophets. Yet did I not therefore then see that the
   Catholic way was to be held, because it also could find learned
   maintainers, who could at large and with some show of reason answer
   objections; nor that what I held was therefore to be condemned,
   because both sides could be maintained. For the Catholic cause
   seemed to me in such sort not vanquished, as still not as yet to be
   victorious.
     Hereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by
   any certain proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once
   have conceived a spiritual substance, all their strongholds had been
   beaten down, and cast utterly out of my mind; but I could not.
   Notwithstanding, concerning the frame of this world, and the whole
   of nature, which the senses of the flesh can reach to, as I more and
   more considered and compared things, I judged the tenets of most of
   the philosophers to have been much more probable. So then after the
   manner of the Academics (as they are supposed) doubting of every
   thing, and wavering between all, I settled so far, that the
   Manichees were to be abandoned; judging that, even while doubting, I
   might not continue in that sect, to which I already preferred some
   of the philosophers; to which philosophers notwithstanding, for that
   they were without the saving Name of Christ, I utterly refused to
   commit the cure of my sick soul. I determined therefore so long to
   be a Catechumen in the Catholic Church, to which I had been
   commended by my parents, till something certain should dawn upon me,
   whither I might steer my course.