Confessions

This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mark Barnes. www.414.org.uk. Confessions by St. Augustine. Translated by Albert C. Outler. Book 6. Chapter 1. O hope from my youth! Where wasst thou to me, and where hadst thou gone away? For hadst thou not created me, and differentiated me from the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, making me wiser than they? And yet I was wandering about in a dark and slippery way, seeking thee outside myself, and thus not finding the God of my heart. I had gone down into the depths of the sea, and had lost faith, and had despaired of ever finding the truth. By this time my mother had come to me, having mustered the courage of piety following over sea and land, secure in thee through all the perils of the journey. For in the dangers of the voyage she comforted the sailors to whom the inexperienced voyagers, when alarmed, were accustomed to go in for comfort, and assured them of a safe arrival, because she had been so assured by thee in a vision. She found me in deadly peril, through my despair of ever finding the truth. But when I told her that I was no longer a Manichean, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she did not leap for joy as if this were unexpected, for she had already been reassured about that part of my misery for which she had mourned me as one dead, but also as one who would be raised to thee. She had carried me out on the bier of her thoughts, that thou mightest say to the widow's son, Young man, I say to you, arise! And then he would revive, and begin to speak, and thou wouldst deliver him to his mother. Therefore, her heart was not agitated with any violent exultation when she heard that so great a part of what she daily entreated thee to do had actually already been done, that, though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from falsehood. Instead, she was fully confident that thou who hadst promised the whole would give her the rest, and thus most calmly, and with a fully confident heart, she replied to me that she believed in Christ, that before she died she would see me a faithful Catholic. And she said no more than this to me. But to thee, O fountain of mercy, she poured out still more frequent prayers and tears, that thou wouldst hasten thy aid, and enlighten my darkness, and she hurried all the more zealously to the church, and hung upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the fountain of water that springs up into everlasting life. For she loved that man, as an angel of God, since she knew that it was by him that I had been brought thus far to that wavering state of agitation I was now in, through which, she was fully persuaded, I should pass from sickness to health, even though it would be after a still sharper convulsion which physicians call the crisis. CHAPTER II. So also my mother brought to certain oratories, erected in the memory of the saints, offerings of porridge, bread, and wine, as had been her custom in Africa, and she was forbidden to do so by the door-keeper. And as soon as she learned that it was the bishop who had forbidden it, she acquiesced so devoutly and obediently, that I myself marvelled how readily she could bring herself to turn critic of her own customs rather than question his prohibition. For wine-bibbing had not taken possession of her spirit, nor did the love of wine stimulate her to hate the truth as it does too many, both male and female, who turn as sick at a hymn to sobriety as drunkards do at a draught of water. When she had brought her basket with the festive gifts, which she would first taste herself and give the rest away, she would never allow herself more than one little cup of wine diluted according to her own temperate palate, which she would taste out of courtesy, and, if there were many oratories of departed saints that ought to be honoured in the same way, she still carried around with her the same little cup to be used everywhere. This became not only very much watered, but also quite tepid with carrying it about. She would distribute it by small sips to those around, for she sought to stimulate their devotion, not pleasure. But as soon as she found that this custom was forbidden by that famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those who would use it in moderation, lest thereby it might be an occasion of gluttony for those who were already drunken, and also because these funeral memorials were very much like some of the superstitious practices of the pagans, she most willingly abstained from it, and, in place of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full of purer petitions and to give all that she could to the poor, so that the communion of the Lord's body might be rightly celebrated in those places 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 my heart thinks of it this way in Thy sight, that my mother would probably not have given way so easily to the rejection of this custom if it had been forbidden by another, whom she did not love as she did Ambrose, for out of her concern for my salvation she loved him most dearly, and he loved her truly on account of her faithful religious life in which she frequented the church with good works, fervent in spirit. Thus he would, when he saw me, often burst forth into praise of her, congratulating me that I had such a mother, little knowing what a son she had in me, who was still a sceptic in all these matters, and who could not conceive that the way of life could be found out. Chapter 3 Nor had I come yet to groan in my prayers that Thou wouldst help me. My mind was wholly intent on knowledge, and eager for disputation. Ambrose himself I esteemed a happy man, as the world counted happiness, because great personages held him in honour. Only his celibacy appeared to me a painful burden. But what hope he cherished, what struggles he had against the temptations that beset his high station, what solace in adversity, and what savoury joys Thy bread possessed for the hidden mouth of his heart when feeding on it, I could neither conjecture nor experience. Nor did he know my own frustrations, nor the pit of my danger, for I could not request of him what I wanted as I wanted it, because I was debarred from hearing and speaking to him by crowds of busy people to whose infirmities he devoted himself. And when he was not engaged with them, which was never for long at a time, he was either refreshing his body with necessary food, or his mind with reading. Now, as he read, his eyes glanced over the pages, and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent. Often, when we came to his room, for no one was forbidden to enter, nor was it his custom that the arrival of visitors should be announced to him, we would see him thus reading to himself. After we had sat for a long time in silence, for who would dare interrupt one so intent, we would then depart, realizing that he was unwilling to be distracted in the little time he could gain for the recruiting of his mind, free from the clamour of other men's business. Perhaps he was fearful, lest, if the author he was studying should express himself vaguely, some doubtful and attentive hearer would ask him to expound it, or discuss some of the more abstruse questions, so that he could not get over as much material as he wished, if his time was occupied with others. And even if a truer reason for his reading to himself might have been the care for preserving his voice, which was very easily weakened. Whatever his motive was in so doing, it was doubtless, in such a man, a good one. But actually, I could find no opportunity for putting the questions I desired to that holy oracle of thine in his heart, unless it was a matter which could be dealt with briefly. However, those surgeons in me required that he should give me his full leisure, so that I might pour them out to him. But I never found him so. I heard him, indeed, every Lord's day, rightly dividing the word of truth among the people, and I became all the more convinced that all those knots of crafty calumnies which those deceivers of ours had knit together against the divine books could be unraveled. I soon understood that the statement that man was made after the image of Him that created him was not understood by thy spiritual sons, whom thou hadst regenerated through the Catholic mother through grace, as if they believed and imagined that thou wert bonded by a human form, although what was the nature of a spiritual substance I had not the faintest nor vaguest notion. Still rejoicing, I blushed that for so many years I had bade, not against the Catholic faith, but against the fables of fleshly imagination. For I had been both impious and rash in this, that I had condemned by pronouncement what I ought to have learned by inquiry. For thou, O Most High and Most Near, Most Secret yet Most Present, who does not have limbs, some of which are larger and some smaller, but who art wholly everywhere and nowhere in space, and art not shaped by some corporeal form, thou discreate man after thine own image, and see he dwells in space both head and feet. CHAPTER IV. Since I could not then understand how this image of thine could subsist, I should have knocked on the door and propounded the doubt as to how it was to be believed, and not have insultingly opposed it as if it were actually believed. Therefore, my anxiety as to what I could retain as certain gnawed all the more sharply into my soul, and I felt quite ashamed because during the long time I had been deluded and deceived by the promises of certainties, I had, with childish petulance, prated of so many uncertainties as if they were certain. That they were falsehoods became apparent to me only afterward. However, I was certain that they were uncertain, and since I held them as certainly uncertain, I had accused thy Catholic Church with a blind contentiousness. I had not yet discovered that it taught the truth, but now knew that it did not teach what I had so vehemently accused it of. In this respect, at least, I was confounded and converted, and I rejoiced, O my God, that the one Church, the body of thy only Son, in which the name of Christ had been sealed upon me as an infant, did not relish these childish trifles, and did not maintain in its sound doctrine any tenet that would involve pressing thee, the Creator of all, into space, which, however extended and immense, would still be bounded on all sides like the shape of a human body. I was also glad that the old scriptures of the Law and the Prophets were laid before me to be read, not now with an eye to what had seemed absurd in them when formerly I censured the Holy Ones for thinking thus, when they actually did not think in that way. And I listened with delight to Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, often recommending this text most diligently as a rule, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life, while at the same time he drew aside the mystic veil and opened to view the spiritual meaning of what seemed to teach perverse doctrine if it were taken according to the letter. I found nothing in his teachings that offended me, though I could not yet know for certain whether what he taught was true. For all this time I restrained my heart from assenting to anything, fearing to fall headlong into error. Instead, by this hanging in suspense, I was being strangled, for my desire was to be as certain of invisible things as I was that seven and three are ten. I was not so deranged as to believe that this could not be comprehended, but my desire was to have other things as clear as this, whether they were physical objects which were not present to my senses, or spiritual objects which I did not know how to conceive of except in physical terms. If I could have believed, I might have been cured, and, with the sight of my soul cleared up, it might in some way have been directed toward thy truth, which always abides and fails in nothing. But just as it happens that a man who has tried a bad physician fears to trust himself with a good one, so it was with the health of my soul, which could not be healed except by believing. But, lest it should believe falsehoods, it refused to be cured, resisting thy hand, who hath prepared for us the medicines of faith, and applied them to the maladies of the whole world, and endowed them with great efficacy. CHAPTER V Still, from this time forward, I began to prefer the Catholic doctrine. I felt that it was with moderation and honesty that it commanded things to be believed that were not demonstrated, whether they could be demonstrated, but not to every one, or whether they could not be demonstrated at all. This was far better than the method of the Manicheans, in which accredulity was mocked by an audacious promise of knowledge, and then many fabulous and absurd things were forced upon believers because they were incapable of demonstration. After that, O Lord, little by little, with a gentle and most merciful hand, drawing and calming my heart, Thou didst persuade me that, if I took into account the multitude of things I had never seen, nor been present when they were enacted, such as many of the events of secular history, and the numerous reports of places and cities which I had not seen, or such as my relations with many friends or physicians, or with these men and those, that unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life. Finally, I was impressed with what an unalterable assurance I believed which two people were my parents, though this was impossible for me to know otherwise than by hearsay. By bringing all this into my consideration, Thou didst persuade me that it was not the ones who believed Thy books, which with so great authority Thou hast established among nearly all nations, but those who did not believe them who were to be blamed. Moreover, those men were not to be listened to who would not say to me, How do you know that those Scriptures were imparted to mankind by the Spirit of the One and Most True God? For this was the point that was most of all to be believed, since no wranglings of blasphemous questions such as I had read in the books of the self-contradicting philosophers could once snatch me from the belief that Thou dost exist, although what Thou art I did not know, and that to Thee belongs the governance of human affairs. This much I believed, sometimes more strongly than other times, but I always believed, both that Thou art and that Thou hast a care for us, although I was ignorant both as to what should be thought about Thy substance and as to which way led or led back to Thee. Thus, since we are too weak by unaided reason to find out truth, and since because of this we need the authority of the Holy Writings, I had now begun to believe that Thou wouldst not, under any circumstances, have given such eminent authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands, if it had not been that through them Thy will may be believed in, and that Thou mightest be sought. For, as to those passages in the Scripture which had heretofore appeared incongruous and offensive to me, now that I had heard several of them expounded reasonably, I could see that they were to be resolved by the mysteries of spiritual interpretation. The authority of Scripture seemed to me all the more revered and worthy of devout belief, because although it was visible for all to read, it reserved the full majesty of its secret wisdom within its spiritual profundity. While it stooped to all in the great plainness of its language and simplicity of style, it yet required the closest attention of the most serious-minded, so that it might receive all into its common bosom, and direct some few through its narrow passages toward Thee. Yet many more than would have been the case had there not been in it such a lofty authority, which nevertheless allured multitudes to its bosom by its holy humility. I continued to reflect upon these things, and Thou wast with me. I sighed, and Thou didst hear me. I vacillated, and Thou guidest me. I roamed the broad way of the world, and Thou didst not desert me. CHAPTER VI. I was still eagerly aspiring to honors, money, and matrimony, and Thou didst mock me. In pursuit of these ambitions I endured the most bitter hardships, in which Thou wast being the more gracious, the less Thou wouldst allow anything that was not Thee to grow sweet to me. Look into my heart, O Lord, whose prompting it is that I should recall all this, and confess it to Thee. Now, let my soul cleave to Thee, now that Thou hast freed her from that fast-sticking glue of death. How wretched she was! And Thou didst irritate her sore wounds so that she might forsake all else and turn to Thee, who art above all, and without whom all things would be nothing at all, so that she would be converted and healed. How wretched I was at that time! And how Thou didst deal with me so as to make me aware of my wretchedness! I recall from the incident of the day on which I was preparing to recite a penitentiary on the Emperor. In it I was to deliver many a lie, and the lying was to be applauded by those who knew I was lying. My heart was agitated with this sense of guilt, and it seethed with the fever of my uneasiness. For while walking along one of the streets of Milan, I saw a poor beggar, with what I believe was a full belly, joking and hilarious. And I sighed and spoke to the friends around me of the many sorrows that flowed from our madness, because in spite of all our exertions, such as those I was then labouring in, dragging the burden of my unhappiness under the spur of ambition, and, by dragging it, increasing it at the same time, still, and all we aimed only to attain that very happiness which this beggar had reached before us, and there was a grim chance that we should never attain it. For what he had obtained through a few coins got by his begging, I was still scheming for by many a wretched and tortuous turning, namely, the joy of a passing felicity. He had not indeed gained true joy, but at the same time, with all my ambitions, I was seeking one still more untrue. Anyhow, he was now joyous, and I was anxious. He was free from care, and I was full of alarms. Now if any one should inquire of me whether I should prefer to be merry or anxious, I would reply, merry. Again, if I had been asked whether I should prefer to be as he was, or as I myself was, I would have chosen to be myself, though I was beset with cares and alarms. But would not this have been a false choice? Was the contrast valid? Actually, I ought not to prefer myself to him because I happened to be more learned than he was, for I got no great pleasure from my learning, but sought, rather, to please men by its exhibition, and this not to instruct, but only to please. Thus thou didst break my bones with a rod of thy correction. Let my soul take its leave of those who say it makes a difference as to object from which a man derives his joy. The beggar rejoiced in drunkenness, you long to rejoice in glory. What glory, O Lord! the kind that is not in thee? For just as his was no true joy, so was mine no true glory, but it turned my head all the more. He would get over his drunkenness that same night, but I had slept with mine many a night, and risen again with it, and was to sleep again, and rise again with it, I know not how many times. It does indeed make a difference as to the object from which a man's joy is gained. I know this is so, and I know that the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably beyond such vanity. Yet at the same time, this beggar was beyond me, for he truly was the happier man, not only because he was thoroughly steeped in his mirth while I was torn to pieces with my cares, but because he had gotten his wine by giving good wishes to the passers-by, while I was following after the ambition of my pride by lying. Much to this effect, I said to my good companions, when I saw how readily they reacted pretty much as I did. Thus I found that it went ill with me, and I fretted, and doubled that very ill, and if any prosperity smiled upon me, I loathed to seize it, for almost before I could grasp it, it would fly away. CHAPTER VII. Those of us who were living like friends together used to bemoan our lot in our common talk. But I discussed it with Allopius and Nebridius, more especially, and in very familiar terms. Allopius had been born in the same town as I. His parents were of the highest rank there, but he was a bit younger than I. He had studied under me when I first taught in our town, and then afterwards at Carthage. He esteemed me highly, because I appeared to him good and learned, and I esteemed him for his inborn love of virtue, which was uncommonly marked in a man so young. But in the whirlpool of Carthaginian fashion, where frivolous spectacles are hotly followed, he had been inveigled into the madness of the gladiatorial games. While he was miserably tossed about in this fad, I was teaching rhetoric there in a public school. At that time he was not attending my classes because of some ill feeling that had arisen between me and his father. I then came to discover how fatally he doted upon the circus, and I was deeply grieved, for he seemed likely to cast away his very great promise, if indeed he had not already done so. Yet I had no means of advising him, or any way of reclaiming him through restraint, either by the kindness of a friend or by the authority of a teacher. For I imagined that his feelings toward me were the same as his father's. But this turned out not to be the case. Indeed, disregarding his father's will in the matter, he began to be friendly, and to visit my lecture-room to listen for a while, and then depart. But it slipped my memory to try to deal with his problem, to prevent him from ruining his excellent mind in his blind and headstrong passion for frivolous sport. But Thou, O Lord, who holdest the helm of all that Thou hast created, Thou hast not forgotten him who was one day to be numbered among Thy sons, a chief minister of Thy sacrament, and in order that his amendment might plainly be attributed to Thee, Thou broughtest it about through me while I knew nothing of it. One day, when I was sitting in my accustomed place with my scholars before me, he came in, greeted me, sat himself down, and fixed his attention on the subject I was discussing. It so happened that I had a passage in hand, and, while I was interpreting it, a simile occurred to me, taken from the gladiatorial games. It struck me as relevant to make more pleasant and plain the point I wanted to convey by adding a biting jibe at those whom that madness had enthralled. Thou knowest, O our God, that I had no thought at that time of curing Allopius of that plague. But he took it to himself, and thought that I would not have said it but for his sake. And what any other man would have taken as an occasion of offence against me, this worthy young man took as a reason for being offended at himself, and for loving me the more fervently. Thou hast said it long ago, and written in Thy book, Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Now I had not rebuked him, but Thou who canst make use of everything both wittin and unwittin, and in the order which Thou Thyself knowest to be best, and that order is right, Thou madest my heart and tongue into burning coals with which Thou mightest cauterize and cure the hopeful mind thus languishing. Let him be silent in Thy praise, who does not meditate on Thy mercy, which rises up in my inmost parts to confess to Thee. For after that speech, Allopius rushed up out of that deep pit into which he had willfully plunged, and in which he had been blinded by its miserable pleasures, and he roused his mind with a resolve to moderation. When he had done this, all the filth of the gladiatorial pleasures dropped away from him, and he went to them no more. Then he also prevailed upon his reluctant father to let him be my pupil, and, at the son's urging, the father at last consented. Thus Allopius began again to hear my lectures, and became involved with me in the same superstition, loving in the Manicheans that outward display of ascetic discipline which he believed was true and unfeigned. It was, however, a senseless and seducing continence which ensnared precious souls who were not able as yet to reach the height of true virtue, and who were easily beguiled with the veneer of what was only a shadowy and feigned virtue.