Confessions

This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how you can get involved, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Mark Barnes www.4-14.org.uk Confessions by St. Augustine Translated by Albert C. Outler Book 7 Chapter 1 Dead now was that evil and shameful youth of mine, and I was passing into full manhood. As I increased in years, the worse was my vanity, for I could not conceive of any substance but the sort I could see with my own eyes. I no longer thought of thee, O God, by the analogy of a human body. Ever since I inclined my ear to philosophy, I had avoided this error, and the truth on this point I rejoiced to find in the faith of our Spiritual Mother thy Catholic Church. Yet I could not see how else to conceive thee, and I, a man, and such a man, sought to conceive thee the sovereign and only true God. In my inmost heart I believe that thou art incorruptible, and inviolable, and unchangeable, because, though I knew not how or why, I could still see plainly, and without doubt, that the corruptible is inferior to the incorruptible, the inviolable obviously superior to its opposite, and the unchangeable better than the changeable. My heart cried out violently against all phantasms, and with this one clear certainty I endeavoured to brush away the swarm of unclean flies that swarmed around the eyes of my mind. But behold, they were scarcely scattered before they gathered again, buzzed against my face, and beclouded my vision. I no longer thought of God in the analogy of a human body, yet I was constrained to conceive thee to be some kind of body in space, either infused into the world, or infinitely diffused beyond the world. And this was the incorruptible, inviolable, and unchangeable substance which I thought was better than the corruptible, the viable, and the changeable. For whatever I conceived to be deprived of dimensions of space appeared to me to be nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a void, for if a body is taken out of space, or if space is emptied of all its contents of earth, water, air, or heaven, yet it remains an empty space, a spacious nothing, as it were. Being thus gross-hearted, and not clear even to myself, I then held that whatever had neither length nor breadth nor density nor solidity, and did not or could not receive such dimensions, was absolutely nothing, for at that time my mind dwelt only with ideas which resembled the forms with which my eyes are still familiar, nor could I see that the act of thought by which I formed those ideas was itself immaterial, and yet it could not have formed them if it were not itself a measurable entity. So also I thought about Thee, O Life of my Life, as stretched out through infinite space, interpenetrating the whole mass of the world, reaching out beyond in all directions to immensity without end, so that the earth should have Thee, the heaven have Thee, all things have Thee, and all of them be limited in Thee, while Thou art placed nowhere at all. As the body of the air above the earth does not bear the passage of the light of the sun, so that the light penetrates it, not by bursting nor dividing, but filling it entirely, so I imagined that the body of heaven and air and sea and even of the earth was all open to Thee, and, in all its greatest parts as well as the smallest, was ready to receive Thy presence by a secret inspiration which, from within or without all, orders all things Thou hast created. This was my conjecture, because I was unable to think of anything else, yet it was untrue. For in this way a greater part of the earth would contain a greater part of Thee, a smaller part, a smaller fraction of Thee. All things would be full of Thee in such a sense that there would be more of Thee in an elephant than in a sparrow, because one is larger than the other and fills a larger space, and this would make the portions of Thy self-presence in the several portions of the world in fragments, great to the great, small to the small. But Thou art not such a one, but as yet Thou hadst not enlightened my darkness. CHAPTER II But it was not sufficient for me, O Lord, to be able to oppose those deceived deceivers and those dumb orators—dumb, because Thy word did not sound forth from them—to oppose them with the answer which, in the old Carthaginian days, Nabridius used to propound, shaking all of us who heard it. What could this imaginary people of darkness, which the Manicheans usually set up as an army opposed to Thee, have done to Thee if Thou hadst declined the combat? If they replied that it could have hurt Thee, they would have then made Thee violable and corruptible. If, on the other hand, the dark could have done Thee no harm, then there was no cause for any battle at all. There was less cause for a battle in which a part of Thee, one of Thy members, a child of Thy own substance, should be mixed up with opposing powers not of Thy creation, and should be corrupted and deteriorated and changed by them from happiness into misery, so that it could not be delivered and cleansed without Thy help. This offspring of Thy substance was supposed to be the human soul to which Thy word, free, pure, and entire, could bring help when it was being enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted. But on their hypothesis, that word was itself corruptible, because it is one and the same substance as the soul. And therefore, if they admitted that Thy nature, whatsoever Thou art, is incorruptible, then all these assertions of theirs are false, and should be rejected with horror. But if Thy substance is corruptible, then this is self-evidently false, and should be abhorred at first utterance. This line of argument, then, was enough against those deceivers who ought to be cast forth from a surfeited stomach, for out of this dilemma they could find no way of escape without dreadful sacrilege of mind and tongue when they think and speak such things about Thee. Chapter 3 But as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded that Thou our Lord, the true God, who made us not only our souls but our bodies as well, and not only our souls and bodies, but all creatures and all things, was free from stain and alteration and in no way mutable, yet I could not readily and clearly understand what was the cause of evil. Whatever it was, I realized that the question must be so analyzed as not to constrain me by any answer to believe that the immutable God was mutable, lest I should myself become the thing that I was seeking out. And so I pursued the search with a quiet mind, now in a confident feeling that what had been said by the Manicheans, and I shrank from them with my whole heart, could not be true. I now realized that when they asked what was the origin of evil, their answer was dictated by a wicked pride which would rather affirm that Thy nature is capable of suffering evil than that their own nature is capable of doing it. And I directed my attention to understand what I now was told, that free will is the cause of our doing evil, and that Thy just judgment is the cause of our having to suffer from its consequences. But I could not see this clearly. So then, trying to draw the eye of my mind up out of that pit, I was plunged back into it again, and trying often, was just as often plunged back down. For one thing lifted me up toward Thy light, it was that I had come to know that I had a will as certainly as I knew that I had life. When, therefore, I willed or was unwilling to do something, I was utterly certain that it was none but myself who willed or was unwilling, and immediately I realized that there was the cause of my sin. I could see that what I did against my will I suffered rather than did, and I did not regard such actions as false, but rather as punishments in which I might quickly confess that I was not unjustly punished, since I believe Thee to be most just. Who was it that put this in me, and then planted in me the root of bitterness, in spite of the fact that I was altogether the handiwork of my most sweet God? If the devil is to blame, who made the devil himself? And if he was a good angel who by his own wicked will became the devil, how did there happen to be in him that wicked will by which he became a devil, since a good Creator made him wholly a good angel? By these reflections was I again cast down and stultified. Yet I was not plunged into that hell of error where no man confesses to Thee where I thought that Thou didst suffer evil rather than that men do it. Chapter 4 For in my struggle to solve the rest of my difficulties I now assumed henceforth as settled truth that the incorruptible must be superior to the corruptible, and I did acknowledge that Thou, whatever Thou art, art incorruptible. For there never yet was nor will be a soul able to conceive of anything better than Thee, who art the highest and best good. And since most truly and certainly the incorruptible is to be placed above the corruptible, as I now admit it, it followed that I could rise in my thoughts to something better than my God, if Thou wert not incorruptible. When, therefore, I saw that the incorruptible was to be preferred to the corruptible, I saw then where I ought to seek Thee, and where I should look for the source of evil, that is, the corruption by which Thy substance can in no way be profaned. For it is obvious that corruption in no way injures our God, by no inclination, by no necessity, by no unforeseen chance, because He is our God, and what He wills is good, and He Himself is that good. But to be corrupted is not good, nor art Thou compelled to do anything against Thy will, since Thy will is not greater than Thy power. But it would have to be greater, if Thou Thyself were greater than Thyself, for the will and power of God are God Himself. And what can take Thee by surprise, since Thou knowest all, and there is no sort of nature but Thou knowest it? And what more should we say about why that substance which God is cannot be corrupted? Because if this were so, it could not be God. And I kept seeking for an answer to the question, Whence is evil? And I sought it in an evil way, and I did not see the evil in my very search. I marshalled before the sight of my spirit all creation, all that we see of earth and sea and air and the stars and trees and animals, and all that we do not see, the firmament of the sky above and all the angels and all the spiritual things, for my imagination arranged these also as if they were bodies in this place or that. And I pictured to myself Thy creation as one vast mass, composed of various kinds of bodies, some of which were actually bodies, some of those which I imagined spirits were like. I pictured this mass as vast, of course, not in its full dimensions, for these I could not know, but as large as I could possibly think, still only finite on every side. But Thou, O Lord, I imagined as environing the mass on every side and penetrating it, still infinite in every direction, as if there were a sea everywhere, and everywhere through measureless space nothing but an infinite sea, and it contained within itself some sort of sponge, huge but still finite, so that the sponge would in all its parts be filled from the immeasurable sea. Thus I conceived Thy creation itself to be finite and filled by Thee, the infinite, and I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created. God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better than all His works, but yet He who is good has created them good. Behold how He encircles and fills them. Where then is evil, and whence does it come, and how has it crept in? What is its root, and what its seed? Has it no being at all? Why then do we fear and shun what has no being? Or if we fear it needlessly, then surely that fear is evil by which the heart is unnecessarily stabbed and tortured, and indeed a greater evil since we have nothing real to fear yet do fear. Therefore, either that is evil which we fear, or the act of fearing is in itself evil. But then, whence does it come, since God who is good has made all these things good? Indeed, He is the greatest and chiefest good, and hath created these lesser goods, but both Creator and created are all good. Whence then is evil? Or again, was there some evil matter out of which He made and formed and ordered it, but left something in His creation that He did not convert into good? But why should this be? Was He powerless to change the whole lump so that no evil would remain in it if He is the omnipotent? Finally, why would He make anything at all out of such stuff? Why did He not rather annihilate it by His same almighty power? Could evil exist contrary to His will? And if it were from eternity, why did He permit it to be nonexistent for unmeasured intervals of time in the past, and why then was He pleased to make something out of it after so long a time? Or, if He wished now all of a sudden to create something, would not an almighty being have chosen to annihilate this evil matter and live by Himself, the perfect, true, sovereign, and infinite good? Or, if it were not good that He who was good should not also be the framer and creator of what was good, then why was that evil matter not removed and brought to nothing so that He might form good matter out of which He might then create all things? For He would not be omnipotent if He were not able to create something good without being assisted by that matter which had not been created by Himself. Such perplexities I revolved in my wretched breast, overwhelmed with gnawing cares, lest I die before I discovered the truth. And still the faith of thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, as it was taught me by the Catholic Church, stuck fast in my heart. As yet it was unformed on many points, and diverged from the rule of right doctrine. But my mind did not utterly lose it, and every day drank in more and more of it. Chapter 6 By now I had also repudiated the lying divinations and impious absurdities of the astrologers. Let thy mercies, out of the depth of my soul, confess this to thee also, O my God. For thou, thou only, for who else is it who calls us back from the death of all errors, except the life which does not know how to die, and the wisdom which gives light to minds that need it, although it itself has no need of light, by which the whole universe is governed, even to the fluttering leaves of the trees? Thou alone providest also for my obstinacy, with which I struggled against Vindicianus, a sejacious old man, and Nebridias, that remarkably talented young man, the former declared vehemently, and the latter frequently, though with some reservation, that no art existed by which we foresee future things. But men's surmises have oftentimes the help of chance, and out of many things which they foretold some came to pass unawares to the predictors who lighted on the truth by making so many guesses. And thou also providest a friend for me, who was not a negligent consulter of the astrologers, even though he was not thoroughly skilled in the art either, as I said, one who consulted them out of curiosity. He knew a good deal about it, which, he said, he had heard from his father, and he never realized how far his ideas would help to overthrow my estimation of that art. His name was Firminus, and he had had received a liberal education and was a cultivated rhetorician. It so happened that he consulted me, as one very dear to him, as to what I thought about some affairs of his in which his worldly hopes had risen, viewed in the light of his so-called horoscope. Although I had now begun to learn in this matter towards Nebridias's opinion, I did not quite decline to speculate about the matter, or to tell him what thought still came into my irresolute mind, although I did add that I was almost persuaded now that these were but empty and ridiculous follies. He then told me that his father had been very much interested in such books, and that he had a friend who was as much interested in them as he was himself. They, in combined study and consultation, fanned the flame of their affection for this folly, going so far as to observe the moment when the dumb animals which belonged to their household gave birth to young, and then observe the position of the heavens with regard to them, so as to gather fresh evidence for this so-called art. Moreover, he reported that his father had told him that at the same time his mother was about to give birth to him, a female slave of a friend of his father's was also pregnant. This could not be hidden from her master, who kept records with the most diligent exactness of the birth-dates even of his dogs. And so it happened to pass that under the most careful observations, one for his wife and the other for his servant, with exact calculations of the days, hours, and minutes, both women were delivered at the same moment, so that both were compelled to cast the selfsame horoscope down to the minute, the one for his son, the other for his young slave. For as soon as the women began to be in labour, they each sent word to the other as to what was happening in their respective houses, and had messengers ready to dispatch to one another as soon as they had information of the actual birth, and each, of course, knew instantly the exact time. It turned out, Firminus said, that the messengers from the respective houses met one another at a point equidistant from either house, so that neither of them could discern any difference either in the position of the stars, nor any other of the most minute points. Yet Firminus, born in a high estate in his parents' house, ran his course through the prosperous paths of this world, was increased in wealth, and elevated to honours. At the same time, the slave, the yoke of his condition being still unrelaxed, continued to serve his masters as Firminus, who knew him, was able to report. Upon hearing and believing these things related by so reliable a person, all my resistance melted away. First, I endeavoured to reclaim Firminus himself from his superstition, by telling him that after inspecting his horoscope, I ought, if I could foretell truly, to have seen in it parents eminent among their neighbours, a noble family in its own city, a good birth, a proper education, and liberal learning. But if that servant had consulted me with the same horoscope, since he had the same one, I ought again to tell him likewise truly that I saw in it the lowliness of his origin, the abjectness of his condition, and everything else different and contrary to the former prediction. If, then, by casting up the same horoscopes, I should, in order to speak the truth, make contrary analyses, or else speak falsely if I made identical readings, then surely it followed that whatever was truly foretold by the analysis of the horoscopes was not by art, but by chance, and whatever was said falsely was not from incompetence in the art, but from the error of chance. An opening being thus made in my darkness, I began to consider other implications involved here. Suppose that one of the fools, who followed such an occupation, and whom I longed to assail and to reduce to confusion, should urge against me that Firminus had given me false information, or that his father had informed him falsely. I then turned my thoughts to those that are born twins, who generally come out of the womb so near the one to the other that the short interval between them, whatever importance they may ascribe to it in the nature of things, cannot be noted by human observation or expressed in those tables which the astrology uses to examine when he undertakes to pronounce the truth. But such pronouncements cannot be true, for looking into the same horoscopes he must have foretold the same future for Esau and Jacob, whereas the same future did not turn out for them. He must therefore speak falsely. If he is to speak truly, then he must read contrary predictions into the same horoscopes, for this would mean that it was not by art, but by chance, that he would speak truly. For thou, O Lord, most righteous ruler of the universe, dost work by a secret impulse, whether those who inquire or those inquired of know it not, so that the inquirer may hear what, according to the secret merit of his soul, he ought to hear, from the depths of righteous judgment. Therefore let no man say to thee, What is this? or Why is that? Let him not speak thus. For he is only a man. CHAPTER VII By now, O my helper, thou hadst freed me from those fetters. But still I inquired, Whence is evil? and found no answer. But thou didst not allow me to be carried away from the faith by these fluctuations of thought. I still believed, both that thou dost exist, and that thy substance is immutable, and that thou dost care for and wilt judge all men, and that in Christ, thy Son our Lord, and the holy scriptures which the authority of thy Catholic church pressed on me, thou hadst planned the way of man's salvation to that life which is to come after this death. With these convictions safe and immovably settled in my mind, I eagerly inquired, Whence is evil? What torments did my travailing heart then endure? What sighs, O my God! Yet even then thy ears were open, and I knew it not, and when in stillness I sought earnestly, those silent contritions of my soul were loud cries to thy mercy. No man knew, but thou knewest what I endured. How little of it could I express in words to the ears of my dearest friends! How could the whole tumult of my soul, from which neither time nor speech was sufficient, come to them? Yet the whole of it went into thy ears, all of which I bellowed out in the anguish of my heart. My desire was before thee, and the light of my eyes was not with me, for it was within, and I was without. Nor was that light in any place, but I still kept thinking only of things that are contained in a place, and could find among them no place to rest in. They did not receive me in such a way that I could say, It is sufficient, it is well, nor did they allow me to turn back to where it might be well enough with me, for I was higher than they, though lower than thou. Thou art my true joy if I depend upon thee, and thou hast subjected to me what thou didst create lower than I. And this was the true mean and middle way of salvation for me, to continue in thy image, and by serving thee have dominion over the body. But when I lifted myself proudly against thee, and ran against the Lord, even against his neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, even the lower things were placed above me, and pressed down on me, so that there was no respite or breathing space. They thrust on my sight on every side, in crowds and masses, and when I tried to think, the images of bodies obtruded themselves into my way back to thee, as if they would say to me, Where are you going, unworthy and unclean one? And all these had sprung out of my wound, for thou hast humbled the haughty as one that is wounded. By my swelling pride I was separated from thee, and my bloated cheeks blinded my eyes. Chapter 8 But thou, O Lord, art forever the same, yet thou art not forever angry with us, for thou hast compassion on our dust and ashes. It was pleasing in thy sight to reform my deformity, and by inward stings thou didst disturb me, so that I was impatient until thou wert made clear to my inward sight. By the secret hand of thy healing my swelling was lessened, the disordered and darkened eyesight of my mind was from day to day made whole by the stinging salve of wholesome grief. Chapter 9 And first of all, willin' to show me how thou didst resist the proud but give grace to the humble, and how mercifully thou hast made known to men the way of humility in that thy word was made flesh and dwelt among men. Thou didst procure for me, through one inflated with a most monstrous pride, certain books of the Platonists, translated from Greek into Latin. And therein I found, not indeed in the same words, but to the self-same effect, enforced by many and various reasons, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. That which was made by him is life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shined in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Furthermore, I read that the soul of man, though it bears witness to the light, yet itself is not the light. But the Word of God, being God, is that true light that lights every man who comes into the world. And further, that he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. But that he came unto his own, and his own received him not. And as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name. This I did not find there. Similarly, I read there that God the Word was born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God. But that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. I found this nowhere there. And I discovered in those books, expressed in many and various ways, that the Son was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal in God, for he was naturally of the same substance. But that he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in the profession of a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him from the dead, and given 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 under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This those books have not. I read further in them, that before all times, and beyond all times, thy only Son remaineth unchangeably co-eternal with thee, and that of his fullness all souls receive that they may be blessed, and that by participation in that wisdom which abides in them they are renewed, that they may be wise. But that in due time Christ died for the ungodly, and that thou sparedst not thy only Son, but deliverest him up for us all, this is not there. For thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes, that they that labour and are heavy laden might come unto him, and he might refresh them, because he is meek and lowly in heart. The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way, beholding our lowliness and our trouble, and forgiving all our sins. But those who strut in the high boots of what they deem to be superior knowledge will not hear him who says, Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. Thus, though they know God, yet they do not glorify him as God, nor are they thankful, therefore they become vain in their imaginations, their foolish heart is darkened, and professing themselves to be wise, they become fools. And moreover, I also read there how they change the glory of thy incorruptible nature into idols and various images, into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, namely into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright, so that thy first-born people worship the head of a four-footed beast instead of thee, turning back in their hearts towards Egypt, and prostrating thy image, their own soul, before the image of an ox that eats grass. These things I found there, but I fed not on them. For it pleased thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of his minority from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger, and thou mightest call the Gentiles, and I had sought strenuously after that goal which thou didst allow thy people to take from Egypt, since wherever it was, it was thine. And thou saidst unto the Athenians by the mouth of thy apostle, that in thee we live and move and have our being, as one of their own poets had said. And truly these books came from there. But I did not set my mind on the idols of Egypt, which they fashioned of gold, changing the truth of God into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.