Confessions

CHAPTERS 1 THROUGH 11 OF CONFESSIONS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CONFESSIONS by Saint Augustine Translated by Albert C. Outler Book 11. Chapters 1 through 11. Chapter 1. Is it possible, O Lord, that since Thou art in eternity, Thou art ignorant of what I am saying to Thee? Or dost Thou see in time an event at the time it occurs? If not, then why am I recounting such a tale of things to Thee? Certainly not in order to acquaint Thee with them through me. But instead, that through them I may stir up my own love and the love of my readers toward Thee, so that all may say, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. I have said this before and will say it again, For love of Thy love I do it. So also we pray, and yet truth tells us, Your Father knoweth what things you need before you ask Him. Consequently, we lay bare our feelings before Thee, that through our confessing to Thee our plight and Thy mercies towards us, Thou mayest go on to free us altogether, as Thou hast already begun, and that we may cease to be wretched in ourselves and blessed in Thee, since Thou hast called us to be poor in spirit, meek, mourners, hungering and a thirst for righteousness, merciful and pure in heart. Thus I have told Thee many things, as I could find ability and will to do so, since it was Thy will in the first place that I should confess to Thee, O Lord my God. For Thou art good, and Thy mercy endureth for ever. Chapter 2 But how long would it take for the voice of my pen to tell enough of Thy exhortations, and of all Thy terrors and comforts and leadings by which Thou didst bring me to preach Thy word, and to administer Thy sacraments to Thy people? And even if I could do this sufficiently, the drops of time are very precious to me, and I have for a long time been burning with the desire to meditate on Thy law, and to confess in Thy presence my knowledge and ignorance of it. From the first streaks of Thy light in my mind, and the remaining darkness, until my weakness shall be swallowed up in Thy strength. And I do not wish to see those hours drained into anything else which I can find, free from the necessary care of the body, the exercise of the mind, and the service we owe to our fellow men, and what we give even if we do not owe it. O Lord my God, hear my prayer, and let Thy mercy attend my longing. It does not burn for itself alone, but longs as well to serve the cause of fraternal love. Thou seest in thy heart that this is so. Let me offer the service of my mind and my tongue, and give me what I may, in turn, offer back to Thee. For I am needy and poor. Thou art rich to all who call upon Thee. Thou, who in Thy freedom from care, carest for us. Trim away from my lips, inwardly and outwardly, all rashness and lying. Let Thy scriptures be my chaste delight. Let me not be deceived in them, nor deceive others from them. O Lord, hear and pity. O Lord my God, light of the blind, strength of the weak, and also the light of those who see, and the strength of the strong, hearken to my soul, and hear it crying from the depths. And lest Thy ears attend us even in the depths, where should we go? To whom should we cry? Thine is the day, and the night is Thine as well. At Thy bidding the moments fly by. Grant me in them, then, an interval for my meditations on the hidden things of Thy law. Nor close the door of Thy law against us who knock. Thou hast not willed that the deep secrets of all those pages should have been written in vain. Those forests are not without their stags which keep retired within them, ranging and walking and feeding, lying down and ruminating. Perfect me, O Lord, and reveal their secrets to me. Behold, Thy voice is my joy, Thy voice surpasses an abundance of delight. Give me what I love, for I do love it, and this too is Thy gift. Abandon not Thy gifts, and despise not Thy grass which thirsts for Thee. Let me confess to Thee everything that I shall have found in Thy books, and let me hear the voice of Thy praise. Let me drink from Thee, and consider the wondrous things out of Thy law, from the very beginning when Thou madest heaven and earth, and thenceforward to the everlasting reign of Thy holy city with Thee. O Lord, have mercy on me, and hear my petition. For my prayer is not for earthly things, neither gold nor silver and precious stones, nor gorgeous apparel, nor honours and power, nor fleshly pleasures, nor of bodily necessities in this life of our pilgrimage. All of these things are added to those who seek Thy kingdom and Thy righteousness. Observe, O God, from whence comes my desire. The unrighteous have told me of delights, but not such as those in Thy law, O Lord. Behold, this is the spring of my desire. See, O Father, look and see and approve. Let it be pleasing in my mercy's sight that I should find favour with Thee, that the secret things of Thy word may be opened to me when I knock. I beg this of Thee by our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, the man of Thy right hand, the Son of Man, whom Thou madest strong for Thy purpose as mediator between Thee and us, through whom Thou didst seek us when we were not seeking Thee, but didst seek us so that we might seek Thee. Thy word, through whom Thou madest all things, and me among them. Thy only Son, through whom Thou hast called Thy faithful people to adoption, and me among them. I beseech it of Thee through him who sitteth at Thy right hand and maketh intercession for us, in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It is he I seek in Thy books. Moses wrote of him. He tells us so himself. The truth tells us so. Chapter 3 Let me hear and understand how in the beginning Thou madest heaven and earth. Moses wrote of this. He wrote and passed on, moving from Thee to Thee. And he is now no longer before me. If he were, I would lay hold on him and ask him and entreat him solemnly that in Thy name he would open out these things to me, and I would lend my bodily ears to the sound that came forth out of his mouth. If, however, he spoke in the Hebrew language, the sounds would beat on my senses in vain, and nothing would touch my mind. But if he spoke in Latin, I would understand what he said. But how should I then know whether what he said was true? If I knew even this much, would it be that I knew it from him? Indeed, within me, deep inside the chambers of my thought, truth itself, neither Hebrew nor Greek nor Latin nor Barbarian, without any organs of voice and tongue, without the sound of syllables, would say, he speaks the truth. And I should be assured by this. Then I would confidently say to that man of Thine, You speak the truth. However, since I cannot inquire of Moses, I beseech Thee, O truth, from whose fullness he spoke truth. I beseech Thee, my God, forgive my sins. And as Thou gavest Thy servant the gift to speak these things, grant me also the gift to understand them. Chapter Four Look around. There are the heaven and the earth. They cry aloud that they were made, for they change and vary. Whatever there is that has not been made, and yet has being, has nothing in it that was not there before. This having something not already existent is what it means to be changed and varied. Heaven and earth thus speak plainly that they did not make themselves. We are because we have been made. We did not exist before we came to be, so that we could have made ourselves. And the voice with which they speak is simply their visible presence. It was Thou, O Lord, who made us these things. Thou art beautiful, thus they are beautiful. Thou art good, thus they are good. Thou art, thus they are. But they are not as beautiful, nor as good, nor as truly real as Thou, their Creator, art. Compared with Thee, they are neither beautiful, nor good, nor do they even exist. These things we know, thanks be to Thee. Yet our knowledge is ignorance when it is compared with Thy knowledge. Chapter Five But how didst Thou make the heaven and the earth, and what was the tool of such a mighty work as Thine? For it was not like a human worker, fashioning body from body, according to the fancy of his mind, able somehow or other to impose on it a form which the mind perceived in itself by its inner eye. Yet how should even he be able to do this, if Thou hadst not made that mind? He imposes the form on something already existing and having some sort of being, such as clay, or stone, or wood, or gold, or such like. And where would these things come from if Thou hadst not furnished them? For Thou madest his body for the artisan, and Thou madest the mind which directs the limbs. Thou madest the matter from which he makes anything. Thou didst create the capacity by which he understands his art and sees within his mind what he may do with the things before him. Thou gavest him his bodily sense by which, as if he had an interpreter, he may communicate from mind to matter. What he proposes to do, and report back to his mind what has been done, that the mind may consult with the truth which presideth over it as to whether what is done is well done. All these things praise Thee, the Creator of them all. But how didst Thou make them? How, O God, didst Thou make the heaven and earth? For truly, neither in heaven nor on earth didst Thou make heaven and earth, nor in the air nor in the waters, since all of these also belong to the heaven and the earth. Nowhere in the whole world didst Thou make the whole world, because there was no place where it could be made before it was made. And Thou didst not hold anything in Thy hand from which to fashion the heaven and the earth, for where couldst Thou have gotten what Thou hadst not made in order to make something with it? Is there indeed anything at all, except because Thou art? Thus Thou didst speak, and they were made, and by Thy word didst make them all. Chapter 6 But how didst Thou speak? Was it in the same manner in which the voice came from the cloud, saying, This is my beloved son? For that voice sounded forth and died away, it began and ended. The syllable sounded and passed away, the second after the first, the third after the second, and thence in order till the very last, after all the rest, and silence after the last. From this it is clear and plain that it was the action of the creature itself in time which sounded that voice obeying Thy eternal will. And what these words were which were formed at that time, the outer ear conveyed to the conscious mind, whose inner ear lay attentively open to Thy eternal word. But it compared those words which sounded in time with Thy eternal words sounding in silence, and said, This is different, quite different. These words are far below me, they are not even real, for they fly away and pass, but the word of my God remains above me for ever. If then in words that sound and fade away Thou didst say that heaven and earth should be made, and thus madest heaven and earth, then there was already some kind of corporeal creature before heaven and earth by whose motions in time that voice might have had its occurrence in time. But there was nothing corporeal before the heaven and the earth, or if there was, then it is certain that already without a time-bound voice Thou hadst created whatever it was out of which Thou didst make the time-bound voice by which Thou didst say, Let the heaven and the earth be made. For whatever it was out of which such a voice was made simply did not exist at all until it was made by Thee. Was it decreed by Thy word that a body might be made from which such words might come? Thou didst call us then to understand the word, the God who is God with Thee, which is spoken eternally and by which all things are spoken eternally. For what was first spoken was not finished and then something else spoken until the whole series was spoken, but all things at the same time and forever. For otherwise we should have time and change and not a true eternity nor a true immortality. This I know, O my God, and I give thanks. I know I confess to Thee, O Lord, and whoever is not ungrateful for certain truths knows and blesses Thee along with me. We know, O Lord, this much we know, that in the same proportion as anything is not what it was and is what it was not, in that very same proportion it passes away or comes to be. But there is nothing in Thy word that passes away or returns to its place. For it is truly immortal and eternal. And therefore, unto the word co-eternal with Thee at the same time and always, Thou sayest all that Thou sayest. And whatever Thou sayest shall be made is made, and Thou makest nothing otherwise than by speaking. Still, not all the things that Thou dost make by speaking are made at the same time and always. CHAPTER VIII Why is this I ask of Thee, O Lord my God? I see it after a fashion, but I do not know how to express it unless I say that everything that begins to be and then ceases to be begins and ceases when it is known in Thy eternal reason that it ought to begin or cease. In Thy eternal reason where nothing begins or ceases. And this is Thy word which is also the beginning because it also speaks to us. Thus in the gospel He spoke through the flesh, and this sounded in the outward ears of men so that it might be believed and sought for within, and so that it might be found in the eternal truth in which the good and only Master teacheth all His disciples. There, O Lord, I hear Thy voice, the voice of one speaking to me, since he who teacheth us speaketh to us. But he that doth not teach us doth not really speak to us even when he speaketh. Yet who is it that teacheth us unless it be the truth immutable? For even when we are instructed by means of the mutable creation we are thereby led to the truth immutable. There we learn truly as we stand and hear Him, and we rejoice greatly because of the bridegroom's voice restoring us to the source whence our being comes. And therefore, unless the beginning remained immutable there would not then be a place to which we might return when we had wandered away. But when we return from error it is through our gaining knowledge that we return. In order for us to gain knowledge He teacheth us since He is the beginning and speaketh to us. Chapter 9 In this beginning, O God, Thou hast made heaven and earth through Thy Word, Thy Son, Thy Power, Thy Wisdom, Thy Truth, all wondrously speaking and wondrously creating. Who shall comprehend such things and who shall tell of it? What is it that shineth through me and striketh my heart without injury so that I both shudder and burn? I shudder because I am unlike it. I burn because I am like it. It is wisdom itself that shineth through me, clearing away my fog which so readily overwhelms me so that I faint in it, in the darkness and burden of my punishment. For my strength is brought down in neediness so that I cannot endure even my blessings until Thou, O Lord, who hast been gracious to all my iniquities, also healest all my infirmities. For it is Thou who shalt redeem my life from corruption and crown me with loving-kindness and tender mercy and shalt satisfy my desire with good things so that my youth shall be renewed like the eagle's. For by this hope we are saved and through patience we await Thy promises. Let him that is able hear Thee speaking to his inner mind. I will cry out with confidence because of Thy own oracle, How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, in wisdom Thou hast made them all! And this wisdom is the beginning, and in that beginning Thou hast made heaven and earth. Now, are not those still full of their old carnal nature who ask us, What was God doing before he made heaven and earth? For if he was idle, they say, and doing nothing, then why did he not continue in that state forever, doing nothing, as he had always done? If any new motion has arisen in God and a new will to form a creature which he had never before formed, how can that be a true eternity in which an act of will occurs that was not there before? For the will of God is not a created thing, but comes before the creation, and this is true because nothing could be created unless the will of the Creator came before it. The will of God, therefore, pertains to his very essence. Yet if anything has arisen in the essence of God that was not there before, then that essence cannot truly be called eternal. But if it was the eternal will of God that the creation should come to be, why then is not the creation itself also from eternity? Chapter 11 Those who say these things do not yet understand thee, O Wisdom of God, O Light of Souls. They do not yet understand how the things are made that are made by and in thee. They endeavor to comprehend eternal things, but their heart still flies about in the past and future motions of created things, and is still unstable. Who shall hold it and fix it so that it may come to rest for a little, and then by degrees glimpse the glory of that eternity which abides forever? And then, comparing eternity with the temporal process in which nothing abides, they may see that they are incommensurable. They would see that a long time does not become long except from the many separate events that occur in its passage, which cannot be simultaneous. In the eternal, on the other hand, nothing passes away, but the whole is simultaneously present. But no temporal process is wholly simultaneous. Therefore, let it see that all time past is forced to move on by the incoming future, that all the future follows from the past, and that all past and future is created and issues out of that which is forever present. Who will hold the heart of man that it may stand still and see how the eternity, which always stands still, is itself neither future nor past, but expresses itself in the times that are future and past? Can my hand do this? Or can the hand of my mouth bring about so difficult a thing, even by persuasion? End of Book 11 Chapters 1 through 11 Recording by Martin Geason in Hazelmere, Surrey