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 5. Chapter 8. Thou did so deal with me therefore, that I was persuaded to go to Rome, and teach there what I had been teaching at Carthage. And how I was persuaded to do this, I will not omit to confess to thee. For in this also the profoundest workings of thy wisdom, and thy constant mercy toward us, must be pondered and acknowledged. I did not wish to go to Rome because of the richer fees and the higher dignity, which my friends promised me there, though these considerations did affect my decision. My principal and almost sole motive was that I had been informed that the students there studied more quietly, and were better kept under the control of stern discipline, so that they did not capriciously and impudently rush into the classroom of a teacher not their own. Indeed, they were not admitted at all without the permission of the teacher. At Carthage, on the contrary, there was a shameful and intemperate license among the students. They burst in rudely, and with furious gestures would disrupt the discipline which the teacher had established for the good of his pupils. Many outrages they perpetrated, with astounding effrontery, things that would be punishable by law if they were not sustained by custom. Thus custom makes plain that such behavior is all the more worthless because it allows men to do what thy eternal law never will allow. They think that they act thus with impunity, though the very blindness with which they act is their punishment, and they suffer far greater harm than they inflict. The manners that I would not adopt as a student, I was compelled as a teacher to endure in others, and so I was glad to go where all who knew the situation assured me that such conduct was not allowed. But thou, O my refuge and my portion in the land of the living, didst goad me thus at Carthage, so that I might therefore be pulled away from it, and change my worldly habitation for the preservation of my soul. At the same time, thou didst offer me at Rome an enticement, through the agency of men enchanted with this death in life, by their insane conduct in the one place and their empty promises in the other. To correct my wandering footsteps, thou didst secretly employ their perversity and my own. For those who disturbed my tranquillity were blinded by shameful madness, and also those who eluded me elsewhere had nothing better than the earth's cunning. And I, who hated actual misery in the one place, sought fictitious happiness in the other. Thou knewest the cause of my going from one country to the other, O God, but thou didst not disclose it either to me or to my mother, who grieved deeply over my departure and followed me down to the sea. She clasped me tight in her embrace, willing either to keep me back or to go with me. But I deceived her, pretending that I had a friend whom I could not leave until he had a favorable wind to set sail. Thus I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped. For this too thou didst mercifully pardon me, fool that I was, and didst preserve me from the waters of the sea for the water of thy grace, so that when I was purified by that, the fountain of my mother's eyes, from which she had daily watered the ground for me as she prayed to thee, should be dried. And, since she refused to return without me, I persuaded her, with some difficulty, to remain that night in a place quite close to our ship, where there was a shrine in memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I slipped away secretly, and she remained to pray and weep. And what was it, O Lord, that she was asking of thee in such a flood of tears, but that thou wouldst not allow me to sail? But thou, taking thy own secret counsel, and noting the real point to her desire, didst not grant what she was then asking, in order to grant to her the thing that she had always been asking. The wind blew, and filled our sails, and the shore dropped out of sight. Wild with grief, she was there the next morning, and filled thy ears with complaints and groans which thou didst disregard, although at the very same time thou wast using my longings as a means, and wast hastening me on the fulfilment of all longing. Thus the earthly part of her love to me was justly purged by the scourge of sorrow. Still, like all mothers, though even more than others, she loved to have me with her, and did not know what joy thou wast preparing for her through my going away. Not knowing this secret end, she wept and mourned, and saw in her agony the inheritance of Eve, seeking in sorrow what she had brought forth in sorrow, and yet, after accusing me of perfidy and cruelty, she continued her intercession for me to thee. She returned to her own home, and I went on to Rome. Chapter 9 And lo! I was received in Rome by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was very near to falling into hell, burdened with all the many and grievous sins I had committed against thee, myself, and others, all over and above that fetter of original sin whereby we all die in Adam. For thou hast given me none of these things in Christ, neither had he abolished by his cross the enmity that I had incurred from thee through my sins. For how could he do so by the crucifixion of a phantom, which was all I supposed him to be? The death of my soul was as real then as the death of his flesh appeared to me unreal, and the life of my soul was as false, because it was as unreal as the death of his flesh was real, though I believed it not. My fever increased, and I was on the verge of passing away and perishing, for, if I had passed away then, where should I have gone but into the fiery torment which my misdeeds deserved, measured by the truth of thy rule? My mother knew nothing of this, yet far away she went on praying for me, and thou, present everywhere, didst hear her where she was and had pity on me where I was, so that I regained my bodily health, although I was still disordered in my sacrilegious heart. For that peril of death did not make me wish to be baptised. I was even better when, as a lad, I entreated baptism of my mother's devotion, as I have already related and confessed. But now, I had since increased in dishonour, and I madly scoffed at all the purposes of thy medicine which would not have allowed me, though a sinner such as I was, to die a double death. Had my mother's heart been pierced with this wound, it never could have been cured, for I cannot adequately tell of the love she had for me, or how she still travailed for me in the spirit with a far keener anguish than when she bore me in the flesh. I cannot conceive, therefore, how she could have been healed if my death, still in my sins, had pierced her in most love. Where, then, would have been all her earnest, frequent, and ceaseless prayers to thee? Nowhere but with thee! But couldst thou, O most merciful God, despise the contrite and humble heart of that pure and prudent widow, who was so constant in her arms, so gracious and attentive to thy saints, never missing a visit to church twice a day, morning and evening? And this, not for vain gossiping, nor old wives' fables, but in order that she might listen to thee in thy sermons, and thou to her in her prayers? Couldst thou, by whose gifts she was so inspired, despise and disregard the tears of such a one without coming to her aid, those tears by which she entreated thee, not for gold or silver, and not for any changing or fleeting good, but for the salvation of the soul of her son? By no means, O Lord! It is certain that thou wouldst near, and wouldst hear in, and wouldst carry out the plan by which thou hast predetermined it should be done. Far be it from thee that thou shouldst have deluded her in those visions and the answers she had received from thee, some of which I have mentioned, and others not, which she kept in her faithful heart, and for ever beseeching, urged them on thee as if they had thy own signature. For thou, because thy mercy endureth for ever, hast so condescended to those whose debts thou hast pardoned, that thou likewise dost become a debtor by thy promises. Thou didst restore me then from that illness, and didst heal the son of thy handmaid in his body, that he might live for thee, and that thou mightest endow him with a better and more certain health. After this, at Rome, I again joined those deluded and deluded saints, and not their hearers only, such as the man was in whose house I had fallen sick, but also with those whom they called the elect. For it still seemed to me that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us. And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong, not to have to confess that I had done wrong, that thou mightest heal my soul because it had sinned against thee. And I loved to excuse my soul, and to accuse something else inside me, I knew not what, but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin, then, was all the more incurable, because I did not deem myself a sinner. It was an execrable iniquity, O God omnipotent, that I would have preferred to have thee defeated in me to my destruction, than to be defeated by thee to my salvation. Not yet, therefore, hast thou set a watch upon my mouth, and a door around my lips, that my heart might not incline to evil speech to make excuse for sin with men that work iniquity? And, therefore, I continued still in the company of their elect. But now, hopeless of gaining any profit from that false doctrine, I began to hold more loosely and negligently even to those points which I had decided to rest content with, if I could find nothing better. I was now half inclined to believe that those philosophers whom they called the academics were wiser than the rest in holding that we ought to doubt everything, and in maintaining that man does not have the power of comprehending any certain truth, for, although I had not yet understood their meaning, I was fully persuaded that they thought just as they are commonly reputed to do. And I did not fail openly to dissuade my host from his confidence which I observed that he had in those fictions of which the works of many are full. For all this, I was still on terms of more intimate friendships with these people than with others who were not of their heresy. I did not indeed defend it with my former ardour, but my familiarity with that group, and there were many of them concealed in Rome at that time, made me slower to seek any other way. This was particularly easy, since I had no hope of finding in thy church the truth from which they had turned me aside, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and invisible. And it still seemed to me most unseemly to believe that thou couldst have the form of human flesh and be bounded by the bodily shape of our limbs. And when I desired to meditate on my God, I did not know what to think of but a huge extended body, for what did not have bodily extension did not seem to me to exist, and this was the greatest and almost the sole cause of my unavoidable errors. And thus, I also believed that evil was a similar kind of substance, and that it had its own hideous and deformed extended body, either in a dense form which they called the earth, or in a thin and subtle form as, for example, the substance of the air, which they imagined as some malignant spirit penetrating that earth. And because my piety, such as it was, still compelled me to believe that the good God never created any evil substance, I formed the idea of two masses, one opposed to the other, both infinite, but with the evil more contracted and the good more expansive. And from this diseased beginning, the other sacrileges followed after. For when my mind tried to turn back to the Catholic faith, I was cast down, since the Catholic faith was not what I judged it to be. And it seemed to me a greater piety to regard thee, my God, to whom I make confession of thy mercies, as infinite in all respects save that one, where the extended mass of evil stood opposed to thee, where I was compelled to confess that thou art finite, than if I should think that thou should be confined by the form of a human body on every side. And it seemed better to me to believe that no evil had been created by thee, for in my ignorance evil appeared not only to be some kind of substance, but a corporeal one at that. This was because I had, thus far, no conception of mind, except as a subtle body diffused throughout local spaces. This seemed better than to believe that anything could emanate from thee which had the character that I considered evil to be in its nature. And I believed that our Saviour himself also, thy only begotten, had been brought forth, as it were, for our salvation out of the mass of thy bright, shining substance, so that I could believe nothing about him except what I was able to harmonize with these vain imaginations. I thought, therefore, that such a nature could not be born of the Virgin Mary without being mingled with the flesh, and I could not see how the divine substance as I had conceived it could be mingled thus without being contaminated. I was afraid, therefore, to believe that he had been born in the flesh, lest I should also be compelled to believe that he had been contaminated by the flesh. Now, will thy spiritual ones smile blandly and lovingly at me if they read these confessions? Yet, such was I. Chapter XI Furthermore, the things they censured in thy scriptures I thought impossible to be defended, and yet occasionally I desired to confer on various matters with someone well learned in those books, to test what he thought of them. For already the words of one Elpidius, who spoke and disputed face to face against the same Manichaeans, had begun to impress me, even when I was at Carthage. Because he brought four things out of the scriptures that were not easily withstood, to which their answer appeared to me feeble. One of their answers they did not give forth publicly, but only to us in private, when they said that the writings of the New Testament had been tampered with by unknown persons who desired to engraft the Jewish law into the Christian faith. But they themselves never brought forward any uncorrupted copies. Still thinking in corporeal categories, and very much ensnared, and to some extent stifled, I was borne down by those conceptions of bodily substance. I panted under this load for the air of thy truth, but I was not able to breathe it pure and undefiled. Chapter XII I set about diligently to practice what I came to Rome to do, the teaching of rhetoric. The first task was to bring together in my home a few people to whom and through whom I had begun to be known. And lo! I then began to learn that other offences were committed in Rome which I had not to bear in Africa. Just as I had been told, those riotous disruptions by young blackguards were not practiced here. Yet now, my friends told me, many of the Roman students, breakers of faith, who for the love of money set a small value on justice, would conspire together and suddenly transfer to another teacher to evade paying their master's fees. My heart hated such people, though not with a perfect hatred, for doubtless I hated them more because I was to suffer from them on account of their own illicit acts. Still, such people are base indeed. They fornicate against thee, for they love the transitory mockeries of temporal things and the filthy gain which begrimes the hand that grabs it. They embrace the fleeting world and scorn thee, who abidest and invitest us to return to thee, and who pardonest the prostituted Hubertan soul when it does return to thee. Now I hate such crooked and perverse men, although I love them if they will be corrected and come to prefer the learning they obtain to money and, above all, to prefer thee to such learning, O God, the truth and fullness of our positive good and our most pure peace. But then, the wish was stronger in me for my own sake not to suffer evil from them, than was my desire that they should become good for thy sake. CHAPTER XIII. When, therefore, the officials of Milan sent to Rome to the prefect of the city, to ask that he provide them with a teacher of rhetoric for their city, and to send him at the public expense, I applied for the job through those same persons, drunk with the Manichean vanities to be freed from whom I was going away, though neither they nor I were aware of it at the time. They recommended that Symechus, who was then prefect, after he had proved me by audition, should appoint me. And to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, famed through the whole world as one of the best of men, thy devoted servant. His eloquent discourse in those times abundantly provided thy people with the flour of thy wheat, the gladness of thy oil, and the sober intoxication of thy wine. To him I was led by thee, without my knowledge, that by him I might be led to thee in full knowledge. That man of God received me as a father would, and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should. And I began to love him, of course, not at the first as a teacher of the truth, for I had entirely despaired of finding that in thy church, but as a friendly man, and I studiously listened to him, though not with the right motive, as he preached to the people. I was trying to discover whether his eloquence came up to his reputation, and whether it flowed fuller or thinner than others said it did. And thus I hung on his words intently, but as to his subject matter, I was only a careless and contemptuous listener. I was delighted with the charm of his speech, which was more erudite, though less cheerful and soothing, than Faustus's style. As for subject matter, however, there could be no comparison, for the latter was wandering around in Manichaean deceptions, while the former was teaching salvation most soundly. But salvation is far from the wicked, such as I was then, when I stood before him. Yet I was drawing nearer, gradually and unconsciously. Chapter 14 4 Although I took no trouble to learn what he said, but only to hear how he said it, for this empty concern remained foremost with me as long as I despaired of finding a clear path from man to thee. Yet, along with the eloquence I prized, there also came into my mind the ideas which I ignored, for I could not separate them. And, while I opened my heart to acknowledge how skillfully he spoke, there also came an awareness of how truly he spoke, but only gradually. First of all, his ideas had already begun to appear to me defensible, and the Catholic faith, for which I supposed that nothing could be said against the onslaught of the Manichaeans, I now realized could be maintained without presumption. This was especially clear after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically, whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had killed me spiritually. However, when many of these passages in those books were expounded to me thus, I came to blame my own despair for having believed that no reply could be given to those who hated and scoffed at the law and the prophets. Yet I did not see that this was reason enough to follow the Catholic way, just because it had learned advocates who could answer objections adequately and without absurdity. Nor could I see that what I had held to heretofore should now be condemned, because both sides were equally defensible. For that way did not appear to me yet vanquished, but neither did it seem yet victorious. But now, I earnestly bent my mind to require if there was possible any way to prove the Manichaeans' guilty of falsehood. If I could have conceived of a spiritual substance, all their strongholds would have collapsed and been cast out of my mind, but I could not. Still, concerning the body of this world, nature as a whole, now that I was able to consider and compare such things more and more, I now decided that the majority of the philosophers held the more probable views. So, in what I thought was the method of the academics, doubting everything and fluctuating between all the options, I came to the conclusion that the Manichaeans were to be abandoned. For I judged, even in that period of doubt, that I could not remain in a sect to which I preferred some of the philosophers. But I refused to commit the cure of my fainting soul to the philosophers, because they were without the saving name of Christ. I resolved, therefore, to become a catechumen in the Catholic Church, which my parents had so much urged upon me, until something certain shone forth by which I might guide my course.