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LIBEAEY OF FATHERS
HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH,
ANTERIOR TO THE DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST.
TRANSLATED BY MEMBERS OF THE ENGLISH CHVECH.
YRT SHALL NOT THY TEACHJSKS BE KEMOVEU INIO A COKNEK ANY MOKE, BUT THINE EYES SHALL SEE THY TEACHERS. Isuiah XXX. 20.
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0
/
SOLD BY
JAMES PARKER & CO., OXFORD,
AND 377, STEAND, LONDON;
RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON,
HIGH STKKET, OXFORD, AND TRINITY STREET, CAMRKIDGK.
1874.
4 , •
/I
TO THE MEMOET
OF THE
MOST EETEEEND FATHEE IN GOD
WILLIAM
LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,
PEIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, FOEMEELT EEGITJS PEOFESSOE OF DITIXITY IN THE FNIVEESITY OF OXFOBD,
THIS LIBRARY
OF
ANCIENT BISHOPS, FATHERS, DOCTORS, MARTYRS, CONFESSORS, OF CHRIST'S HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH,
UNDERTAKEN AMID HIS ENCOURAGEMENT, AND CAKKIED ON FOR TWELVE YEARS UNDER HIS SANCTION,
UNTIL HIS DEPARTURE HENCE IN PEACE,
IS
GRATEFULLY AND REVERENTLY
INSCRIBED.
THE
&J^^
CONFESSIONS
OF
S. AUGUSTINE
REVISED FROM A FORMER TRANSLATION,
REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM S. AUGUSTINE HIMSELF.
OXFORD :
JAMES PARKER AND CO.
AND RIVINGTONS,
LONDON, OXFORD, AND CAMBRIDGE.
1876.
(■ \
rClNTED BV THE SOCIETY OF THE HOLY TRINITY, HOLY ROOD, OXrORD.
PREFACE
TO THE
CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
The general objects of tlie ^' Library of tlie Fathers/' have been already summarily stated. It may however be well, before entering on the particular work with which the series is commenced, to make a few observations with reference to such misapprehensions, or errors, as are not unlikely to arise. For though certainly it should seem, that the writings of men, ever venerated by the Church on whom they were bestowed, ought to be received with thankfulness ; yet, in the present state of things, some will perhaps rather be suspicious of the gift, through want of familiarity with the Fathers themselves, and the principles of our Church with regard to their value. A few words then may here be said, for the sake of such as are honestly in doubt on the subject. i More will be avoided, lest we should seem to wish to be heard ourselves, when our only wish is to obtain a hearing for those ancient witnesses of Catholic truth, and ourselves also to listen to them. At the same time, it must be said in the outset, that "authority" is not put forth as the use of the Fathers ; it is dwelt upon thus prominently, only because it is an use, about which many misapprehensions exist.
Those misconceptions may be refei^ed to three heads. 1. The amount of authority claimed : 2. For whom : and, 3. For what that authority is claimed. For it seems by some to be thought, that, 1. The authority of the Fathers will interfere with the paramount authority of Holy Scripture. 2. That it
IV PREFACE.
involves ascribing undue authority to men fallible like our- selves, and exalting the dicta of one or the other Father, which may be erroneous. 3. That the appeal to the Fathers entails a disparagement of the authority of our own Church, and innovations upon her discipline or doctrine.
They, who so think, are of course right to be jealous for these things,-^if only they be careful that they are jealous for the authority of Holy Scripture and of our Church, not for their own constructions of either ; — every Churchman should be careful that he place not any private authority, whether of ancient or modern. Father or recent teacher, domestic authority or foreign. Churchman or Sectarian, above that of his Church, or put any human authority on a par with Holy Scripture. Our Church, however, once, solemnly met, did ascribe considerable authority to the Fathers, and it will be plain, both from the circumstances, and from the tenor of the words which she used, that she therein neither derogated from her own legitimate authority, nor from the supreme authority of Holy Scripture. It is plain from the circumstances, because it was the act of the Convocation of A. 1). 1571, the same Convocation, which enforced Subscrip- tion to our Articles, — an act certainly evidencing their sense of the power of a particular Church, and one involving the claim of considerable authority; and those Articles decidedly recognising Holy Scripture, as the sole ultimate source of authority. In this very Convocation, in which she exerted her own authority, she secured also the legitimate authority of the Fathers. She then enacted.
The Clergy shall be careful neveu to teach any thixa from the pulpit, to be religiously held and believed by the people, but what is agreeable to the
DOCTRINE OF THE OlD OR NeW TESTAMENT, AND COL- LECTED OUT OF THAT SAME DOCTRINE BY THE CaTHOLIC
Fathers, and ancient Bishops.
Tlius at the same time that she was, by enforcing Subscrip- tion to the Articles, fencing herself round, as a t)articular
PEEFACE. V
Cliurcli, sbe formally maiutained her connection with the Church Catholic, and made provision that her Ministers should not narrow her teaching, but retain it as co-extensive with that of the Universal Church.
The very language of this Canon itself shews, that the rightful authority of the Fathers interferes neither with that of Holy Scripture, nor with her own.
First then, there is no semblance of " contrasting Scripture and the Fathers, as coordinate authority." Scripture is reverenced as paramount ; the " docti-ine of the Old or New Testament " is the source; the " Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops " have but the office of " collecting out of that same doctrine ; " the Old and New Testaments are the fountain ; the Catholic Fathers, the channel, through which it has flowed down to us. The contrast, then, in point of authority, is not between Holy Scripture and the Fathers, but between the Fathers and us; not between the Book interpreted and the in- terpreters, but between one class of interpreters andanother; between ancient Catholic truth and modern private opinions ; not, as is sometimes said, between the word of God and the word of man, but between varying modes of understandi'ng/ the word of God. Scripture is the depositary of the will or our Heavenly Father, His will. His covenant; but since every thing conveyed in the language of men will be liable to be by men differently interpreted, it would, of course, be a merciful provision of Almighty God, if He has been pleased to give us, within certain limits, rules for understanding that word. Now any one would acknowledge, in any man's testament, that if the father, when yet with his children, had explained to them the meaning of his testament, (whether formally reading it to them, or conveying to them its substance in other words,) such an exposition would be of great autho- rity in ascertaining the meaning of the general tenor of that testament, or of any portion of it which might otherwise seem capable of two interpretations. And if such children, when their father was no longer present here, were, when asked,
yi PREFACE.
without any wrong bias, to explain sucli will in one and tlie same way, and to declare tliat their father had told them that it was so to be understood, we should yield unhesitating assent to this testimony. Nor again would our value for that testi- mony be weakened, if, instead of the immediate children, the children's children should be the witnesses, especially had they been separated from each other in different countries, yet all agreed in the meaning which they had learnt from their several parents was to be attached to the will of their common father. All such illustrations as this must indeed fall short of the truth, because such reference to the things of men can furnish no adequate parallel to those of God. Thus, this illus- tration omits, that Holy Scripture is not a formal document, written for the purpose of conveying systematic, precise, state- ments ; or, again, that God did not leave the meaning of His word to be collected any how, or ever did employ it without living guardians and expounders, and the like. It suffices, however, for the purpose for which it is here used. It gives an instance, how in the case of such agreement as to the moaning of a document, no one would doubt about it ; (the testimony of the sons of Jonadab,tlie son of Rechab,was valid testimony as to that which their father commanded them ;) nor, in the case of a written document, would any one say that these witnesses were regarded as equal in authority to that to whose meaning they bore testimony, since the very fact of appealing to, and expounding an original document, implies that it is the ultimate source of authority ; it is not, as men say, its independence, but ours, which is denied ; it is the independent source of authoi'ity ; but we, to be satisfied of its meaning, are not independent, (as some would wish to be,) but depend upon the testimony of others. These points then are plain ; K The paramount authority of the document ap- pealed to. 2- Tlie authority of concurring testimony to its meaning, if it is to be had from those to whom its meanino- was originally explained, or their descendants. Now this is just what is claimed by our Church for the Fathers, i. e. for
PREFACE. Vll
the ancient Churcli, in whatever way its testimony is to be collected ; whether they had themselves occasion to deposit it once for all, as at the General Councils (truly so called), or whether, though not qoUected by themselves, it is still capable of being collected from them. They are witnesses, and in whatever cases agreement is to be had, they are valid witnesses, as to the sense in which God willed His Scripture to be understood. Thus, we are assured at once, without further scruple, that theNicene Creed contains the Scriptural Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, not only in case any can prove it to themselves to be such, (for as to some of its Articles many might find much difficulty in so doing,) but because we have the witness of the whole Church that it is so. We be- lieve that it " may be proved by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture'' (Art. VHI.), because it luas so proved, and the Church Universal bore witness that such was the meaningr of Holy Scripture on these aweful truths, and that such was the interpretation which they had received from their fathers, and so from the Apostles. It is our privilege, that questions so decided are closed — not against us, but for us — or, if we so will, for us against ourselves. We have ground to be satisfied that the results so gained are ti-ue, and may benefit by them, without the labour of further questioning. We are satisfied to "receive them as agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testaments," even because " the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered it out of that very Doctrine," for us as well as for themselves. The Fathers, then, are not, as some mistakenly suppose, equalled, much less preferred, to Holy Scripture, but only to ourselves, i. e. the ancient to the modern, the waters near the fountain to the troubled asstuary rolled backward and forward by the varying tide of human opinion, and rendered brackish by the continued contact with the bitter waters of this world, unity to disunion, the knowledge of the near successors of the Apostles to that of these latter times.
The same will be the case as to any other truths, " con-
VIU PREFACE.
sentaneous to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament," which the Fathers had not occasion to collect, but which still may be collected from their existing works. The Creeds, indeed, happily contain the great mass of Doctrine, although even as to these, (as is apparent from the very expositions of the Creeds, e. g. Bp. Pearson's,) a further enquiry is necessary to ascertain what is the precise meaning of these compendious statements in some of their Articles. The process in such cases may be longer, but the result the same. We become assured that we know what was the Apostolic doctrine, when we have the agi-eement of early and independent witnesses as to that doctrine.
2. There can be no notion of '^appealing to fallible men; as of ultimate authority, or setting up unduly the authority of one or other of the Fathers .'' The appeal ofour Cluuxh- is not to the Faikers, individually, or as individuals, hidjxswii::^ . nesses ; not to this or that Father, hu^JoJ^£_whole hodij, and^ agreement of "^Catholic Fathers and ancient Bisho_ps_."^ The appeal is not to S. Athanasius, or S.Cyprian, or S.Basil,much as we have reason to venerate those blessed servants of God, but to " the Church Universal throughout the world,'' to whose belief these are eminent, but still single, witnesses. We could not tell, from any single Father, unless where he directly avers it, whether any sentiment or statement of doctrinebe peculiar to himself or his own Church, or to some particular Churches, or whether, finally, it belong to the belief of the Holy Church Universal. It may be, that any given Father, on some parti- cular point, is not speaking as a witness at all, but expressing only his own individual sentiments, as an enlightened Chris- tian of the present day might. Not but that he would even then be to be regarded with deference by individuals, (unless indeed ho should be at variance with the majority of the ancients,) ])ut it would be, in part, in a different capacity. We should regard him then with respect, in that he lived in holier and more self-denying times, before the Church was divided, while the memory of the truths first delivered was
PREFACE. ix
fresher, and men's perception of the " analogy of the Faith " more vivid. There would be greater likelihood that he would be in the right, as an indlvithial, in that the tone of his mind would be more likely to be in entire accordance with that of the Holy Spirit, that he would have larger measures of that Spirit, and have no opposing prejudices to disturb His influence. There would be a greater likelihood also of his being a witness, in that the statement which he was deliver- ing, may very probably have been affected or produced by the body of Catholic truth then floating in the Church, bub Avhich has not arrived orally down to us, or for which we have, through later circumstances, a less keen perception. Still, we have thus far only a probability that he was herein speaking the truth, and it might be that he was under some secret bias of his own, as St. Augustine has generally been held to be with regard to some part of his controversy with the Pelagians. The words then of an individual Father may be only those of an enlightened man ; it is only by their harmony or unity with others, that we ascertain them to be part of the Catholic Verities. By comparing them with those of other members of his Church, (who have ever been quoted as of eminence in each Church,) we should ascertain them to be the doctrines of that Church; by comparison with other Churches, to be part of the teaching of the Church Catholic, Each Father is, in the first instance, probably a witness for the doctrine of his own Church, and indirectly, and ultimatel}', through his Church, of the Church Catholic, if so be his Church herein agree with the other Churches. For, some things we find in the African, some in the Latin Church, peculiar to those Churches ; some things, again, in two or more Churches, which yet we have no proof that they were ever Catholic. Things so held, or practices so received, (such as the re-baptizing of heretics, held in the Churches of Africa proper, Egypt, Asia Minor,) would, of course be entitled to their degree of weight, in that they were so entertained in ancient or Apostolic Churches, and
X PREFACE.
would claim the more respect, if it sliould appear that there was no positive evidence on the other side, (as in case other Churches knew not of them, but knew of no authority positively opposed to them)— still they would be to be re- garded very differently from what was universally received. It is this only, which, according to Vincentius' invaluable rule, was received "by all, in all Churches, and at all times," {i.e. that, whose beginning cannot be traced, so that it should appear that the Church ever knew not of it, and in the evidence of whose reception there are no flaws, as if it should appear not to have been held either by distmct Churches, or by eminent individuals in each Church,) which has the degree of evidence, upon which we can undoubtingly pronounce that it is Apostolic.
3. Our Church being a sound member of the Church Catholic, " there is no notion of innovating upon her doc- trine or practice," but rather of bringing out more fully how Catholic that doctrine and practice are, to determine in many cases what the meaning of her teaching is, to shew things to be Catholic and Primitive, and so Apostolic, which people, because they have only seen them in our Church, think to be human. Thus, much doctrine is contained in our Collects, much in our Sacramental Services, which, as belonging to high anticjuity, can only be fully understood by means of that antiquity whence it is derived; and which, so under- stood, will appear in its real character, as part of those primitive ordinances or teaching, which the Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit to establish or impart in the Churches, which they severally founded. Thus, as far as any appeal is made to antiquity, as in the other case, it is made, not to the disparagement of Scripture, (God forbid !) but against modern interpretations of Scripture, so here it is made, not against our own Church, or as wishing to superadd any thing to it, but against modern misinterpreta- tions of her meaning. The great object of practical and reverential men, muj^t bo, for a long time, confined to bring-
PREFACE. Xl
ing out her existing system, in its depth, beauty, and fulness : if it should please God, that these should be ever fully and generally appreciated and felt in the Church, not with the patronizing pretensions of '^ friends of the Church/' but with the dutiful devotion of sons, they, whose minds shall have been so purified and enlightened, will doubtless be guided to do what is best for their parent ; our office is not to amend her, but respectfully to learn her real charac- ter ourselves, and convey it to those who wish to know it. Rather, the office of the present generation is to restore her sons to her ; and she, when she shall again be raised from the dust, and have put on her jewels, like a bride, will be led by the Spirit of the Church, to do what is best for her children. AVhat is done for the Church, as a whole, must be done by the Church, as a whole.
The object then of recalling men's attention to the Fathers, so far as relates to the establishment of doctrine or practice, is, suhorduiatel u to Scripture, to bring out the meaning of Holy Scripture, and, with respectful deference to our Church, to lead people to see the Catholic and Primitive character and meaning of the treasures which she possesses. To those who doubt whether there be any such thing as Catholic agreement, having been accustomed to partial statements of the variations of the Fathers, it can only be said, as of old time, " Come and see ; " and we doubt not that they who have the candour of Nathanael, will, under the guise of flesh, see Him Whom they seek, — will, in His Church, see Him, Who promised to be with His Church, '^ even to the end of the world," pervading by His Spirit men of different tem- peraments, intellectual powers, learning, speech, discipline or depth or acuteness of mind, but fitting them alike, by docility and holiness, to carry on His message to the Church, and keep and transmit to us that one good thing committed unto them.
Meanwhile one or two remarks or cautions may be of use, with a view to prepare the more candid of those who have
Xn PREFACE.
misgivings about the Futlicrs, to receive tlieni, as not to receive them amiss.
It is not denied, then, that there is diversity among the Fathers ; the very contrary is implied in the veiy distinction of what is Catholic, and what is not; since, if there were no diversity, all would be Catholic. But then, as Bp. Beveridge^ well retorts the objection, " all the dissensions which have been raised among them on certain points, take nothing from their supreme authority on those points on which they agree, but rather in an eminent degree confirm it. For the fiict that in other things they have differed, most plainly manifests, that those things, on which they have agreed, they have handed dcsvii, not from any compact or agreement, not from any party formed, not from any communication of design, nor, finally, fi'om their own private opinions, but naked and unadulterated, as derived from the common and general interpretation of the Universal Church. And indeed, although, on certain less necessary points, as well of faith as of discipline, the ancient Fathers do in some little degree differ one from another, yet that very many things have been received with the fullest agreement by all, is so clear, that we may judge of it with our own eyes. For there are many things, which we see have been defined by the Universal Church in Councils truly oecumenical, many things which have been approved by the consent of several, many things by the consent of all the writers of the Church; many things, finally, concerning which there was in ancient times no con- troversy moved ; some of this class have been mentioned by us above, to which very many others may be added; those especially, which although not definitely prescribed in Holy Scripture, have yet been retained by our very pious and prudi-nt reformers of the English Church."
Any one, indeed, who would reflect how many subjects are contained in our Creeds, and how many other truths these
•• In his most valuable profacc to the of Liriiis' Commonitory, Oxford, IS'36, CoilexCniionuni. T!ie translation pre- has been employed, fixed to the Translation of Vinecntius
PREFACE. Xin
involve, liovr many again in our Liturgy, and how many prac- tices and rites are herein contained, on all which there was universal agreement in the ancient Church, will be sIoav to receive the vague assertions of the discordancy of her teachers, which are wont to be made by such as have but a superficial acquaintance with Christian antiquity. For a superficial ac- quaintance, and a superficial view, will only see discrepancy, where to one who can see a little below the surface, all is unity and harmony. The rills are different, the spring one. Then, also, the points of disagreement (where there is such) are oS"shoots, so to speak, remotely connected with the trunk, not the main stem of doctrine or practice : or they are details, where agreement is in principle ; or they are points, which have been left free for the human mind to expatiate upon, and on which no definite result has been communicated, or is to be looked for. Disagreement on such points does not aflFect agreement upon the others, unless there be no such thing as partial knowledge, or unless because " we know in part,'' we know nothing, and are to be sceptics, because we are not "as God.'' And, in truth, these notions of Christian antiquity originate in an unconscious, and may, and have ended, in a conscious, scepticism.
There is, indeed, one ground, on which people rest their despair of finding agreement in Christian antiquity, (perhaps, more truly in many cases, their hope that they may find none against themselves,) which deserves respect, for the sake of the source whence it is drawn : the descriptions of early divisions and heresies, in Holy Scripture. But the in- ference is founded on two mistakes ; 1 . The divisions were not between the recognised teachers of the Church ; nor arose in misapprehensions of their doctrine ; but the carnal among those who were taught, "would not endure sound doctrine;" and so "heaped to themselves^' heretical "teach- ers." Thus Paul and Apollos taught the same doctrine; it is the rivalry of heretical teachers, which S. Paul condemns ; in speaking whereof, S. Paul " transfers to himself and
XIV I'EErACE.
Apollos'' what otliers were guilty of, tbat tLey might ^^earn iu them," that there was to bene private teachingorauthority in the Church ; no name, however high, was to be set up as being any thing individually ; but all were to " speak the same thing '^," as having but one Gospel to deliver, and "with one mind, one mouth, glorify God''." 2. The authors of these heresies ceased to be members of the Church, " they went out from us ;" so that one must not only speak of heresies or heretical teachei's "creeping into the Church, "but of their being ejected out of it. They strove to assimilate themselves to it, but they could not; the inherent vitality of the Church separated and rejected them from it; and if they still appeared on its surface, no one could any more mistake them for the Church, than in a fair human countenance they would the foul matter, which the healthy action of the body detached from itself. Hence St. Augustine takes blame to himself, for not having been at pains to ascertain the Church's doc- trine, and having carped at what, after all, were but his own notions of it ^. So then he might have known it, had he pleased. There was a recognised body of Catholic truth, which belonged to the Church, and which whoso willed, might know to be her's. The modern doubts as to the meaning of the Church had noplace then. In truth, the existence of early heresies, so far from at all disparaging Catholic unity, the more illustrates it ; there was unity within the Church, and that unity so living and so powerful, that whoso abandoned the true doctrine ceased to be a member of it ; " they went out from us, because they were not of us." " The rejection of heretics," says St. Augustine ^ " makes the tenets of Thy Church and sound doctrine stand out more clearly." Even in a less healthy state of the Church, it becomes clear in thelong run, which doctrine was of the Church, which in the Church only ; no one, for instance, would, mistake Hoadley for a representative of the English Church, though the Church had
« 1 Cor. 1, 1(». «• Conf. vi. § 4, 5. pp. 89, 90.
•I Rom. 15, 6. t Conf. vii. § 23. p. 128.
PEEFACE, XV
not streugtli to cast liim out, but he sat in high office within her. The waters clear as they flow on ; much more then, when the primitive awe of the Church was so great, and her consciousness of the sacredness of her deposit so vi\nd, that they who violated it, stood convicted as offenders and aliens, and ''went away ashamed/'
Andnot only was the line thus distinctly drawn between the Church, and the heretical depravations of her doctrine, but, even within the bosom of the Church, Christian antiquity itself stamped the peculiar opinions, even of those whom in the main it honoured. We ourselves also, in that we speak familiarly of the harshness of Tertullian, the predestinarianism of St. Austin, Origen's speculativeuess, Arnobius' deficient acquaintance with the Gospel he defended, are witnesses that there is a tangible distinction between Catholic truth and individual opinion. We discovered not these peculiarities for ourselves, nor that they were peculiarities ; they were not discovered by any moderns, nor was it by reference to any standard of our own, that we knew them to be such ; they came down to us in the stream, along with our knowledge of the writers themselves, and previous to any acquaintance of our own with them ; i. e. together with the doctrines, and opinions, which are known to have been held by the Fathers of the Christian Church, there were handed down to us certain criteria, whereby to judge of them. We have not received (as many now seem to think) a confused heap of opinions, expositions, doctrines, errors, which we are to unravel as we may, but a well-ordered body of truth, digested into its several compartments, and arranged, what was accepted, what undecided, what rejected, for those who wish to see. Those who will, may indeed dispute, whether Catholic truth be indeed truth, or whether it must not first be submitted to their own private judgement, to receive its stamp, and so be received, not on its own authority, but on theirs, not because it is in itself truth, but because it appears to a giv^n individual to be such. But they who will,
XVI PREFACE.
will have no difficulty in ascertaining what Catholic Truth is. It is plain, well-defined, uniform, consistent.
Only we must not set up an estimate of that Truth for our- selves, and make that a criterion of it, or decide that those things can be no portion of it, which «re contrary to our own received notions. It may be, for instance, that systems of interpretation, which are now almost universally abandoned, are true, however foreign they may be to our notions, or though to us, as being foreign, they must at first needs seem fanciful. It is a vulgar and common-place prejudice, which would measure every thing by its own habits of mind, and condemn things as fanciful, to which itself is unaccustomed, sirnply because, confined and contracted by treading its own matter-of-fact round, it cannot expand itself to receive them, or has no power to assimilate them to its own previous notions, or adapt its own thought to them. It is the same habit, which would laugh at one who came from a foreign clime, in a garb to which a peasant-eye is unwonted. " He who laughs first," says Dr. Johnson, " is the barbarian." A deeper philosopher sees harmony, where the unobservant sees only discord. There is a deep unity in Creation, though the Maaichaeans could resolve its phaenomena, only upon the theory of two opposing principles ; and that unity is not the less there though he cannot see it. There is a deep unity also in the Primitive Church, God^s new Creation, although to those who reject the clue, it may become an entangled labyrinth. It were absurd for the shortsighted and unprac- tised to deny the existence of what themselves see not; what one of practised sight sees, is there, although such as have been inured all their lives to look on the surface of the ground close before them, see it not. The horses and chariots of fire were round about Elisha, although his servant saw them not, until at the Prophet's prayer, " the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw" what the Seer had all along seen ». The Angel of the Lord stood three times in 8 2 Kiiips6, 13—17.
PREFACE. XVU
the way to withstand Balaam, and the ass saw him, thouo-h the prophet saw not, but " smote the ass/' who saved him from being slain, until the Lord, who had " opened the mouth'' of the ''dumb ass, speaking with man's voice," to " forbid the madness of the prophet," " opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand." The voice came really from the cloud, although they who had no ears to hear, "said that it thundered." Saul saw Him Whom he was persecuting, and heard His words, although they that were with him heard only an indistinct voice, and saw a light, but they "heard not His voice," and " saw no man*^ : " or though Festus thought him mad for attesting what he had seen. And not in cases only of exti-aordinary revelations, but as an universal rule, S. Paul says, " the carnal man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned ' ; " he does not simply turn away from them, but being and having become what he is, he cannot see them, because he has not the faculty whereby they are discerned. Nor is that prayer without meaning, " Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law '^." It may be then that they who mock at the spiritual inter- pretations of the ancient Church, do so because themselves are carnal ; and it is antecedently probable, because they do mock. At any rate, we must not decide in our own cause ; we may not be " our own witnesses." At the same time, in this as in other cases, a distinction must be made between the general principle, (in this instance, what would to most, as being unaccustomed to it, appear an extreme of spii'itual interpretation,) and the particular applications of it. The first is Catholic, the second may frequently be individual, although in the details also there is a Catholic system, and fragments of it may frequently be traced.
The caution, however, of not confounding what is indi-
^ Acts 9, 7. 22, 9. comp. Dan. 10, 7. ' 1 Cor. 2, 14.
^ Ps. 119, 18.
b
Xviii PREFACE.
vidiial with what is Catholic, may be pi'obably needed in the opposite way. The Fathers are indeed, ahsohddy, no terra incognita which we have to explore, no sea, to which men are committed without a compass ; rather its bearings have been laid down, and its depths sounded, by our standard Anglo- Catholic divines ; and what remains to be filled up, is in detail only. Still they are relatively unknown; and it is to be expected that many mistakes might be made by ardent minds, throwing themselves at once into the rich and pleasant fields opened to them, if uncautioned. It may then be a necessary, though obvious, caution to the young, to beware of taking up at once, what may be no portion of Catholic Truth, although it occur in some particular Father, whom one with reason venerates, as also of exaggerating the import- ance of what may be new to any one, or of applying it, before he be sure that he have well grasped it. Catholic truth is indeed a bi'oad, deep, cleai*, full, all-uniting tide, the unity of the world, which it pervades, penetrates, encompasses, holds together ; yet may it be easily disturbed, so that its face should no longer purely reflect that Heaven, which ordinai'ily rests and is mirrored on its deep waters. Preci- pitancy in embracing or refusing truth may alike injure its solid reception ; but the former will, by its incongruities, cause the truth itself to be evil spoken of.
It has been, in part with a view to anticipate such an abuse of the Fathers, that the selection now proposed has been rendered so varied ; no one Father is to be taken as our model, or rule ; for no one mind can embody within itself the whole of the Catholic Faith, in equal depth ; one brings out one portion, another, another, as to each was given ; one exhibits it in one form, another in another; (although each in harmony with, and subordinate to, the " proportion of Faith,") and whoso accordingly should rest himself upon any one Father, and form himself on him, would risk taking what was peculiar to that Father, the especial hue andtinge which Catholic Truth received in his mind, rather than that
PREFACE. XIX
full Truth itself. We dare no longer say, with S. Cyprian
of Tertullian, "Da Magistrum/^ since we are no longer
practically surrounded by that Catholic atmosphere, or
imbued with that Catholic r]do<i, which should correct to us
the tendency of such exclusive study. We may not be
Augustinians, any more than Calvinists or Lutherans ; for
though S. Augustine made no system, but transmitted
Catholic Truth, unsystematized, and so unnarro wed, we might
readily form a system out of S. Augustine, as indeed the
effects of a too exclusive study of S. Augustine manifested
themselves, though in unequal degrees, in the Jansenists,
and Luther and Calvin; the Jansenists retaining most of
Catholic Truth, as uniting that study with no theories of
their own, yet still in a degree narrowing it. Our Church,
on the contrary, as it was originally of Greek origin, and
then, from the later Augustine, had blended with it more of
the character of the Western Church, so, in its reformation
and its later divines, has it united for its model. East and
West, the Fathers of all Churches, and formed its teaching
upon all. And they who would understand and carry out
her teaching, and teach in her spirit, must, as did our great
Divines of the seventeenth century, do the like.
But besides this, which is a more external caution, there
are others even more necessary, as to the habits of mind of
those who enter with affection upon this study, and to the
end with which it is to be pursued. The end then is not
discovery of new truth, for new truth there is none in the
Gospel ; not any criticism of their own Church, this were
ii'reverent and ungrateful ; not to see with their own eyes, for
they will come to see with their own eyes, but not by making
this their object; not to compare ancient and modern systems,
and adopt the one or the other, or amalgamate both, taking
of each what seems to them truth ; this were to subject the
truth of God, and the authority which He has placed over
them, to their own private judgement; it is not criticism of
any sort, no abstract result of any sort, nor even knowledge
b 2
XX PRE FACE.
in itself, but to understand and appreciate better and realize more thoroughly the estate to which God has called them, as members of that Branch of the Church Catholic, into which they were baptized, and in which, perhaps, they have been, or look to be, made His Ministers. They are not, or are not to be, theorists in the Faith, but they are placed in a certain definite practical position, involving practical duties ; their business is not to speculate how things might have been otherwise, but to live up to what they are ; not to set them- selves above their own Church, but rather, if they must discover something, discover how many Catholic points there are in her, which they have not as yet known to be such, which they have not realized or filled up.
This indeed is the great practical end of the study of the Fathers — not to prove any thing, not to satisfy ourselves of any thing, but to bring more vividly home to ovir own thoughts and consciousness the rich treasures of doctrine and devotion, which our Church has from their days brought down for us. Our Creeds and the main part and centre of cur Liturgy, being an inheritance from the same ages, of which the Fathers were " burning and shining lights," must needs receive vividness and life, from being used in the light of those ages, of which they are some of the most precious relics. And whoso, after having imbibed, according to his measure, the spirit of the Fathers, and therewith indeed drunk in the Spirit, which was promised to and dwells in the Church, shall afterwards examine our Liturgy and Offices, our Homilies, Rubrics, nay our very Calendar or our ancient Ecclesiastical Institutions, will be astonished and awed to find by what memorials of primitive ages we are jevery where surrounded, and we " knew it not," and how we have, provided for our use, so soon as we have eyes to discern it, just what people are now looking for, or feeling after.
Catholic Antiquity, rightly and devotionally studied, is calculated to satisfy these cravings, to provide a haven for those weary of modern questionings, to 1111 up Christian
PREFACE. XXI
belief to its full lieiglit and deptli, wliere we (amid wliat we give out for ji'^'^^^i'^'^'^^ statements of it, because tliey are wndoctrinal) liave often contented ourselves witb a mere skeleton, to restore a deeper study of Scripture, a more faithful fulfilment of Scripture duty, a perception of Scrip- ture duty and obligation, where now we see none, and higher duties, where we see only lower, and the privilege of having higher duty, where we think chiefly of the privilege of our unrestrained state. So, by the blessing of Almighty God, may primitive practice and primitive piety flourish again and abound in our Apostolic Church ; and she, who unites within herself East and West, and has stretched out her arms and offshoots into the four quarters of the world, and furnishes a sort of type of the Church Catholic, may realize to herself the treasures which she possesses, be a faithful medium of conveying Catholic Truth wherever God has planted her, and avoid the penalty of planting " strange slips," which, not being "planted" by her Heavenly "Father, shall be rooted up," and " the harvest be a heap in the day of grief and sorrow incurable ^."
V
The " Confessions " themselves have ever been a favourite Christian study. S. Augustine says of them himself, " The thirteen books of my Confessions praise God, Holy and Good, on occasion of that which has iu me been good or evil, and raise up man's understanding and affections to Him : for myself, they did so while they were being written, and now do, when read. Let others think of them, as to them seems right ; yet that they have and do much please many brethren, I know '"." And again, " what of my smaller works could be more widely known or give greater pleasure than my Con- fessions "^ ?" He further states their object, Ep. ad Dai-ium, Ep. 231 . " Accept the books of my Confessions, which you wished for. There see me, and praise me not more than I
' Is. 17, 11. " Retract. 1. ii. c. 6.
° De dono Porseverantiie, c. 2U.
XXll PREFACE.
deserve; tliere believe, not others about me, but myself; there mark me, and see what I was in myself, by myself; and if aught in me please thee^ there praise with me. Whom, and not myself, I wished to be praised for me. For He ' made us, and not we ourselves ; ' but we had destroyed ourselves ; and Who made, re-made us. But when you have then learnt what I am, pray for me, that I fall not away, but be perfected."
In modern times, they have been translated again and again into almost every European language, and in all loved. One may quote two sayings, prefixed to a French edition, and which bear evident marks of sincerity ; " 0 how I wish the Confessions were familiar to all who hear me, that they would read and re-read them unceasingly. For there is no book in the world more capable to take away tte human heart from the vain, passing, perishable things, which the world presents, and to cure self-love. I have known it but too late, and cease not to grieve thereat." Another says, *' The Confessions of S. Augustine are, of all his works, that which is most filled with the fire of the love of God, and most calculated to kindle it in the heart ; the most full of unction, and most capable to impart it; and where one best sees how faithfully and carefully this holy man recorded all the blcssiiigs which he had received from the mercy of God."
The Confessions seemed also well calculated to commence this " Library," as bringing to our acquaintance, through his own reflections on his natural character and former self, one of the most remarkable men, whom God has raised up as a teacher in His Church. And whatever we might beforehand expect, or whatever some may have imagined to themselves of early "corruptions of Christianity," the Fathers of this period, have more which is akin to the turn of mind of these later ages, than those of the earlier, S. Cjqjrian, perhaps, alone excepted. As, on the one hand, the remains of this period are larger, so also has the character of subsequent ages been far more influenced and more directly formed by them. Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Basil, Athanasius,
PREFACE. XXlll
Jerome, have left a much deeper impress, and moulded succeeding periods in their own character far more than the Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, or Tertullian. These acted npon, and the peculiarities of some were modified in, those who are to us intervening links, as Tertullian in S. Cyprian, Origen in S. Ambrose. And the later Fathers have in these cases preserved, more especially what is Catholic in their predecessors, free from that which belonged to their individual character. The influence of S. Augustine, especially, is very visible in Prosper of Aquitaine, S. Gregory the Great, and, in conjunction with the latter and S. Jerome, in the Schoolmen, and so has through the Reformers, descended to us and our Church. It is plain, for instance, that our Articles, in some cases, express Catholic truth through the medium of the language of S. Augustine. And it is remarkable, that a favourite work of modern times has borne the title of " Meditations of S. Augustine,^* and people have mistaken a compilation of an Abbot of Fescamp in France at the end of the twelfth cen- tmy, for that of a great Father of the African Church in the fourth. So long has his light shone, and so many, in after ages, has it kindled. But this being the case, it seemed most natural to begin with those, by whom ourselves had been — if, in these last days, imperceptibly, yet — most di- rectly formed, and through them to ascend to the former ages and the writers, who had guided them in the understanding of the common source of all knowledge, the Holy Scriptures. The subject of the Confessions would naturally give them a deep interest, presenting, as they do, an account of the way in which God led, perhaps the most powerful mind of Christian antiquity, out of darkness to light, and changed one, who was a chosen vessel unto Himself, from a heretic and a seducer of the brethren, into one of the most energetic defenders of Catholic Truth, both against the strange sect to which he had belonged, and against the Arians, Pelagians, and Semipelagians, Donatists, and Priscillianists. Such, not
Xxiv PREFACE.
an autobiography, is the object of the Confessions ; a praise and confession of God's unmerited goodness, but of himself only so much, as might illustrate out of what depth God's mercy had raised him. His proposed subject apparently was <jod's protection and guidance through all his infirmities and errors, toBaptism, whereinallhis transgressions were blotted out ; that so others who were in the same state in which he had been,might "not sleep in despair, and say, 'I cannot";' " and, accordingly, his Confessions would close, according to Ms own view, at the end of the ninth book ; the only events, which he relates, subsequent to his conversion and baptism, being those connected with his mother's death, to whose prayers he had been given. It is evidently not without reluctance, that in- the tenth book, in compliance with the importunity of some of the brethren, he enters at all into the subject, " what he then was" at the interval of ten years ; nor does he enter upon it, without much previous questioning, andlingersuponan enquiry into the nature of memor}'^, which is only in part connected with his immediate question, " By what faculty he came to know God," and not at all with the subject proposed to him. He seems to have glided into it, on occasion of his praise of God, and then to have dwelt upon it, partly through that habit of exactness of mind, which leads him to examine every question thoroughly, partly, it should seem, as keeping him from a subject upon which he had no inclination to enter. When moreover he does come to it, he coufiucs himself to such temptations as are common to all, and so would lead to remarks which would be useful to all, specially such as would increase vigilance, and omits altogether such as are peculiar to himself. Thus, of the trials, which beset his Episcopal office, love of praise is the only one which he mentions, and that, incidentally only as connected with that office. Meanwhile, his standard is manifestly (as appears, indeed, throughout) a very high one;
" Conf. b. X. § 4.
PKEFACE. XXV
iu that he felt vividly that account was to be given of all to God^ and neither eyes nor ears^ the purest of the senses, were to be allowed so to be distracted by temporal objects as to tui'u the mind from its habitual "contemplation of eternal. His observations on " curiosity/^ here and elsewhere, would probably open to most in modern times, a class of duties and dangers, of which they had little notion. Yet deeply as he had been acquainted with sin, previous to his conversion and baptism, and now with the experience often years of purity and duty, he felt it Christianly inexpedient to enter into details. The same reserve is still more observable at the beginning of the eleventh book. The question there had apparently occurred to him, whether he should mention by what means he was brought into Holy Orders : but after just alluding "to the exhortations, terrors, comforts, guidances of God" herein, he peremptorily cuts off the question, alleging that his time was " too precious to him j" and, as is known, occupies the three remaining books of the Confessions, with the exposition of the history of the Creation, (in part with reference to Manichseau cavils,) and enquiries connected therewith. His remaining writings contain very little to supply this, and that little chiefly in an extorted vindication of himself and his clergy p. The same delicacy which dictated this selection of subjects, ris observable also in the previous books of the Confessions; r«< here, indeed, the case was different ; for this was the history j, ^ of a former self, a self which had been washed away by the '■' A^ waters of Baptism, which was not the same self, and with which he had no more to do, except to praise God, that it was no longer he i. In speaking of this self, which he was not, there were not the same grounds for reserve, as in the other ; yet here also, in one remarkable instance, which may serve as a specimen, he alludes to a heinous act, aggravated by having been committed in the house of God, and on which God entailed punishment, but he does not even give a hint p See p. 225, 6, note a. i See p. 223, note at the end of book x.
xxvi PREFACE.
of wliat nature that act was ^ Although his subject is God's mercies to himself, himself is the subject which he least likes to dwell upon; and most, probably, upon analyzing the Con- fessions, would be surprised to find the comparative paucity of details, which they contain. For his principle being not to convey notices of himself, but to praise God on occasion of what had happened to him or in him, he does not accumulate instances of his own wickedness, but rather singles out par- ticular acts as instances or specimens of a class, and as furnishing occasion to enquire into the nature of, or tempt- ations to, such acts. The " Confessions " then rather con- tain a general sketch of his unconverted life, illustrated by some particular instances, than a regular biography. The details, on the other hand, which he gives as to his friend Alypius *, remarkably illustrate this absence of egotism, as does the brief sentence in which he relates his conversion, " Alypius, who always differed much from me for the better, without much turbulent delay, joined me *."
This perhaps is it, (next to the vivid account of his con- version, or the beautiful history of the last days of his mother) which has given such an abiding interest to the Confessions. With extreme naturalness, (as one to w^hom absence of self had become nature,) he passes at once from the immediate subject or fact to the principles with which it is connected, thus giving instruction as to man, or rising to the reverent, though eloquent, or rather to the eloquent, because reve- rent, praise of God. Thus his youthful sin in robbing the pear tree gives the occasion of enquiring into the nature of sins, committed without apparent temptation''; the loss of his friend, into the nature and real cure of grief''; his dedication of an early work to one known by reputation only, into the interest we bear to persons so known ^ ; the effect produced by the jollity of a drunken beggar, into the nature of joy ^
' B. iii. e. .'}. p. :^1. x li. jy
• B. vi. c. 7—10. y B. iv.
' I?, viii. ult. * B vi
" li. li.
PREFACE. XA'Vll
and the like ; yet on all occasions ending not in these inquiries^ bat naturally rising up to God, Who Alone can explain what is mysterious, satisfy our longings, restore what is defective, fill up what is void, or rather viewing every thing habitually in God's sight and in His light, and so, from time to time leading the reader more sensibly into His Presence, in whichhimself unceasingly lived andthought.
The same reference to principles gives interest to his allusions to the Manichagans, whom, as being at that time formidable to the unstable, though now a forgotten heresy, he never notices without furnishing opposite and corrective principles. The value of these continues, as lying at the root of the difficulty or temptation, which then gained proselytes to Manicheism ; the inward bane and antidote being the same in different ages, though Satan disguises his temptation dif- ferently according to the varying characters of ages, people, and climate. The principles upon which S. Augustine meets the Manicheean cavils against the Old Testament, may be of use in this day to a class which appears in a form outwardly very different ; as may the observations, (founded in part upon his own experience,) on the effect of any one indulged error to prevent the reception of other truth.
The last books are of a different character, being employed upon a subject wholly different, though with the same tacit reference to Manicheean errors and cavils ; this being a partof the practical character of S.Augustine's mind, continually to bear in mind the heresies by which his hearers were liable to be entangled, and, not in a formal way, but in a word or the turn of an expression, to convey the corrective. By those who have been chiefly interested in the former part as biography, these have been genei'ally passed over; and to persons un- accustomed to abstract thought, the discussions on the nature of time will be little attractive, nor may it altogether be desirable for one, averse to typical interpretation, and who has read Holy Scripture hitherto with modern eyes only, at once to plunge into an exposition, which necessarily exhibits
XXVUl PlJEl'ACE.
the system of tlie aucicnt Churcli iu so condensed and strong a light. Yet to others, both may be of great use; the abstract discussions, in tliat they shew how S. Augustine's acute and philosophic mind saw things to be difficulties, which people now-a-days think that they understand, because they know certain rules, to which they havebeensubjected; that, because they can refer them to a certain class of objects, therefore they understand the things themselves, and their common prin- ciple, (as, because people can refer the tides or the solar system, &c. to a principle of gravitation, that therefore they understand what is the principle of gravitation, or why bodies should possess this principle of attraction,) or because the things themselves are plain and common things, and open to observation, that therefore the hidden sources are plain and open ; or because they are regular and men know the rules, that therefore they know upon what the rule is founded. In this age then of experimental and physical science, these dis- cussions may be eminently useful, because by accumulating facts we are hiding from ourselves our ignorance of prin- ciples, and employing our knowledge as food for vanity, instead of a ground of humilit}^ ; all knowledge having two sides, and each accession of knowledge discovering to us not only something new, which we may know, but something also which we cannot know, just as our chemical analysis, as far as it has yet been carried, has at one and the same time shewn that the elements are not elements, and that there arc many more elements than before ; i. e. the further we carry our researches, and the more we explain, the more are things multiplied upon us which wc cannot resolve or explain. Our age, however, has contrived to fix its attention on the one side, the things discovered, and thus, practically to persuade itself that it is makiugprogress towards discovering all which is discoverable; whereas these are infinite; and so, discoveries, which may bo numbered, can bear no ratio to them ; and on the other hand, wc are multiplying to ourselves the things undiscoverable. To this habit of mind, it may be beneficial to
PREFACE. Xxix
see how S. Augustine toiled in discovering what to many, and to himself in a popular way, Avould seem so plain, as " what is time /' nor less interesting are his results, that it has no existence of which we can take account, except in the human mind, and that it has no relation whatever to eternity; eternity being no extension of time, and time being but a creature of God, an mcident only in eternity, which once was not, as it shall once cease to be. Not that any thing would be by this explained, but that it would appear that questions, which the human mind is fond of raising, upon the supposi- tion that eternity is but lengthened time, are inexplicable, — that it has not the data, upon which even to form them.
But these results are not the only reward of the study; for in the midst of investigations, abstract and to many dry, will occur those golden sayings, which may at once shew how his mind, amid every thing, burst upward towards his God, and may teach how things abstract may be studied devotionally. So also, amid the interpretations of Holy Sci-ipture, even those, to whom the analogy between the spiritual and moral creation is less apparent than it was to the Fathers of the Church, may still find what will be instructive to them, (e. g. the distinction between " fruit" and a " gift "",") as may the interpretations themselves be, if, without attempting to force themselves to receive what at first goes against them, they do not yet, on its account, reject what even to them may seem probable or natural, but, receiving this, are content to remain in suspense and undecided as to any further points to which they cannot yet familiarize themselves, until they become more acquainted with these also, and have seen them pre- sented from different points of view, and associated and harmonizing with others. For these interpretations are but fragments of a gigantic system, with which we have been too little acquainted, and of whose symmetry and mutual harmony we can form no notion from a first view of a detached portion. This willingness to remain in suspense » B. xiii. § 39—42.
XXX PREFACE.
for a time, receiving what seems to be true, even though it involve apparently the truth of other things which we cannot see, is a most important habit of mind, a valuable corrective of the impatience of the present day, and often the condition of our attaining to the truth at all.
A pious mind cannot be wanting in real delicacy, and, on this ground also, as well as from the indications of refinement of mind, above pointed out, it will readily be anticipated, that so devotional a mind as S. Augustine's, would notbe wanting in delicacy in alluding to the worst sins of his unregenerate state. And so it in fact is ; he specifies only two periods of sin, sin, which, alas ! under a softened name, is familiarly spoken of, by those who would be esteemed refined and "^deli- cate women.'' S. Augustine, on the contrary, uses strong terms ; he speaks of his sin in language which will be plain to those, who, in Heathen antiquity, have been accustomed to the like,but which is there made subservient to sin and vanity. But to those, who, themselves pure, have skimmed lightly over these subjects in Heathen antiquity or Christian heathen- ism, these passages will convey no notion, except that he was guilty of sin, which to himself afterwards was disgusting and revolting. These two periods of sin alluded to he is compelled to speak of, not merely as sources of sorrow and degradation, but as the chief impediments to his conversion, the latter, also, as a proof of his own exceeding weakness and slavery to sin, in that, though separated from his former mistress, and with the prospect of marriage after two years, he still relapsed into his former habits, and took to him a new concubine. There is then no gratuitous mention of sin ; nor will any one here learn any thing of sin; and while modern descriptions of penitence, veiled in language, are calculated to produce an unhealthy excitement, and may rather prepare people to imitate the sin, with the hope that they may afterwards imitate the repentance, S. Augustine, in unveiled languao-e, creates the loathing which himself felt at the sin. Moderns have an outward purity of language ; the ancient Church,
PREFACE. XXXI
with the Bible, a fearless plainness of speech which belongs to inward purity. This has been here and there modified in the translation, in consequence of our present condition ; yet it must be, with the protest, that the purity of modern times is not the purity of the Gospel ; it is the purity of those who know and have delighted in evil as well as good ; it is often the hypocritical purity, which would willingly dwell upon '^things which ought not to be named,^^ so that it does but not name them : it is a veiled impurity : and, what is in itself pure and speaks purely of things impure, it associates with its own impurity and calls impure, because itself thinks impurely. And so the very Bible has become to them, what they call " improper,^' i.e. " unbefitting them," verifying herein the aweful Apostolic saying, ""unto the pure all things are pure ; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled''.^' Thus much must be said, because it is easy to foresee that an age of spurious delicacy, i. e. of real indelicacy, will raise charges of indelicacy against passages in the Fathers, (as it does, though in a lower murmuring tone, against the Bible,) when the fault is in itself. And would that there were not occasion for the warnings of S, Augustine, and that many in Christian England did not imitate the unbaptized Cartha- ginians, or require his earnest language against being ashamed of being innocent '^ !
For it must never be lost sight of, in reference to this whole story of S. Augustine, that he himself was, during the whole period, not a Christian, for he was not baptized ; his mother had been given in marriage to one, who was altogether a heathen, until long after Augustine^s birth, (for in his sixteenth year his father wasbut recently a Catechumen, b. ii. § 6.) and, as a heathen, lived in heathenish sin; and himself, although in infancy made a Catechumen, had fallen into a sect, which could in no way be called Christian.
I'Tit. 1, 15. <^ Seep. 22.
XXxil PREFACE.
Christianity, as now in India, was then every where sur- rounded by Heathenism, which it was gradually leavening, and there was consequently a mixed race, born of inter- marriages with the heathen, or of parents who had not made up their minds to become wholly Christians, (like the "mixed multitude," which went up with Israel out of Egypt '',) and who were in a sort of twilight state, seeing Christianity but very imperfectly, although the grossness of their own darkness was much mitigated. This should be borne in mind, lest any should think that S. Augustine's descriptions of himself and his comrades furnish any representation of the then state of the Christian Church, and that consequently it even then partook of the state of degradation, in which it is at this day. It also accounts for S. Augustine's mode of speaking of his past sins in terms of strong condemnation, yet, personally, of unconcern ; as shocking and loathsome in themselves, but as what he had no more to do with, in that he had condemned them, and they had been washed away by Baptism ^.
It now remains only to add a few words upon this and former translations of the Confessions. Into our own language they have been three times translated in whole or in part. The first translation was by T. M. (Sir Tobias Matthews,) 1624. It was very inaccurately done ^ ; many of the errors were pointed out in the second translation by Rev. W. Watts, D.D. 1G50. This, however, which frequently retained the former translation, retained also a good many faults; and with some energy, it had many vulgai"isms,so that, though it was adopted as the basis of the present, the work has in fact been retrans- lated. The third was a translation of the biographical por- tions only, with a continuation from Possidius and notices of S. Augustine's life derived from his own writings by
^ Exod. 12, .'J8. Niinil). 11,4. 'A snyinp^ of the time, indicative of
*■ ('oiiip. Ills frc(|H('nt rcft'i't'iict' to liis its badness, is g'ivcn in the Biof^r. Brit.,
Baptism, B. i. c. 11. B. ii. c. 7. B.v. § 15, with some account of the author.
16. B. vi. c. 13.
PREFACE. XXXm
Abr. Woodhead of University College, "a most pious, learned, and retired person s." The former translation was used as its basis, but it is more diffuse. Copious extracts of tlie Confessions have also been given in Milner's Church History. The former translations, however, were become scarce ; and the work seemed no inappropriate commence- ment of the translations from S. Augustine, in that it gives the main outlines of the first thirty-four years of his life, until a little after his conversion and baptism.
It has been the object of the present translation to leave the Confessions to tell their own tale ; a few of the notes of the former edition have been retained, which seemed to con- vey useful information ; most have been omitted, as being employed in censuring the translation or notes of his pre- decessor, and that often in undesirable language. The present translation has been illustrated with notes, beyond what was contemplated for this undertaking generally, partly on account of the miscellaneous character of the work, in that it contained allusions to many things, which had been spoken of more expressly elsewhere; partly as being the first work of this remarkable man, made accessible to ordinary readers; partly also because this plan of illus- trating S, Augustine out of himself, had been already adopted by M. Dubois in his Latin edition, though not in his translation, of the Confessions (Paris 1776); and it seemed a pity not to use valuable materials ready collected to one's hand. The far greater part of these illustrations are taken from that edition. Eeference has, of course, been every where made to the context in the original work.
With regard to the principles of translation, the object of all translation must be to present the ideas of the author as clearly as may be, with as little sacrifice as may be of what is peculiar to him ; the greatest clearness with the greatest faithfulness. The combination or due adjustment of these two is a work of no slight difficulty, since in that 5 See Ath. Ox. t. ii. p. 455.
XXxiv PREFACE.
re-production, which is essential to good translation, it is very diflBcult to avoid introducing some slight shade of meaning, which may not be contained in the original. The very variation in the collocation of words may produce this. In the present work the translator desired both to preserve as much as possible the condensed style of S.Augustine, and to make the translation as little as might be of a com- mentary ; that so the reader might be put, as far as pos- sible, in the position of a student of the Fathers, unmodified and undiluted by the intervention of any foreign notions. The circumstances of the times, moreover, render even a somewhat rigid adherence to the original, (even though purchased by some stiffness,) the safer side, as it is that which most recommended itself to the translator. This common object of a strict faithfulness, must, of course, in a variety of hands, be attained in different degrees ; and different ways will be taken to obtain the same result. If, in parts of the present work, a more rigid style has been adopted, than will perhaps generally occur in this " Library," it was still hoped, that the additional pains, which might be requisite to understand it, would be rewarded by the greater insight into the author^s uncommented meaning which that very pains would procure, and by the greater impression made by what has required some thought to understand ; and it was an object to let S. Augustine speak as much as possible for himself, without bringing out by the translation, truths which he wrapped up in the words, for those who wish to find them. With the same view, the plan adopted by the Benedictine editors and others, of marking out for observation the golden sayings, with which the Confessions abound, has not been followed ; it was thought that they would be read better in the context; that they would be even more impressive, if attention were not called to them, but rather left to be called out ?>// them, by being read, as S. Augustine himself thought them, and as they arose; for florilegia do not make the impression, which is expected
PEEFACE. XXXV
from them ; the mind is put in an unnatural position by being called upon to admire, from without, rather than from mthin. But, chiefly, holy and solemn thoughts are not to be exhibited for admiration, like a gallery of pictures, which the eyes wander over, but whereby the heart is distracted and unsatisfied ; rather they are to be gazed at, and to be copied ; and they shine most brightly, when most naturally, amid the relief of thoughts on ordinary subjects, which they illumine. So also may we be taught how to sanctify things common, by first sanctifying the vessel, wherein they are received, our own hearts ; which, as it has been for fourteen centuries the fruit of this work of S.Augustine in our Western Church, so may it, by His mercy, again in this our portion of it.
E. B. P.
Oxford,
Feast of S. Bartholomew,
1838.
CONTENTS.
THE FIRST BOOK.
Confessions of the jifreatness and iinsearchableness of God, of God's mercies in infancy and boyhood, and human wilfulness ; of liis own sins of idleness, abuse of his studies, and of God's gifts up to his fifteenth year. page 1
THE SECOND BOOK.
Object of these Confessions. Further ills of idleness developed in his sixteenth year. Evils of ill society, which betrayed hira into theft. 19
THE THIRD BOOK.
His residence at Carthage from his seventeenth to his nineteenth year. Source of his disorders. Love of shows. Advance in studies, and love of wisdom. Distaste for Scripture. Led astray to the Mani- chceans. Refutation of some of their tenets. Grief of his mother Monnica at his heresy, and prayers for his conversion. Her vision from God, and answer through a Bishop. 29
THE FOURTH BOOK.
, Aug.'s life from nineteen to eight and twenty ; himself a Manichaean, and seducing others to the same heresy ; partial obedience amidst vanity and sin ; consulting astrologers, only partially shaken herein ; loss of an early friend, who is converted by being baptized when in a swoon ;
XXX vm co^•TE^'Ts.
reflections on grief, on real and unreal friendship, and love of fame ; writes on "the fair and fit," yet cannot rightly, though God had given him great talents, since he entertained wrong notions of God ; and so even knowledge he applied ill. 45
THE FIFTH BOOK.
S. Aug.'s twenty-ninth year. Faustus, a snare of Satan to many, made an instrument of deliverance to S. Aug., by shewing the ignorance ot the Mauichees on those things, wherein they professed to have divine knowledge. Aug. gives up all thought of going further among the IManichees : is guided to Rome and Milan, where he hears S. Ambrose, leaves the Manichees, and becomes again a Catechumen in the Church Catholic. 65
THE SIXTH BOOK.
Arrival of Monnica at INIilan ; her obedience to S. Ambrose and his value for her ; S. Ambrose's habits ; Aug.'s gradual abandonment of error; finds that he has blamed the Church Catholic wrongly ; desire of absolute certainty, but struck with the contrary analogy of God's natural Providence ; how shaken in his worldly pursuits ; God's guidance of his friend Alypius ; Aug. debates with himself and his friends about their mode of life ; his inveterate sins, and dread of judgement. 85
THE SEVENTH BOOK.,
Aug.'s thirty-first year; gradually extricated from his errors, but still with material conceptions of God ; much aided by an argument of Nebridius ; sees that the cause of sin lies in free-will, rejects the Mani- cha;an heresy, but cannot altogether embrace the doctrine of the Church ; recovered from the belief in Astrology, but miserably per- plexed about the origin of evil ; is led to find in the Platonists the seeds of the doctrine of the Divinity of the Word, but not of His humiliation ; hence he obtains clearer notions of God's majesty, but, not knowing Christ to be the Mediator, remains estranged from Him ; all his doubts removed by the study of Holy Scripture, especially S. Paul. 107
CONTENTS. XXXIX
THE EIGHTH BOOK.
Aug-.'s thirty-second year. He consults Simplicianus ; from him hears the history of the conversion of Victorinus, and longs to devote himself entirely to God, but is mastered by his old habits ; is still further roiised by the history of S. Antony, and of the conversion of two courtiers ; during a severe struggle, hears a voice from heaven, opens Scripture, and is converted, with his friend Alypius. His mother's visions fulfilled. 133
THE NINTH BOOK.
Aug. determines to devote his life to God, and to abandon his profession of Rhetoric, quietly however ; retires to the country to prepare himself to receive the grace of Baptism, and is baptized with Alypius, and his son Adeodatus. At Ostia, in his way to Africa, his mother Monnica dies, in her fifty-sixth year, the thirty-third of Augustine. Her life and character. 155
THE TENTH BOOK. "
Having in the former books spoken of himself before his receiving the grace of Baptism, in this Aug. confesses what he then was. But first, he enquires by what faculty we can know God at all; whence he enlarges on the mysterious character of the memory, wherein God, being made known, dwells, but which could not discover Him. Then he examines his own trials under the triple division of temptation, " lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride ;" what Christian continency pre- scribes as to each. On Christ the Only INIediator, who heals and will heal all infirmities. 182
THE ELEVENTH BOOK.
Aug. breaks off the history of the mode whereby God led him to holy Orders, in order to " confess" God's mercies in opening to him the Scripture. Moses is not to be understood, but in Christ, not even the first words Ju the lieouDini^ God created the heave)! and the earth.
Xl CONTENTS.
Answer to cavillers who asked, " what did God before He created the lieaven and the earth, and whence willed He at length to make them, whereas He did not make them before ?" Inquiry into the nature of Time, 225
THE TWELFTH BOOK.
Auer. proceeds to comment on Gen. 1. 1. and explains the " heaven" to mean that spiritual and corporeal creation, which cleaves to God unintermittingly, always beholding' His countenance ; " earth," the formless matter whereof the corporeal creation was afterwards formed. He does not reject, however, other interpretations, which he adduces, but rather confesses that such is the depth of Holy Scripture, that manifold senses may and ought to be extracted from it, and that whatever truth can be obtained from his words, does in fact, lie con- cealed in them. 249
THE THIRTEENTH BOOK.
Continuation of the exposition of Gen. 1 ; it contains the mystery of the Trinity, and a type of the formation, extension, and support of the Church. 2/6
THE
CONFESSIONS OF S. AUGUSTINE,
BISHOP OF HIPPO.
IN THIRTEEN BOOKS.
BOOK I.
Confessions of the greatness and unsearchableness of God, of God's mercies in infancy and boj-hood, and human wilfulness; of his own sins of idle- ness, abuse of liis studies, and of God's gifts up to his fifteenth year.
[I.] 1. Great art Thou, OLord, and greatly to be praised; P*- ^^5, great is Thy poiver, and Thy tvisdom infinite. And Thee 5] ' would man praise ; man, but a particle of Thy creation ; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou, 0 God, resistest the proud : yet ^^p ^' ^ would man praise Thee ; he, but a particle of Thy creation. 5,5. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise ; for Thou madest .us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee ^ Grant me. Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee ? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee ? For who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee ? But hoiv shall they ^^^- '^ call on Him in ivhom they have not believed? or how shall Ps. 22, they believe ivithout a preacher ? And they that seek the ^^^^ j Lord shall praise Him. For they that seek shall find Him, 7. and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee ; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee ; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith. Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of Thy Preacher '°.
[II.] 2. And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling Him into
a " Our rational nature is so great a >> g. Ambrose ; from whom were the
good, that there is no good wherein beginnings of his conversion, and by
we can be happy, save God." Aug. de whom he was baptized. Nat. Boni, c. 7.
2 Difficulties in conceiving of God.
t'ONF. myself *=? and what room is there within me, whither my God
^^- *• can come into me? Whither can God come into me, God who
made heaven and earth ? Is there, indeed, O Lord my God,
aught in me that can contain Thee ? Do then heaven and
earth, which Thou hast made, and wherein Thou hast made
me, contain Thee ? or, because nothing which exists could
exist without Thee, doth therefore whatever exists contain
Thee ? Since, then, I too exist, why do I seek that Thou
shouldest enter into me, who were not, wert Thou not in me ?
Why? Because I am not gone down in hell, and yet Thou
Ps. 139, art there also. For if I go down into hell, Thou art there.
^' I could not be then, O my God, could not be at all, wert
Uoni. Thou not in me ; or, rather, unless I were in Thee, of ivhom
11, 36. ^^,^ ^ji things, by ivhom are all things, in ivhom are all things?
Even so, Lord, even so. Whither do I call Thee, since I am
in Thee ? or whence canst Thou enter into me ? For whither
can I go beyond heaven and earth, that thence my God
J.'r. 23, should come into me, who hath said, I fill the heaven and
^^- the earth ?
[IIL] 3. Do^ the heaven andearththen contain Thee, since Thou fiUest them ? or dost Thou fill them and yet overflow, since they do not contain Thee? And whither, when the heaven and the earth are filled, pourest Thou forth the remainder of Thyself? Or hast Thou no need that aught contain Thee, who containest all things, since what Thou fillest Thou fillest by containing it ? For the vessels which Thou fillest uphold Thee not, since, though they were broken. Thou wert not Acts 2, poured out. And when Thou art poured out on us. Thou art not cast down, but Thou upliftest us ; Thou art not dissi- pated, butThou gatherest us. ButThou who fillest all things, fillest Thou them with Thy whole self? or, since all things cannot contain Thee wholly, do they contain part of Thee ? and all at once the same part ? or each its OAvn part, the greater more, the smaller less ? And is, then, one part of Thee greater, another less ? or, art Thou wholly every where, while noticing contains Thee wholly ? Ps. 18, [I^'-] ^' ^^'li^t art Thou then, my God ? What, but the
31. Lord God ? For who is Lord but the Lord ? or who is God
= " Tlioii calli'st on, whatever tluiu eome unto thee." Aug-, in Ps. 85. vol.
lovest : thou e.illest on, whatever thou iv. p. 1!)2. O. T.
callest [invitest] into thyself; thou •> Against the Manichces. See 1. vii.
callest on, whatever thou wishest to c. 1. § 2.
God's attributes to men contradictory. 3
save our God ? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent ; most merciful, yet most just ; most hidden, yet most present ; most beautiful, yet most strong ; stable, yet incomprehensible ; unchangeable, yet all-changing ; never new, never old ; all-renewing, and bringing age ujmn the Job 9, proiuP, and theij know it not; ever working, ever at rest ; still y T'^L^t gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and over- spreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. Thou lovest, without passion ; art jealous, without anxiety ; repentest, yet grievest not ; art angry, yet serene ; changest Thy works. Thy purpose unchanged ; re- ceivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose ; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains ; never covetous, yet exacting ^^^*- usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest supere- owe ; and who hath aught that is not Thine ? Thou payest ™g^*'^'' debts, owing nothing ; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy ? or what saith any man when he speaks of Thee ? Yet woe to him that speaketh not, since mute are even the most eloquent.
[V.] 5. Oh ! that I might repose on Thee ! Oh ! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good ! What art Thou to me ? In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and, if I give it not, art wroth with me, and threatenest me with grievous w^oes ? Is it then a slight woe to love Thee not ? Oh ! for Thy mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. So speak, that ps. 35, 3. I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is before Thee ; open Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am thy salva- tion. After this voice let me haste, and take hold on Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die ^ — lest I die — only let me see Thy face.
6. Narrow is the mansion of my soul ; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous ; repair Thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes ; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it ? or to whom should I >= "Every man, who followeth his own ^i. e. Let me see the face of God, siiirit, is proud." Aiig. in Ps. 141, 4. though I die (Ex. 33, 20.), since if I vol. vi. p. 266. O. T. "When the soul see it not, but it be turned away, I dflighteth in itself, itisproud; niaking must needs die, and that " the second itself the chief object which God is." death." Id. Ep. 55. § 18.
B 2
4 God's mercies in infancy.
CONF. cry, save Thee ? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and B. I
spare Thy servant from the poiver of the enemy ^. I believe,
12. 13.' and therefore do I speak. Lord, Thou knowest. Have I
J*Q- ^^^' not confessed against myself my transgressions unto Thee, and
Ps!32, 5. Thou, my God, hast forgiven the iniquity of my heart ? I
Job 9, 3, contend not in judgment with Thee, who art the truth ; I fear
Ps. 26, to deceive myself; lest mine iniquity lie unto itself. There-
Ps! l3of foi'e I contend not in judgment with Thee; for if Thou,
3- Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, 0 Lord, who shall abide it ?
[VI.] 7. Yet suffer meto speak unto Thy mercy, me, f/?«5/ and
Gen. 18, ashes. Yet suffer me to speak, since I speak to Thy mercy,
and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me,
Jer. 12, yet wilt Thou return and have compassionupon me. For what
*^- would 1 say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence
I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death.
Then immediately did the comforts of Thy compassion take
me ujD, as I heard (for I remember it not) from the parents
of my flesh, out of whose substance Thou didst sometime
• fashion me. Thus there received me the comforts of woman's
milk. For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own
breasts for me ; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy
through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou
distributest Thy riches through the hidden springs of all
things. Thou also gavest me to desire no more than Thou
gavest ; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou
gavest them. For they, with an heaven-taught affection,
willingly gave me, what they abounded with from Thee. For
this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed,
from them was it, but through them ; for from Thee, O God,
are all good things, m\dfrom my God is all my health. This
I since learned. Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me
and without, proclaiming Thyself unto me. For then I knew
but to suck ; to repose in what pleased, and cry at what
offended my flesh ; nothing more.
8. Afterwards I began to smile; first in sleep, then waking:
K So the Greek Versions and Y\i]g;. sins ; one from one's self, the other
rendering: Dm as oni, as it elsewhere from the persuasion of others; tovvhich
sifrnifies " tlie proud," not "proud tlie prophet refers, F suppose,' when lie
presumptuous sins." Tiiey interpret says,' Cleansome from niysec'retfaults
it of sins foreed on a person by the and ab alienis spare Thy servant "*
Enemy. "Tliere are two sources of S. Aug. de Lib. Arb. 1. iii. c. 10.
Wilfulness of infancy. . 5
for so it was told me of myself, and I believed it ; for we see the like in other infants, though of myself I remember it not. Thus, little by little, I became conscious where I was ; and to have a wish to express my wishes to those who could content them, and I covild not ; for the wishes were within me, and they without ; nor could they by any sense of theirs enter within my spirit. So I flung about at random limbs and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, like, though in truth very little like, what I wished. And when I was not presently obeyed, (my wishes being hurtful or unintelligible,) then I was indignant with my elders for not submitting to me, with those owing me no service, for not serving me ; and avenged myself on them by tears. Such have I learnt infants to be from observing them ; and, that I was myself such, they, all unconscious, have shewn me better than my nurses who knew it.
9. And, lo ! my infancy died long since, and I live. But Thou, Lord, who for ever livest, and. in whom nothing dies : for before the foundation of the worlds, and before all that can be called " before," Thou art, and art God and Lord of all which Thou hast created : in Thee abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all things change- able, the springs abide in Thee unchangeable ; and in Thee live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and tem- poral. Say, Lord, to me. Thy suppliant; say. All-pitying, to me. Thy pitiable one; say, didmy infancy succeed another age of mine that died before it ? Was it that which I spent with- n my mother's womb ? for of that I have heard somewhat, and have myself seen women with child ? and what before that life again, O God my joy, was I any where or any body ? For this have I none to tell me, neither father nor mother, nor experience of others, nor mine own memory. Dost Thou mock me for asking this, and bid me praise Thee and acknow- ledge Thee, for that I do know ?
10. I acknowledge Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, and praise Thee for my first rudiments of being, and my infancy, whereof I remember nothing ; for Thou hast ajopointed that man should from others guess much as to himself; and believe much on the strength of weak females. Even then I had being and life, and (at my infancy's close) I could seek for signs, whereby to make known to others my sensations.
6 Sinfulness in infants ivithout actual sin.
CONF. ^Vhence could such a being be, save from Thee, Lord ? Shall ^' ^•- any be his own artificer ? Or can there elsewhere be derived
any vein, which may stream essence and life into us, save from Thee, O Lord, in whom essence and life are one ? for
Mai. 3, Thou Thyself art supremely Essence and Life. For Thou art
^- most high, and art not changed, neither in Thee doth To-day
come to a close ; yet in Thee doth it come to a close ; because all such things also are in Thee. For they had no way to pass away, unless Thou upheldest them. And since
Vs. 102, Thy years fail not, Thy years are one To-day. How many of ours and our fathers' years have flowed away through Thy * to-day,' and from it received the measure and the mould of such being as they had ; and still others shall flow away.
Ibid. and so receive the mould of their degree of being. But Thou art still the same, and all things of to-morrow, and all beyond, and all of yesterday, and all behind it. Thou wilt do in this To-day, Thou hast done in this To-day. What is it to me, though any comprehend not this'^? Let him also rejoice and
Kx. 16, say, What thing is this? Let him rejoice even thus; and be content rather by not discovering to discover Thee, than by discovering not to discover Thee.
[VIL] ll.Hear,OGod. Alas, for man's sin! Sosaithman, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my
.Job 25, infancy ? for in Thy sight none is jnwe from sin, not even the infant whose life is hut a day upon the earth. Who remindeth me ? Doth not each little infant, in whom I see what of myself I remember not ? Wliat then was my sin ? Was it that I hung upon the breast and cried ? For should I now so do for food suitable to my age, justly should I be laughed at and reproved. What I then did was woi-thy reproof; but since I could not understand reproof, custom and reason forbade me to be reproved. For those habits, when grown, we root out and cast away. Now no man, though he
.J(.lm 15, prunes, wittingly casts away what is good. Or was it
2- then good, even for a while, to cry for what, if given, would
'' " Let US thus ronroivc of (Jod, if without clKinpfc in Himsrlf, foimiiif?
we can, as far as we can, — f?ood, things subject to cliant>(', and liable to
without fiuality ; great, without size ; no evil. Whoso thus thinks of God,
C'rcJitor,withnoneed; j)rcsiding,with- although he cannot yet find out wliat
out site; contriving allthings, witiiout God is, yet, as far as he may, piously
relation thereto ; wholly every where, avoids thinking any thing of Him,
v.ithout place; Eternal, without time; which He is not." Aug. de Trin. v. 1.
Infant malice and God's goodness. 7
hurt? bitterly to resent, that persons free, and its own eklers, yea, the very authors of its birth, served it not? that many besides, wiser than it, obeyed not the nod of its good pleasure? to do its best to strike and hurt, because commands were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its hurt ? The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence. Myself have seen and known even a baby envious ; it could not speak, yet it turned pale, and looked bitterly on its foster- brother. Who knows not this? Mothers and nurses tell you, that they allay these things by I know not what remedies. Is that too innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing in rich abundance, not to endure one to share it, though in ex- tremest need, and whose very life as yet depends thereon ? We bear gently with all this, not as being no or slight evils, but because they will disappear as years increase; for, though tolerated now, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable when found in riper years.
12. Thou, then, O Lord my God, who gavest life to this my infancy, furnishing thus with senses (as we see) the frame ' Thou gavest, compacting its limbs, ornamenting its propor- tions, and, for its general good and safety, implanting in it all vital functions. Thou commandest me to praise Thee in these things, to confess unto Thee, and sing unto Thij name, Ps. 92, l. Thou Most Highest. For Thou art God, Almighty and Good, even hadst Thou done nought but only this, which none could do but Thou : whose Unity is the mould of all things ; who out of Thy own fairness makest all things fair ; and orderest all things by Thy law. This age then. Lord, whereof I .have no remembrance, which I take on others' word, and guess from other infants that I have passed, true though the guess be, I am yet loth to count in this life of mine which I live in this world. For no less than that which I spent in my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of < forgetfulness. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did Ps. 51, 7. my mother conceive me, where, I beseech Thee, O my God, \
where. Lord, or when, was I Thy servant guiltless ? But, lo ! that period I pass by ; and what have I now to do with that, of which I can recal no vestige ?
[VIIL] 13. Passing hence from infancy,Icome to boyhood, or rather it came to me, displacing infancy. Nor did that de- part—(for whither went it?) — and yetitwasnomore. Forlwas
8 Learning to speak — boyish prayer.
CONF. no longer a speechless infant, but a speaking boy. This I ^- '• remember ; and have since observed how I learned to speak. It was not that my elders taught me words (as, soon after, other learning) in any set method ; but I, longing by cries and broken accents and various motions of my limbs to express my thoughts, that so I might have my will, and yet unable to express all I willed, or to whom I willed, did myself, by the understanding which Thou, my God, gavest me, practise the sounds in my memory. When they named any thing, and as they spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered that they called what they would point out, by the name they uttered. And that they meant this thing and no other, was plain from the motion of their body, the natural language, as it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances of the eye, gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice, indi- cating the affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, rejects, or shuns. And thus by constantly hearing words, as they occurred in various sentences, I collected gradually for what they stood; and having broken in my mouth to these signs, I thei'eby gave utterance to my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me these current signs of our wills, and so launched deeper into the stormy intercourse of human life, yet depending on parental authority and the beck of elders. [IX.] 14. O God m\ God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when obedience to my teachers was pro- posed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should serve to the " praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was l)eaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass ; multiply- ing toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, Lord, we found that men called upon Thee, and we learnt from them to think of Thee (according to our powers) as of some great One, who, though hidden from our senses, couldst hear and help us- For so I began, as a boy, to pray to Thee, my aid and refuge ; and broke the fetters of my tongue to call on Thee, praying Thee, though small, yet with no small earnest- ness, that I might not be beaten at school. And when Thou
Childish griefs rjreat to children. Inconsistency to them. 9
heardest me not, [not therehj yiviny me over to folly \) my Ps. 21,3. elders, yea, my very parents, who yet wished me no ill, ^' mocked my stripes, my then great and grievous ill.
15. Is there, Lord, any of soul so great, and cleaving to Thee with so intense affection, (for a sort of stupidity will in a way do it ;) but is there any one, who, from cleaving de- voutly to Thee, is endued with so great a spirit, that he can think as lightly of the racks and hooks and other torments, (against which, throughout all lands, men call on Thee with extreme dread,) mocking at those by whom they are feared most bitterly, as our parents mocked the torments which we suffered in boyhood from our masters ? For we feared not our torments less ; nor prayed we less to Thee to escape them. Andyet we sinned,in writing or reading or studying less than was exacted of us. For we wanted not, O Lord, memory or - ■ capacity, whereof Thy will gave enough for our age ; but our sole delight was play; and for this we were punished by those Avho yet themselves were doing the like. But elder folks' idleness is called "business;" that of boys, being really the same, is punished by those elders ; and none commise- rates either boys or men. For will any of sound discretion approve of my being beaten as a boy, because, by playing at ball, I made less progress in studies which I was to learn, only that, as a man, I might play more unbeseemingly ? And what else did he, who beat me ? who, if worsted in some trifling discussion with his fellow-tutor, was more embittered and jealous than I, when beaten at ball by a play -fellow ?
[X.] 16. And yet, I sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator and Orderer ^ of all things in nature, of sin the Orderer only,
» " Many cry in trouble and are not nificd sin." In Ps. 7. v. fin., Vol. i.
heard ; but to their salvation, not (to p. 60. O. T. " God, as He is of good
give them^ to foolishness. Paul cried natures the All-good Creator, so of
that the thorn in the flesh might be evil wills the All-just Orderer." De
taken from him, and he was not heard Civ. IJei, ii. 17." Light alone was ap-
that it should be so taken ; and it was proved by the Creator ; the darkness of
said to him, J\ly grace is sufficient for the [evil] angels, although to be or-
thee ; My strength is made perfect in dered, was not therefore to be approv-
weakness. So then he was not heard ; ed."c. 20. "Neither doth the evil will,
yet not to foolishness, but to wisdom." because it would not obey the order of
S. Aug. ad loc. Vol. i. p. 153. O. T. nature, therefore escape the laws of
k Ordinator. This distinction often the just God, Wiio ordereth all things
occurs in S. Augustine. " He said not, well." c. 21 . " It is in the power of the
' Let there be darkness, and there was evil to sin. But in sinning to effect
darkness,' and yet He ordered them, this or that by their evil, is not in their
The one He made and ordered ; the power, but of God, Who divideth the
other He did not make, yet this also darkness, and ordereth it." De Pra;d.
He ordered. But by ' darkness' is sig- Sanct. c. 16.
10 Baptism wrongly deferred ; on what grounds.
CONF. O Lord my God, I sinned in transgressing the commands of ^- ^- my parents and those my masters. Forwhatthey, with what- ever motive, would have me learn,! might afterward have put to good use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but from love of play, loving the pride of victory in my contests, and to have my ears tickled with lying fables, that they might itch the more; the same curiosity flashing from my eyes moi*e and more, for the shows and games of my elders. Yet those who give these shows are in such esteem, that almost all wish the same for their children, and yet are very willing that they should be beaten, if those very games detain them from the studies, whei'cby they would have them attain to be the givers of them. Look with pity. Lord, on these things, and deliver us who call upon Thee now ; deliver those too who call not on Thee yet, that they may call on Thee, and Thou mayest deliver them.
[XL] 17. As a boy, then, I had already heard of an eternal life, promised us through the humility of the Lord our God stooping to our pride'; and even from the wombof mymothei', who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt"". Thou sawest, Lord, how while yet a boy, being seized on a time with sudden op- pression of the stomach, and like near to death — Thou sawest, my God, (for Thou wert my keeper,) with what eager- ness and what faith I sought, from the pious care of my mother and Thy Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of Thy Christ my God and Lord. Whereupon the mother of my flesh, being much troubled, (since, with a heart pure in
Gal. 4, Thy faith, she even more lovingly travailed in birth of my sal- vation,) would in eager haste have provided for my consecra- tion and cleansing by the healthgiving sacraments, confessing Thee, Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, unless I had sud- denly recovered. And so, as if I must needs be again polluted should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the defile- ment of sin would, after that washing, bi'ing greater and more perilous guilt. I then already believed ; and my mother, and
' " Tliat the cause of all disease, admission as a Catechumen, previous to
i. e. pride, inip^ht be cured, the Son of Baptism, denoting the purity and un-
God came down and liumliled Himself, corrnptedness and discretion required
For pride doth its own will ; humility of Christians. See S.Aug.deCatechiz.
the will of God." Aug. Tr. 25. in Joh. rudib. c. 26., Select Treatises p. 237
p. .393. O. T, O. T.; Council. Carth. 3. can. 5; and
"A rite in the Western Churches, on Liturgies in Assem. Cod. Liturg. t. i.
Aug. compelled to learn ; God's xvisdom herein.
11
the whole household, except my father : yet did not he pre- vail over the power of my mother's piety in me, that as he did not yet believe, so neither should I. For it was her earnest care, that Thou my God, rather than he, shouldest be my father ; and in this Thou didst aid her to prevail over her husband, whom she, the better, obeyed, therein also obeying Thee, Who hast so commanded.
18. I beseech Thee, my God, I would fain know, if so Thou wiliest, for what purpose my baptism was then defer- red ? Was it for my good that the rein was laid loose, as it were, upon me, for me to sin ? or was it not laid loose ? If not, why does it still echo in our ears on all sides, " Let him alone, let him do as he will, for he is not yet baptized ? " but as to bodily health, no one says, " Let him be worse wounded, for he is not yet healed." How much better then, had I been at once healed ; and then, by my friends' dili- gence and my own, my soul's recovered health had been kept safe in Thy keeping who gavest it. Better truly. But how many and great waves of temptation seemed to hang over me after my boyhood ! These my mother foresaw ; and pre- ferred to expose to them the clay whence I might afterwards be moulded, than the very cast, when made '^.
[XXL] 19. In boyhood itself, however, (so much less dreaded j for me than youth,) I loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Yet I was forced ; and this was well done towards me, , , but I did not well ; for, unless forced, I had not learnt. But no one doth well against his will, even though what he doth, be well. Yet neither did they well Avho forced me, but what was well came to me fi*om Thee, my God. For they were regardless howl should employ what they forced me to learn, except to satiate the insatiate desires of a wealthy beggary, and a shameful glory. But Thou, by whom the very hairs of Matt. our head are numbered, didst use for my good the error of all ' who urged me to learn ; and my own, who would not learn, Thou didst use for my punishment — a fit penalty for one, so small a boy and so great a sinner. So by those who did not well. Thou didst well for me ; and by my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For Thou hast commanded, and so it is, that evei'y inordinate affection should be its own punishment.
° His unregenerate nature, on which the image of God was not yet im- pressed, rather than the regenerate.
12 Poetry a vanity to the unre generate.
CONF. [XIII.] 20. But why did I so much hate the Greek, which ■ P- ^•_ I studied as a boy ? I do not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved ; not what my first masters, but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons, reading, writing, and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty as any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but Ps. 78, from the sin and vanity of this life, because / was flesh, and a breath that passeth away and cometh not again ? For those first lessons were better certainly, because more cer- tain ; by them I obtained, and still retain, the power of reading what I find written, and myself writing what I will ; whereas in the others, I Avas forced to learn the Avanderings of one ^Eneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for dead Dido, because she killed herself for love ; the while, with dry eyes, I endured my miserable self dying among these things, from Thee, O God my life.
21. For Avhat more miserable than a miserable beinsr who commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to ^neas/I)ut weeping not his own death for want of love toThee, O God. Thou light of my heart. Thou bread of my inmost soul. Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating
Jas. 4, 4. there echoed " Well done ! well done !" for the friendship of this ivorld is fornication against Thee ^ ; and " Well done ! well done ! " echoes on till one is ashamed not to be thus a man. And all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido slain, and "seeking by the sword a stroke and wound extreme," myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and lowest of Thy creatures, having forsaken Thee, earth passing into the earth. And if forbid to read all this, I was grieved that I might not read what gi'ieved me. Madness like this is thought a higher and richer learning, than that by which I learned to read and write.
22. But now, my God, cry Thou aloud in my sovd; and let Thy trutli tell me, " Not so, not so. Far better was that first study." For, lo, I would readily forget the wanderings of yEneas and all the rest, rather than how to read and
° "To forsake that Olio (iood for tlie ronnnit fornication ajyainst God." multitude of pleasures, the love of the Au^. Serni. 142. 2. [on the N. T. world, and earthly corruption, is to p. 658. O. T.]
Irksomeness of learning tempered by God to good. 13
write. But over the entrance of the Grammar School is a vail P drawn ! true ; yet is this not so much an emblem of aught recondite, as a cloke of error. Let not those, whom I no longer fear, cry out against me, while I confess to Thee, my God, whatever my soul will, and acquiesce in the condemnation of my evil ways, that I may love Thy good ways. Let not either buyers or sellers of grammar-learning cry out against me. For if I question them whether it be true, that ^Eneas came on a time to Carthage, as the Poet tells, the less learned will reply that they know not, the more learned that he never did. But should I ask with what letters the name "^Eneas " is written, every one who has learnt this will answer me aright, as to the signs which men have con- ventionally settled. If, again, I should ask, what might be forgotten with least detriment to the concerns of life, reading and writing or these poetic fictions ? who does not foresee, what all must answer who have not wholly forgotten them- selves? I sinned, then, when as^J^oj I preferred those^empty \ ' to those more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and i hated the other. " One and one, two;" " two and two, four;" 1 this was to me a hateful sing-song : " the wooden horse lined with armed men," and "the burning of Troy," and " Creusa's ^n. 2. shade and sad similitude," were the choice spectacle of my vanity.
[XIV.] 23. Why then did I hate the Greek classics, which have the like tales ? For Homer also curiously wove the like fictions, and is most sweetly-vain, yet was he bitter to my boyish taste. And so I suppose would Virgil be to Grecian children, when forced to learn him as I was Homer. Diffi- culty, in truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as it were, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me understand I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments. Time was also, (as an infant,) I knew no Latin : but this I learned without fear or suffering, by mere observation, amid the caresses of my nursery and jests of friends, smiling and sportively encouraging me. This I learned without any
p The " vail " was an emblem of ho- and the school itself, besides being a
nour, used in places of worship, andsub- mark of dignity, may, as S. Aug. per-
sequently in courts of law. Emperors' haps implies, have been intended to
palaces, and even private houses. See denote the hidden mysteries taught
Du Fresne and Hoffmann sub v. That therein, and that the nias.s of mankind
between the vestibule, or proscholium, were not fit hearers of truth.
14 Evils in classical study,
CONF. pressure of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me ^' ^' — to give birth to its concei^tions, which I could only do by learning words not of those who taught, but of those who talked with me ; in whose ears also I gave birth to the thoughts, whatever I conceived. No doubt then, that a free curiosity has more force in our learning these things, than a frightful enforcement. Only this enforcement re- strains the rovings of that freedom, through Thy laws, O my God, Thy laws, from the master's cane to the martyr's trials, being able to temper for us a wholesome bitter, recalling us to Thyself from that deadly pleasure which lures us from Thee. [XV.] 24. Hear, Lord, my prayer ; let not my soul faint under Thy discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto Thee all Thy mercies, whereby Thou hast drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that Thou mightest become a delight to me above all the allurements which I once pursued ^ ; that I may most entirely love Thee, and clasp Thy hand with all my affections, and Thou mayest yet rescue me from every temptation, even unto the end. For, lo, O Lord, my King and my God, for Thy service be whatever useful thing my childhood learned ; for Thy service, that I speak — write — read — reckon. For Thou didst grant me Thy discipline, while I was learning vanities ; and my sin of delighting in those vanities Thou hast forgiven. In them, indeed, I learnt many a useful word, but these may as well be learned in things not vain ; and that is the safe path for the steps of youth. [XVL] 25. But woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom ! Who shall stand against thee ? How long shalt thou not be dried up ? How long roll the sons of Eve into that huge and hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overj^ass who climb the Cross "^ ? Did not I read in thee of Jove the thunderer and the adulterer ? Both, doubtless, he could not be ; but so the feigned thunder might countenance and pander to real adult- ery. And now which of our gowned masters, lends a sober ear to one* who from their own school cries out, "These were
1 " For the love of things temporal world, nor was there any way of pass- can only be overcome in us by a certain ing^ tothycountry.unlessthou be borne pleasureableiiess of things eternal." on the Cross. Himself was made the Aug-, do Musica, vi. 16. MY///,and that through the sea; — thou,
' " Why was He crucified ? Because wlio canst not, as He, walk on the sea,
the 'wood' of His humility was need- be borne in a ship, be borne on the
ful for thee. For thou wert swollen wood ; believe in the Crucified, and
through pride, and wert cast out far tliou mayest arrive." Aug. in Joan,
from that thy country; and the way Tr. ii. 4. p. 23.0. T. was intercepted by the waves of this ' Cic. Tuscul. I. i. c. 26.
degrading God and man. 15
Homer's fictions, transferring things human to the gods ; would he had brought down things divine to us !" Yet more truly had he said, " These are indeed his fictions ; but attri- buting a divine nature to wicked men, that crimes might be no longer crimes, and whoso commits them might seem to imitate not abandoned men, but the celestial gods."
26. And yet, thou hellish torrent, into thee are cast the sons of men with rich rewards, for compassing such learn- ing ; and a great solemnity is made of it, when this is going on in the forum, within sight of laws appointing a salary be- side the scholar's payments ; and thou lashest thy rocks and roarest, " Hence words are learnt ; hence eloquence ; most necessary to gain your ends, or maintain ojjinions." As if we should have never known such words as "golden shower," "lap," "beguile," "temples of the heavens," or others in that passage, unless Terence had brought a lewd youth upon the stage, setting up Jupiter as his example of seduction *.
Viewing a picture, wliere the tale was drawn, Of Jove's descending in a golden shower To Danae's lap, a woman to beguile.
And then mark how he excites himself to lust as by celestial authority ;
And what God ? Great Jove, Who shakes heav'n's highest temples with his thunder. And I, poor mortal man, not do the same! I did it, and with all my heart I did it.
Not one whit more easily are the words learnt for all this vileness ; but by their means the vileness is committed with less shame. Not that I blame the words, being, as it were choice and j)recious vessels ; but the wine of error which is drunk to us in them by intoxicated teachers ; and if we, too, drink not, we are beaten, and have no sober judge to whom we may appeal. Yet, O my God, (in whose presence I now without hurt may remember this,) all this unhappy I learnt willingly Avith great delight, and for this was pronounced a hoj^eful boy.
[XVII.] 27. Bear with me, my God, while I say somewhat of my wit. Thy gift, and on what dotages I wasted it. For a task was set me, troublesome enough to my soul, upon terms
t Coleman's Terence, Eunuch, act iii. sc. 5.
16 Human knowledge preferred to divine.
CONF. of praise or shame, and fear of stripes, to speak the words of ^ *• Juno, as she raged and mourned that she could not
This Trojan prince from Latium turn. Which words I had heard that Juno never uttered ; but we were forced to go astray in the footsteps of these poetic fictions, and to say in prose much what he expressed in verse. And his speaking was most applauded, in whom the passions of rage and grief were most preeminent, and clothed in the most fitting language, maintaining the dignity of the cha- racter. What is it to me, O my true life, my God, that my declamation was applauded above so many of mine own age and class ? Is not ail this smoke and wind ? And was thei'e nothing else whereon to exercise my wit and tongue ? Thy praises, Lord, Thy praises might have stayed the yet tender shoot of my heart by the prop of Thy Scriptures ; so had it not trailed away amid these empty trifles, a defiled prey for the fowls of the air. For in more ways than one do men sacrifice to the rebellious angels.
[XVIIL] 28. But what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went out from Thy presence, O my God, when men were set before me as models, who, if in relating some action of theirs, in itself not ill, they committed some bar- barism or solecism, being censvired, were abashed; but when in rich and adorned and well-ordered discourse they related their own disordered life, being bepraised, they gloried? These things Thou seest. Lord, and boldest Thy peace; Ps. 86, long-svffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. Wilt Thou hold Thy peace for ever? And even now Thou drawest out of this horrible gulf the soul that seeketh Thee, that thirsteth Ps. 27, 8. for Thy pleasures, ivhose heart saith unto Thee, I have sought Rom. 1, 77/// face ; Thy face, Lord, will I seek. For darkened -aWec-
21 . . ./ ./ ^
tion is removal from Thee. For it is not by our feet, or change of place, that men leave Thee, or return unto Thee. Or did that Thy younger son look out for horses or chariots, or ships, fly with visible wings, or journey by the motion of liis limbs, that he might in a far country Avaste in riotous living all Thou gavest at his departure ? A loving Father, when Thou gavest, and more loving unto him, when he returned empty. So then in lustful, that is, in darkened affections, is the true distance from Thy face,
29. Behold, O Lord God, yea, behold patiently as Thou
Inconsistent wayivardness of his childhood. 17
art wont, how carefully the sons of men observe the cove- nanted rules of letters and syllables received from those who spake before them, neglecting the eternal covenant of ever- lasting salvation received from Thee. Insomuch, that a teacher or learner of the hereditary laws of pronunciation will more offend men, by speaking without the aspirate, of a "iiman being," in despite of the laws of grammar, than if he, a "human being," hate a '"human being" in despite of Thine. As if any enemy could be more hurtful than the hatred with which he is incensed against him ; or could wound more deeply him whom he persecutes, than he wounds his own soul by his enmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as therecordof conscience, "that he isdoing to another what from another he wouldbe loath to suffer." How deep are Thy ways, O God, Thou only greoXythat sittest silent on high, Is. 33, 5. and by an unwearied law dispensing penal blindness to law- less desires. In quest of the fame of eloquence, a man standing before a human judge, surrounded by a human throng, de- claiming against his enemy with fiercest hatred, will take heed most watchfully, lest, by an error of the tongue, he murder the word "human being;" but takes no heed, lest, through the fury of his spirit, he murder the real human being ".
30. This was the world at whose gate unhaj^py I lay in my boyhood; this the stage, Avhere I had feared more to commit a barbarism, than having committed one, to envy those who had not. These things I speak and confess to Thee, my God; for which I had praise from them, whom I then thought it all virtue to please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein I was cast away from Thine eyes. Before them what more Ps. 31, foul than I was already, displeasing even such as myself ? with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows, and restlessness to imitate them ! Thefts also I committed, from my parents' cellar and table, enslaved by greediness, or that I might have to give to boys, who sold me their play, which all the while they liked no less than I. In this play, too, I often sought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain desire of preeminence. And what could I so ill endure, or,
" Lit. is careful not to say " inter liominibus," but takes no care, lest — he destroy " lioniinem e.K hominibus."
18 AU admirable in him, hut his sin.
CONF. Avhen I detected it, upbraided I so fiercely, as that I was -^- '•- doing to others? and for which, if detected, I was upbraided, I chose rather to quarrel, than to yield. And is this the innocence of boyhood ? Not so. Lord, not so ; I cry Thy mercy, O my God. For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very sins are transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just as severer punish- ments displace the cane. It was the low stature then of child- liood, which Thou our King didst commend as an emblem of Matt. lowliness, when Thou saidst. Of such is theVingdom of heaven. ''*' ' * 31. Yet, Lord, to Thee, the Creator and Governor of the universe, most excellent and most good, thanks were due to Thee our God, even hadst Thou destined for me boyhood only. For even then I was, I lived, and felt ; and had an i implanted providence over my own well-being, — a trace of that mysterious Unity% whence I was derived ; — I guarded by ' the inward sense the entireness of my senses, and in these minute pursuits, and in my thoughts on things minute, I learnt to delight in truth, I hated to be deceived, had a vigorous memory, was gifted with speech, was soothed by friendship, avoided pain, baseness, ignorance. In so small a creature, what was not wonderful, not admirable ? But all are gifts of my God ; it was not I, who gave them me; and good these are, and these together are myself. Good, then, is He that made me, and He is my good ; and before Him will I exult for every good which of a boy I had. For it was my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures — myself and others ^I sought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell head- long into sorrows, confusions, errors. Thanks be to Thee, my joy and my glory and my confidence, my God, thanks be to Thee for Thy gifts ; but do Thou preserve them to rtie. For so wilt Thou preserve me, and those things shall be en- larged and perfected, which Thou hast given me, and I myself shall be with Thee, since even to be Thou "hast given me.
X " To be, is no other tlian to be one. things compounded, imitate unity by
In as far,th('iTf()re, as any thinar attains the harmony oftheirparts, and, so far
unity, in so far it 'is.' For unity work- as tlioy attain to unity, tlicy arc.
etii congTuity and iiarinony, whereby Wherefore orderand rule secure beini>-,
things composite are, in so far as tliey disorder tends to not-being." Aug. de
are: for tilings unconipounded are in morib. Manich. c. 6. themselves, because they are one ; but
THE SECOND BOOK.
Object of these Confessions. Further ills of idleness developed in his sixteenth year. Evils of ill society, which betrayed him into theft.
[I.] 1. I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul: not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God. For love of Thy love I do it ; reviewing my most wicked ways in the very bitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow sweet unto me ; (Thou sweetness never failing, Thou blissful and assured sweetness ;) and gathering me again out of that my dissipation, whereini was torn peacemeal,while turned fromThee, the One Good, I lost myself among a multijilicity of things ^ For I eve n burnt in my youth heretofore, to be satiated in things below ; and I dared to grow wild again, with these various and shadowy loves : my beauty consumed aivay, and I stank in Thine eyes; pleasing myself, and desirous to please in the eyes of men.
[II.] 2. And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be beloved ? but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship's bright boundary ; but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumedup which becloudedand overcastmy heart, thati could not discern the clear brightness of love, from the fog of lust- fulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunkme in a gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clank- ing of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, -and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy ! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from
» " For as in a circle, however large, one point, whateverpoint you take, the
there is one middle point, whither .all greater number of lines you draw, the
converge, called by Geometricians the more is every thing confused ; so the
centre, and although the parts of the soul is tossed to and fro by the/ very
whole circumference maybe divided vastness of things, and is crushed by a
innumerably, yet is there no other real destitution, in that its own nature
point save that one, fiom which all compels it every where to seek One
measure equally, and which, by a cer- Object, find the multiplicity suffers it
tain law of evenness, hath the sove- not." Aug. de Ordine i. 2. inf. ix. c.
reignty over all — but if yrm leave this 4. § 10. xii. Ifi. fin.
C 2
20 Mali's neylect of youth, and God's care of it.
CONF. Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows,
■ *^' '^' and a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.
3. Oh ! that some one had then attempered my disorder, and
turned to account the fleeting beauties of these, the extreme
points of Thy creation ! had put abound to their pleasurable-
ness,that so the tides of my youth mighthavecast themselves
upon the marriage shore, if they could not be calmed, and
kept within the object of a family, as Thy law prescribes,
OLord: who this wayformestthe oftsjoring of this our death,
being able with a gentle hand to blunt the thorns, which
were excluded from Thy paradise ? For Thy omniiDotency is
not far from us, even when we be far from Thee. Else ought
I more watchfully to have heeded the voice from the clouds ;
1 Cor. 7, Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I sjJare
, r 1 y^^^' -^"^ij ^^ ^^ good for a man not to touch a ivoman. And,
ver. 32, he that is unmarried thinketh of the things of the Lord, how
he may please the Lord ; but he that is married careth for
the things of this ivorld, how he may please his wife.
4. To these words I should have listened more atten-
Mat. 19, tively, and being severed /or the kingdom of heaven's sake,
had more happily awaited Thy embraces ; but I, poor wretch,
foamed like a troubled sea, following the rushing of mj'^ own
tide, forsaking Thee, and exceeded all Thy limits ; yet I
escaped not Thy scourges. For what mortal can ? For Thou
wert ever with me mercifully rigorous, and besprinkling with
mostbitter alloy all my unlawful pleasures : that I might seek
pleasures without alloy. But where to find such, I could not
discover save in Thee, O Lord, who tea chest by sorrow^, and
Deut. woundest us, to heal ; and killest us, lest we die from Thee. 32 39. .
' ' Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of
Thy house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when i the madness oflust (to which liuman shamelessnessgiveth free license, though unlicensed by Thy laws) took the rule over me, and I resigned myself wholly to it ? My friends mean- while took no care by marriage to save my fall ; their only care was that I should learn to speak excellently, and be a persuasive orator.
^ Ts. 93, 20. ^'ulf?. liit. "fornipst those Thy sons, that they should not
trouble in or as a precept." Tliou niak- be without fear, lest they should love
est to usapreeept out of trouble, so that something else, and forufet Thee, their
trouble itselfshall be a precept to us, i.e. true jjood. S. Aug. ad ioc. Vol. iv. pp.
hast willed se to discipline and instruct 37(J, 1)77. O. T.
Effects of idleness — his mother'' s fears for him. 21
[III.] 5. For that year were my studies intermitted: whilst after my retm-n from Madaura % (a neighbour city, whither I had journeyed to learn grammar and rhetoric,) the expenses for a further journey to Carthage were being provided for me ; and that, rather by the resolution than the means of my father, who was but a poor freeman of Thagaste. To whom tell I this ? not to Thee, my God ; but before Thee to mine own kind, even to that small portion of mankind as may light upon these writings of mine. And to what purpose ? that whosoever reads this, may think out of what depths ive are K. 130, to cry unto Thee. For what is nearer to Thine ears thanaT^ confessing heart, and a life of faith ? Who did not extol my-^ father, for that beyond the ability of his means, he would furnish his son with all necessaries for afar journey for his studies' sake ? For many far abler citizens did no such thing for their children. But yet this same father had no concern, how I grew towards Thee, or how chaste I were ; so that I ' were but copious in speech, however barren I were to Thy culture, O God, who art the only true and good Lord of Thy field, my heart.
6. But while in that my sixteenth year I lived with my parents, leaving all school for a while, (a season of idleness being interposed through the narrowness of my parents' fortunes,) the briers of unclean desires grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to root them out. When that my father saw me at the baths, now growing toward manhood, and endued with a restless youthfulness, he, as already hence anticipating his descendants, gladly told it to my mother ; rejoicing in that tumult of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself, through the fumes of that invisi- ble wine of its self-will, turning aside and bowing down to the very basest things. But in my mother's breast Thou hadst already begun Thy temple, and the foundation of Thy holy habitation, whereas my father was as yet but a catechu- men, and that but recently. She then was startled with an holy fear and trembling; and though I was not as yet bap- tized, feared for me those crooked ways, in which they walk, who tu7m their back to Thee, and not their face. Jer.2, /.
« Formerly an episcopal city ; now a " his fatliers," in a letter persuading- small village. At this time the inhabit- them to embrace the Gospel. Ep. ants were heathen. S. Aug. calls f hem 232.
23 God spake to him through his mother — men ashamed not to sin.
CON'F. 7. Woe is me ! and dare I say that Thou heldest Thy peace, ^- "• O my God, while I wandered fm-ther from Thee? Didst Thou
then indeed hold Thy peace to me ? And whose but Thine were these words which by my mother. Thy faithful one,Thou sangest in my ears ? Nothing whereof sunk into my heart, so as to do it. For she wished, and I remember in private with great anxiety warned me, " not to commit fornication ; but especially never to defile another's wife." These seemed to me womanish advices, which I should blush to obey. But they were Thine, and I knew it not : and I thought Thou wert silent, and that it was she who spake ; by whom Thou wert not silent unto me; and in her wast despised by me, her Ps. 116, son, the son of Thy handmaid, TJiy servant. But I knew it ^^' not; and ran headlong with such blindness, that amongst my
equals I was ashamed of a less shamelessness, when I heard them boast of their flagitiousness,yea, and the more boasting, the more they were degraded : and I took pleasure, not only in the pleasure of the deed, but in the praise. What is worthy of dispraise but Vice ? But I made myself worse than I was, that I might not be dispraised ; and when in any thing I had not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would say that I had done what I had not done, that I might not seem contempti- ble in proportion as I was innocent ; or of less account, the more chaste.
8. Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, and wallowed in the mire thereof, as if in a bed of spices, and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the faster to its very centre, the invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, for that I was easy to be seduced. Neither .ler, 51, did the mother of my flesh, (who had now fled out of the ^- centre ofBabylon,yet went more slowly inthe skirts thereof,)
as she advised me to chastity, so heed what she had heard of me from her husband, as to restrain within the bounds of conjugal aflection, (if it could not be pared away to the quick,) what she felt to be pestilent at present, and for the future dangerous. She heeded not this, for she feared, lest a wife should prove a clog and hindrance to my hopes. Not those hopes of the world to come, which my mother reposed in Thee ; but the hope of learning, Avhich both my parents were too desirous I should attain; my father, because he had next to no thought of Thee, and of me but vain conceits ;
Aug's theft for the mere pleasure of thieving. 23
my mother, because she accounted that those usual courses of learning would not only be no hindrance, but even some furtherance towards attaining Thee. For thus I conjecture, recalling, as well as I may, the disposition of my parents. The reins, mean time, were slackened to me, beyond all temper of due severity, to spend my time in sport, yea, even unto dissoluteness in whatsoever I affected. And in all was a mist, intercepting from me, O my God, the brightness of Thy truth ; and 7nine iniquity burst out as from very fatness, ps, 73^
[IV.] 9. Theft is punished by Thy law, O Lord, and ^• the law written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not. For what thief will abide a thief ? not even a rich thief, one stealing through- want. Yet I lusted to thieve, and did it, compelled by no hunger, nor poverty, but through a cloyedness of welldoing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. For 1 stole that, of which I had enough, and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft and sin itself. A pear tree there was near our vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor taste. To shake and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late one night, (having according to our pestilent custom prolonged our sports in the streets till then,) and took huge loads, not for our eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having only tasted them. And this, but to do, what we liked only, because it was misliked. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom of the bottomless pit. Now, behold let my heart tell Thee, what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, and I loved it ; I loved to perish, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself. Foul soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter destruction; not seeking aught through the shame, but the shame itself!
[V.] 10. For there is an attractiveness in beautiful bodies, ■ in gold and silver, and all things ; and in bodily touch, sym- pathy hath much influence, and each other sense hath his proper object answerably tempered. Worldly honour hath also its grace, and the power of overcoming, and of mastery; whence springs also the thirst of revenge. But yet, to obtain all these, we may not depart from Thee, O Lord, nor decline from Thy law. The life also which here we live hath its own
24 All sin proposes some end ;
CONF. enchantment, through a certain proportion of its own, and a
^- "• correspondence with all things beautiful here below. Human
friendship also is endeared with a sweet tie, by reason of
the unity formed of many souls. Upon occasion of all these,
and the like, is sin committed, while through an immoderate
inclination towards these goods of the lowest order, the better
and higher are forsaken '', — Thou, our Lord God, Thy truth,
and Thy law. For these lower things have their delights,
Ps. 64, but not like my God, who made all things ; for i7i Him doth
^^' the righteous delight, and He is the joy of the upright in
heart.
11. When, then, we ask why a crime was done, we be- lieve it not, unless it appear that there might have been some desire of obtaining some of those w^hich we called lower goods, or a fear of losing them. For they are beautiful and comely ; although compared with those higher and beatific goods, they be abject and low. A man hath mur- dered another; why? he loved his wife or his estate; or would rob for his own livelihood; or feared to lose some such thing by him ; or, wronged, was on fire to be revenged. Would any commit murder upon no cause, delighted simply in murdering ? Who would believe it ? For as for that furious and savage man, of whom it is said that he was gratuitously evil and cruel, yet is the cause assigned® ; "lest" (saith he) " through idleness hand or heart should grow in- active." And to what end? That, through that practice of guilt, he might, having taken the city, attain to honours, empire, riches, and be freed from fear of the laws, and his embarrassments from domestic needs, and consciousness of villanies. So then, not even Catiline himself loved his own villanies, but something else, for whose sake he did them. [VI.] 12. What then did wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine, thou deed of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age ? Lovely thou wert not, because thou wert theft. But art thou any thing, that thus I speak to thee ? Fair were the pears we stole, because they were Thy creation, Thou fairest of all. Creator of all. Thou good God ; God, the sovereign good and my true good. Fair those pears, but not them
d«* We convict theniindof sin, when them." Aufif. de Lib. Arb. iii. 1. wc convict it of prcfcrrinpr the lower e Sallust. de Bell. Catil. c. 9. ti)ings, forsaking the hitherto enjoy
imitates pervertedly some excellence of God. 25
did my wretched soul desire ; for I had store of better, and those I gathered, only that I might steal. For, when gathered, I flung them away, my only feast therein being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy. For if aught of those pears came within my mouth, what sweetened it was the sin. And now, O Lord my God, I enquire what in that theft delighted me ; and behold it hath no loveliness ; I mean not such love- liness as injustice and wisdom; nor such as is in the mind and memory, and senses, and animal life of man ; nor yet as the stars are glorious and beautiful in their orbs; or the earth, or sea, full of embryo-life, replacing by its birth that which decayeth ; nay, nor even that false and shadowy beauty, which belongeth to deceiving vices.
13. For so doth pride imitate exaltedness ; whereas Thou Alone art God exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, but honours and glory ? Avhereas Thou Alone art to be honoured above all, and glorious for evermore. The cruelty^ of the great would fain be feared ; but who is to be feared but God alone, out of whose power what can be wrested or with- dx-awn? when, or where, or whither, or by wdiorn} The ten- dernesses of the wanton would fain be counted love : 5'et is nothing more tender than Thy charity ; nor is aught loved more healthfully than that Thy tr^ith, bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity makes semblance of a desire of know- ledge ; whereas Thou supremely kno west all. Yea, ignorance and foolishness itself is cloked under the name of simplicity and uninjuriousness ; because nothing is found more single than Thee : and what less injurious, since they are his own works, which injure the sinner ^ ? Yea, sloth would fain be at rest; but what stable rest besides the Lord ? Luxury affects to be called plenty and abundance ; but Thou art the fulness and never-failing plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality : but Thou art the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many things: and Thou possessest all things. Envy
^ After this will come just judgment, God need produce out of Itself that of which he (the Psalmist) so speaks, whereby sins were to be punished ; for thatwemayunderstandthat each man's He so disposeth sins, that wliat were own sin is the instrument of his punish- delig:hts to man sinning, are the instru- ment, and his iniquity is turned into his ments of the Lord punishing. S. Aug. torment ; that we may not think, that in Ps. 7, 15. Vol. i. p. 58. O. T. that serenity and ineffable light of
26 Men seek in the creature, what is only in the Creator.
CONF. disputes for excellency : what more excellent than Thou ?
^- *'• Anger seeks revenge : who revenges more justly than Thou ?
Fear startles at things unwonted or sudden, which endanger
things heloved, and takes forethought for their safety;
Rom. 8, but to Thee what unwonted or sudden, or who separateth
^' from Thee M'hat Thou lovest ? Or where but with Thee is
unshaken safety? Grief pines away forthings lost, the delight
of its desires ; because it Avould have nothing taken from it,
as nothing can from Thee.
> 14. Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns
from Thee, seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure
and untainted, till she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly
imitate Thee, who remove far from Thee, and lift themselves
up against Thee. But even by thus imitating Thee, they
imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature ; whence there
is no place whither altogether to retire from Thee. What
then did I love in that theft? and wherein did I even
corruptly and pervertedly imitate my Lord ? Did I wish
even by stealth to do contrary to Thy law, because by
power I could not, so that being a prisoner, I might mimic
a maimedliberty by doing Avith impunity things unpermitted
Jonah, me, a darkened likeness of Thy Omnipotency °'? Behold,
'^' ' ' Thy servant, fleeing from his Lord, and obtaining a shadow.
0 rottenness, O monstrousness of life, and depth of death ! could I like what I might not, only because I might not ?
Ps. 116, [VIL] 15. TVhat shall I render icnto the Lord, that, whilst my memory recals these things, ray soul is not af- frighted j at them ? / ivill love Thee, 0 Lord, and thank Thee, and confess unto Thy name ; because Thou hast forgiven me these so great and heinous deeds of mine. To Thy grace I ascribe it, and to Thy mercy, that Thou hast melted away my sins as it were ice. iTo Thy grace
1 ascribe also whatsoever I have not done of evil ; for what might I not have done, who even loved a sin for its own sake ? Yea, all I confess to have been forgiven me ; both what evils I committed by my own wilfulness, and what by Thy guidance I committed not. What man is he, who,
K Souls in their very sins seek but a imitate God tlie Fatlier with an im-
sort of likeness of (lod, in a proud and pious pi ide ; tlie righteous, with a holy
perverted, and, so to say, slavish free- bountifulness." c. Secundin. Man.
dom. Aug. de Trin. 1. xi. c. 5. " Sinners c. 10.
Through God alone are men keptfrom^ or healed of, any sin. 27
weighing his own infirmity, dares to ascribe his purity and innocency to his own strength ; that so he should love Thee ^ the less, as if he had less needed Thy mercy '', whereby Thou remittest sins to those that turn to Thee ? For whosoever, / called by Thee, followed Thy voice, and avoided those things which he reads me recalling and confessing of myself, let him not scorn me, who being sick, was cured by that Physician, through Whose aid it was that he was not, or rather was less, sick : and for this let him love Thee as much, yea and more ; since by Whom he sees me to have been recovered from such deep consumption of sin, by Him he sees himself to have been from the like consumption of sin preserved.
[VIII.] 16. What fruit had I then (^Tetched man!) i« Rom. 6, those things, of the remembrance lo hereof I am now ashamed ? Especially, in that theft which I loved for the theft's sake; and it too was nothing ', and therefore the more miserable I, who loved it. Yet alone I had not done it : such was I then, I remember, alone I had never done it. I loved then in it also the company of the accomplices, with whom 1 did it ? I did not then love nothing else but the theft, yea rather I did love nothing else ; for that circumstance of the company was also nothing. What is, in truth ? who can teach me, save He that enlighteneth my heart, and discovereth its dark corners ? What is it which hath come into my mind to enquire, and discuss, and consider ? For had I then loved the pears I stole, and wished to enjoy them, I might have done it alone, had the bare commission of the theft sufficed to attain my pleasure ; nor needed I have inflamed the itching of my desires, by the excitement of accomplices. But since my pleasure was not in those pears, it was in the oflence itself, which the com- pany of fellow- sinners occasioned.
[IX.] 17. What then was this feeling ? For of a truth it was too foul : and woe was me, who had it. But yet what was it ? Who can understand his errors ? It was the sport, Ps- 19.
12.
i» " Love Him not little, as though remaineth chaste, is governed by Him ;
He had forgiven thee little, but rather and whoso from unchaste becometh
love Him much. Who hath given thee chaste, is amended by Him ; and whoso
miTch. For if he loveth, to whom it to the end is unchaste is forsaken by
hathbeenforgiven, that hehavenot to Him." Aug. de S. Virginit. c. 42.
repay,how much more ought hetolove. Select Treatises, p. 343. O. T. to whom it hath been given, that he ' See iii. 7. vii. 12. (Old Ed.)
have ! For whosoever from the outset
28 Man not strong enough to bear ill society.
CONF. which, as it were, tickled our hearts, that we heguiled those - ' who little thought what we were doing, and much misliked it. Why then was my delight of such sort, that I did it not alone? Because none doth ordinarily laugh alone ? ordinarilyno one; yet laughter sometimes masters men alone and singly when no one whatever is with them, if any thing very ludicrous presents itself to their senses or mind. Yet I had not done this alone ; alone I had never never done it. Behold my God, hefore Thee, the vivid remembrance of my soul ; alone, I had never committed that theft, wherein what I stole pleased me not, bvit that I stole ; nor had it alone liked me to do it, nor had I done it. O friendship too unfriendly ! thou incomprehensible inveigier of the soul, thou greediness to do mischief out of mirth and wantonness, thou thirst of others' loss, without lust of my own gain or revenge : but when it is said, "Let's go, let's do it," we are ashamed not to be shameless.
[X.] 18. Who can disentangle that twisted and intricate knottiness ? Foul is it : I hate to think on it, to look on it. But Thee I long for, O Righteousness and Innocency, beau- tiful and comely to all pure eyes, and of a satisfaction un- sating. AYith Thee is rest entire, and life imperturbable. Matt. Whoso enters into Thee, enters into the joy of his Lord: 2o, 21. jjj^j shall not fear, and shall do excellently in the All-Excel- lent. I sank away from Thee, and I wandered, O my God, too much astray from Thee my stay, in these days of my youth, and I became to myself a barren land.
THE THIRD BOOK.
His residence at Carthage from his seventeenth to his nineteenth year. Source of his disorders. Love of sliows. Advance in studies, and love of wisdom. Distaste for Scripture. Led astray to the Manichseans. Re- futation of some of their tenets. Grief of his mother Monnica at his heresy, and prayers for his conversion. Her vision from God, and answer through a Bishop.
[I.] 1. To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food. Thyself, my God ; yet, through that famine I was not hungered ; but was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not be- cause filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch ■ of objects of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me ; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness ; and thus foul and unseemly I would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell headlong then into the love, wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God, my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great goodness besprinkle for me that sweet- ness ? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying ; and was with joy fettered with sorrow- bringing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burn- ing rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and qviarrels.
[II.] 2. Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries, and of fuel to my fire. Why is it, that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would by no means suffer ? yet he desires
30 Difference between false and real sympathy ;
CONF. as a spectator to feel sorrow at them, and this very soi'row ^- *"• is his pleasure. What is this but a miserable madness? for a . man is the more affected with these actions, the less free he is from such affections. Howsoever, when he suffers in his own person, it uses to be styled misery : when he hath fellow-suf- fering, then it is mercy". But what sort of compassion is this for feignedand scenical passions ? forthe auditor is not called on to relieve, but only to grieve : and he applauds the actor of these fictions the more, the more he grieves. And if the calamities of those persons (whether of old times, or mere fiction) be so acted, that the spectator is not moved to tears, he goes away disgusted and criticising : but if he be moved to passion, he stays intent, and Aveeps for joy.
3. Are griefs then too loved? Verily all desire joy. Or whereas no man likes to be miserable, is he yet pleased to be merciful ? which because it cannot be without passion, for this reason alone are passions loved ? This also springs from that vein of friendship. But whither goes that vein ? whither flowsit? wherefore runs it into that'Horrent of pitch bubbling forth those monstrous tides of foul lustfulness, into which it is wilfully changed and transformed, being of its own will preci- pitated and corrupted from its heavenly clearness ? Shall compassion then be put away? by no means. Be griefs then sometimesloved. Butbewareofuncleanness,Omysoul,under the guardianship of my God, the God of our fathers, tvho is to bejjraised and exalted above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased to pity ; but then in the theatres I rejoiced with lovers, when they wickedly enjoyed one another, although this was imaginary only in the play. And when they lost one anothei', as if very compassionate, 1 sorrowed with them, yet had my delight in both. But now I much more pity him that rejoiceth in his wickedness, than him who is thought to suffer hardship, by missing some pernicious pleasure, and the loss of some miserable felicity. This certainly is the truer mercy, but in it, grief delights not. For though he that grieves for the miserable, be commended for his office of
*"Misencor(lia"[w2/s<'jv'co)v/f, whence which is said to bubl)le out a pitchy
our ' mercy'] " is so called, because it slime, into whidi otlier rivers nuininar,
maketh tlie heart to suffer [' miserum' are there lost in it, and like the lake
facit 'cor'] throupfh grief at another's itself, remain immoveable: wherefore
ill." Aug- de mor. Eccl. c. 27. it is called the Dead Sea. (Old Ed.)
'' He alludes to the sea of Sodom, See Tacit. Hist. 1. v.
injury of unreal sympathy, 31
charity ; yet had he, who is genuinely compassionate, rather there were nothing for him to grieve for. For if good will be ill willed, (which can never be,) then may he, who truly and sincerely commiserates, wish there might be some miserable, that he might commiserate. Some sorrow may then be al- lowed, none loved. For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest soids far more purely than we, and hast more incoi'- ruptibly pity on them, yet art wounded with no sorrowful- ness. And ivho is sufficient for these things ? \c^^^ ^'
4. But I, miserable, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at, when in another's and that feigned and personated misery, that acting best pleased me, and attracted me the most vehemently, which drew tears from me. What marvel that an unhappy sheep, straying from Thy flock, and impatient of Thy keeping, I became infected with a foul disease ? And hence the love of griefs ; not such as should sink deep into me ; for I loved not to suffer, what I loved to look on ; but such as upon hearing their fictions should lightly scratch the surface ; upon which as on envenomed nails, followed inflamed swelling, impostumes, and a putrified sore. My life being such, was it life, O my God ?
[III.] S.^And Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous iniquities consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity, that having forsaken Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous abyss, and the beguiling service of devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil actions, and in all these things Thou didst scourge me! I dared even, while Thy solemnities were celebrated within the walls of Thy Church, to desire, and to compass a business, deserving death for its fruits, for which Thou scoui'gedst me with grievous punish- ments, though nothing to my fault, O Thou my exceeding mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible destroyers, among whom I wandered with a stiff" neck, withdrawing further from Thee, loving mine own ways, and not Thine ; loving a vagrant liberty.
6. Those studies also, which were accounted commendable, had a view to excelling in the courts of litigation ; the more bepraised, the craftier. Such is men's blindness, glorying even in their blindness. And now I was chief in the rhetoric school,whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled withari'ogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether
32 Philosophy made the beginnings of his conversion.
CONF. removed from the subvertings of those " Subverters " " (for ^- "'• this ill-omened and devilish name, was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever did abhor, i. e. their " subvertings," wherewith they wantonly persecuted the modesty of strangers, which they disturbed by a gratuitous jeering, feeding thereon their ma- licious mirth. Nothing can be liker the very actions of devils than these. What then could they be more truly called than " subverters ?" themselves subverted and alto- gether perverted first, the deceiving spirits secretly deriding and seducing them, wherein themselves delight to jeer at, and deceive others.
[IV.] 7. Among such as these, in that unsettled age of
mine, learned I books of eloquence, wherein I desired to be
eminent out of a damnable and vain glorious end, a joy in
human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I fell upon
a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire,
not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation
to philosophy, and is called " Hortensius." But this book
altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself,
jjO Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires.
"Every vain hope at once became worthless to me ; and I
.longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality
of wisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to
Thee. For not to sharpen my tongue, (which thing I seemed
to be purchasing with my mother's allowances, in that my
nineteenth year, my father being dead two years before,) not
// to sharpen my tongue did I employ that book ; nor did it
''/ infuse into me its style, but its matter.
8. How did I burn then, my God, how did I burn to re-mount from earthly things to Thee, nor knew I whatThou wouldest do with mc ? For with Thee is wisdom. But the love of wisdom is in Greek called " philosophy," with which that book inflamed me. Some there be that seduce through
c Evcrsorcs. This appears to have below, 1. 5. c. 12, whence they seem to
been a name wliich a pestilent and sa- have eonsisted mainly of Carthag-inian
\age set of person gave themselves, stndents, whose savage life is mention-
lieentious aliiie in speech and action, ed again, ib. c. 8. He refers to them
Aug.namesthemagain,deVera Relig. in the de Catechiz. Rudib. c. 11. Select
c. 40. Ep. 185. ad Bonifac. c. 4 ; and Treatises, p. 206. O. T.
Aiig's love of the name of Christ, but distaste for Scripture. 33
philosophy, under a great, and smooth, and honourable name colourino; and dissfuising then' own eiTors : and almost all who in that and former ages wei'e such, are in that book censured and set forth : there also is made plain that whole- some advice of Thy Spirit, by Thy good and devout servant ; Beioare lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain Col. 2, deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the ^' ^' tvorld, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And since at that time (Thou, O light of my heart, knowest) Apostolic Scripture was not known to me, I was delighted with that exhortation, so far only, that I was thereby strongly roused, and kindled, and inflamed to love, and seek, and obtain, and hold, and embrace not this or that sect, but wisdom itself whatever it were ; and this alone checked me thus enkindled, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according to Thy mercy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Thy Son, had my tender heart, even with my mother's milk,devo\itly drunk in, and deeply treasured ; and whatsoever was without that name, though never so learned, polished, or true, took not entire hold of me.
[V.] 9. I resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I might see what they wei'e. But behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud, nor laid open to childx'en, lowly in access, in its recesses lofty, and veiled with mysteries ; and I was not such as could enter into it, or stoop my neck to follow its steps. For not as I now speak, \
did I feel when I turned to those Scriptures; but they seemed to me unworthy to be compared to the stateliness of Tully : for my swelling pride shrunk from their lowliness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet were they such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to be a little one ; and, swoln with pride, took myself to be a I great one.
[VI.] 10. Therefore I fell among men "^ proudly doting, ex-
* In the Preface to the book "On the me among those men, was their profes-
iBenefit of Beheving," S. Aug. speaks sion, that, setting aside the terrors of
jftirtherontheerrorswhiclihetrayedhim authority, they wouldleadsucli as would
Itothe Manichees. He is writing- to Ho- listen to them, to God by the plain and
Inoratus, who was still detained among simple way of reason, and would rescue
|them,onthebenefitsof believingbefore them from all errors. For what else led
re can .see. "Thou knowest, Hono- me, for nearly nine years,de.spising the
itus, that the circumstance which led religion which was in my boyliood in-
D
3 A Auf/.'s love of truth, while he fell into error.
CONF. cecding carnal and prating, in whose mouths were the snares ^- ^"- of the Devil, limed with the mixture of the syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, our Comforter. These names departed not out of their mouth, but so far forth, as the sound ^ only and the noise of the tongue, for the heart was void of truth. Yet they cried out "Truth, Truth," and spake much thereof tome, 1 John yet it ivas not in them : but they spake falsehood, not of ' ' Thee only, (who truly art Truth,) but even of those elements of this world. Thy creatures. And I indeed ought to have passed byeven philosophers who spake truthconcerning them, for love of Thee, my Father, supremely good. Beauty of all things beautiful. OTruth,Truth,howinwardly dideven then the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they often and diversly, and in many and huge books, echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo ? And these were the dishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thyself, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works, celestial though they be, and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thy- Jam. 1, self, the Truth, in ivhom is no variableness, neither shadow of ^^' turning : yet they still set before me in those dishes, glit-
tering fantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun, (which is real to our sight at least,) than those fantasies which by our eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed thereon ; not eagerly % for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou art ; for Thou wast not these
{^rafted intome by my parents, to follow ' Hearers,' as they term it, so that I and be a diligent hearer of those men, let not g:o the hopes and cares of this buttliattheyahetredtliatwewereterri- worki, liut tliat I observed tliat tliey fied by superstition, and tliat faith was were rather fluent and copious in re- enjoined to us before reason, wliiletliey futing otliers, tlian solid and settled in urged no one to believe, until the truth establishing their own views ?" Select had been sifted and cleared? Who would Treatises pp. 578. 579. (). T. not be attracted by such promises, espe- « See note A at the end; § ill. cially such as they then found me, an '^" I fell among men, who lield that youthful mind, longing for truth, but that light which we see with our eyes, puffed up and prating by aid of the (lis- is to be worshipped as a chief object of putes of some even learned men in the reverence. I assented not; yet thought school, despising things as old wives' that under this covering they veiled fables, and longing to drink in and re- something of great account, which tain the open and unmixed truth which they would afterwards lay open." Aug. theypromised? But whatagain recalled de vita Beata, Pncf. Sue further, note nie from being altogether fixed among A at the end ; § i. and iii. b. them, and held me in the class of
Erroneous belief in God nourishes not. 35
emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them, hut exhausted rather.""; Food in sleep shews very like our food awake ; yet are not those asleep nourished by it, for they are asleep. But those were not even anyway like to Thee, as Thou hast now spoken to me ; for those were corporeal fantasies, false bodies, than which these true bodies, celestial or terrestrial, which with our fleshly sight we behold, are far more certain : these things the beasts and birds discern as well as we, and they are more certain than when we fancy them. And again, we do with more certainty fancy them, than by them conjec- ture other vaster and infinite bodies which have no being. Such empty husks was I then fed on ; and was not fed. But Thou, my soul's Love, in looking for whom I fail, that I may Ps. 69, become strong, art neither those bodies which we see, though in heaven ; nor those which we see not there : for Thou hast created them, nor dost Thou account them among the chief- est of Thy works. How far then artThou from those fantasies of mine, fantasies of bodies which altogether are not, than which the images of those bodies, which are, are far more cer- tain, and more certain still the bodies themselves, which yet Thou art not ; no,nor yet the soul,which is the life of the bodies. So then, better and more certain is the life of the bodies, than the bodies. But Thou art the life of souls, the life of lives, having life in Thyself ; and changest not, life of my soul.
1 1 . Where then wert Thou then to me, and how far from me ? Far verily was I straying from Thee,barred from the very husks of the swine, whom with husks I fed. For how much better are v the fables of poets and grammarians, than these snares ? For verses, and poems, and ^' Medea flying," are more profitable truly, than these men's five elements ", variously disguised, answering to five dens of darkness, which have no being, yet slay the believer. For verses and poems I can turn to ^true food, and " Medea flying," though I did sing, I maintained not ; though I heard it sung, I believed not : but those things I did believe. Woe, woe, by what steps was I brought down
to the depths of hell ! toiling and turmoiling through want of Prov. 9,
18.
g See note A at the end ; § i. b. corrupting phrensy." Aug. meant in h Of this passage S. Aug. is probably modiery, that by verses he could get speaking, when he says, " Praises be- his bread ; liis calumniator seems to stowed on bread in simplicity of heart, have twisted the word to signify a love- let him (Petilian) defame, if he will, potion, c. lit. Petiliani, 1. iii. c. 16. by the ludicrous title of poisoning and
D 2
36 God, sought wrongly, is not found.
rONF. Truth, since I sought after Tliee, my God, (to Thee I confess it, who hadst mercy on me, not as yet confessing,) not accord-
ing to the understanding of the mind, wherein Thou willedst that I shoukl excel the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh. But Thou wert more inward to me, than my most inward part ; and higher than my highest ^ I lighted upon
Prov. 9, that bold woman, simple and knoweth nothing, shadowed out in Solomon, sitting at the door, and saying. Eat ye bread of secrecies willingly, and drink ye stolen ivaters ivhich are siveet : she seduced me, because she found my. soul dwelling abroad in the eye of my flesh, and ruminating on such food, as through it I had devoured.
[VII.] 12. For other than this, that which really is I knew not; and was,asit were through sharpness of wit,persuaded to assent to foolish deceivers, when they asked me, *•' whence is eviP?" "is God bounded by abodily shape, and has hairs and nails ?" " are they to be esteemed righteous, who had many
1 Kings wives at once, and did kill men, and sacrificed living creatures r "
'^' ^^' At once I, in my ignoi'ance, was much troubled, and depart- ing from the truth, seemed to myself to be making towards it ; because as yet I knew not that evil was nothing but a privation of good, until at last athing ceases altogether to be; <r^hich how should I see, the sight of whose eyes reached only to bodies, and of my mind to a phantasm ? And I knew not
John 4, 1 God to be a Spirit, not One who hath parts extended in
/ length and breadth, or whose being was bulk ; for every bulk
j is less in a part, tlian in the whole : and if it be infinite, it
/ must be less in such part as is defined by a certain space,
than in its infinitude ; and so is not wholly every where, as
Spirit, as God. And what that should be in us, by which
Ave were like to God, and might in Scripture be rightly said
(Jen. 1, to be after the Image of God, I was altogether ignorant.
13. Nor knew I that true inward righteousness, which
judgeth not according to custom, but out of the most rightful
law of God Almighty, whereby the ways of places and times
i See below, h. vii. e. 12 and 1(5. bysuchheapsof empty fables, that iin-
^ EvoD. Tell niewhenee we do evil ? less my love of finding the truth had
Aug. Youstartaciiiestion, which, when obtained for me the Divine aid, I could
ratheryoung, greatly harassed me, and never have come out thence, or have
drove and cast me headlong and worn breathed even so freely, as to be able
among the heretics. Through which to enquire at all. Aug. de Lib. Arb. 1. i.
fall I was so broken and overwhelmed § 4.
27
God's law in itself the same, in application varies. 37
were disposed, according to those times and places ; itself meantime being the same alwaj^s and every where, not one thing in one place, and another in another ; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, wei-e righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God ; but were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man's judgment, and measuring by their own 1 Cor. petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race. As if ' in an armory, one ignorant what were adapted to each part, should cover his head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, and complain that they fitted not : or as if on a day, when business is publicly stopped in the afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he had been in the forenoon ; or when in one house he observeth some servant take a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with ; or something per- mitted out of doors, which is forbidden in the dining-room ; and should be angry, that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all. Even such are they, who are fretted to hear something to have been lawful for righteous men formerly, which now is not ; or that God, for certain temporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these another, obeying both the same righteous- ness : whereas they see, in one man, and one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and a thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so ; in one corner permitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden and punished. Is justice therefore various or mutable ? No, but the times, over which it presides, flow not evenly, because they are times. But men, whose days ^^^ ^^» are few upon the earth, for that by their senses' they cannot harmonize the causes of things in former ages and other nations, which they had no experience of, with these which they have exjoerience of, whereas in one and the same body, day, or family, they easily see what is fitting for each member, and season, part, and person ; to the one they take exceptions, to the other they submit.
' "In thisworklof sense, we must very again, what, as a part, offends, does, in
earnestly consider the force of time and the judgment of one well-skilled, only
place; so as to understand, that what as offend, because the whole is not seen,
a part, whether of time or place, gives wherewith that part admirably harmo-
pleasure, is, as a whole, far better ; and nizes." Aug. de Ordine, 1. ii. § 51.
38 Actions of Patriarchs prophetic.
CONF. 14. These things I then knew not, nor observed ; they _^- *'^' struck my sight on all sides, and I saw them not. I indited verses, in which I might not place every foot every where, but differently in different metres ; nor even in any one metre the self-same foot in all places. Yet the art itself, by which I indited, had not different principles for these dif- ferent cases, but comprised all in one. Still I saw not how that righteousness, which good and holy men obeyed, did far more excellently and sublimely contain in one all those things which God commanded, and in no part varied ; although in varying times it prescribed not every thing at once, but apportioned and enjoined what v\^as fit for each. And I, in my blindness, censured the holy Fathers, not only wherein they made use of things present as God commanded and inspired them, but also v\herein they were foretelling rthings to come, as God was revealing in them «».
ri^^ •fif \y^^^-] ■^^* ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^y time or place be unjust to love J God ivith all his heart, with all his soul, and ivith all his --2- / mind; and his neighbour as himself ? Therefore are those foul offences which be against nature, to be every where and at all times detested and punished ; such as were those of the men of Sodom : which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the Law of God, which hath not so made men, that they should so abuse one another. For even that intercourse which should be between God an d us is violated, when that same nature, of which He is Author, is polluted by the perversity of lust. But those actions which are offences against the customs of men, are to be avoided according to the customs severally prevailing"; so that a thing
m As in tj'pical actions of tlie Patri- Aug. c. Faust. 1. xxii. c. 24. " God so archs. "Onthis[tlie calumnies against accounted of these naen, and at tliat tbeFatriarchs]! would first say ,thatnot time made them such heralds of His their words only, but their life was pro- Son, that not only in what they said, phetic; and that the whole kingdom of but in what they did, or what hap- the Hebrew nation was one great pro- penedto them, Christ is sought, Christ phet, because the prophet of one (ireat is found. Whatever Scripture saith of One. Whereforein thoseamongthem, Abraham, both happened and is a pro- who were taui^/ilivit/iinbi/t/ieWixflom pliecy." Id. Serm. 2. de Tentat. Abr. of God, (Fs. 89, 12. Vulg.) we must, § 7. "We know that prophecy was not in what they said only, but also in given as in words, so in deeds. But what they did, search for prophecy of in deeds and words is the resurrec- the Christ who was to come, and His tion preached beforehand." Tertull. Church ; but in the rest of that nation, de Resurr. Carnis, c. 28. collectively in those things which were ° " For when it was the custom, it done in them or to them by God. For was not an oftVnce; and now it is there- all these things, as the Apostle says, fore an offence, because itisnotacus- were our ensamples." (1 Cor. 10, (5.) torn : for some offences are sins against
God to be obeyed in human laws or against them. 39
agreed upon, and confirmed, by custom or law of any city or nation, may not be violated at the lawless pleasure of any, whether native or foreigner. For any part, which harmo- nizeth not with its whole, is offensive. But when God com- mands a thing to be done, against the customs or compact of any people, though it were never by them done heretofore, it is to be done ; and if intermitted, it is to be restored ; and if never ordained, is now to be ordained. For lawful if it be for a king, in the state which he reigns over, to command that, which no one before him, nor he himself heretofore, had commanded, and to obey him cannot be against the common weal of the state ; (nay, it were against it if he were not obeyed, for to obey princes, is a general compact of human society ;) how much more unhesitatingly ought we to obey God, in all which He commands, the Ruler of all His crea- tures ! For as among the powers in man's society, the greater authority is obeyed in preference to the lesser, so must God above all.
16. So in acts of violence °, where there is a wish to hurt, whether by reproach or injury ; and these either for revenge, as one enemy against another ; or for some profit belonging to another, as the robber to the traveller ; or to avoid some evil, as towards one who is feared ; or through envy, as one less fortunate to one more so, or one well thriven in anything, to him whose being on a par with himself he fears, or grieves at, or for the mere pleasure at another's pain, as spectators of gladiators, or deriders and mockers of others. These be the heads of iniquity, which sj^ring from the lust of the flesh, 1 John of the eye, or of rule p, either singly, or two combined, or all ' together; and so do men live ill against the three, and seven %
nature, some against custom, some " " What unbridled desire doeth to
against positive commands." Aug. c. corrupt a person's own mind and body
Faust, xxii. 47. " This being so, what- is called 'foulness,' [flagitiuni,] what it
ever heretics, jManicheesorothers,cen- doth to injure another is called an act
sure the fathers of the Old Testament of violence, [facinus] . And these two
for having morethanonewife,areraore include all sorts of sins; but acts of
than sufficiently answered ; if they can foulness come first. And when these
butunderstand,thatthatisnosin,which have exhausted the mind, and reduced
isnotcommittedagainst nature, in that it to a state of emptiness, then it rushes
they took these wives with a view to into deeds of violence to remove the
posterity only ; nor against custom, in impediments, or obtain appliances, to
that it was the practice of those times ; the acts of foulness." Aug. de Doctr.
nor against any positive command, in Christiana, iii. 16. that they were forbidden by no law." p See below, 1. x. c. 30. and note. Aug. de Bono Conjug. c. 25. Select i S.Augustine (Qufest. in Exod.l. it. Treatises p. 305. O". T.
5.
40 Self-will and self-love source of all sin.
CONF. that psaltery often sir in ys, Thy lien Commandments, O God,
„ • • most hioh, and most sweet. But what foul oflences can
Ps. 144, .
9. ' there be against Thee, who canst not be defiled ? or what
acts of violence against Thee, who canst not be harmed ?
But Thou avengest what men commit against themselves,
seeing also when they sin against Thee, they do w'ickedly
Ps. 26, against their own souls, and iniquity yives itself the lie, by
y , corrupting and perverting their nature, which Thou hast
created and ordained, or by an immoderate use of things
Rom. 1. allowed, or in burning in things unallowed,/o that use ivhich is against nature ; or are found guilty, raging with heart and
Acts 9, tongue against Thee, kicking against the pricks ; or when, bursting the pale of human society, they boldly joy in self- w'illed combinations or divisions, according as they have any object to gain or subject of offence. And these things are done when Thou art forsaken, O Fountain of Life, who art the only and true Creator and Governor of the Universe, and by a self-willed pride, any one false thing is selected there- from and loved ''. So then by a humble devoutness we return to Thee ; and Thou cleansest us from our evil habits, and art
Ps. 102, merciful to their sins who confess, and hearest the groaning of the prisoner, and loosest us from the chains which we made for ourselves, if we lift not up against Thee horns of an unreal liberty, suft'ering the loss of all, through covet- ousness of more % by loving more our own private good, than Thee, the Good of all.
qu. 71 .) mentions the two modes of di- ye cast away the psaltery itself. Better
viding the Ten Commandments, into even to bear, than cast away; but again,
three and seven, or four and six, and better with joy to sing, then to bear as
gives what appear to have been liis own burthensome. But to 'sing a new
private reasons for preferring the first, song,' he must be a new man." Bath commonly existed in his day, but '" " Man's true honor is the image
the Anglican mode appearstohave been and likeness of God, which is only re-
the most usual. It occurs in Origen, tained by reference to Him by whom it
Greg. Naz., Jerome, Ambrose, Chrys. is impressed. Mencleave then the more
S. .\ug- alludes to his division again, to God, the less they love anything of
Serm. 8. 9. dt; x chordis, and S. 33 on their own." Aug. de Trin. xii. 11. thisl'salm."TothefirstCommanduu'nt « "Beware thou think not anysaying
there belong threestrings, because God could be truer than that coiefotisnnss is
is Trine. To the other, i.e. the love of tfte root of all evil, 1 Tim. 6, 10. i.e.
our neighbour, seven strings. These desiring more than is requisite. For
let us join to those three, wliich belong what is requisite is in each class of things
to the love of God, if we would on the so much as is necessary to maintain
psalterijoftenstrinfrssinganewsonir. well-being. For eovctotisness is to be
If ye do it out of love, ye sing a new understood not of goldand money only,
song ; if ye do it from fear, but still do but of all things immoderatelv desired,
it, ye bear indeed the psaltery, but do in whatsoever thingsanydesireth more
not yet sing; but if ye do not even this, than is requisite." Aug. de Lib. Arbit.
20,
Who speak against Truth, fall mto gross error. 41
[IX. ]17. Amidst these offences of foulness and violence, and so many iniquities, are sins of men, who are on the whole making proficiency ; which by those that judge rightly, are after the rule of perfection, discommended, yet the persons commended, upon hope of future fruit, as in the green blade of growing corn. And there ai'e some, resembling offences of foulness or violence, Avhich yet are no sins ; because they offend neither Thee, our Lord God, nor human society ; when, namely, things fitting for a given period are obtained for the service of life, and we know not whether out of a lust of having ; or when things are, for the sake of correction, by constituted authority punished, and we know not whether out of a lust of hurting. Many an action then which in men's sight is disapproved, is by Thy testimony approved : and many, by men praised, are (Thou being witness) con- demned : because the shew of the action, and the mind of the doer, and the unknown exigency of the period, severally vary. But when Thou on a sudden commandest an un- wonted and unthought-of thing, yea, although Thou hast sometime forbidden it, and still for the time hidest the rea- son of Thy command, and it be against the ordinance of some society of men, who doubts but it is to be done *, seeing that society of men is just which serves Thee ? But blessed are they who know Thy commands! For all things were done by Thy servants"; either to shew forth something needful for the present, or to foreshew things to come.
[X.] 18. These things I being ignorant of, scoffed at those
iii. § 48. " This is it wliich Adam and Eve were persuaded to, so tliat lo\ing too much to be at theu* own dis- posal, when they would be equal with God, they used amiss, i.e. agahist the law of God, that middle state, wherein they were subjected to God, and had their own bodies in subjection, andthus lost that which they liad received, in that they sought to obtain that which they had not received." Aug. de Gen. c. Man. ii. § 22.
• " What then doth Faustus objectto thespoiling of the Egyptians, not know- ing what he saith ? In doing which Moses so far from sinned, that he had sinned had he not done it. For God had commanded it, who knoweth not merely from men's actions, but from their thoughts, what each shouldsuffer
and by whom." — And after assigning a reason, " there may have been other most liidden reasons, why this people should have been enjoined this by God, but to Divine commands we must yield by obeying, not resist by disputing. — This I stedfastly affirm, that Moses might do no other than God had said, so that with the Lord should be the counsel to command, with the servant the obedience to perform-" Aug. c. Faust. 1. xxii. c. 71. "We may not believe of Samson but that he was com- manded by God to destroy himself. But when God commands, and intimates clearly and explicitly that He does com- mand, who shall criminate obedience ? who accuse the service of piety ?" De Civ. Dei, 1. i. c. 26. "The Patriarchs. See note on c.7.p.38.
42 Aicff.'s conversion foretold to his Mother in a dream.
CONF. Thy holy servants and prophets. And what gained I by ^- '"• scoffing at them, but to be scoffed at by Thee, being in- sensibly and step by step drawn on to those follies, as to believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked % and the tree, its mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding (plucked by some other's, not his own,guilt^)had some (Mani- chsean) saint * eaten, and mingled with his bowels'',he should breathe out of it angels, yea, there shall burst forth particles of divinity % at every moan or groan '^ in his prayer, which particles of the most high and true God had remained bound in that fig, unless they had been set at liberty by the teeth or belly of some " Elect ^" saint ! And I, miserable, believed that more mercy was to be shewn to the fruits of the earth, than men, for whom they were created y. For if any one an hungered, not a Manicheean, should ask for any, that morsel • would seem as it were condemned to capital punishment, which should be given him ^. Ps. 144, [XI.] 19. And Thou sentest Thine hand from above, and ^- drewest my soul out of that profound darkness, my mother,
Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee for me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children. For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the death wherein I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her, and despisedst not her tears, when streaming down,they watered the ground ' under her eyes in every place where she prayed ; yea Thou heardest her. For whence was that dream whereby Thou comfortedst her; so that she allowed me to live with her, and to eat at the same table in the house, which she had begun to shrink from, abhorring and detesting the blas- phemies of my error? For she sawherself standing on acertain wooden rule,and a shining youth coming towards her, cheerful and smiling upon her, herself grieving, and overwhelmed with grief. But he having (in order to instruct, as is their wont, not to be instructed) enquired of her the causes of her grief and daily tears, and she answering that she was bewailing my pei'dition, he bade her rest contented, and told her to look and observe, " That where she was, there was I also." And
» On the ManichjEan errors here al- v. fin.
hided to, see note A at the end ; § iii. ^ H«» alludes here to that devout man-
a and b. nerof the Eastern ancients,who used to
y See note A at the end; § iii. b. lieflaton their facesinprayer. [OldEd.]
Heretics often not to be argued ivith, but prayed for. 43
when sne looked, she saw me standing by her in the same rule. Whence was this, but that Thine ears were towards her heart ? O Thou Good omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, as if Thou caredst for him only ; and so for all, as if they were but one !
20. Whence was this also, that when she had told me this vision, and I would fain bend it to mean, "That she rather should not despair of being one day what I was ; " she presently, without any hesitation, replies; "No; for it was not told me that, ' v/here he, there thou also ;' but ' where thou, there he also ?' " I confess to Thee, O Lord, that to the best of my remembrance, (and I have oft spoken of this,) that Thy answer, through my waking mother, — that she was not per- plexed by the plausibility of my false interpretation, and so quickly saw what was to be seen, and which I certainly had not perceived, before she spake, — even then moved me more than the dream itself, by which a joy to the holy woman, to be fulfilled so long after, was,fortheconsolationofherpresent anguish, so long before foresignified. For almost nine years passed, in which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit, and the darkness of falsehood, often assaying to rise, but dashed down the more grievously. All which time that chaste, godly, and sober widow, (such as Thou lovest,) now more cheered with hope, yet no whit relaxing in her weeping and mourn- ing, ceased not at all hours of her devotions to bewail my case unto Thee. And her prayers entered into Thy jjresence ; and ^s. yet Thou sufferedst me to be yet involved and reinvolved in !• that darkness.
[XII.] 21. Thou gavest her meantime another answer, which I call to mind ; for much I pass by, hasting to those things which more press me to confess unto Thee, and much I do not remember. Thou gavest her then another answer, by a Priest of Thine, a certain Bishop brought up in Thy Church, and well studied in Thy books. Whom when this woman had entreated to vouchsafe to converse with me, refute my errors, unteach me ill things, and teach me good things, (for this he was wont to do, when he found persons fitted to receive it,) he refused, wisely, as I afterwards per- ceived. For he answered, that I was yet unteachable, being puffed up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already
44
Unceasing prayers and tears never fail.
CONF. B. III.
perplexed divers unskilful persons with captious questions*, as she had told him : "but let him alone a while," (saith he,) "only pray God for him, he will of himself by reading find what that error is, and how great its impiety." At the same time he told her, how himself, when a little one, had by his seduced mother been consignedoverto the Manichees, and had not only read, but frequently copied out almost all their books, and had (without any argument or proof from any one) seen how much that sect was to be avoided; and had avoided it. Which when he had said, and she would not be satisfied, but urged him more, with intreaties and many tears, that he would see me, and discourse with me ; he, a little displeased at her importunity, saith, " Go thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish." AVhich answer she took (as she often mentioned in her conversations with me) as if it had sounded from heaven.
» " Two things principally, which readily captivate that una^uarded ag-e, overcanK* nic; one, intimacy, creeping: round me with a sort of semblance of good, entwininsf itself, like a twisted chain, manifoldly round the neck. The other, that I had frequently gained a pernicious victory in disputing witli unskilful Christians, who yet would strive eagerly to defend their faith as best they might. And this success be- ing very frequent, the excitement of youth gained ground, and recklessly pressed on its energies towards the great evil of obstinacy. And having commenced this sort of disputing.after I had heard them, whatever ability I
attained, either by my own powers, (whatever they were,) or by other reading, I readily ascribed to tluni alone. So from their discourses there was daily excited in me an ardent love for contests, and from the result of the contests, a love for them. Thus it happened, that whatever they said, I strangely assented to as true, not be- cause I knew it, but because I wished it to be true. And so, although step by step, and cautiously, yet long did I follow men, who preferred a sliining straw to a living soul." (See note A at the end ; iii. b. v. fin.) Aug. de duab. Anim. c. Maiiich. c. 9,
THE FOURTH BOOK.
Aug^.'s life from nineteen to eight and twenty ; himself a Manichc-ean, and seducing others to the same heresy ; partial obedience amidst vanity and sin, consulting astrologers, only partially shaken herein ; loss of an early friend, who is converted by being baptized when in a swoon ; reflections on grief, on real and unreal friendship, and love of fame ; writes on " the fair and fit," yet cannot rightly, though God had given him great talents, since he entertained wrong notions of God ; and so even his knowledge he applied ill.
[I.] 1. For this space of nine years then (from my nine- teenth year, to my eight and twentieth) we lived seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in divers lusts : openly, bv sciences which they call liberal ; secretly, with a false named religion ; here proud, there superstitious, every where vain ! Here, hunting after the emptiness of popular praise, down even to theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies of shows, and the in- temperance of desires. There, desiring to be cleansed from these defilements, by carrying food to those who were called " elect" and " holy," out of which, in the workhouse of their stomachs, they should forge for us Angels and Gods, by whom we might be cleansed ^ These things did I follow, and practise with my friends, deceived by me, and with me. Let the arrogant mock me, and such as have not been, to their soul's health, stricken and cast down by Thee,0 my God; but I would still confess to Thee mine own shame in Thy praise. Suffer me, I beseech Thee, and give me grace to go over in my present remembrance the wanderings of my forepassed time, and to offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what Ps. 50, am I to myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own down- fall ''? or what am I even at the best, but an infant sucking the milk Thou givest, and feeding upon Thee, the food that John 6, perisheth not ? But what sort of man is any man, seeing he '
« See note A at the end ; § iii. a. without superintendence, belongs to •* " To be happy, by hisown power, Godonly."Aug.deGen.c.Manicli.ii.5.
46 Sin restrained, but ivithout fixed principle.
CONF. is but a man ? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh
^- ^^- at us, but let us poor and needy confess unto Thee.
2i' ' [II'] 2. In those years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome
by cujiidity, made sale of a loquacity to overcome by. Yet
I preferred (Lord, Thou knowest) honest scholars, (as they
are accounted,) and these I, without artifice, taught artifices,
not to be practised against the life of the guiltless, though
sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from
Is. 42, afar perceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and
5. Mat. amid much smoke sendinsr out some sparks of faithfulness, 12, 20. . . * . *■ .
P' 4 2 ^^'l^ich I shewed in that my guidance of such as loved vanity,
axid. sought after leasing, myself their companion. In those years I had one, — not in that which is called lawful marriage, but whom I had found out in a wayward passion, void of un- derstanding ; yet but one, remaining faithful even to her ; in whom I in my own case experienced, what difference there is betwixt the self-restraint of the marriage-covenant, for the sake of issue, and the bargain of a lustful love, where children are born against their parents' will, although, once born, they constrain love.
3. I remember also, that when I had settled to enter the lists for a theatrical prize, some wizard asked me what I would give him to win : but I, detesting and abhorring such foul mysteries, answered, "Though the garland were of impe- rishable gold, I would not suffer a fly to be killed to gain me it." For he was to kill some living creatures in his sacrifices, and by those honours to invite the devils to favour me. But this ill also I rejected, not out of a pure love'^for Thee, O
c " He alone is truly pure, who wait love aught beside, it is no pure love,
eth on God, and keepeth liimself to You depart from the immortal flame.
Him alone." Aug. de vita beata, § 18. you will be chilled, corrupted. Do not
" Whoso seeketh God, is pure, because depart ; it will be thy corruption, will
th(! soul hath in God her legitimate be fornication in thee." Aug. in Ps. 72.
Husband. Whosoever seeketh of God § 32. Vol. iii. p. 488. O. T. " The
any thing besides (iod, doth not love pure fear of the Lord (Ps. 19, 9.) is
God purely. If a wife loved her bus- that, wherewith the Church, the more
band, because he is rich, she is not ardently she lovetli her Husband, the
pure, for she loveth not her husband, more diligently she avoids offending
but the gold of her husband." Aug. Him, and therefore love when per-
Serm. 137. [on N. T. p. 630. O. T. ] fected casteth not out this fear, but it
" Whoso seeks from God any other remaineth for ever and ever." Aug.
reward but God, and for it would in loc. Vol. i. p. 127. O. T. " Under
serve God, esteems what he wishes the name of pure fear, is signified
to receive, more tlian Him from that will, wherel)y we must needs be
whom he would receive it. What averse from sin, and avoid sin, not
then ? hath God no reward ? None, through the constant anxiety of in-
save Himself. The reward of God firmity, but through the tranquillity
is God Himself. This it loveth ; if it of affection." De Civ. Dei, xiv. § (15.
No real love of God, without sound faith. 47
God of my heart ; for I knew not how to love Thee, who knew not how to conceive aught beyond a material brightness '^. And doth not a soul, sighing after such fictions, commit for- nication against Thee, trust in things unreal % and feed the Hos. 12, wind ? Still I would not forsooth have sacrifices offered to " devils for me, to whom I was sacrificing myself by that superstition. For, what else is it to feed the wind, but to feed them, that is, by going astray to become their pleasure and derision ?
[III.] 4. Those impostors then, whom they style Mathema- ticians, I consulted without scruple; because they seemed to use no sacrifice, nor to pray to any spirit for their divinations: which art, however. Christian and true piety consistently re- jects and condemns. For, it is a good thing to confess unto Thee, and to say. Have mercy upon me, heal my soul, for I P^- ^^> have sinned against Thee ; and not to abuse Thy mercy for a license to sin, but to remember the Lord's words, Behold, Jolm 5, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a ivorse thing come ' unto thee. All which wholesome advice they labour to destroy, saying, "The cause of thy sin is inevitably deter- mined in heaven;" and "This did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars:" that man, forsooth, flesh and blood, and proud corruption, might be blameless; while the Greater and Ordainer of heaven and the stars is to bear theblame. And who is He but our God ? the very sweetness and well-spring of righte- ousness, who renderest to every man according to his ivorks : Rom. 2, and a broken and contrite heart wilt Thou not despise. jg 27.'
5. There was in those days a wise man*", very skilful in phy- Ps. 51, sic, and renowned therein, who had with his own proconsular hand put the Agonistic garland upon my distempered head, but not as a physician : for this disease Thou only curest, tuho l Pet. 5, resistest theproud, and givest grace to the humble. But didst ' q^' Thou fail me even by that old man, or forbear to heal my soul? For having become more acquainted with him, and hang-
<i See notfe A at the end ; § i. a. something unreal. And if tliis be, it
<= " Who loves what he knows not ? will no longer be love out of a pure
and what is to know God but to behold, conscience and faith unfeigned." Aug.
and firmly to perceive Him? But we de Trin. viii. 66.
must beware, lest the mind believing f Vindicianus, named below, 1. vii.
thatitdoesnotsee,feign to itself some c. 6. S. Aug. Ep. 138. § 3. calls him
thing which is not, and hope and love " the great physician of our times."
I
48 Absolute proof even of vanity of Divination hard to find.
(;ONF. ing assiduously and fixedly on his speech, (for though in sim- ^- *^' pie terms, it was vivid, lively, and earnest,) when he had ga- thered by my discourse, that I was given to the books of nati- vity-casters, he kindly and fatherly advised me to cast them away, and not fruitlessly bestow a care and diligence, neces- sary for useful things, upon these vanities; saying, that he had in his earliest years studied that art, so as to make it the profession whereby he should live, and that, understanding Hijipocrates, he could soon have understood such a study as this ; and yet he had given it over, and taken to physic, for no other reason, but that he found it utterly false ; and he, a grave man, would not get his living by deluding people. "But thou," saith he, " hast rhetoric to maintain thyself by, "so that thou foUowest this of free choice, not of necessity ; **the more then oughtest thou to give me credit herein, who "laboured to acquire it so perfectly, as to get my living by "it alone." Of whom when I had demanded, how then could many true things be foretold by it, he answered me (as he could) "that the force of chance, diffused throughout the "whole order of things, brought this about. For if when a "man by hap-hazard opens the pages of some poet, who "sang and thought of something wholly different, a verse "oftentimes fell out, wondrously agreeable to the present ^'business : it were not to be wondered at, if out of the soul "of man, unconscious what takes place in it, by some higher "instinct an answer should be given, by hap, not by art, "corresponding to thebusiness and actions ofthedemander." 6. And thus much, either from or through him, Thou conveyedst to me, and tracedst in my memory, what I might hereafter examine for myself. But at that time neither he, nor my dearest Nebridius, a youth singularly good and of a holy fear '^, who derided the whole body of divination, could persuade me to cast it aside, the authority of the authors swaying me yet more, and as yet I had found no certain proof (such as I sought) whereby it might without all doubt appear, that what had been truly foretold by those consulted was the result of hap-hazard, not of the art of the star-gazers. [IV.] 7. In those years when I first began to teach rhe- toric in my native town, I had made one my friend, but too
8 See above, § 3. not.
He jests at /tis friend's baptism, and is reproved. 49
dear to me, from a community of pursuits, of mine own age, and, as myself, in the first opening flower of youth. He had grown up of a child with me, and we had been both school- fellows, and play-fellows. But he was not yet my friend as afterwards, nor even then, as true friendship is ; for true it cannot be, unless in such as Thou cementest together, cleaving unto Thee, by that love ivhich is shed abroad in our Rom. 5, hearts by the Holy Ghost, ivhich is given unto us. Yet was it but too sweet, ripened by the warmth of kindred studies: for, from the true faith (which he as a youth had not soundly and throughly imbibed) I had warped him also to those super- stitious and pernicious fables, for which my mother bewailed me. With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be without him. But behold Thou Avert close on the steps of Thy fugitives, at once God of vengeance, and Fountain of Ps. 94, mercies, turning us to Thyself by wonderful means ; Thou tookest that man out of this life, when he had scarce filled up one Avhole year of my friendship, sweet to me above all SAveetness of that my life.
8. lllio can recount all Thy praises, which he hath felt in Ps- '06, his one self ? What diddest Thou then, my God, and how "" unsearchable is the abyss of Thy judgments ? For long, sore Ps. 36, sick of a fever, he lay senseless in a death-sweat ; and his recovery being