AUGUSTINE: CONFESSIONS & ENCHIRIDION
 
 Newly translated and edited
 
 by

 ALBERT C. OUTLER, Ph.D., D.D.
 
 Professor of Theology
 
 Perkins School of Theology 
 
 Southern Methodist University 
 
 Dallas, Texas
 
 First published MCMLV 
 
 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 55-5021
 
 
 
 Introduction 
 
LIKE A COLOSSUS BESTRIDING TWO WORLDS, Augustine stands as the 
last patristic and the first medieval father of Western 
Christianity.  He gathered together and conserved all the main 
motifs of Latin Christianity from Tertullian to Ambrose; he 
appropriated the heritage of Nicene orthodoxy; he was a 
Chalcedonian before Chalcedon -- and he drew all this into an 
unsystematic synthesis which is still our best mirror of the heart 
and mind of the Christian community in the Roman Empire.  More 
than this, he freely received and deliberately reconsecrated the 
religious philosophy of the Greco-Roman world to a new apologetic 
use in maintaining the intelligibility of the Christian 
proclamation.  Yet, even in his role as summator of tradition, he 
was no mere eclectic.  The center of his "system" is in the Holy 
Scriptures, as they ordered and moved his heart and mind.  It was 
in Scripture that, first and last, Augustine found the focus of 
his religious authority.
 
     At the same time, it was this essentially conservative genius 
who recast the patristic tradition into the new pattern by which 
European Christianity would be largely shaped and who, with 
relatively little interest in historical detail, wrought out the 
first comprehensive "philosophy of history." Augustine regarded 
himself as much less an innovator than a summator.  He was less a 
reformer of the Church than the defender of the Church's faith.  
His own self-chosen project was to save Christianity from the 
disruption of heresy and the calumnies of the pagans, and, above 
everything else, to renew and exalt the faithful hearing of the 
gospel of man's utter need and God's abundant grace.  But the 
unforeseen result of this enterprise was to furnish the motifs of 
the Church's piety and doctrine for the next thousand years and 
more.  Wherever one touches the Middle Ages, he finds the marks of 
Augustine's influence, powerful and pervasive -- even Aquinas is 
more of an Augustinian at heart than a "proper" Aristotelian.  In 
the Protestant Reformation, the evangelical elements in 
Augustine's thought were appealed to in condemnation of the 
corruptions of popular Catholicism -- yet even those corruptions 
had a certain right of appeal to some of the non-evangelical 
aspects of Augustine's thought and life.  And, still today, in the 
important theological revival of our own time, the influence of 
Augustine is obviously one of the most potent and productive 
impulses at work.

     A succinct characterization of Augustine is impossible, not 
only because his thought is so extraordinarily complex and his 
expository method so incurably digressive, but also because 
throughout his entire career there were lively tensions and 
massive prejudices in his heart and head.  His doctrine of God 
holds the Plotinian notions of divine unity and remotion in 
tension with the Biblical emphasis upon the sovereign God's active 
involvement in creation and redemption.  For all his devotion to 
Jesus Christ, this theology was never adequately Christocentric, 
and this reflects itself in many ways in his practical conception 
of the Christian life.  He did not invent the doctrines of 
original sin and seminal transmission of guilt but he did set them 
as cornerstones in his "system," matching them with a doctrine of 
infant baptism which cancels, ex opere operato, birth sin and 
hereditary guilt.  He never wearied of celebrating God's abundant 
mercy and grace -- but he was also fully persuaded that the vast 
majority of mankind are condemned to a wholly just and appalling 
damnation.  He never denied the reality of human freedom and never 
allowed the excuse of human irresponsibility before God -- but 
against all detractors of the primacy of God's grace, he 
vigorously insisted on both double predestination and irresistible 
grace.

     For all this the Catholic Church was fully justified in 
giving Augustine his aptest title, Doctor Gratiae.  The central 
theme in all Augustine's writings is the sovereign God of grace 
and the sovereign grace of God.  Grace, for Augustine, is God's 
freedom to act without any external necessity whatsoever -- to act 
in love beyond human understanding or control; to act in creation, 
judgment, and redemption; to give his Son freely as Mediator and 
Redeemer; to endue the Church with the indwelling power and 
guidance of the Holy Spirit; to shape the destinies of all 
creation and the ends of the two human societies, the "city of 
earth" and the "city of God." Grace is God's unmerited love and 
favor, prevenient and occurrent.  It touches man's inmost heart 
and will.  It guides and impels the pilgrimage of those called to 
be faithful.  It draws and raises the soul to repentance, faith, 
and praise.  It transforms the human will so that it is capable of 
doing good.  It relieves man's religious anxiety by forgiveness 
and the gift of hope.  It establishes the ground of Christian 
humility by abolishing the ground of human pride.  God's grace 
became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and it remains immanent in the 
Holy Spirit in the Church.

     Augustine had no system -- but he did have a stable and 
coherent Christian outlook.  Moreover, he had an unwearied, ardent 
concern: man's salvation from his hopeless plight, through the 
gracious action of God's redeeming love.  To understand and 
interpret this was his one endeavor, and to this task he devoted 
his entire genius.

     He was, of course, by conscious intent and profession, a 
Christian theologian, a pastor and teacher in the Christian 
community.  And yet it has come about that his contributions to 
the larger heritage of Western civilization are hardly less 
important than his services to the Christian Church. He was far 
and away the best -- if not the very first -- psychologist in the 
ancient world.  His observations and descriptions of human motives 
and emotions, his depth analyses of will and thought in their 
interaction, and his exploration of the inner nature of the human 
self -- these have established one of the main traditions in 
European conceptions of human nature, even down to our own time.  
Augustine is an essential source for both contemporary depth 
psychology and existentialist philosophy.  His view of the shape 
and process of human history has been more influential than any 
other single source in the development of the Western tradition 
which regards political order as inextricably involved in moral 
order.  His conception of a societas as a community identified and 
held together by its loyalties and love has become an integral 
part of the general tradition of Christian social teaching and the 
Christian vision of "Christendom." His metaphysical explorations 
of the problems of being, the character of evil, the relation of 
faith and knowledge, of will and reason, of time and eternity, of 
creation and cosmic order, have not ceased to animate and enrich 
various philosophic reflections throughout the succeeding 
centuries.  At the same time the hallmark of the Augustinian 
philosophy is its insistent demand that reflective thought issue 
in practical consequence; no contemplation of the end of life 
suffices unless it discovers the means by which men are brought to 
their proper goals.  In sum, Augustine is one of the very few men 
who simply cannot be ignored or depreciated in any estimate of 
Western civilization without serious distortion and impoverishment 
of one's historical and religious understanding.

     In the space of some forty-four years, from his conversion in 
Milan (A.D.  386) to his death in Hippo Regius (A.D.  430), 
Augustine wrote -- mostly at dictation -- a vast sprawling library 
of books, sermons, and letters, the remains of which (in the 
Benedictine edition of St.  Maur) fill fourteen volumes as they 
are reprinted in Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series 
Latina (Vols.  32-45).  In his old age, Augustine reviewed his 
authorship (in the Retractations) and has left us a critical 
review of ninety-three of his works he judged most important.  
Even a cursory glance at them shows how enormous was his range of 
interest.  Yet almost everything he wrote was in response to a 
specific problem or an actual crisis in the immediate situation.  
One may mark off significant developments in his thought over this 
twoscore years, but one can hardly miss the fundamental 
consistency in his entire life's work.  He was never interested in 
writing a systematic summa theologica, and would have been 
incapable of producing a balanced digest of his multifaceted 
teaching.  Thus, if he is to be read wisely, he must be read 
widely -- and always in context, with due attention to the 
specific aim in view in each particular treatise.  

     For the general reader who wishes to approach Augustine as 
directly as possible, however, it is a useful and fortunate thing 
that at the very beginning of his Christian ministry and then 
again at the very climax of it, Augustine set himself to focus his 
experience and thought into what were, for him, summings up.  The 
result of the first effort is the Confessions, which is his most 
familiar and widely read work.  The second is in the Enchiridion, 
written more than twenty years later.  In the Confessions, he 
stands on the threshold of his career in the Church. In the 
Enchiridion, he stands forth as triumphant champion of orthodox 
Christianity.  In these two works -- the nearest equivalent to 
summation in the whole of the Augustinian corpus -- we can find 
all his essential themes and can sample the characteristic flavor 
of his thought.

     Augustine was baptized by Ambrose at Milan during Eastertide, 
A.D.  387.  A short time later his mother, Monica, died at Ostia 
on the journey back to Africa.  A year later, Augustine was back 
in Roman Africa living in a monastery at Tagaste, his native town.  
In 391, he was ordained presbyter in the church of Hippo Regius (a 
small coastal town nearby).  Here in 395 -- with grave misgivings 
on his own part (cf. Sermon CCCLV, 2) and in actual violation of 
the eighth canon of Nicea (cf. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, II, 
671, and IV, 1167) -- he was consecrated assistant bishop to the 
aged Valerius, whom he succeeded the following year.  Shortly 
after he entered into his episcopal duties he began his 
Confessions, completing them probably in 398 (cf. De Labriolle, I, 
vi (see Bibliography), and di Capua, Miscellanea Agostiniana, II, 
678).

     Augustine had a complex motive for undertaking such a self-
analysis.[1]  His pilgrimage of grace had led him to a most 
unexpected outcome.  Now he felt a compelling need to retrace the 
crucial turnings of the way by which he had come.  And since he 
was sure that it was God's grace that had been his prime mover on 
that way, it was a spontaneous expression of his heart that cast 
his self-recollection into the form of a sustained prayer to God.

     The Confessions are not Augustine's autobiography.  They are, 
instead, a deliberate effort, in the permissive atmosphere of 
God's felt presence, to recall those crucial episodes and events 
in which he can now see and celebrate the mysterious actions of 
God's prevenient and provident grace.  Thus he follows the 
windings of his memory as it re-presents the upheavals of his 
youth and the stages of his disorderly quest for wisdom.  He omits 
very much indeed.  Yet he builds his successive climaxes so 
skillfully that the denouement in Book VIII is a vivid and 
believable convergence of influences, reconstructed and "placed" 
with consummate dramatic skill.  We see how Cicero's Hortensius 
first awakened his thirst for wisdom, how the Manicheans deluded 
him with their promise of true wisdom, and how the Academics upset 
his confidence in certain knowledge -- how they loosed him from 
the dogmatism of the Manicheans only to confront him with the 
opposite threat that all knowledge is uncertain.  He shows us (Bk. 
V, Ch. X, 19) that almost the sole cause of his intellectual 
perplexity in religion was his stubborn, materialistic prejudice 
that if God existed he had to exist in a body, and thus had to 
have extension, shape, and finite relation.  He remembers how the 
"Platonists" rescued him from this "materialism" and taught him 
how to think of spiritual and immaterial reality -- and so to 
become able to conceive of God in non-dualistic categories.  We 
can follow him in his extraordinarily candid and plain report of 
his Plotinian ecstasy, and his momentary communion with the One 
(Book VII).  The "Platonists" liberated him from error, but they 
could not loose him from the fetters of incontinence.  Thus, with 
a divided will, he continues to seek a stable peace in the 
Christian faith while he stubbornly clings to his pride and 
appetence.

     In Book VIII, Augustine piles up a series of remembered 
incidents that inflamed his desire to imitate those who already 
seemed to have gained what he had so long been seeking.  First of 
all, there had been Ambrose, who embodied for Augustine the 
dignity of Christian learning and the majesty of the authority of 
the Christian Scriptures.  Then Simplicianus tells him the moving 
story of Victorinus (a more famous scholar than Augustine ever 
hoped to be), who finally came to the baptismal font in Milan as 
humbly as any other catechumen.  Then, from Ponticianus he hears 
the story of Antony and about the increasing influence of the 
monastic calling.  The story that stirs him most, perhaps, relates 
the dramatic conversion of the two "special agents of the imperial 
police" in the garden at Treves -- two unlikely prospects snatched 
abruptly from their worldly ways to the monastic life.

     He makes it plain that these examples forced his own feelings 
to an intolerable tension.  His intellectual perplexities had 
become resolved; the virtue of continence had been consciously 
preferred; there was a strong desire for the storms of his breast 
to be calmed; he longed to imitate these men who had done what he 
could not and who were enjoying the peace he longed for.

     But the old habits were still strong and he could not muster 
a full act of the whole will to strike them down.  Then comes the 
scene in the Milanese garden which is an interesting parallel to 
Ponticianus' story about the garden at Treves.  The long struggle 
is recapitulated in a brief moment; his will struggles against and 
within itself.  The trivial distraction of a child's voice, 
chanting, "Tolle, lege,"  precipitates the resolution of the 
conflict.  There is a radical shift in mood and will, he turns 
eagerly to the chance text in Rom. 13:13 -- and a new spirit rises 
in his heart.

     After this radical change, there was only one more past event 
that had to be relived before his personal history could be seen 
in its right perspective.  This was the death of his mother and 
the severance of his strongest earthly tie.  Book IX tells us this 
story.  The climactic moment in it is, of course, the vision at 
Ostia where mother and son are uplifted in an ecstasy that 
parallels -- but also differs significantly from -- the Plotinian 
vision of Book VII.  After this, the mother dies and the son who 
had loved her almost too much goes on alone, now upheld and led by 
a greater and a wiser love.

     We can observe two separate stages in Augustine's 
"conversion." The first was the dramatic striking off of the 
slavery of incontinence and pride which had so long held him from 
decisive commitment to the Christian faith.  The second was the 
development of an adequate understanding of the Christian faith 
itself and his baptismal confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and 
Saviour.  The former was achieved in the Milanese garden.  The 
latter came more slowly and had no "dramatic moment." The 
dialogues that Augustine wrote at Cassiciacum the year following 
his conversion show few substantial signs of a theological 
understanding, decisively or distinctively Christian.  But by the 
time of his ordination to the presbyterate we can see the basic 
lines of a comprehensive and orthodox theology firmly laid out.  
Augustine neglects to tell us (in 398) what had happened in his 
thought between 385 and 391.  He had other questions, more 
interesting to him, with which to wrestle.

     One does not read far in the Confessions before he recognizes 
that the term "confess" has a double range of meaning.  On the one 
hand, it obviously refers to the free acknowledgment, before God, 
of the truth one knows about oneself -- and this obviously meant, 
for Augustine, the "confession of sins." But, at the same time, 
and more importantly, confiteri means to acknowledge, to God, the 
truth one knows about God.  To confess, then, is to praise and 
glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility 
in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation.

     Thus the Confessions are by no means complete when the 
personal history is concluded at the end of Book IX.  There are 
two more closely related problems to be explored: First, how does 
the finite self find the infinite God (or, how is it found of 
him?)?  And, secondly, how may we interpret God's action in 
producing this created world in which such personal histories and 
revelations do occur?  Book X, therefore, is an exploration of 
_man's way to God_, a way which begins in sense experience but 
swiftly passes beyond it, through and beyond the awesome mystery 
of memory, to the ineffable encounter between God and the soul in 
man's inmost subject-self.  But such a journey is not complete 
until the process is reversed and man has looked as deeply as may 
be into the mystery of creation, on which all our history and 
experience depend.  In Book XI, therefore, we discover why _time_ 
is such a problem and how "In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth" is the basic formula of a massive Christian 
metaphysical world view.  In Books XII and XIII, Augustine 
elaborates, in loving patience and with considerable allegorical 
license, the mysteries of creation -- exegeting the first chapter 
of Genesis, verse by verse, until he is able to relate the whole 
round of creation to the point where we can view the drama of 
God's enterprise in human history on the vast stage of the cosmos 
itself.  The Creator is the Redeemer!  Man's end and the beginning 
meet at a single point!

     The Enchiridion is a briefer treatise on the grace of God and 
represents Augustine's fully matured theological perspective -- 
after the magnificent achievements of the De Trinitate and the 
greater part of the De civitate Dei, and after the tremendous 
turmoil of the Pelagian controversy in which the doctrine of grace 
was the exact epicenter.  Sometime in 421, Augustine received a 
request from one Laurentius, a Christian layman who was the 
brother of the tribune Dulcitius (for whom Augustine wrote the De 
octo dulcitii quaestionibus in 423-425).  This Laurentius wanted a 
handbook (enchiridion)  that would sum up the essential Christian 
teaching in the briefest possible form.  Augustine dryly comments 
that the shortest complete summary of the Christian faith is that 
God is to be served by man in faith, hope, and love.  Then, 
acknowledging that this answer might indeed be _too_ brief, he 
proceeds to expand it in an essay in which he tries unsuccessfully 
to subdue his natural digressive manner by imposing on it a 
patently artificial schematism.  Despite its awkward form, 
however, the Enchiridion is one of the most important of all of 
Augustine's writings, for it is a conscious effort of the 
theological magistrate of the Western Church to stand on final 
ground of testimony to the Christian truth.

     For his framework, Augustine chooses the Apostles' Creed and 
the Lord's Prayer.  The treatise begins, naturally enough, with a 
discussion of God's work in creation.  Augustine makes a firm 
distinction between the comparatively unimportant knowledge of 
nature and the supremely important acknowledgment of the Creator 
of nature.  But creation lies under the shadow of sin and evil and 
Augustine reviews his famous (and borrowed!) doctrine of the 
privative character of evil.  From this he digresses into an 
extended comment on error and lying as special instances of evil.  
He then returns to the hopeless case of fallen man, to which God's 
wholly unmerited grace has responded in the incarnation of the 
Mediator and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  The questions about the 
appropriation of God's grace lead naturally to a discussion of 
baptism and justification, and beyond these, to the Holy Spirit 
and the Church. Augustine then sets forth the benefits of 
redeeming grace and weighs the balance between faith and good 
works in the forgiven sinner.  But redemption looks forward toward 
resurrection, and Augustine feels he must devote a good deal of 
energy and subtle speculation to the questions about the manner 
and mode of the life everlasting.  From this he moves on to the 
problem of the destiny of the wicked and the mystery of 
predestination.  Nor does he shrink from these grim topics; 
indeed, he actually _expands_ some of his most rigid ideas of 
God's ruthless justice toward the damned.  Having thus treated the 
Christian faith and Christian hope, he turns in a too-brief 
concluding section to the virtue of Christian love as the heart of 
the Christian life.  This, then, is the "handbook" on faith, hope, 
and love which he hopes Laurence will put to use and not leave as 
"baggage on his bookshelf."

     Taken together, the Confessions and the Enchiridion give us 
two very important vantage points from which to view the 
Augustinian perspective as a whole, since they represent both his 
early and his mature formulation.  From them, we can gain a 
competent -- though by no means complete -- introduction to the 
heart and mind of this great Christian saint and sage.  There are 
important differences between the two works, and these ought to be 
noted by the careful reader.  But all the main themes of 
Augustinian Christianity appear in them, and through them we can 
penetrate to its inner dynamic core.

     There is no need to justify a new English translation of 
these books, even though many good ones already exist.  Every 
translation is, at best, only an approximation -- and an 
interpretation too.  There is small hope for a translation to end 
all translations.  Augustine's Latin is, for the most part, 
comparatively easy to read.  One feels directly the force of his 
constant wordplay, the artful balancing of his clauses, his 
laconic use of parataxis, and his deliberate involutions of 
thought and word order.  He was always a Latin rhetor; artifice of 
style had come to be second nature with him -- even though the 
Latin scriptures were powerful modifiers of his classical literary 
patterns.  But it is a very tricky business to convey such a Latin 
style into anything like modern English without considerable 
violence one way or the other.  A literal rendering of the text is 
simply not readable English.  And this falsifies the text in 
another way, for Augustine's Latin is eminently readable!  On the 
other side, when one resorts to the unavoidable paraphrase there 
is always the open question as to the point beyond which the 
thought itself is being recast.  It has been my aim and hope that 
these translations will give the reader an accurate medium of 
contact with Augustine's temper and mode of argumentation.  There 
has been no thought of trying to contrive an English equivalent 
for his style.  If Augustine's ideas come through this translation 
with positive force and clarity, there can be no serious reproach 
if it is neither as eloquent nor as elegant as Augustine in his 
own language.  In any case, those who will compare this 
translation with the others will get at least a faint notion of 
how complex and truly brilliant the original is!

     The sensitive reader soon recognizes that Augustine will not 
willingly be inspected from a distance or by a neutral observer.  
In all his writings there is a strong concern and moving power to 
involve his reader in his own process of inquiry and perplexity.  
There is a manifest eagerness to have him share in his own flashes 
of insight and his sudden glimpses of God's glory.  Augustine's 
style is deeply personal; it is therefore idiomatic, and often 
colloquial.  Even in his knottiest arguments, or in the 
labyrinthine mazes of his allegorizing (e.g., Confessions, Bk. 
XIII, or Enchiridion, XVIII), he seeks to maintain contact with 
his reader in genuine respect and openness.  He is never content 
to seek and find the truth in solitude.  He must enlist his 
fellows in seeing and applying the truth as given.  He is never 
the blind fideist; even in the face of mystery, there is a 
constant reliance on the limited but real powers of human reason, 
and a constant striving for clarity and intelligibility.  In this 
sense, he was a consistent follower of his own principle of 
"Christian Socratism," developed in the De Magistro and the De 
catechezandis rudibus.  

     Even the best of Augustine's writing bears the marks of his 
own time and there is much in these old books that is of little 
interest to any but the specialist.  There are many stones of 
stumbling in them for the modern secularist -- and even for the 
modern Christian!  Despite all this, it is impossible to read him 
with any attention at all without recognizing how his genius and 
his piety burst through the limitations of his times and his 
language -- and even his English translations!  He grips our 
hearts and minds and enlists us in the great enterprise to which 
his whole life was devoted: the search for and the celebration of 
God's grace and glory by which his faithful children are sustained 
and guided in their pilgrimage toward the true Light of us all.

     The most useful critical text of the Confessions is that of 
Pierre de Labriolle (fifth edition, Paris, 1950).  I have collated 
this with the other major critical editions: Martin Skutella, S.  
Aureli Augustini Confessionum Libri Tredecim (Leipzig, 1934) -- 
itself a recension of the Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum XXXIII text of Pius Knoll (Vienna, 1896) -- and the 
second edition of John Gibb and William Montgomery (Cambridge, 
1927).

     There are two good critical texts of the Enchiridion and I 
have collated them: Otto Scheel, Augustins Enchiridion (zweite 
Auflage, Tubingen, 1930), and Jean Riviere, Enchiridion in the 
Bibliotheque Augustinienne, Oeuvres de S.  Augustin, premiere 
serie: Opuscules, IX: Exposes generaux de la foi (Paris, 1947).

     It remains for me to express my appreciation to the General 
Editors of this Library for their constructive help; to Professor 
Hollis W.  Huston, who read the entire manuscript and made many 
valuable suggestions; and to Professor William A.  Irwin, who 
greatly aided with parts of the Enchiridion.   These men share the 
credit for preventing many flaws, but naturally no responsibility 
for those remaining.  Professors Raymond P.  Morris, of the Yale 
Divinity School Library; Robert Beach, of the Union Theological 
Seminary Library; and Decherd Turner, of our Bridwell Library here 
at Southern Methodist University, were especially generous in 
their bibliographical assistance.  Last, but not least, Mrs.  
Hollis W.  Huston and my wife, between them, managed the difficult 
task of putting the results of this project into fair copy.  To 
them all I am most grateful.

     

       AUGUSTINE'S TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE CONFESSIONS 

     
I.  THE Retractations, II, 6 (A.D.  427)

     1.  My Confessions, in thirteen books, praise the righteous 
and good God as they speak either of my evil or good, and they are 
meant to excite men's minds and affections toward him.  At least 
as far as I am concerned, this is what they did for me when they 
were being written and they still do this when read.  What some 
people think of them is their own affair [ipse viderint];  but I 
do know that they have given pleasure to many of my brethren and 
still do so.  The first through the tenth books were written about 
myself; the other three about Holy Scripture, from what is written 
there, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,[2] 
even as far as the reference to the Sabbath rest.[3] 

     2.  In Book IV, when I confessed my soul's misery over the 
death of a friend and said that our soul had somehow been made one 
out of two souls, "But it may have been that I was afraid to die, 
lest he should then die wholly whom I had so greatly loved" (Ch. 
VI, 11) -- this now seems to be more a trivial declamation than a 
serious confession, although this inept expression may be tempered 
somewhat by the "may have been" [forte]  which I added.  And in 
Book XIII what I said -- "The firmament was made between the 
higher waters (and superior) and the lower (and inferior) waters" 
-- was said without sufficient thought.  In any case, the matter 
is very obscure.

     This work begins thus: "Great art thou, O Lord."

     
II.  De Dono Perseverantiae, XX, 53 (A.D.  428)

     Which of my shorter works has been more widely known or given 
greater pleasure than the [thirteen] books of my Confessions?   
And, although I published them long before the Pelagian heresy had 
even begun to be, it is plain that in them I said to my God, again 
and again, "Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." 
When these words of mine were repeated in Pelagius' presence at 
Rome by a certain brother of mine (an episcopal colleague), he 
could not bear them and contradicted him so excitedly that they 
nearly came to a quarrel.  Now what, indeed, does God command, 
first and foremost, except that we believe in him?  This faith, 
therefore, he himself gives; so that it is well said to him, "Give 
what thou commandest." Moreover, in those same books, concerning 
my account of my conversion when God turned me to that faith which 
I was laying waste with a very wretched and wild verbal assault,[4 
]do you not remember how the narration shows that I was given as a 
gift to the faithful and daily tears of my mother, who had been 
promised that I should not perish?  I certainly declared there 
that God by his grace turns men's wills to the true faith when 
they are not only averse to it, but actually adverse.  As for the 
other ways in which I sought God's aid in my growth in 
perseverance, you either know or can review them as you wish (PL, 
45, c.  1025).

     
III.  Letter to Darius (A.D.  429)

     Thus, my son, take the books of my Confessions and use them 
as a good man should -- not superficially, but as a Christian in 
Christian charity.  Here see me as I am and do not praise me for 
more than I am.  Here believe nothing else about me than my own 
testimony.  Here observe what I have been in myself and through 
myself.  And if something in me pleases you, here praise Him with 
me -- him whom I desire to be praised on my account and not 
myself.  "For it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves."[5]  
Indeed, we were ourselves quite lost; but he who made us, remade 
us [sed qui fecit, refecit].  As, then, you find me in these 
pages, pray for me that I shall not fail but that I may go on to 
be perfected.  Pray for me, my son, pray for me! (Epist. CCXXXI, 
PL, 33, c.  1025).

     

              The Confessions of Saint Augustine

      

                           BOOK ONE

     In God's searching presence, Augustine undertakes to plumb 
the depths of his memory to trace the mysterious pilgrimage of 
grace which his life has been -- and to praise God for his 
constant and omnipotent grace.  In a mood of sustained prayer, he 
recalls what he can of his infancy, his learning to speak, and his 
childhood experiences in school.  He concludes with a paean of 
grateful praise to God.  

     

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  "Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great 
is thy power, and infinite is thy wisdom."[6]  And man desires to 
praise thee, for he is a part of thy creation; he bears his 
mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and 
the proof that thou dost resist the proud.  Still he desires to 
praise thee, this man who is only a small part of thy creation.  
Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for 
thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it 
comes to rest in thee.  Grant me, O Lord, to know and understand 
whether first to invoke thee or to praise thee; whether first to 
know thee or call upon thee.  But who can invoke thee, knowing 
thee not?  For he who knows thee not may invoke thee as another 
than thou art.  It may be that we should invoke thee in order that 
we may come to know thee.  But "how shall they call on him in whom 
they have not believed?  Or how shall they believe without a 
preacher?"[7]  Now, "they shall praise the Lord who seek him,"[8] 
for "those who seek shall find him,"[9] and, finding him, shall 
praise him.  I will seek thee, O Lord, and call upon thee.  I call 
upon thee, O Lord, in my faith which thou hast given me, which 
thou hast inspired in me through the humanity of thy Son, and 
through the ministry of thy preacher.[10]

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  And how shall I call upon my God -- my God and my Lord?  
For when I call on him I ask him to come into me.  And what place 
is there in me into which my God can come?  How could God, the God 
who made both heaven and earth, come into me?  Is there anything 
in me, O Lord my God, that can contain thee?  Do even the heaven 
and the earth, which thou hast made, and in which thou didst make 
me, contain thee?  Is it possible that, since without thee nothing 
would be which does exist, thou didst make it so that whatever 
exists has some capacity to receive thee?  Why, then, do I ask 
thee to come into me, since I also am and could not be if thou 
wert not in me?  For I am not, after all, in hell -- and yet thou 
art there too, for "if I go down into hell, thou art there."[11]  
Therefore I would not exist -- I would simply not be at all -- 
unless I exist in thee, from whom and by whom and in whom all 
things are.  Even so, Lord; even so.  Where do I call thee to, 
when I am already in thee?  Or from whence wouldst thou come into 
me?  Where, beyond heaven and earth, could I go that there my God 
might come to me -- he who hath said, "I fill heaven and 
earth"?[12]

                         CHAPTER III

     3.  Since, then, thou dost fill the heaven and earth, do they 
contain thee?  Or, dost thou fill and overflow them, because they 
cannot contain thee?  And where dost thou pour out what remains of 
thee after heaven and earth are full?  Or, indeed, is there no 
need that thou, who dost contain all things, shouldst be contained 
by any, since those things which thou dost fill thou fillest by 
containing them?  For the vessels which thou dost fill do not 
confine thee, since even if they were broken, thou wouldst not be 
poured out.  And, when thou art poured out on us, thou art not 
thereby brought down; rather, we are uplifted.  Thou art not 
scattered; rather, thou dost gather us together.  But when thou 
dost fill all things, dost thou fill them with thy whole being?  
Or, since not even all things together could contain thee 
altogether, does any one thing contain a single part, and do all 
things contain that same part at the same time?  Do singulars 
contain thee singly?  Do greater things contain more of thee, and 
smaller things less?  Or, is it not rather that thou art wholly 
present everywhere, yet in such a way that nothing contains thee 
wholly?

                          CHAPTER IV

     4.  What, therefore, is my God?  What, I ask, but the Lord 
God?  "For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is God besides 
our God?"[13]  Most high, most excellent, most potent, most 
omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most 
truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not 
supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never 
old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, 
and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet 
needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, 
nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all 
things.  Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet 
free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet 
remainest serene.  Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans 
unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost.  Thou 
art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art 
never greedy, yet demandest dividends.  Men pay more than is 
required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess 
anything at all which is not already thine?  Thou owest men 
nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and 
when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby.  Yet, O 
my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said?  What 
can any man say when he speaks of thee?  But woe to them that keep 
silence -- since even those who say most are dumb.

                          CHAPTER V

     5.  Who shall bring me to rest in thee?  Who will send thee 
into my heart so to overwhelm it that my sins shall be blotted out 
and I may embrace thee, my only good?  What art thou to me?  Have 
mercy that I may speak.  What am I to thee that thou shouldst 
command me to love thee, and if I do it not, art angry and 
threatenest vast misery?  Is it, then, a trifling sorrow not to 
love thee?  It is not so to me.  Tell me, by thy mercy, O Lord, my 
God, what thou art to me.  "Say to my soul, I am your 
salvation."[14]  So speak that I may hear.  Behold, the ears of my 
heart are before thee, O Lord; open them and "say to my soul, I am 
your salvation." I will hasten after that voice, and I will lay 
hold upon thee.  Hide not thy face from me.  Even if I die, let me 
see thy face lest I die.

     6.  The house of my soul is too narrow for thee to come in to 
me; let it be enlarged by thee.  It is in ruins; do thou restore 
it.  There is much about it which must offend thy eyes; I confess 
and know it.  But who will cleanse it?  Or, to whom shall I cry 
but to thee?  "Cleanse thou me from my secret faults," O Lord, 
"and keep back thy servant from strange sins."[15]  "I believe, 
and therefore do I speak."[16]  But thou, O Lord, thou knowest.  
Have I not confessed my transgressions unto thee, O my God; and 
hast thou not put away the iniquity of my heart?[17]  I do not 
contend in judgment with thee,[18] who art truth itself; and I 
would not deceive myself, lest my iniquity lie even to itself.  I 
do not, therefore, contend in judgment with thee, for "if thou, 
Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"[19]

                          CHAPTER VI

     7.  Still, dust and ashes as I am, allow me to speak before 
thy mercy.  Allow me to speak, for, behold, it is to thy mercy 
that I speak and not to a man who scorns me.  Yet perhaps even 
thou mightest scorn me; but when thou dost turn and attend to me, 
thou wilt have mercy upon me.  For what do I wish to say, O Lord 
my God, but that I know not whence I came hither into this life-
in-death.  Or should I call it death-in-life?  I do not know.  And 
yet the consolations of thy mercy have sustained me from the very 
beginning, as I have heard from my fleshly parents, from whom and 
in whom thou didst form me in time -- for I cannot myself 
remember.  Thus even though they sustained me by the consolation 
of woman's milk, neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own 
breasts but thou, through them, didst give me the food of infancy 
according to thy ordinance and thy bounty which underlie all 
things.  For it was thou who didst cause me not to want more than 
thou gavest and it was thou who gavest to those who nourished me 
the will to give me what thou didst give them.  And they, by an 
instinctive affection, were willing to give me what thou hadst 
supplied abundantly.  It was, indeed, good for them that my good 
should come through them, though, in truth, it was not from them 
but by them.  For it is from thee, O God, that all good things 
come -- and from my God is all my health.  This is what I have 
since learned, as thou hast made it abundantly clear by all that I 
have seen thee give, both to me and to those around me.  For even 
at the very first I knew how to suck, to lie quiet when I was 
full, and to cry when in pain -- nothing more.

     8.  Afterward I began to laugh -- at first in my sleep, then 
when waking.  For this I have been told about myself and I believe 
it -- though I cannot remember it -- for I see the same things in 
other infants.  Then, little by little, I realized where I was and 
wished to tell my wishes to those who might satisfy them, but I 
could not!  For my wants were inside me, and they were outside, 
and they could not by any power of theirs come into my soul.  And 
so I would fling my arms and legs about and cry, making the few 
and feeble gestures that I could, though indeed the signs were not 
much like what I inwardly desired and when I was not satisfied -- 
either from not being understood or because what I got was not 
good for me -- I grew indignant that my elders were not subject to 
me and that those on whom I actually had no claim did not wait on 
me as slaves -- and I avenged myself on them by crying.  That 
infants are like this, I have myself been able to learn by 
watching them; and they, though they knew me not, have shown me 
better what I was like than my own nurses who knew me.

     9.  And, behold, my infancy died long ago, but I am still 
living.  But thou, O Lord, whose life is forever and in whom 
nothing dies -- since before the world was, indeed, before all 
that can be called "before," thou wast, and thou art the God and 
Lord of all thy creatures; and with thee abide all the stable 
causes of all unstable things, the unchanging sources of all 
changeable things, and the eternal reasons of all non-rational and 
temporal things -- tell me, thy suppliant, O God, tell me, O 
merciful One, in pity tell a pitiful creature whether my infancy 
followed yet an earlier age of my life that had already passed 
away before it.  Was it such another age which I spent in my 
mother's womb?  For something of that sort has been suggested to 
me, and I have myself seen pregnant women.  But what, O God, my 
Joy, preceded _that_ period of life?  Was I, indeed, anywhere, or 
anybody?  No one can explain these things to me, neither father 
nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory.  Dost 
thou laugh at me for asking such things?  Or dost thou command me 
to praise and confess unto thee only what I know?

     10.  I give thanks to thee, O Lord of heaven and earth, 
giving praise to thee for that first being and my infancy of which 
I have no memory.  For thou hast granted to man that he should 
come to self-knowledge through the knowledge of others, and that 
he should believe many things about himself on the authority of 
the womenfolk.  Now, clearly, I had life and being; and, as my 
infancy closed, I was already learning signs by which my feelings 
could be communicated to others.

     Whence could such a creature come but from thee, O Lord?  Is 
any man skillful enough to have fashioned himself?  Or is there 
any other source from which being and life could flow into us, 
save this, that thou, O Lord, hast made us -- thou with whom being 
and life are one, since thou thyself art supreme being and supreme 
life both together.  For thou art infinite and in thee there is no 
change, nor an end to this present day -- although there is a 
sense in which it ends in thee since all things are in thee and 
there would be no such thing as days passing away unless thou 
didst sustain them.  And since "thy years shall have no end,"[20] 
thy years are an ever-present day.  And how many of ours and our 
fathers' days have passed through this thy day and have received 
from it what measure and fashion of being they had?  And all the 
days to come shall so receive and so pass away.  "But thou art the 
same"![21]  And all the things of tomorrow and the days yet to 
come, and all of yesterday and the days that are past, thou wilt 
gather into this thy day.  What is it to me if someone does not 
understand this?  Let him still rejoice and continue to ask, "What 
is this?"  Let him also rejoice and prefer to seek thee, even if 
he fails to find an answer, rather than to seek an answer and not 
find thee!

                         CHAPTER VII

     11.  "Hear me, O God!  Woe to the sins of men!"  When a man 
cries thus, thou showest him mercy, for thou didst create the man 
but not the sin in him.  Who brings to remembrance the sins of my 
infancy?  For in thy sight there is none free from sin, not even 
the infant who has lived but a day upon this earth.  Who brings 
this to my remembrance?  Does not each little one, in whom I now 
observe what I no longer remember of myself?  In what ways, in 
that time, did I sin?  Was it that I cried for the breast?  If I 
should now so cry -- not indeed for the breast, but for food 
suitable to my condition -- I should be most justly laughed at and 
rebuked.  What I did then deserved rebuke but, since I could not 
understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor common sense 
permitted me to be rebuked.  As we grow we root out and cast away 
from us such childish habits.  Yet I have not seen anyone who is 
wise who cast away the good when trying to purge the bad.  Nor was 
it good, even in that time, to strive to get by crying what, if it 
had been given me, would have been hurtful; or to be bitterly 
indignant at those who, because they were older -- not slaves, 
either, but free -- and wiser than I, would not indulge my 
capricious desires.  Was it a good thing for me to try, by 
struggling as hard as I could, to harm them for not obeying me, 
even when it would have done me harm to have been obeyed?  Thus, 
the infant's innocence lies in the weakness of his body and not in 
the infant mind.  I have myself observed a baby to be jealous, 
though it could not speak; it was livid as it watched another 
infant at the breast.

     Who is ignorant of this?  Mothers and nurses tell us that 
they cure these things by I know not what remedies.  But is this 
innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and 
abundant, that another who needs it should not be allowed to share 
it, even though he requires such nourishment to sustain his life?  
Yet we look leniently on such things, not because they are not 
faults, or even small faults, but because they will vanish as the 
years pass.  For, although we allow for such things in an infant, 
the same things could not be tolerated patiently in an adult.

     12.  Therefore, O Lord my God, thou who gavest life to the 
infant, and a body which, as we see, thou hast furnished with 
senses, shaped with limbs, beautified with form, and endowed with 
all vital energies for its well-being and health -- thou dost 
command me to praise thee for these things, to give thanks unto 
the Lord, and to sing praise unto his name, O Most High.[22]  For 
thou art God, omnipotent and good, even if thou hadst done no more 
than these things, which no other but thou canst do -- thou alone 
who madest all things fair and didst order everything according to 
thy law.

     I am loath to dwell on this part of my life of which, O Lord, 
I have no remembrance, about which I must trust the word of others 
and what I can surmise from observing other infants, even if such 
guesses are trustworthy.  For it lies in the deep murk of my 
forgetfulness and thus is like the period which I passed in my 
mother's womb.  But if "I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin my 
mother nourished me in her womb,"[23] where, I pray thee, O my 
God, where, O Lord, or when was I, thy servant, ever innocent?  
But see now, I pass over that period, for what have I to do with a 
time from which I can recall no memories? 

                         CHAPTER VIII

     13.  Did I not, then, as I grew out of infancy, come next to 
boyhood, or rather did it not come to me and succeed my infancy?  
My infancy did not go away (for where would it go?).  It was 
simply no longer present; and I was no longer an infant who could 
not speak, but now a chattering boy.  I remember this, and I have 
since observed how I learned to speak.  My elders did not teach me 
words by rote, as they taught me my letters afterward.  But I 
myself, when I was unable to communicate all I wished to say to 
whomever I wished by means of whimperings and grunts and various 
gestures of my limbs (which I used to reinforce my demands), I 
myself repeated the sounds already stored in my memory by the mind 
which thou, O my God, hadst given me.  When they called some thing 
by name and pointed it out while they spoke, I saw it and realized 
that the thing they wished to indicate was called by the name they 
then uttered.  And what they meant was made plain by the gestures 
of their bodies, by a kind of natural language, common to all 
nations, which expresses itself through changes of countenance, 
glances of the eye, gestures and intonations which indicate a 
disposition and attitude -- either to seek or to possess, to 
reject or to avoid.  So it was that by frequently hearing words, 
in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the 
words stood for and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs, 
I was thereby able to express my will.  Thus I exchanged with 
those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and 
advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, 
depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the 
behest of my elders.

                          CHAPTER IX

     14.  O my God!  What miseries and mockeries did I then 
experience when it was impressed on me that obedience to my 
teachers was proper to my boyhood estate if I was to flourish in 
this world and distinguish myself in those tricks of speech which 
would gain honor for me among men, and deceitful riches!  To this 
end I was sent to school to get learning, the value of which I 
knew not -- wretch that I was.  Yet if I was slow to learn, I was 
flogged.  For this was deemed praiseworthy by our forefathers and 
many had passed before us in the same course, and thus had built 
up the precedent for the sorrowful road on which we too were 
compelled to travel, multiplying labor and sorrow upon the sons of 
Adam.  About this time, O Lord, I observed men praying to thee, 
and I learned from them to conceive thee -- after my capacity for 
understanding as it was then -- to be some great Being, who, 
though not visible to our senses, was able to hear and help us.  
Thus as a boy I began to pray to thee, my Help and my Refuge, and, 
in calling on thee, broke the bands of my tongue.  Small as I was, 
I prayed with no slight earnestness that I might not be beaten at 
school.  And when thou didst not heed me -- for that would have 
been giving me over to my folly -- my elders and even my parents 
too, who wished me no ill, treated my stripes as a joke, though 
they were then a great and grievous ill to me.

     15.  Is there anyone, O Lord, with a spirit so great, who 
cleaves to thee with such steadfast affection (or is there even a 
kind of obtuseness that has the same effect) -- is there any man 
who, by cleaving devoutly to thee, is endowed with so great a 
courage that he can regard indifferently those racks and hooks and 
other torture weapons from which men throughout the world pray so 
fervently to be spared; and can they scorn those who so greatly 
fear these torments, just as my parents were amused at the 
torments with which our teachers punished us boys?  For we were no 
less afraid of our pains, nor did we beseech thee less to escape 
them.  Yet, even so, we were sinning by writing or reading or 
studying less than our assigned lessons.

     For I did not, O Lord, lack memory or capacity, for, by thy 
will, I possessed enough for my age.  However, my mind was 
absorbed only in play, and I was punished for this by those who 
were doing the same things themselves.  But the idling of our 
elders is called business; the idling of boys, though quite like 
it, is punished by those same elders, and no one pities either the 
boys or the men.  For will any common sense observer agree that I 
was rightly punished as a boy for playing ball -- just because 
this hindered me from learning more quickly those lessons by means 
of which, as a man, I could play at more shameful games?  And did 
he by whom I was beaten do anything different?  When he was 
worsted in some small controversy with a fellow teacher, he was 
more tormented by anger and envy than I was when beaten by a 
playmate in the ball game.

                          CHAPTER X

     16.  And yet I sinned, O Lord my God, thou ruler and creator 
of all natural things -- but of sins only the ruler -- I sinned, O 
Lord my God, in acting against the precepts of my parents and of 
those teachers.  For this learning which they wished me to acquire 
-- no matter what their motives were -- I might have put to good 
account afterward.  I disobeyed them, not because I had chosen a 
better way, but from a sheer love of play.  I loved the vanity of 
victory, and I loved to have my ears tickled with lying fables, 
which made them itch even more ardently, and a similar curiosity 
glowed more and more in my eyes for the shows and sports of my 
elders.  Yet those who put on such shows are held in such high 
repute that almost all desire the same for their children.  They 
are therefore willing to have them beaten, if their childhood 
games keep them from the studies by which their parents desire 
them to grow up to be able to give such shows.  Look down on these 
things with mercy, O Lord, and deliver us who now call upon thee; 
deliver those also who do not call upon thee, that they may call 
upon thee, and thou mayest deliver them.

                          CHAPTER XI

     17.  Even as a boy I had heard of eternal life promised to us 
through the humility of the Lord our God, who came down to visit 
us in our pride, and I was signed with the sign of his cross, and 
was seasoned with his salt even from the womb of my mother, who 
greatly trusted in thee.  Thou didst see, O Lord, how, once, while 
I was still a child, I was suddenly seized with stomach pains and 
was at the point of death -- thou didst see, O my God, for even 
then thou wast my keeper, with what agitation and with what faith 
I solicited from the piety of my mother and from thy Church (which 
is the mother of us all) the baptism of thy Christ, my Lord and my 
God.  The mother of my flesh was much perplexed, for, with a heart 
pure in thy faith, she was always in deep travail for my eternal 
salvation.  If I had not quickly recovered, she would have 
provided forthwith for my initiation and washing by thy life-
giving sacraments, confessing thee, O Lord Jesus, for the 
forgiveness of sins.  So my cleansing was deferred, as if it were 
inevitable that, if I should live, I would be further polluted; 
and, further, because the guilt contracted by sin after baptism 
would be still greater and more perilous.

     Thus, at that time, I "believed" along with my mother and the 
whole household, except my father.  But he did not overcome the 
influence of my mother's piety in me, nor did he prevent my 
believing in Christ, although he had not yet believed in him.  For 
it was her desire, O my God, that I should acknowledge thee as my 
Father rather than him.  In this thou didst aid her to overcome 
her husband, to whom, though his superior, she yielded obedience.  
In this way she also yielded obedience to thee, who dost so 
command.

     18.  I ask thee, O my God, for I would gladly know if it be 
thy will, to what good end my baptism was deferred at that time?  
Was it indeed for my good that the reins were slackened, as it 
were, to encourage me in sin?  Or, were they not slackened?  If 
not, then why is it still dinned into our ears on all sides, "Let 
him alone, let him do as he pleases, for he is not yet baptized"?  
In the matter of bodily health, no one says, "Let him alone; let 
him be worse wounded; for he is not yet cured"!  How much better, 
then, would it have been for me to have been cured at once -- and 
if thereafter, through the diligent care of friends and myself, my 
soul's restored health had been kept safe in thy keeping, who gave 
it in the first place!  This would have been far better, in truth.  
But how many and great the waves of temptation which appeared to 
hang over me as I grew out of childhood!  These were foreseen by 
my mother, and she preferred that the unformed clay should be 
risked to them rather than the clay molded after Christ's 
image.[24]

                          CHAPTER XII

     19.  But in this time of childhood -- which was far less 
dreaded for me than my adolescence -- I had no love of learning, 
and hated to be driven to it.  Yet I was driven to it just the 
same, and good was done for me, even though I did not do it well, 
for I would not have learned if I had not been forced to it.  For 
no man does well against his will, even if what he does is a good 
thing.  Neither did they who forced me do well, but the good that 
was done me came from thee, my God.  For they did not care about 
the way in which I would use what they forced me to learn, and 
took it for granted that it was to satisfy the inordinate desires 
of a rich beggary and a shameful glory.  But thou, Lord, by whom 
the hairs of our head are numbered, didst use for my good the 
error of all who pushed me on to study: but my error in not being 
willing to learn thou didst use for my punishment.  And I -- 
though so small a boy yet so great a sinner -- was not punished 
without warrant.  Thus by the instrumentality of those who did not 
do well, thou didst well for me; and by my own sin thou didst 
justly punish me.  For it is even as thou hast ordained: that 
every inordinate affection brings on its own punishment.

                         CHAPTER XIII

     20.  But what were the causes for my strong dislike of Greek 
literature, which I studied from my boyhood?  Even to this day I 
have not fully understood them.  For Latin I loved exceedingly -- 
not just the rudiments, but what the grammarians teach. For those 
beginner's lessons in reading, writing, and reckoning, I 
considered no less a burden and pain than Greek.  Yet whence came 
this, unless from the sin and vanity of this life?  For I was "but 
flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again."[25]  Those 
first lessons were better, assuredly, because they were more 
certain, and through them I acquired, and still retain, the power 
of reading what I find written and of writing for myself what I 
will.  In the other subjects, however, I was compelled to learn 
about the wanderings of a certain Aeneas, oblivious of my own 
wanderings, and to weep for Dido dead, who slew herself for love.  
And all this while I bore with dry eyes my own wretched self dying 
to thee, O God, my life, in the midst of these things.

     21.  For what can be more wretched than the wretch who has no 
pity upon himself, who sheds tears over Dido, dead for the love of 
Aeneas, but who sheds no tears for his own death in not loving 
thee, O God, light of my heart, and bread of the inner mouth of my 
soul, O power that links together my mind with my inmost thoughts?  
I did not love thee, and thus committed fornication against 
thee.[26]  Those around me, also sinning, thus cried out: "Well 
done!  Well done!"  The friendship of this world is fornication 
against thee; and "Well done!  Well done!"  is cried until one 
feels ashamed not to show himself a man in this way.  For my own 
condition I shed no tears, though I wept for Dido, who "sought 
death at the sword's point,"[27] while I myself was seeking the 
lowest rung of thy creation, having forsaken thee; earth sinking 
back to earth again.  And, if I had been forbidden to read these 
poems, I would have grieved that I was not allowed to read what 
grieved me.  This sort of madness is considered more honorable and 
more fruitful learning than the beginner's course in which I 
learned to read and write.

     22.  But now, O my God, cry unto my soul, and let thy truth 
say to me: "Not so, not so!  That first learning was far better." 
For, obviously, I would rather forget the wanderings of Aeneas, 
and all such things, than forget how to write and read.  Still, 
over the entrance of the grammar school there hangs a veil.  This 
is not so much the sign of a covering for a mystery as a curtain 
for error.  Let them exclaim against me -- those I no longer fear 
-- while I confess to thee, my God, what my soul desires, and let 
me find some rest, for in blaming my own evil ways I may come to 
love thy holy ways.  Neither let those cry out against me who buy 
and sell the baubles of literature.  For if I ask them if it is 
true, as the poet says, that Aeneas once came to Carthage, the 
unlearned will reply that they do not know and the learned will 
deny that it is true.  But if I ask with what letters the name 
Aeneas is written, all who have ever learned this will answer 
correctly, in accordance with the conventional understanding men 
have agreed upon as to these signs.  Again, if I should ask which 
would cause the greatest inconvenience in our life, if it were 
forgotten: reading and writing, or these poetical fictions, who 
does not see what everyone would answer who had not entirely lost 
his own memory?  I erred, then, when as a boy I preferred those 
vain studies to these more profitable ones, or rather loved the 
one and hated the other.  "One and one are two, two and two are 
four": this was then a truly hateful song to me.  But the wooden 
horse full of its armed soldiers, and the holocaust of Troy, and 
the spectral image of Creusa were all a most delightful -- and 
vain -- show![28]

     23.  But why, then, did I dislike Greek learning, which was 
full of such tales?  For Homer was skillful in inventing such 
poetic fictions and is most sweetly wanton; yet when I was a boy, 
he was most disagreeable to me.  I believe that Virgil would have 
the same effect on Greek boys as Homer did on me if they were 
forced to learn him.  For the tedium of learning a foreign 
language mingled gall into the sweetness of those Grecian myths.  
For I did not understand a word of the language, and yet I was 
driven with threats and cruel punishments to learn it.  There was 
also a time when, as an infant, I knew no Latin; but this I 
acquired without any fear or tormenting, but merely by being alert 
to the blandishments of my nurses, the jests of those who smiled 
on me, and the sportiveness of those who toyed with me.  I learned 
all this, indeed, without being urged by any pressure of 
punishment, for my own heart urged me to bring forth its own 
fashioning, which I could not do except by learning words: not 
from those who taught me but those who talked to me, into whose 
ears I could pour forth whatever I could fashion.  From this it is 
sufficiently clear that a free curiosity is more effective in 
learning than a discipline based on fear.  Yet, by thy ordinance, 
O God, discipline is given to restrain the excesses of freedom; 
this ranges from the ferule of the schoolmaster to the trials of 
the martyr and has the effect of mingling for us a wholesome 
bitterness, which calls us back to thee from the poisonous 
pleasures that first drew us from thee.

                          CHAPTER XV

     24.  Hear my prayer, O Lord; let not my soul faint under thy 
discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto thee thy mercies, 
whereby thou hast saved me from all my most wicked ways till thou 
shouldst become sweet to me beyond all the allurements that I used 
to follow.  Let me come to love thee wholly, and grasp thy hand 
with my whole heart that thou mayest deliver me from every 
temptation, even unto the last.  And thus, O Lord, my King and my 
God, may all things useful that I learned as a boy now be offered 
in thy service -- let it be that for thy service I now speak and 
write and reckon.  For when I was learning vain things, thou didst 
impose thy discipline upon me: and thou hast forgiven me my sin of 
delighting in those vanities.  In those studies I learned many a 
useful word, but these might have been learned in matters not so 
vain; and surely that is the safe way for youths to walk in.

                          CHAPTER XVI

     25.  But woe unto you, O torrent of human custom!  Who shall 
stay your course?  When will you ever run dry?  How long will you 
carry down the sons of Eve into that vast and hideous ocean, which 
even those who have the Tree (for an ark)[29] can scarcely pass 
over?  Do I not read in you the stories of Jove the thunderer -- 
and the adulterer?[30]  How could he be both?  But so it says, and 
the sham thunder served as a cloak for him to play at real 
adultery.  Yet which of our gowned masters will give a tempered 
hearing to a man trained in their own schools who cries out and 
says: "These were Homer's fictions; he transfers things human to 
the gods.  I could have wished that he would transfer divine 
things to us."[31]  But it would have been more true if he said, 
"These are, indeed, his fictions, but he attributed divine 
attributes to sinful men, that crimes might not be accounted 
crimes, and that whoever committed such crimes might appear to 
imitate the celestial gods and not abandoned men."

     26.  And yet, O torrent of hell, the sons of men are still 
cast into you, and they pay fees for learning all these things.  
And much is made of it when this goes on in the forum under the 
auspices of laws which give a salary over and above the fees.  And 
you beat against your rocky shore and roar: "Here words may be 
learned; here you can attain the eloquence which is so necessary 
to persuade people to your way of thinking; so helpful in 
unfolding your opinions." Verily, they seem to argue that we 
should never have understood these words, "golden shower," 
"bosom," "intrigue," "highest heavens," and other such words, if 
Terence had not introduced a good-for-nothing youth upon the 
stage, setting up a picture of Jove as his example of lewdness and 
telling the tale

          "Of Jove's descending in a golden shower 

     Into Danae's bosom...  

     With a woman to intrigue."

     See how he excites himself to lust, as if by a heavenly 
authority, when he says:

          "Great Jove, 

     Who shakes the highest heavens with his thunder; 

     Shall I, poor mortal man, not do the same?

     I've done it, and with all my heart, I'm glad."[32]

     These words are not learned one whit more easily because of 
this vileness, but through them the vileness is more boldly 
perpetrated.  I do not blame the words, for they are, as it were, 
choice and precious vessels, but I do deplore the wine of error 
which was poured out to us by teachers already drunk.  And, unless 
we also drank we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to a sober 
judge.  And yet, O my God, in whose presence I can now with 
security recall this, I learned these things willingly and with 
delight, and for it I was called a boy of good promise.

                         CHAPTER XVII

     27.  Bear with me, O my God, while I speak a little of those 
talents, thy gifts, and of the follies on which I wasted them.  
For a lesson was given me that sufficiently disturbed my soul, for 
in it there was both hope of praise and fear of shame or stripes.  
The assignment was that I should declaim the words of Juno, as she 
raged and sorrowed that she could not

          "Bar off Italy

     From all the approaches of the Teucrian king."[33]

     I had learned that Juno had never uttered these words.  Yet 
we were compelled to stray in the footsteps of these poetic 
fictions, and to turn into prose what the poet had said in verse.  
In the declamation, the boy won most applause who most strikingly 
reproduced the passions of anger and sorrow according to the 
"character" of the persons presented and who clothed it all in the 
most suitable language.  What is it now to me, O my true Life, my 
God, that my declaiming was applauded above that of many of my 
classmates and fellow students?  Actually, was not all that smoke 
and wind?  Besides, was there nothing else on which I could have 
exercised my wit and tongue?  Thy praise, O Lord, thy praises 
might have propped up the tendrils of my heart by thy Scriptures; 
and it would not have been dragged away by these empty trifles, a 
shameful prey to the spirits of the air.  For there is more than 
one way in which men sacrifice to the fallen angels.

                         CHAPTER XVIII

     28.  But it was no wonder that I was thus carried toward 
vanity and was estranged from thee, O my God, when men were held 
up as models to me who, when relating a deed of theirs -- not in 
itself evil -- were covered with confusion if found guilty of a 
barbarism or a solecism; but who could tell of their own 
licentiousness and be applauded for it, so long as they did it in 
a full and ornate oration of well-chosen words.  Thou seest all 
this, O Lord, and dost keep silence -- "long-suffering, and 
plenteous in mercy and truth"[34] as thou art.  Wilt thou keep 
silence forever?  Even now thou drawest from that vast deep the 
soul that seeks thee and thirsts after thy delight, whose "heart 
said unto thee, ÔI have sought thy face; thy face, Lord, will I 
seek.'"[35] For I was far from thy face in the dark shadows of 
passion.  For it is not by our feet, nor by change of place, that 
we either turn from thee or return to thee.  That younger son did 
not charter horses or chariots, or ships, or fly away on visible 
wings, or journey by walking so that in the far country he might 
prodigally waste all that thou didst give him when he set out.[36] 
A kind Father when thou gavest; and kinder still when he returned 
destitute!  To be wanton, that is to say, to be darkened in heart 
-- this is to be far from thy face.

     29.  Look down, O Lord God, and see patiently, as thou art 
wont to do, how diligently the sons of men observe the 
conventional rules of letters and syllables, taught them by those 
who learned their letters beforehand, while they neglect the 
eternal rules of everlasting salvation taught by thee.  They carry 
it so far that if he who practices or teaches the established 
rules of pronunciation should speak (contrary to grammatical 
usage) without aspirating the first syllable of "hominem" 
["ominem," and thus make it "a 'uman being"], he will offend men 
more than if he, a human being, were to _hate_ another human being 
contrary to thy commandments.  It is as if he should feel that 
there is an enemy who could be more destructive to himself than 
that hatred which excites him against his fellow man; or that he 
could destroy him whom he hates more completely than he destroys 
his own soul by this same hatred.  Now, obviously, there is no 
knowledge of letters more innate than the writing of conscience -- 
against doing unto another what one would not have done to 
himself.

     How mysterious thou art, who "dwellest on high"[37] in 
silence.  O thou, the only great God, who by an unwearied law 
hurlest down the penalty of blindness to unlawful desire!  When a 
man seeking the reputation of eloquence stands before a human 
judge, while a thronging multitude surrounds him, and inveighs 
against his enemy with the most fierce hatred, he takes most 
vigilant heed that his tongue does not slip in a grammatical 
error, for example, and say inter hominibus [instead of inter 
homines], but he takes no heed lest, in the fury of his spirit, he 
cut off a man from his fellow men [ex hominibus].

     30.  These were the customs in the midst of which I was cast, 
an unhappy boy.  This was the wrestling arena in which I was more 
fearful of perpetrating a barbarism than, having done so, of 
envying those who had not.  These things I declare and confess to 
thee, my God.  I was applauded by those whom I then thought it my 
whole duty to please, for I did not perceive the gulf of infamy 
wherein I was cast away from thy eyes.  

     For in thy eyes, what was more infamous than I was already, 
since I displeased even my own kind and deceived, with endless 
lies, my tutor, my masters and parents -- all from a love of play, 
a craving for frivolous spectacles, a stage-struck restlessness to 
imitate what I saw in these shows?  I pilfered from my parents' 
cellar and table, sometimes driven by gluttony, sometimes just to 
have something to give to other boys in exchange for their 
baubles, which they were prepared to sell even though they liked 
them as well as I.  Moreover, in this kind of play, I often sought 
dishonest victories, being myself conquered by the vain desire for 
pre-eminence.  And what was I so unwilling to endure, and what was 
it that I censured so violently when I caught anyone, except the 
very things I did to others?  And, when I was myself detected and 
censured, I preferred to quarrel rather than to yield.  Is this 
the innocence of childhood?  It is not, O Lord, it is not.  I 
entreat thy mercy, O my God, for these same sins as we grow older 
are transferred from tutors and masters; they pass from nuts and 
balls and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and lands 
and slaves, just as the rod is succeeded by more severe 
chastisements.  It was, then, the fact of humility in childhood 
that thou, O our King, didst approve as a symbol of humility when 
thou saidst, "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."[38]

                          CHAPTER XIX

     31.  However, O Lord, to thee most excellent and most good, 
thou Architect and Governor of the universe, thanks would be due 
thee, O our God, even if thou hadst not willed that I should 
survive my boyhood.  For I existed even then; I lived and felt and 
was solicitous about my own well-being -- a trace of that most 
mysterious unity from whence I had my being.[39]  I kept watch, by 
my inner sense, over the integrity of my outer senses, and even in 
these trifles and also in my thoughts about trifles, I learned to 
take pleasure in truth.  I was averse to being deceived; I had a 
vigorous memory; I was gifted with the power of speech, was 
softened by friendship, shunned sorrow, meanness, ignorance.  Is 
not such an animated creature as this wonderful and praiseworthy?  
But all these are gifts of my God; I did not give them to myself.  
Moreover, they are good, and they all together constitute myself.  
Good, then, is he that made me, and he is my God; and before him 
will I rejoice exceedingly for every good gift which, even as a 
boy, I had.  But herein lay my sin, that it was not in him, but in 
his creatures -- myself and the rest -- that I sought for 
pleasures, honors, and truths.  And I fell thereby into sorrows, 
troubles, and errors.  Thanks be to thee, my joy, my pride, my 
confidence, my God -- thanks be to thee for thy gifts; but do thou 
preserve them in me.  For thus wilt thou preserve me; and those 
things which thou hast given me shall be developed and perfected, 
and I myself shall be with thee, for from thee is my being.

     

                          BOOK TWO

     
He concentrates here on his sixteenth year, a year of idleness, 
lust, and adolescent mischief.  The memory of stealing some pears 
prompts a deep probing of the motives and aims of sinful acts.  "I 
became to myself a wasteland." 

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  I wish now to review in memory my past wickedness and the 
carnal corruptions of my soul -- not because I still love them, 
but that I may love thee, O my God.  For love of thy love I do 
this, recalling in the bitterness of self-examination my wicked 
ways, that thou mayest grow sweet to me, thou sweetness without 
deception!  Thou sweetness happy and assured!  Thus thou mayest 
gather me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces, 
while I turned away from thee, O Unity, and lost myself among "the 
many."[40]  For as I became a youth, I longed to be satisfied with 
worldly things, and I dared to grow wild in a succession of 
various and shadowy loves.  My form wasted away, and I became 
corrupt in thy eyes, yet I was still pleasing to my own eyes -- 
and eager to please the eyes of men.

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be 
loved?  Still I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind 
to mind -- the bright path of friendship.  Instead, the mists of 
passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh, 
and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and 
overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection 
from unholy desire.  Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged 
my unstable youth down over the cliffs of unchaste desires and 
plunged me into a gulf of infamy.  Thy anger had come upon me, and 
I knew it not.  I had been deafened by the clanking of the chains 
of my mortality, the punishment for my soul's pride, and I 
wandered farther from thee, and thou didst permit me to do so.  I 
was tossed to and fro, and wasted, and poured out, and I boiled 
over in my fornications -- and yet thou didst hold thy peace, O my 
tardy Joy!  Thou didst still hold thy peace, and I wandered still 
farther from thee into more and yet more barren fields of sorrow, 
in proud dejection and restless lassitude.

     3.  If only there had been someone to regulate my disorder 
and turn to my profit the fleeting beauties of the things around 
me, and to fix a bound to their sweetness, so that the tides of my 
youth might have spent themselves upon the shore of marriage!  
Then they might have been tranquilized and satisfied with having 
children, as thy law prescribes, O Lord -- O thou who dost form 
the offspring of our death and art able also with a tender hand to 
blunt the thorns which were excluded from thy paradise![41]  For 
thy omnipotence is not far from us even when we are far from thee.  
Now, on the other hand, I might have given more vigilant heed to 
the voice from the clouds: "Nevertheless, such shall have trouble 
in the flesh, but I spare you,"[42] and, "It is good for a man not 
to touch a woman,"[43] and, "He that is unmarried cares for the 
things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he 
that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he 
may please his wife."[44]  I should have listened more attentively 
to these words, and, thus having been "made a eunuch for the 
Kingdom of Heaven's sake,"[45] I would have with greater happiness 
expected thy embraces.

     4.  But, fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the 
sea and, forsaking thee, followed the rushing of my own tide, and 
burst out of all thy bounds.  But I did not escape thy scourges.  
For what mortal can do so?  Thou wast always by me, mercifully 
angry and flavoring all my unlawful pleasures with bitter 
discontent, in order that I might seek pleasures free from 
discontent.  But where could I find such pleasure save in thee, O 
Lord -- save in thee, who dost teach us by sorrow, who woundest us 
to heal us, and dost kill us that we may not die apart from thee.  
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 the 
madness of lust held full sway in me -- that madness which grants 
indulgence to human shamelessness, even though it is forbidden by 
thy laws -- and I gave myself entirely to it?  Meanwhile, my 
family took no care to save me from ruin by marriage, for their 
sole care was that I should learn how to make a powerful speech 
and become a persuasive orator.

                          CHAPTER III

     5.  Now, in that year my studies were interrupted.  I had 
come back from Madaura, a neighboring city[46] where I had gone to 
study grammar and rhetoric; and the money for a further term at 
Carthage was being got together for me.  This project was more a 
matter of my father's ambition than of his means, for he was only 
a poor citizen of Tagaste.  

     To whom am I narrating all this?  Not to thee, O my God, but 
to my own kind in thy presence -- to that small part of the human 
race who may chance to come upon these writings.  And to what end?  
That I and all who read them may understand what depths there are 
from which we are to cry unto thee.[47]  For what is more surely 
heard in thy ear than a confessing heart and a faithful life?  

     Who did not extol and praise my father, because he went quite 
beyond his means to supply his son with the necessary expenses for 
a far journey in the interest of his education?  For many far 
richer citizens did not do so much for their children.  Still, 
this same father troubled himself not at all as to how I was 
progressing toward thee nor how chaste I was, just so long as I 
was skillful in speaking -- no matter how barren I was to thy 
tillage, O God, who art the one true and good Lord of my heart, 
which is thy field.[48] 

     6.  During that sixteenth year of my age, I lived with my 
parents, having a holiday from school for a time -- this idleness 
imposed upon me by my parents' straitened finances.  The 
thornbushes of lust grew rank about my head, and there was no hand 
to root them out.  Indeed, when my father saw me one day at the 
baths and perceived that I was becoming a man, and was showing the 
signs of adolescence, he joyfully told my mother about it as if 
already looking forward to grandchildren, rejoicing in that sort 
of inebriation in which the world so often forgets thee, its 
Creator, and falls in love with thy creature instead of thee -- 
the inebriation of that invisible wine of a perverted will which 
turns and bows down to infamy.  But in my mother's breast thou 
hadst already begun to build thy temple and the foundation of thy 
holy habitation -- whereas my father was only a catechumen, and 
that but recently.  She was, therefore, startled with a holy fear 
and trembling: for though I had not yet been baptized, she feared 
those crooked ways in which they walk who turn their backs to thee 
and not their faces.

     7.  Woe is me!  Do I dare affirm that thou didst hold thy 
peace, O my God, while I wandered farther away from thee?  Didst 
thou really then hold thy peace?  Then whose words were they but 
thine which by my mother, thy faithful handmaid, thou didst pour 
into my ears?  None of them, however, sank into my heart to make 
me do anything.  She deplored and, as I remember, warned me 
privately with great solicitude, "not to commit fornication; but 
above all things never to defile another man's wife." These 
appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed 
to obey.  Yet they were from thee, and I knew it not.  I thought 
that thou wast silent and that it was only she who spoke.  Yet it 
was through her that thou didst not keep silence toward me; and in 
rejecting her counsel I was rejecting thee -- I, her son, "the son 
of thy handmaid, thy servant."[49]  But I did not realize this, 
and rushed on headlong with such blindness that, among my friends, 
I was ashamed to be less shameless than they, when I heard them 
boasting of their disgraceful exploits -- yes, and glorying all 
the more the worse their baseness was.  What is worse, I took 
pleasure in such exploits, not for the pleasure's sake only but 
mostly for praise.  What is worthy of vituperation except vice 
itself?  Yet I made myself out worse than I was, in order that I 
might not go lacking for praise.  And when in anything I had not 
sinned as the worst ones in the group, I would still say that I 
had done what I had not done, in order not to appear contemptible 
because I was more innocent than they; and not to drop in their 
esteem because I was more chaste.

     8.  Behold with what companions I walked the streets of 
Babylon!  I rolled in its mire and lolled about on it, as if on a 
bed of spices and precious ointments.  And, drawing me more 
closely to the very center of that city, my invisible enemy trod 
me down and seduced me, for I was easy to seduce.  My mother had 
already fled out of the midst of Babylon[50] and was progressing, 
albeit slowly, toward its outskirts.  For in counseling me to 
chastity, she did not bear in mind what her husband had told her 
about me.  And although she knew that my passions were destructive 
even then and dangerous for the future, she did not think they 
should be restrained by the bonds of conjugal affection -- if, 
indeed, they could not be cut away to the quick.  She took no heed 
of this, for she was afraid lest a wife should prove a hindrance 
and a burden to my hopes.  These were not her hopes of the world 
to come, which my mother had in thee, but the hope of learning, 
which both my parents were too anxious that I should acquire -- my 
father, because he had little or no thought of thee, and only vain 
thoughts for me; my mother, because she thought that the usual 
course of study would not only be no hindrance but actually a 
furtherance toward my eventual return to thee.  This much I 
conjecture, recalling as well as I can the temperaments of my 
parents.  Meantime, the reins of discipline were slackened on me, 
so that without the restraint of due severity, I might play at 
whatsoever I fancied, even to the point of dissoluteness.  And in 
all this there was that mist which shut out from my sight the 
brightness of thy truth, O my God; and my iniquity bulged out, as 
it were, with fatness![51]

                          CHAPTER IV

     9.  Theft is punished by thy law, O Lord, and by the law 
written in men's hearts, which not even ingrained wickedness can 
erase.  For what thief will tolerate another thief stealing from 
him?  Even a rich thief will not tolerate a poor thief who is 
driven to theft by want.  Yet I had a desire to commit robbery, 
and did so, compelled to it by neither hunger nor poverty, but 
through a contempt for well-doing and a strong impulse to 
iniquity.  For I pilfered something which I already had in 
sufficient measure, and of much better quality.  I did not desire 
to enjoy what I stole, but only the theft and the sin itself.

     There was a pear tree close to our own vineyard, heavily 
laden with fruit, which was not tempting either for its color or 
for its flavor.  Late one night -- having prolonged our games in 
the streets until then, as our bad habit was -- a group of young 
scoundrels, and I among them, went to shake and rob this tree.  We 
carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to 
dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves.  
Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden.  Such 
was my heart, O God, such was my heart -- which thou didst pity 
even in that bottomless pit.  Behold, now let my heart confess to 
thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously 
wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself.  It was 
foul, and I loved it.  I loved my own undoing.  I loved my error 
-- not that for which I erred but the error itself.  A depraved 
soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, 
seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself.

                           CHAPTER V

     10.  Now there is a comeliness in all beautiful bodies, and 
in gold and silver and all things.  The sense of touch has its own 
power to please and the other senses find their proper objects in 
physical sensation.  Worldly honor also has its own glory, and so 
do the powers to command and to overcome: and from these there 
springs up the desire for revenge.  Yet, in seeking these 
pleasures, we must not depart from thee, O Lord, nor deviate from 
thy law.  The life which we live here has its own peculiar 
attractiveness because it has a certain measure of comeliness of 
its own and a harmony with all these inferior values.  The bond of 
human friendship has a sweetness of its own, binding many souls 
together as one.  Yet because of these values, sin is committed, 
because we have an inordinate preference for these goods of a 
lower order and neglect the better and the higher good -- 
neglecting thee, O our Lord God, and thy truth and thy law.  For 
these inferior values have their delights, but not at all equal to 
my God, who hath made them all.  For in him do the righteous 
delight and he is the sweetness of the upright in heart.

     11.  When, therefore, we inquire why a crime was committed, 
we do not accept the explanation unless it appears that there was 
the desire to obtain some of those values which we designate 
inferior, or else a fear of losing them.  For truly they are 
beautiful and comely, though in comparison with the superior and 
celestial goods they are abject and contemptible.  A man has 
murdered another man -- what was his motive?  Either he desired 
his wife or his property or else he would steal to support 
himself; or else he was afraid of losing something to him; or 
else, having been injured, he was burning to be revenged.  Would a 
man commit murder without a motive, taking delight simply in the 
act of murder?  Who would believe such a thing?  Even for that 
savage and brutal man [Catiline], of whom it was said that he was 
gratuitously wicked and cruel, there is still a motive assigned to 
his deeds.  "Lest through idleness," he says, "hand or heart 
should grow inactive."[52]  And to what purpose?  Why, even this: 
that, having once got possession of the city through his practice 
of his wicked ways, he might gain honors, empire, and wealth, and 
thus be exempt from the fear of the laws and from financial 
difficulties in supplying the needs of his family -- and from the 
consciousness of his own wickedness.  So it seems that even 
Catiline himself loved not his own villainies, but something else, 
and it was this that gave him the motive for his crimes.

                          CHAPTER VI

     12.  What was it in you, O theft of mine, that I, poor 
wretch, doted on -- you deed of darkness -- in that sixteenth year 
of my age?  Beautiful you were not, for you were a theft.  But are 
you anything at all, so that I could analyze the case with you?  
Those pears that we stole were fair to the sight because they were 
thy creation, O Beauty beyond compare, O Creator of all, O thou 
good God -- God the highest good and my true good.[53]  Those 
pears were truly pleasant to the sight, but it was not for them 
that my miserable soul lusted, for I had an abundance of better 
pears.  I stole those simply that I might steal, for, having 
stolen them, I threw them away.  My sole gratification in them was 
my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy; for, if any one of these 
pears entered my mouth, the only good flavor it had was my sin in 
eating it.  And now, O Lord my God, I ask what it was in that 
theft of mine that caused me such delight; for behold it had no 
beauty of its own -- certainly not the sort of beauty that exists 
in justice and wisdom, nor such as is in the mind, memory senses, 
and the animal life of man; nor yet the kind that is the glory and 
beauty of the stars in their courses; nor the beauty of the earth, 
or the sea -- teeming with spawning life, replacing in birth that 
which dies and decays.  Indeed, it did not have that false and 
shadowy beauty which attends the deceptions of vice.

     13.  For thus we see pride wearing the mask of high-
spiritedness, although only thou, O God, art high above all.  
Ambition seeks honor and glory, whereas only thou shouldst be 
honored above all, and glorified forever.  The powerful man seeks 
to be feared, because of his cruelty; but who ought really to be 
feared but God only?  What can be forced away or withdrawn out of 
his power -- when or where or whither or by whom?  The enticements 
of the wanton claim the name of love; and yet nothing is more 
enticing than thy love, nor is anything loved more healthfully 
than thy truth, bright and beautiful above all.  Curiosity prompts 
a desire for knowledge, whereas it is only thou who knowest all 
things supremely.  Indeed, ignorance and foolishness themselves go 
masked under the names of simplicity and innocence; yet there is 
no being that has true simplicity like thine, and none is innocent 
as thou art.  Thus it is that by a sinner's own deeds he is 
himself harmed.  Human sloth pretends to long for rest, but what 
sure rest is there save in the Lord?  Luxury would fain be called 
plenty and abundance; but thou art the fullness and unfailing 
abundance of unfading joy.  Prodigality presents a show of 
liberality; but thou art the most lavish giver of all good things.  
Covetousness desires to possess much; but thou art already the 
possessor of all things.  Envy contends that its aim is for 
excellence; but what is so excellent as thou?  Anger seeks 
revenge; but who avenges more justly than thou?  Fear recoils at 
the unfamiliar and the sudden changes which threaten things 
beloved, and is wary for its own security; but what can happen 
that is unfamiliar or sudden to thee?  Or who can deprive thee of 
what thou lovest?  Where, really, is there unshaken security save 
with thee?  Grief languishes for things lost in which desire had 
taken delight, because it wills to have nothing taken from it, 
just as nothing can be taken from thee.

     14.  Thus the soul commits fornication when she is turned 
from thee,[54] and seeks apart from thee what she cannot find pure 
and untainted until she returns to thee.  All things thus imitate 
thee -- but pervertedly -- when they separate themselves far from 
thee and raise themselves up against thee.  But, even in this act 
of perverse imitation, they acknowledge thee to be the Creator of 
all nature, and recognize that there is no place whither they can 
altogether separate themselves from thee.  What was it, then, that 
I loved in that theft?  And wherein was I imitating my Lord, even 
in a corrupted and perverted way?  Did I wish, if only by gesture, 
to rebel against thy law, even though I had no power to do so 
actually -- so that, even as a captive, I might produce a sort of 
counterfeit liberty, by doing with impunity deeds that were 
forbidden, in a deluded sense of omnipotence?  Behold this servant 
of thine, fleeing from his Lord and following a shadow!  O 
rottenness!  O monstrousness of life and abyss of death!  Could I 
find pleasure only in what was unlawful, and only because it was 
unlawful? 

                          CHAPTER VII

     15.  "What shall I render unto the Lord"[55] for the fact 
that while my memory recalls these things my soul no longer fears 
them?  I will love thee, O Lord, and thank thee, and confess to 
thy name, because thou hast put away from me such wicked and evil 
deeds.  To thy grace I attribute it and to thy mercy, that thou 
hast melted away my sin as if it were ice.  To thy grace also I 
attribute whatsoever of evil I did _not_ commit -- for what might 
I not have done, loving sin as I did, just for the sake of 
sinning?  Yea, all the sins that I confess now to have been 
forgiven me, both those which I committed willfully and those 
which, by thy providence, I did not commit.  What man is there 
who, when reflecting upon his own infirmity, dares to ascribe his 
chastity and innocence to his own powers, so that he should love 
thee less -- as if he were in less need of thy mercy in which thou 
forgivest the transgressions of those that return to thee?  As for 
that man who, when called by thee, obeyed thy voice and shunned 
those things which he here reads of me as I recall and confess 
them of myself, let him not despise me -- for I, who was sick, 
have been healed by the same Physician by whose aid it was that he 
did not fall sick, or rather was less sick than I.  And for this 
let him love thee just as much -- indeed, all the more -- since he 
sees me restored from such a great weakness of sin by the selfsame 
Saviour by whom he sees himself preserved from such a weakness.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     16.  What profit did I, a wretched one, receive from those 
things which, when I remember them now, cause me shame -- above 
all, from that theft, which I loved only for the theft's sake?  
And, as the theft itself was nothing, I was all the more wretched 
in that I loved it so.  Yet by myself alone I would not have done 
it -- I still recall how I felt about this then -- I could not 
have done it alone.  I loved it then because of the companionship 
of my accomplices with whom I did it.  I did not, therefore, love 
the theft alone -- yet, indeed, it was only the theft that I 
loved, for the companionship was nothing.  What is this paradox?  
Who is it that can explain it to me but God, who illumines my 
heart and searches out the dark corners thereof?  What is it that 
has prompted my mind to inquire about it, to discuss and to 
reflect upon all this?  For had I at that time loved the pears 
that I stole and wished to enjoy them, I might have done so alone, 
if I could have been satisfied with the mere act of theft by which 
my pleasure was served.  Nor did I need to have that itching of my 
own passions inflamed by the encouragement of my accomplices.  But 
since the pleasure I got was not from the pears, it was in the 
crime itself, enhanced by the companionship of my fellow sinners.

                          CHAPTER IX

     17.  By what passion, then, was I animated?  It was 
undoubtedly depraved and a great misfortune for me to feel it.  
But still, what was it?  "Who can understand his errors?"[56]

     We laughed because our hearts were tickled at the thought of 
deceiving the owners, who had no idea of what we were doing and 
would have strenuously objected.  Yet, again, why did I find such 
delight in doing this which I would not have done alone?  Is it 
that no one readily laughs alone?  No one does so readily; but 
still sometimes, when men are by themselves and no one else is 
about, a fit of laughter will overcome them when something very 
droll presents itself to their sense or mind.  Yet alone I would 
not have done it -- alone I could not have done it at all.

     Behold, my God, the lively review of my soul's career is laid 
bare before thee.  I would not have committed that theft alone.  
My pleasure in it was not what I stole but, rather, the act of 
stealing.  Nor would I have enjoyed doing it alone -- indeed I 
would not have done it!  O friendship all unfriendly!  You strange 
seducer of the soul, who hungers for mischief from impulses of 
mirth and wantonness, who craves another's loss without any desire 
for one's own profit or revenge -- so that, when they say, "Let's 
go, let's do it," we are ashamed not to be shameless.

                           CHAPTER X

     18.  Who can unravel such a twisted and tangled knottiness?  
It is unclean.  I hate to reflect upon it.  I hate to look on it.  
But I do long for thee, O Righteousness and Innocence, so 
beautiful and comely to all virtuous eyes -- I long for thee with 
an insatiable satiety.  With thee is perfect rest, and life 
unchanging.  He who enters into thee enters into the joy of his 
Lord,[57] and shall have no fear and shall achieve excellence in 
the Excellent.  I fell away from thee, O my God, and in my youth I 
wandered too far from thee, my true support.  And I became to 
myself a wasteland.

                          BOOK THREE

     The story of his student days in Carthage, his discovery of 
Cicero's  Hortensius, the enkindling of his philosophical 
interest, his infatuation with the Manichean heresy, and his 
mother's dream which foretold his eventual return to the true 
faith and to God.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  I came to Carthage, where a caldron of unholy loves was 
seething and bubbling all around me.  I was not in love as yet, 
but I was in love with love; and, from a hidden hunger, I hated 
myself for not feeling more intensely a sense of hunger.  I was 
looking for something to love, for I was in love with loving, and 
I hated security and a smooth way, free from snares.  Within me I 
had a dearth of that inner food which is thyself, my God -- 
although that dearth caused me no hunger.  And I remained without 
any appetite for incorruptible food -- not because I was already 
filled with it, but because the emptier I became the more I 
loathed it.  Because of this my soul was unhealthy; and, full of 
sores, it exuded itself forth, itching to be scratched by scraping 
on the things of the senses.[58]  Yet, had these things no soul, 
they would certainly not inspire our love.

     To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more 
when I gained the enjoyment of the body of the person I loved.  
Thus I polluted the spring of friendship with the filth of 
concupiscence and I dimmed its luster with the slime of lust.  
Yet, foul and unclean as I was, I still craved, in excessive 
vanity, to be thought elegant and urbane.  And I did fall 
precipitately into the love I was longing for.  My God, my mercy, 
with how much bitterness didst thou, out of thy infinite goodness, 
flavor that sweetness for me!  For I was not only beloved but also 
I secretly reached the climax of enjoyment; and yet I was joyfully 
bound with troublesome tics, so that I could be scourged with the 
burning iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and strife.

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  Stage plays also captivated me, with their sights full of 
the images of my own miseries: fuel for my own fire.  Now, why 
does a man like to be made sad by viewing doleful and tragic 
scenes, which he himself could not by any means endure?  Yet, as a 
spectator, he wishes to experience from them a sense of grief, and 
in this very sense of grief his pleasure consists.  What is this 
but wretched madness?  For a man is more affected by these actions 
the more he is spuriously involved in these affections.  Now, if 
he should suffer them in his own person, it is the custom to call 
this "misery." But when he suffers with another, then it is called 
"compassion." But what kind of compassion is it that arises from 
viewing fictitious and unreal sufferings?  The spectator is not 
expected to aid the sufferer but merely to grieve for him.  And 
the more he grieves the more he applauds the actor of these 
fictions.  If the misfortunes of the characters -- whether 
historical or entirely imaginary -- are represented so as not to 
touch the feelings of the spectator, he goes away disgusted and 
complaining.  But if his feelings are deeply touched, he sits it 
out attentively, and sheds tears of joy.

     3.  Tears and sorrow, then, are loved.  Surely every man 
desires to be joyful.  And, though no one is willingly miserable, 
one may, nevertheless, be pleased to be merciful so that we love 
their sorrows because without them we should have nothing to pity.  
This also springs from that same vein of friendship.  But whither 
does it go?  Whither does it flow?  Why does it run into that 
torrent of pitch which seethes forth those huge tides of loathsome 
lusts in which it is changed and altered past recognition, being 
diverted and corrupted from its celestial purity by its own will?  
Shall, then, compassion be repudiated?  By no means!  Let us, 
however, love the sorrows of others.  But let us beware of 
uncleanness, O my soul, under the protection of my God, the God of 
our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted -- let us beware of 
uncleanness.  I have not yet ceased to have compassion.  But in 
those days in the theaters I sympathized with lovers when they 
sinfully enjoyed one another, although this was done fictitiously 
in the play.  And when they lost one another, I grieved with them, 
as if pitying them, and yet had delight in both grief and pity.  
Nowadays I feel much more pity for one who delights in his 
wickedness than for one who counts himself unfortunate because he 
fails to obtain some harmful pleasure or suffers the loss of some 
miserable felicity.  This, surely, is the truer compassion, but 
the sorrow I feel in it has no delight for me.  For although he 
that grieves with the unhappy should be commended for his work of 
love, yet he who has the power of real compassion would still 
prefer that there be nothing for him to grieve about.  For if good 
will were to be ill will -- which it cannot be -- only then could 
he who is truly and sincerely compassionate wish that there were 
some unhappy people so that he might commiserate them.  Some grief 
may then be justified, but none of it loved.  Thus it is that thou 
dost act, O Lord God, for thou lovest souls far more purely than 
we do and art more incorruptibly compassionate, although thou art 
never wounded by any sorrow.  Now "who is sufficient for these 
things?"[59]

     4.  But at that time, in my wretchedness, I loved to grieve; 
and I sought for things to grieve about.  In another man's misery, 
even though it was feigned and impersonated on the stage, that 
performance of the actor pleased me best and attracted me most 
powerfully which moved me to tears.  What marvel then was it that 
an unhappy sheep, straying from thy flock and impatient of thy 
care, I became infected with a foul disease?  This is the reason 
for my love of griefs: that they would not probe into me too 
deeply (for I did not love to suffer in myself such things as I 
loved to look at), and they were the sort of grief which came from 
hearing those fictions, which affected only the surface of my 
emotion.  Still, just as if they had been poisoned fingernails, 
their scratching was followed by inflammation, swelling, 
putrefaction, and corruption.  Such was my life!  But was it life, 
O my God? 

                          CHAPTER III

     5.  And still thy faithful mercy hovered over me from afar.  
In what unseemly iniquities did I wear myself out, following a 
sacrilegious curiosity, which, having deserted thee, then began to 
drag me down into the treacherous abyss, into the beguiling 
obedience of devils, to whom I made offerings of my wicked deeds.  
And still in all this thou didst not fail to scourge me.  I dared, 
even while thy solemn rites were being celebrated inside the walls 
of thy church, to desire and to plan a project which merited death 
as its fruit.  For this thou didst chastise me with grievous 
punishments, but nothing in comparison with my fault, O thou my 
greatest mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible dangers in 
which I wandered with stiff neck, receding farther from thee, 
loving my own ways and not thine -- loving a vagrant liberty!

     6.  Those studies I was then pursuing, generally accounted as 
respectable, were aimed at distinction in the courts of law -- to 
excel in which, the more crafty I was, the more I should be 
praised.  Such is the blindness of men that they even glory in 
their blindness.  And by this time I had become a master in the 
School of Rhetoric, and I rejoiced proudly in this honor and 
became inflated with arrogance.  Still I was relatively sedate, O 
Lord, as thou knowest, and had no share in the wreckings of "The 
Wreckers"[60] (for this stupid and diabolical name was regarded as 
the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived with a sort of 
ashamed embarrassment that I was not even as they were.  But I 
lived with them, and at times I was delighted with their 
friendship, even when I abhorred their acts (that is, their 
"wrecking") in which they insolently attacked the modesty of 
strangers, tormenting them by uncalled-for jeers, gratifying their 
mischievous mirth.  Nothing could more nearly resemble the actions 
of devils than these fellows.  By what name, therefore, could they 
be more aptly called than "wreckers"? -- being themselves wrecked 
first, and altogether turned upside down.  They were secretly 
mocked at and seduced by the deceiving spirits, in the very acts 
by which they amused themselves in jeering and horseplay at the 
expense of others.

                          CHAPTER IV

     7.  Among such as these, in that unstable period of my life, 
I studied the books of eloquence, for it was in eloquence that I 
was eager to be eminent, though from a reprehensible and 
vainglorious motive, and a delight in human vanity.  In the 
ordinary course of study I came upon a certain book of Cicero's, 
whose language almost all admire, though not his heart.  This 
particular book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy and 
was called Hortensius.[61]  Now it was this book which quite 
definitely changed my whole attitude and turned my prayers toward 
thee, O Lord, and gave me new hope and new desires.  Suddenly 
every vain hope became worthless to me, and with an incredible 
warmth of heart I yearned for an immortality of wisdom and began 
now to arise that I might return to thee.  It was not to sharpen 
my tongue further that I made use of that book.  I was now 
nineteen; my father had been dead two years,[62] and my mother was 
providing the money for my study of rhetoric.  What won me in it 
[i.e., the Hortensius] was not its style but its substance.

     8.  How ardent was I then, my God, how ardent to fly from 
earthly things to thee!  Nor did I know how thou wast even then 
dealing with me.  For with thee is wisdom.  In Greek the love of 
wisdom is called "philosophy," and it was with this love that that 
book inflamed me.  There are some who seduce through philosophy, 
under a great, alluring, and honorable name, using it to color and 
adorn their own errors.  And almost all who did this, in Cicero's 
own time and earlier, are censored and pointed out in his book.  
In it there is also manifest that most salutary admonition of thy 
Spirit, spoken by thy good and pious servant: "Beware lest any man 
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition 
of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: 
for in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily."[63]  
Since at that time, as thou knowest, O Light of my heart, the 
words of the apostle were unknown to me, I was delighted with 
Cicero's exhortation, at least enough so that I was stimulated by 
it, and enkindled and inflamed to love, to seek, to obtain, to 
hold, and to embrace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, 
wherever it might be.  Only this checked my ardor: that the name 
of Christ was not in it.  For this name, by thy mercy, O Lord, 
this name of my Saviour thy Son, my tender heart had piously drunk 
in, deeply treasured even with my mother's milk.  And whatsoever 
was lacking that name, no matter how erudite, polished, and 
truthful, did not quite take complete hold of me.

                           CHAPTER V

     9.  I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy 
Scriptures, that I might see what they were.  And behold, I saw 
something not comprehended by the proud, not disclosed to 
children, something lowly in the hearing, but sublime in the 
doing, and veiled in mysteries.  Yet I was not of the number of 
those who could enter into it or bend my neck to follow its steps.  
For then it was quite different from what I now feel.  When I then 
turned toward the Scriptures, they appeared to me to be quite 
unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully.[64]  For my 
inflated pride was repelled by their style, nor could the 
sharpness of my wit penetrate their inner meaning.  Truly they 
were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones, but I scorned to 
be a little one and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as 
fully grown.

                          CHAPTER VI

     10.  Thus I fell among men, delirious in their pride, carnal 
and voluble, whose mouths were the snares of the devil -- a trap 
made out of a mixture of the syllables of thy name and the names 
of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Paraclete.[65]  These names 
were never out of their mouths, but only as sound and the clatter 
of tongues, for their heart was empty of truth.  Still they cried, 
"Truth, Truth," and were forever speaking the word to me.  But the 
thing itself was not in them.  Indeed, they spoke falsely not only 
of thee -- who truly art the Truth -- but also about the basic 
elements of this world, thy creation.  And, indeed, I should have 
passed by the philosophers themselves even when they were speaking 
truth concerning thy creatures, for the sake of thy love, O 
Highest Good, and my Father, O Beauty of all things beautiful.

     O Truth, Truth, how inwardly even then did the marrow of my 
soul sigh for thee when, frequently and in manifold ways, in 
numerous and vast books, [the Manicheans] sounded out thy name 
though it was only a sound!  And in these dishes -- while I 
starved for thee -- they served up to me, in thy stead, the sun 
and moon thy beauteous works -- but still only thy works and not 
thyself; indeed, not even thy first work.  For thy spiritual works 
came before these material creations, celestial and shining though 
they are.  But I was hungering and thirsting, not even after those 
first works of thine, but after thyself the Truth, "with whom is 
no variableness, neither shadow of turning."[66]  Yet they still 
served me glowing fantasies in those dishes.  And, truly, it would 
have been better to have loved this very sun -- which at least is 
true to our sight -- than those illusions of theirs which deceive 
the mind through the eye.  And yet because I supposed the 
illusions to be from thee I fed on them -- not with avidity, for 
thou didst not taste in my mouth as thou art, and thou wast not 
these empty fictions.  Neither was I nourished by them, but was 
instead exhausted.  Food in dreams appears like our food awake; 
yet the sleepers are not nourished by it, for they are asleep.  
But the fantasies of the Manicheans were not in any way like thee 
as thou hast spoken to me now.  They were simply fantastic and 
false.  In comparison to them the actual bodies which we see with 
our fleshly sight, both celestial and terrestrial, are far more 
certain.  These true bodies even the beasts and birds perceive as 
well as we do and they are more certain than the images we form 
about them.  And again, we do with more certainty form our 
conceptions about them than, from them, we go on by means of them 
to imagine of other greater and infinite bodies which have no 
existence.  With such empty husks was I then fed, and yet was not 
fed.

     But thou, my Love, for whom I longed in order that I might be 
strong, neither art those bodies that we see in heaven nor art 
thou those which we do not see there, for thou hast created them 
all and yet thou reckonest them not among thy greatest works.  How 
far, then, art thou from those fantasies of mine, fantasies of 
bodies which have no real being at all!  The images of those 
bodies which actually exist are far more certain than these 
fantasies.  The bodies themselves are more certain than the 
images, yet even these thou art not.  Thou art not even the soul, 
which is the life of bodies; and, clearly, the life of the body is 
better than the body itself.  But thou art the life of souls, life 
of lives, having life in thyself, and never changing, O Life of my 
soul.[67] 

     11.  Where, then, wast thou and how far from me?  Far, 
indeed, was I wandering away from thee, being barred even from the 
husks of those swine whom I fed with husks.[68]  For how much 
better were the fables of the grammarians and poets than these 
snares [of the Manicheans]!  For verses and poems and "the flying 
Medea"[69] are still more profitable truly than these men's "five 
elements," with their various colors, answering to "the five caves 
of darkness"[70] (none of which exist and yet in which they slay 
the one who believes in them).  For verses and poems I can turn 
into food for the mind, for though I sang about "the flying Medea" 
I never believed it, but those other things [the fantasies of the 
Manicheans] I did believe.  Woe, woe, by what steps I was dragged 
down to "the depths of hell"[71] -- toiling and fuming because of 
my lack of the truth, even when I was seeking after thee, my God!  
To thee I now confess it, for thou didst have mercy on me when I 
had not yet confessed it.  I sought after thee, but not according 
to the understanding of the mind, by means of which thou hast 
willed that I should excel the beasts, but only after the guidance 
of my physical senses.  Thou wast more inward to me than the most 
inward part of me; and higher than my highest reach. I came upon 
that brazen woman, devoid of prudence, who, in Solomon's obscure 
parable, sits at the door of the house on a seat and says, "Stolen 
waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant."[72]  
This woman seduced me, because she found my soul outside its own 
door, dwelling on the sensations of my flesh and ruminating on 
such food as I had swallowed through these physical senses.

                          CHAPTER VII

     12.  For I was ignorant of that other reality, true Being.  
And so it was that I was subtly persuaded to agree with these 
foolish deceivers when they put their questions to me: "Whence 
comes evil?"  and, "Is God limited by a bodily shape, and has he 
hairs and nails?"  and, "Are those patriarchs to be esteemed 
righteous who had many wives at one time, and who killed men and 
who sacrificed living creatures?"  In my ignorance I was much 
disturbed over these things and, though I was retreating from the 
truth, I appeared to myself to be going toward it, because I did 
not yet know that evil was nothing but a privation of good (that, 
indeed, it has no being)[73]; and how should I have seen this when 
the sight of my eyes went no farther than physical objects, and 
the sight of my mind reached no farther than to fantasms?  And I 
did not know that God is a spirit who has no parts extended in 
length and breadth, whose being has no mass -- for every mass is 
less in a part than in a whole -- and if it be an infinite mass it 
must be less in such parts as are limited by a certain space than 
in its infinity.  It cannot therefore be wholly everywhere as 
Spirit is, as God is.  And I was entirely ignorant as to what is 
that principle within us by which we are like God, and which is 
rightly said in Scripture to be made "after God's image."

     13.  Nor did I know that true inner righteousness -- which 
does not judge according to custom but by the measure of the most 
perfect law of God Almighty -- by which the mores of various 
places and times were adapted to those places and times (though 
the law itself is the same always and everywhere, not one thing in 
one place and another in another).  By this inner righteousness 
Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and Moses and David, and all those 
commended by the mouth of God were righteous and were judged 
unrighteous only by foolish men who were judging by human judgment 
and gauging their judgment of the mores of the whole human race by 
the narrow norms of their own mores.  It is as if a man in an 
armory, not knowing what piece goes on what part of the body, 
should put a greave on his head and a helmet on his shin and then 
complain because they did not fit.  Or as if, on some holiday when 
afternoon business was forbidden, one were to grumble at not being 
allowed to go on selling as it had been lawful for him to do in 
the forenoon.  Or, again, as if, in a house, he sees a servant 
handle something that the butler is not permitted to touch, or 
when something is done behind a stable that would be prohibited in 
a dining room, and then a person should be indignant that in one 
house and one family the same things are not allowed to every 
member of the household.  Such is the case with those who cannot 
endure to hear that something was lawful for righteous men in 
former times that is not so now; or that God, for certain temporal 
reasons, commanded then one thing to them and another now to 
these: yet both would be serving the same righteous will.  These 
people should see that in one man, one day, and one house, 
different things are fit for different members; and a thing that 
was formerly lawful may become, after a time, unlawful -- and 
something allowed or commanded in one place that is justly 
prohibited and punished in another.  Is justice, then, variable 
and changeable?  No, but the times over which she presides are not 
all alike because they are different times.  But men, whose days 
upon the earth are few, cannot by their own perception harmonize 
the causes of former ages and other nations, of which they had no 
experience, and compare them with these of which they do have 
experience; although in one and the same body, or day, or family, 
they can readily see that what is suitable for each member, 
season, part, and person may differ.  To the one they take 
exception; to the other they submit.

     14.  These things I did not know then, nor had I observed 
their import.  They met my eyes on every side, and I did not see.  
I composed poems, in which I was not free to place each foot just 
anywhere, but in one meter one way, and in another meter another 
way, nor even in any one verse was the same foot allowed in all 
places.  Yet the art by which I composed did not have different 
principles for each of these different cases, but the same law 
throughout.  Still I did not see how, by that righteousness to 
which good and holy men submitted, all those things that God had 
commanded were gathered, in a far more excellent and sublime way, 
into one moral order; and it did not vary in any essential 
respect, though it did not in varying times prescribe all things 
at once but, rather, distributed and prescribed what was proper 
for each. And, being blind, I blamed those pious fathers, not only 
for making use of present things as God had commanded and inspired 
them to do, but also for foreshadowing things to come, as God 
revealed it to them.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     15.  Can it ever, at any time or place, be unrighteous for a 
man to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with 
all his mind; and his neighbor as himself?[74]  Similarly, 
offenses against nature are everywhere and at all times to be held 
in detestation and should be punished.  Such offenses, for 
example, were those of the Sodomites; and, even if all nations 
should commit them, they would all be judged guilty of the same 
crime by the divine law, which has not made men so that they 
should ever abuse one another in that way.  For the fellowship 
that should be between God and us is violated whenever that nature 
of which he is the author is polluted by perverted lust.  But 
these offenses against customary morality are to be avoided 
according to the variety of such customs.  Thus, what is agreed 
upon by convention, and confirmed by custom or the law of any city 
or nation, may not be violated at the lawless pleasure of any, 
whether citizen or stranger.  For any part that is not consistent 
with its whole is unseemly.  Nevertheless, when God commands 
anything contrary to the customs or compacts of any nation, even 
though it were never done by them before, it is to be done; and if 
it has been interrupted, it is to be restored; and if it has never 
been established, it is to be established.  For it is lawful for a 
king, in the state over which he reigns, to command that which 
neither he himself nor anyone before him had commanded.  And if it 
cannot be held to be inimical to the public interest to obey him 
-- and, in truth, it would be inimical if he were not obeyed, 
since obedience to princes is a general compact of human society 
-- how much more, then, ought we unhesitatingly to obey God, the 
Governor of all his creatures!  For, just as among the authorities 
in human society, the greater authority is obeyed before the 
lesser, so also must God be above all.

     16.  This applies as well to deeds of violence where there is 
a real desire to harm another, either by humiliating treatment or 
by injury.  Either of these may be done for reasons of revenge, as 
one enemy against another, or in order to obtain some advantage 
over another, as in the case of the highwayman and the traveler; 
else they may be done in order to avoid some other evil, as in the 
case of one who fears another; or through envy as, for example, an 
unfortunate man harming a happy one just because he is happy; or 
they may be done by a prosperous man against someone whom he fears 
will become equal to himself or whose equality he resents.  They 
may even be done for the mere pleasure in another man's pain, as 
the spectators of gladiatorial shows or the people who deride and 
mock at others.  These are the major forms of iniquity that spring 
out of the lust of the flesh, and of the eye, and of power.[75]  
Sometimes there is just one; sometimes two together; sometimes all 
of them at once.  Thus we live, offending against the Three and 
the Seven, that harp of ten strings, thy Decalogue, O God most 
high and most sweet.[76]  But now how can offenses of vileness 
harm thee who canst not be defiled; or how can deeds of violence 
harm thee who canst not be harmed?  Still thou dost punish these 
sins which men commit against themselves because, even when they 
sin against thee, they are also committing impiety against their 
own souls.  Iniquity gives itself the lie, either by corrupting or 
by perverting that nature which thou hast made and ordained.  And 
they do this by an immoderate use of lawful things; or by lustful 
desire for things forbidden, as "against nature"; or when they are 
guilty of sin by raging with heart and voice against thee, 
rebelling against thee, "kicking against the pricks"[77]; or when 
they cast aside respect for human society and take audacious 
delight in conspiracies and feuds according to their private likes 
and dislikes.

     This is what happens whenever thou art forsaken, O Fountain 
of Life, who art the one and true Creator and Ruler of the 
universe.  This is what happens when through self-willed pride a 
part is loved under the false assumption that it is the whole.  
Therefore, we must return to thee in humble piety and let thee 
purge us from our evil ways, and be merciful to those who confess 
their sins to thee, and hear the groanings of the prisoners and 
loosen us from those fetters which we have forged for ourselves.  
This thou wilt do, provided we do not raise up against thee the 
arrogance of a false freedom -- for thus we lose all through 
craving more, by loving our own good more than thee, the common 
good of all.

                          CHAPTER IX

     17.  But among all these vices and crimes and manifold 
iniquities, there are also the sins that are committed by men who 
are, on the whole, making progress toward the good.  When these 
are judged rightly and after the rule of perfection, the sins are 
censored but the men are to be commended because they show the 
hope of bearing fruit, like the green shoot of the growing corn.  
And there are some deeds that resemble vice and crime and yet are 
not sin because they offend neither thee, our Lord God, nor social 
custom.  For example, when suitable reserves for hard times are 
provided, we cannot judge that this is done merely from a hoarding 
impulse.  Or, again, when acts are punished by constituted 
authority for the sake of correction, we cannot judge that they 
are done merely out of a desire to inflict pain.  Thus, many a 
deed which is disapproved in man's sight may be approved by thy 
testimony.  And many a man who is praised by men is condemned -- 
as thou art witness -- because frequently the deed itself, the 
mind of the doer, and the hidden exigency of the situation all 
vary among themselves.  But when, contrary to human expectation, 
thou commandest something unusual or unthought of -- indeed, 
something thou mayest formerly have forbidden, about which thou 
mayest conceal the reason for thy command at that particular time; 
and even though it may be contrary to the ordinance of some 
society of men[78] -- who doubts but that it should be done 
because only that society of men is righteous which obeys thee?  
But blessed are they who know what thou dost command.  For all 
things done by those who obey thee either exhibit something 
necessary at that particular time or they foreshow things to come.

                           CHAPTER X

     18.  But I was ignorant of all this, and so I mocked those 
holy servants and prophets of thine.  Yet what did I gain by 
mocking them save to be mocked in turn by thee?  Insensibly and 
little by little, I was led on to such follies as to believe that 
a fig tree wept when it was plucked and that the sap of the mother 
tree was tears.  Notwithstanding this, if a fig was plucked, by 
not his own but another man's wickedness, some Manichean saint 
might eat it, digest it in his stomach, and breathe it out again 
in the form of angels.  Indeed, in his prayers he would assuredly 
groan and sigh forth particles of God, although these particles of 
the most high and true God would have remained bound in that fig 
unless they had been set free by the teeth and belly of some 
"elect saint"[79]!  And, wretch that I was, I believed that more 
mercy was to be shown to the fruits of the earth than unto men, 
for whom these fruits were created.  For, if a hungry man -- who 
was not a Manichean -- should beg for any food, the morsel that we 
gave to him would seem condemned, as it were, to capital 
punishment.

                          CHAPTER XI

     19.  And now thou didst "stretch forth thy hand from 
above"[80] and didst draw up my soul out of that profound darkness 
[of Manicheism] because my mother, thy faithful one, wept to thee 
on my behalf more than mothers are accustomed to weep for the 
bodily deaths of their children.  For by the light of the faith 
and spirit which she received from thee, she saw that I was dead.  
And thou didst hear her, O Lord, thou didst hear her and despised 
not her tears when, pouring down, they watered the earth under her 
eyes in every place where she prayed.  Thou didst truly hear her.

     For what other source was there for that dream by which thou 
didst console her, so that she permitted me to live with her, to 
have my meals in the same house at the table which she had begun 
to avoid, even while she hated and detested the blasphemies of my 
error?  In her dream she saw herself standing on a sort of wooden 
rule, and saw a bright youth approaching her, joyous and smiling 
at her, while she was grieving and bowed down with sorrow.  But 
when he inquired of her the cause of her sorrow and daily weeping 
(not to learn from her, but to teach her, as is customary in 
visions), and when she answered that it was my soul's doom she was 
lamenting, he bade her rest content and told her to look and see 
that where she was there I was also.  And when she looked she saw 
me standing near her on the same rule.

     Whence came this vision unless it was that thy ears were 
inclined toward her heart?  O thou Omnipotent Good, thou carest 
for every one of us as if thou didst care for him only, and so for 
all as if they were but one! 

     20.  And what was the reason for this also, that, when she 
told me of this vision, and I tried to put this construction on 
it: "that she should not despair of being someday what I was," she 
replied immediately, without hesitation, "No; for it was not told 
me that 'where he is, there you shall be' but 'where you are, 
there he will be'"?  I confess my remembrance of this to thee, O 
Lord, as far as I can recall it -- and I have often mentioned it.  
Thy answer, given through my watchful mother, in the fact that she 
was not disturbed by the plausibility of my false interpretation 
but saw immediately what should have been seen -- and which I 
certainly had not seen until she spoke -- this answer moved me 
more deeply than the dream itself.  Still, by that dream, the joy 
that was to come to that pious woman so long after was predicted 
long before, as a consolation for her present anguish.

     Nearly nine years passed in which I wallowed in the mud of 
that deep pit and in the darkness of falsehood, striving often to 
rise, but being all the more heavily dashed down.  But all that 
time this chaste, pious, and sober widow -- such as thou dost love 
-- was now more buoyed up with hope, though no less zealous in her 
weeping and mourning; and she did not cease to bewail my case 
before thee, in all the hours of her supplication.  Her prayers 
entered thy presence, and yet thou didst allow me still to tumble 
and toss around in that darkness.

                          CHAPTER XII

     21.  Meanwhile, thou gavest her yet another answer, as I 
remember -- for I pass over many things, hastening on to those 
things which more strongly impel me to confess to thee -- and many 
things I have simply forgotten.  But thou gavest her then another 
answer, by a priest of thine, a certain bishop reared in thy 
Church and well versed in thy books.  When that woman had begged 
him to agree to have some discussion with me, to refute my errors, 
to help me to unlearn evil and to learn the good[81] -- for it was 
his habit to do this when he found people ready to receive it -- 
he refused, very prudently, as I afterward realized.  For he 
answered that I was still unteachable, being inflated with the 
novelty of that heresy, and that I had already perplexed divers 
inexperienced persons with vexatious questions, as she herself had 
told him.  "But let him alone for a time," he said, "only pray God 
for him.  He will of his own accord, by reading, come to discover 
what an error it is and how great its impiety is." He went on to 
tell her at the same time how he himself, as a boy, had been given 
over to the Manicheans by his misguided mother and not only had 
read but had even copied out almost all their books.  Yet he had 
come to see, without external argument or proof from anyone else, 
how much that sect was to be shunned -- and had shunned it.  When 
he had said this she was not satisfied, but repeated more 
earnestly her entreaties, and shed copious tears, still beseeching 
him to see and talk with me.  Finally the bishop, a little vexed 
at her importunity, exclaimed, "Go your way; as you live, it 
cannot be that the son of these tears should perish." As she often 
told me afterward, she accepted this answer as though it were a 
voice from heaven.

                          BOOK FOUR

     This is the story of his years among the Manicheans.  It 
includes the account of his teaching at Tagaste, his taking a 
mistress, the attractions of astrology, the poignant loss of a 
friend which leads to a searching analysis of grief and 
transience.  He reports on his first book, De pulchro et apto, and 
his introduction to Aristotle's  Categories and other books of 
philosophy and theology, which he mastered with great ease and 
little profit.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  During this period of nine years, from my nineteenth year 
to my twenty-eighth, I went astray and led others astray.  I was 
deceived and deceived others, in varied lustful projects -- 
sometimes publicly, by the teaching of what men style "the liberal 
arts"; sometimes secretly, under the false guise of religion.  In 
the one, I was proud of myself; in the other, superstitious; in 
all, vain!  In my public life I was striving after the emptiness 
of popular fame, going so far as to seek theatrical applause, 
entering poetic contests, striving for the straw garlands and the 
vanity of theatricals and intemperate desires.  In my private life 
I was seeking to be purged from these corruptions of ours by 
carrying food to those who were called "elect" and "holy," which, 
in the laboratory of their stomachs, they should make into angels 
and gods for us, and by them we might be set free.  These projects 
I followed out and practiced with my friends, who were both 
deceived with me and by me.  Let the proud laugh at me, and those 
who have not yet been savingly cast down and stricken by thee, O 
my God.  Nevertheless, I would confess to thee my shame to thy 
glory.  Bear with me, I beseech thee, and give me the grace to 
retrace in my present memory the devious ways of my past errors 
and thus be able to "offer to thee the sacrifice of 
thanksgiving."[82]  For what am I to myself without thee but a 
guide to my own downfall?  Or what am I, even at the best, but one 
suckled on thy milk and feeding on thee, O Food that never 
perishes?[83]  What indeed is any man, seeing that he is but a 
man?  Therefore, let the strong and the mighty laugh at us, but 
let us who are "poor and needy"[84] confess to thee.

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  During those years I taught the art of rhetoric.  
Conquered by the desire for gain, I offered for sale speaking 
skills with which to conquer others.  And yet, O Lord, thou 
knowest that I really preferred to have honest scholars (or what 
were esteemed as such) and, without tricks of speech, I taught 
these scholars the tricks of speech -- not to be used against the 
life of the innocent, but sometimes to save the life of a guilty 
man.  And thou, O God, didst see me from afar, stumbling on that 
slippery path and sending out some flashes of fidelity amid much 
smoke -- guiding those who loved vanity and sought after 
lying,[85] being myself their companion.

     In those years I had a mistress, to whom I was not joined in 
lawful marriage.  She was a woman I had discovered in my wayward 
passion, void as it was of understanding, yet she was the only 
one; and I remained faithful to her and with her I discovered, by 
my own experience, what a great difference there is between the 
restraint of the marriage bond contracted with a view to having 
children and the compact of a lustful love, where children are 
born against the parents' will -- although once they are born they 
compel our love.

     3.  I remember too that, when I decided to compete for a 
theatrical prize, some magician -- I do not remember him now -- 
asked me what I would give him to be certain to win.  But I 
detested and abominated such filthy mysteries,[86] and answered 
"that, even if the garland was of imperishable gold, I would still 
not permit a fly to be killed to win it for me." For he would have 
slain certain living creatures in his sacrifices, and by those 
honors would have invited the devils to help me.  This evil thing 
I refused, but not out of a pure love of thee, O God of my heart, 
for I knew not how to love thee because I knew not how to conceive 
of anything beyond corporeal splendors.  And does not a soul, 
sighing after such idle fictions, commit fornication against thee, 
trust in false things, and "feed on the winds"[87]?  But still I 
would not have sacrifices offered to devils on my behalf, though I 
was myself still offering them sacrifices of a sort by my own 
[Manichean] superstition.  For what else is it "to feed on the 
winds" but to feed on the devils, that is, in our wanderings to 
become their sport and mockery?

                          CHAPTER III

     4.  And yet, without scruple, I consulted those other 
impostors, whom they call "astrologers" [mathematicos], because 
they used no sacrifices and invoked the aid of no spirit for their 
divinations.  Still, true Christian piety must necessarily reject 
and condemn their art.

     It is good to confess to thee and to say, "Have mercy on me; 
heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee"[88] -- not to abuse 
thy goodness as a license to sin, but to remember the words of the 
Lord, "Behold, you are made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing 
befall you."[89]  All this wholesome advice [the astrologers] 
labor to destroy when they say, "The cause of your sin is 
inevitably fixed in the heavens," and, "This is the doing of 
Venus, or of Saturn, or of Mars" -- all this in order that a man, 
who is only flesh and blood and proud corruption, may regard 
himself as blameless, while the Creator and Ordainer of heaven and 
the stars must bear the blame of our ills and misfortunes.  But 
who is this Creator but thou, our God, the sweetness and 
wellspring of righteousness, who renderest to every man according 
to his works and despisest not "a broken and a contrite 
heart"[90]?

     5.  There was at that time a wise man, very skillful and 
quite famous in medicine.[91]  He was proconsul then, and with his 
own hand he placed on my distempered head the crown I had won in a 
rhetorical contest.  He did not do this as a physician, however; 
and for this distemper "only thou canst heal who resisteth the 
proud and giveth grace to the humble."[92]  But didst thou fail me 
in that old man, or forbear from healing my soul?  Actually when I 
became better acquainted with him, I used to listen, rapt and 
eager, to his words; for, though he spoke in simple language, his 
conversation was replete with vivacity, life, and earnestness.  He 
recognized from my own talk that I was given to books of the 
horoscope-casters, but he, in a kind and fatherly way, advised me 
to throw them away and not to spend idly on these vanities care 
and labor that might otherwise go into useful things.  He said 
that he himself in his earlier years had studied the astrologers' 
art with a view to gaining his living by it as a profession.  
Since he had already understood Hippocrates, he was fully 
qualified to understand this too.  Yet, he had given it up and 
followed medicine for the simple reason that he had discovered 
astrology to be utterly false and, as a man of honest character, 
he was unwilling to gain his living by beguiling people.  "But 
you," he said, "have the profession of rhetoric to support 
yourself by, so that you are following this delusion in free will 
and not necessity.  All the more, therefore, you ought to believe 
me, since I worked at it to learn the art perfectly because I 
wished to gain my living by it." When I asked him to account for 
the fact that many true things are foretold by astrology, he 
answered me, reasonably enough, that the force of chance, diffused 
through the whole order of nature, brought these things about.  
For when a man, by accident, opens the leaves of some poet (who 
sang and intended something far different) a verse oftentimes 
turns out to be wondrously apposite to the reader's present 
business.  "It is not to be wondered at," he continued, "if out of 
the human mind, by some higher instinct which does not know what 
goes on within itself, an answer should be arrived at, by chance 
and not art, which would fit both the business and the action of 
the inquirer."

     6.  And thus truly, either by him or through him, thou wast 
looking after me.  And thou didst fix all this in my memory so 
that afterward I might search it out for myself.

     But at that time, neither the proconsul nor my most dear 
Nebridius -- a splendid youth and most circumspect, who scoffed at 
the whole business of divination -- could persuade me to give it 
up, for the authority of the astrological authors influenced me 
more than they did.  And, thus far, I had come upon no certain 
proof -- such as I sought -- by which it could be shown without 
doubt that what had been truly foretold by those consulted came 
from accident or chance, and not from the art of the stargazers.

                          CHAPTER IV 

     7.  In those years, when I first began to teach rhetoric in 
my native town, I had gained a very dear friend, about my own age, 
who was associated with me in the same studies.  Like myself, he 
was just rising up into the flower of youth.  He had grown up with 
me from childhood and we had been both school fellows and 
playmates.  But he was not then my friend, nor indeed ever became 
my friend, in the true sense of the term; for there is no true 
friendship save between those thou dost bind together and who 
cleave to thee by that love which is "shed abroad in our hearts 
through the Holy Spirit who is given to us."[93]  Still, it was a 
sweet friendship, being ripened by the zeal of common studies.  
Moreover, I had turned him away from the true faith -- which he 
had not soundly and thoroughly mastered as a youth -- and turned 
him toward those superstitious and harmful fables which my mother 
mourned in me.  With me this man went wandering off in error and 
my soul could not exist without him.  But behold thou wast close 
behind thy fugitives -- at once a God of vengeance and a Fountain 
of mercies, who dost turn us to thyself by ways that make us 
marvel.  Thus, thou didst take that man out of this life when he 
had scarcely completed one whole year of friendship with me, 
sweeter to me than all the sweetness of my life thus far.  

     8.  Who can show forth all thy praise[94] for that which he 
has experienced in himself alone?  What was it that thou didst do 
at that time, O my God; how unsearchable are the depths of thy 
judgments!  For when, sore sick of a fever, he long lay 
unconscious in a death sweat and everyone despaired of his 
recovery, he was baptized without his knowledge.  And I myself 
cared little, at the time, presuming that his soul would retain 
what it had taken from me rather than what was done to his 
unconscious body.  It turned out, however, far differently, for he 
was revived and restored.  Immediately, as soon as I could talk to 
him -- and I did this as soon as he was able, for I never left him 
and we hung on each other overmuch -- I tried to jest with him, 
supposing that he also would jest in return about that baptism 
which he had received when his mind and senses were inactive, but 
which he had since learned that he had received.  But he recoiled 
from me, as if I were his enemy, and, with a remarkable and 
unexpected freedom, he admonished me that, if I desired to 
continue as his friend, I must cease to say such things.  
Confounded and confused, I concealed my feelings till he should 
get well and his health recover enough to allow me to deal with 
him as I wished.  But he was snatched away from my madness, that 
with thee he might be preserved for my consolation.  A few days 
after, during my absence, the fever returned and he died.

     9.  My heart was utterly darkened by this sorrow and 
everywhere I looked I saw death.  My native place was a torture 
room to me and my father's house a strange unhappiness.  And all 
the things I had done with him -- now that he was gone -- became a 
frightful torment.  My eyes sought him everywhere, but they did 
not see him; and I hated all places because he was not in them, 
because they could not say to me, "Look, he is coming," as they 
did when he was alive and absent.  I became a hard riddle to 
myself, and I asked my soul why she was so downcast and why this 
disquieted me so sorely.[95]  But she did not know how to answer 
me.  And if I said, "Hope thou in God,"[96] she very properly 
disobeyed me, because that dearest friend she had lost was as an 
actual man, both truer and better than the imagined deity she was 
ordered to put her hope in.  Nothing but tears were sweet to me 
and they took my friend's place in my heart's desire.

                           CHAPTER V

     10.  But now, O Lord, these things are past and time has 
healed my wound.  Let me learn from thee, who art Truth, and put 
the ear of my heart to thy mouth, that thou mayest tell me why 
weeping should be so sweet to the unhappy.  Hast thou -- though 
omnipresent -- dismissed our miseries from thy concern?  Thou 
abidest in thyself while we are disquieted with trial after trial.  
Yet unless we wept in thy ears, there would be no hope for us 
remaining.  How does it happen that such sweet fruit is plucked 
from the bitterness of life, from groans, tears, sighs, and 
lamentations?  Is it the hope that thou wilt hear us that sweetens 
it?  This is true in the case of prayer, for in a prayer there is 
a desire to approach thee.  But is it also the case in grief for a 
lost love, and in the kind of sorrow that had then overwhelmed me?  
For I had neither a hope of his coming back to life, nor in all my 
tears did I seek this.  I simply grieved and wept, for I was 
miserable and had lost my joy.  Or is weeping a bitter thing that 
gives us pleasure because of our aversion to the things we once 
enjoyed and this only as long as we loathe them? 

                          CHAPTER VI

     11.  But why do I speak of these things?  Now is not the time 
to ask such questions, but rather to confess to thee.  I was 
wretched; and every soul is wretched that is fettered in the 
friendship of mortal things -- it is torn to pieces when it loses 
them, and then realizes the misery which it had even before it 
lost them.  Thus it was at that time with me.  I wept most 
bitterly, and found a rest in bitterness.  I was wretched, and yet 
that wretched life I still held dearer than my friend.  For though 
I would willingly have changed it, I was still more unwilling to 
lose it than to have lost him.  Indeed, I doubt whether I was 
willing to lose it, even for him -- as they tell (unless it be 
fiction) of the friendship of Orestes and Pylades[97]; they would 
have gladly died for one another, or both together, because not to 
love together was worse than death to them.  But a strange kind of 
feeling had come over me, quite different from this, for now it 
was wearisome to live and a fearful thing to die.  I suppose that 
the more I loved him the more I hated and feared, as the most 
cruel enemy, that death which had robbed me of him.  I even 
imagined that it would suddenly annihilate all men, since it had 
had such a power over him.  This is the way I remember it was with 
me.

     Look into my heart, O God!  Behold and look deep within me, 
for I remember it well, O my Hope who cleansest me from the 
uncleanness of such affections, directing my eyes toward thee and 
plucking my feet out of the snare.  And I marveled that other 
mortals went on living since he whom I had loved as if he would 
never die was now dead.  And I marveled all the more that I, who 
had been a second self to him, could go on living when he was 
dead.  Someone spoke rightly of his friend as being "his soul's 
other half"[98] -- for I felt that my soul and his soul were but 
one soul in two bodies.  Consequently, my life was now a horror to 
me because I did not want to live as a half self.  But it may have 
been that I was afraid to die, lest he should then die wholly whom 
I had so greatly loved.

                          CHAPTER VII

     12.  O madness that knows not how to love men as they should 
be loved!  O foolish man that I was then, enduring with so much 
rebellion the lot of every man!  Thus I fretted, sighed, wept, 
tormented myself, and took neither rest nor counsel, for I was 
dragging around my torn and bloody soul.  It was impatient of my 
dragging it around, and yet I could not find a place to lay it 
down.  Not in pleasant groves, nor in sport or song, nor in 
fragrant bowers, nor in magnificent banquetings, nor in the 
pleasures of the bed or the couch; not even in books or poetry did 
it find rest.  All things looked gloomy, even the very light 
itself.  Whatsoever was not what he was, was now repulsive and 
hateful, except my groans and tears, for in those alone I found a 
little rest.  But when my soul left off weeping, a heavy burden of 
misery weighed me down.  It should have been raised up to thee, O 
Lord, for thee to lighten and to lift.  This I knew, but I was 
neither willing nor able to do; especially since, in my thoughts 
of thee, thou wast not thyself but only an empty fantasm.  Thus my 
error was my god.  If I tried to cast off my burden on this 
fantasm, that it might find rest there, it sank through the vacuum 
and came rushing down again upon me.  Thus I remained to myself an 
unhappy lodging where I could neither stay nor leave.  For where 
could my heart fly from my heart?  Where could I fly from my own 
self?  Where would I not follow myself?  And yet I did flee from 
my native place so that my eyes would look for him less in a place 
where they were not accustomed to see him.  Thus I left the town 
of Tagaste and returned to Carthage.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     13.  Time never lapses, nor does it glide at leisure through 
our sense perceptions.  It does strange things in the mind.  Lo, 
time came and went from day to day, and by coming and going it 
brought to my mind other ideas and remembrances, and little by 
little they patched me up again with earlier kinds of pleasure and 
my sorrow yielded a bit to them.  But yet there followed after 
this sorrow, not other sorrows just like it, but the causes of 
other sorrows.  For why had that first sorrow so easily penetrated 
to the quick except that I had poured out my soul onto the dust, 
by loving a man as if he would never die who nevertheless had to 
die?  What revived and refreshed me, more than anything else, was 
the consolation of other friends, with whom I went on loving the 
things I loved instead of thee.  This was a monstrous fable and a 
tedious lie which was corrupting my soul with its "itching 
ears"[99] by its adulterous rubbing.  And that fable would not die 
to me as often as one of my friends died.  And there were other 
things in our companionship that took strong hold of my mind: to 
discourse and jest with him; to indulge in courteous exchanges; to 
read pleasant books together; to trifle together; to be earnest 
together; to differ at times without ill-humor, as a man might do 
with himself, and even through these infrequent dissensions to 
find zest in our more frequent agreements; sometimes teaching, 
sometimes being taught; longing for someone absent with impatience 
and welcoming the homecomer with joy.  These and similar tokens of 
friendship, which spring spontaneously from the hearts of those 
who love and are loved in return -- in countenance, tongue, eyes, 
and a thousand ingratiating gestures -- were all so much fuel to 
melt our souls together, and out of the many made us one.

                          CHAPTER IX

     14.  This is what we love in our friends, and we love it so 
much that a man's conscience accuses itself if he does not love 
one who loves him, or respond in love to love, seeking nothing 
from the other but the evidences of his love.  This is the source 
of our moaning when one dies -- the gloom of sorrow, the steeping 
of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness -- and 
the feeling of death in the living, because of the loss of the 
life of the dying.

     Blessed is he who loves thee, and who loves his friend in 
thee, and his enemy also, for thy sake; for he alone loses none 
dear to him, if all are dear in Him who cannot be lost.  And who 
is this but our God: the God that created heaven and earth, and 
filled them because he created them by filling them up?  None 
loses thee but he who leaves thee; and he who leaves thee, where 
does he go, or where can he flee but from thee well-pleased to 
thee offended?  For where does he not find thy law fulfilled in 
his own punishment?  "Thy law is the truth"[100] and thou art 
Truth.

                           CHAPTER X

     15.  "Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts, cause thy face to 
shine; and we shall be saved."[101]  For wherever the soul of man 
turns itself, unless toward thee, it is enmeshed in sorrows, even 
though it is surrounded by beautiful things outside thee and 
outside itself.  For lovely things would simply not be unless they 
were from thee.  They come to be and they pass away, and by coming 
they begin to be, and they grow toward perfection.  Then, when 
perfect, they begin to wax old and perish, and, if all do not wax 
old, still all perish.  Therefore, when they rise and grow toward 
being, the more rapidly they grow to maturity, so also the more 
rapidly they hasten back toward nonbeing.  This is the way of 
things.  This is the lot thou hast given them, because they are 
part of things which do not all exist at the same time, but by 
passing away and succeeding each other they all make up the 
universe, of which they are all parts.  For example, our speech is 
accomplished by sounds which signify meanings, but a meaning is 
not complete unless one word passes away, when it has sounded its 
part, so that the next may follow after it.  Let my soul praise 
thee, in all these things, O God, the Creator of all; but let not 
my soul be stuck to these things by the glue of love, through the 
senses of the body.  For they go where they were meant to go, that 
they may exist no longer.  And they rend the soul with pestilent 
desires because she longs to be and yet loves to rest secure in 
the created things she loves.  But in these things there is no 
resting place to be found.  They do not abide.  They flee away; 
and who is he who can follow them with his physical senses?  Or 
who can grasp them, even when they are present?  For our physical 
sense is slow because it is a physical sense and bears its own 
limitations in itself.  The physical sense is quite sufficient for 
what it was made to do; but it is not sufficient to stay things 
from running their courses from the beginning appointed to the end 
appointed.  For in thy word, by which they were created, they hear 
their appointed bound: "From there -- to here!"

                          CHAPTER XI

     16.  Be not foolish, O my soul, and do not let the tumult of 
your vanity deafen the ear of your heart.  Be attentive.  The Word 
itself calls you to return, and with him is a place of unperturbed 
rest, where love is not forsaken unless it first forsakes.  
Behold, these things pass away that others may come to be in their 
place.  Thus even this lowest level of unity[102] may be made 
complete in all its parts.  "But do I ever pass away?"  asks the 
Word of God.  Fix your habitation in him.  O my soul, commit 
whatsoever you have to him.  For at long last you are now becoming 
tired of deceit.  Commit to truth whatever you have received from 
the truth, and you will lose nothing.  What is decayed will 
flourish again; your diseases will be healed; your perishable 
parts shall be reshaped and renovated, and made whole again in 
you.  And these perishable things will not carry you with them 
down to where they go when they perish, but shall stand and abide, 
and you with them, before God, who abides and continues forever.

     17.  Why then, my perverse soul, do you go on following your 
flesh?  Instead, let it be converted so as to follow you.  
Whatever you feel through it is but partial.  You do not know the 
whole, of which sensations are but parts; and yet the parts 
delight you.  But if my physical senses had been able to 
comprehend the whole -- and had not as a part of their punishment 
received only a portion of the whole as their own province -- you 
would then desire that whatever exists in the present time should 
also pass away so that the whole might please you more.  For what 
we speak, you also hear through physical sensation, and yet you 
would not wish that the syllables should remain.  Instead, you 
wish them to fly past so that others may follow them, and the 
whole be heard.  Thus it is always that when any single thing is 
composed of many parts which do not coexist simultaneously, the 
whole gives more delight than the parts could ever do perceived 
separately.  But far better than all this is He who made it all.  
He is our God and he does not pass away, for there is nothing to 
take his place.

                          CHAPTER XII

     18.  If physical objects please you, praise God for them, but 
turn back your love to their Creator, lest, in those things which 
please you, you displease him.  If souls please you, let them be 
loved in God; for in themselves they are mutable, but in him 
firmly established -- without him they would simply cease to 
exist.  In him, then, let them be loved; and bring along to him 
with yourself as many souls as you can, and say to them: "Let us 
love him, for he himself created all these, and he is not far away 
from them.  For he did not create them, and then go away.  They 
are of him and in him.  Behold, there he is, wherever truth is 
known.  He is within the inmost heart, yet the heart has wandered 
away from him.  Return to your heart, O you transgressors, and 
hold fast to him who made you.  Stand with him and you shall stand 
fast.  Rest in him and you shall be at rest.  Where do you go 
along these rugged paths?  Where are you going?  The good that you 
love is from him, and insofar as it is also for him, it is both 
good and pleasant.  But it will rightly be turned to bitterness if 
whatever comes from him is not rightly loved and if he is deserted 
for the love of the creature.  Why then will you wander farther 
and farther in these difficult and toilsome ways?  There is no 
rest where you seek it.  Seek what you seek; but remember that it 
is not where you seek it.  You seek for a blessed life in the land 
of death.  It is not there.  For how can there be a blessed life 
where life itself is not?"

     19.  But our very Life came down to earth and bore our death, 
and slew it with the very abundance of his own life.  And, 
thundering, he called us to return to him into that secret place 
from which he came forth to us -- coming first into the virginal 
womb, where the human creature, our mortal flesh, was joined to 
him that it might not be forever mortal -- and came "as a 
bridegroom coming out his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to 
run a race."[103]  For he did not delay, but ran through the 
world, crying out by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension 
-- crying aloud to us to return to him.  And he departed from our 
sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there.  For 
he left us, and behold, he is here.  He could not be with us long, 
yet he did not leave us.  He went back to the place that he had 
never left, for "the world was made by him."[104]  In this world 
he was, and into this world he came, to save sinners.  To him my 
soul confesses, and he heals it, because it had sinned against 
him.  O sons of men, how long will you be so slow of heart?  Even 
now after Life itself has come down to you, will you not ascend 
and live?  But where will you climb if you are already on a 
pinnacle and have set your mouth against the heavens?  First come 
down that you may climb up, climb up to God.  For you have fallen 
by trying to climb against him.  Tell this to the souls you love 
that they may weep in the valley of tears, and so bring them along 
with you to God, because it is by his spirit that you speak thus 
to them, if, as you speak, you burn with the fire of love.

                         CHAPTER XIII

     20.  These things I did not understand at that time, and I 
loved those inferior beauties, and I was sinking down to the very 
depths.  And I said to my friends: "Do we love anything but the 
beautiful?  What then is the beautiful?  And what is beauty?  What 
is it that allures and unites us to the things we love; for unless 
there were a grace and beauty in them, they could not possibly 
attract us to them?"  And I reflected on this and saw that in the 
objects themselves there is a kind of beauty which comes from 
their forming a whole and another kind of beauty that comes from 
mutual fitness -- as the harmony of one part of the body with its 
whole, or a shoe with a foot, and so on.  And this idea sprang up 
in my mind out of my inmost heart, and I wrote some books -- two 
or three, I think -- On the Beautiful and the Fitting.[105]  Thou 
knowest them, O Lord; they have escaped my memory.  I no longer 
have them; somehow they have been mislaid.

                          CHAPTER XIV

     21.  What was it, O Lord my God, that prompted me to dedicate 
these books to Hierius, an orator of Rome, a man I did not know by 
sight but whom I loved for his reputation of learning, in which he 
was famous -- and also for some words of his that I had heard 
which had pleased me?  But he pleased me more because he pleased 
others, who gave him high praise and expressed amazement that a 
Syrian, who had first studied Greek eloquence, should thereafter 
become so wonderful a Latin orator and also so well versed in 
philosophy.  Thus a man we have never seen is commended and loved.  
Does a love like this come into the heart of the hearer from the 
mouth of him who sings the other's praise?  Not so.  Instead, one 
catches the spark of love from one who loves.  This is why we love 
one who is praised when the eulogist is believed to give his 
praise from an unfeigned heart; that is, when he who loves him 
praises him.  

     22.  Thus it was that I loved men on the basis of other men's 
judgment, and not thine, O my God, in whom no man is deceived.  
But why is it that the feeling I had for such men was not like my 
feeling toward the renowned charioteer, or the great gladiatorial 
hunter, famed far and wide and popular with the mob?  Actually, I 
admired the orator in a different and more serious fashion, as I 
would myself desire to be admired.  For I did not want them to 
praise and love me as actors were praised and loved -- although I 
myself praise and love them too.  I would prefer being unknown 
than known in that way, or even being hated than loved that way.  
How are these various influences and divers sorts of loves 
distributed within one soul?  What is it that I am in love with in 
another which, if I did not hate, I should neither detest nor 
repel from myself, seeing that we are equally men?  For it does 
not follow that because the good horse is admired by a man who 
would not be that horse -- even if he could -- the same kind of 
admiration should be given to an actor, who shares our nature.  Do 
I then love that in a man, which I also, a man, would hate to be?  
Man is himself a great deep.  Thou dost number his very hairs, O 
Lord, and they do not fall to the ground without thee, and yet the 
hairs of his head are more readily numbered than are his 
affections and the movements of his heart.  

     23.  But that orator whom I admired so much was the kind of 
man I wished myself to be.  Thus I erred through a swelling pride 
and "was carried about with every wind,"[106] but through it all I 
was being piloted by thee, though most secretly.  And how is it 
that I know -- whence comes my confident confession to thee -- 
that I loved him more because of the love of those who praised him 
than for the things they praised in him?  Because if he had gone 
unpraised, and these same people had criticized him and had spoken 
the same things of him in a tone of scorn and disapproval, I 
should never have been kindled and provoked to love him.  And yet 
his qualities would not have been different, nor would he have 
been different himself; only the appraisals of the spectators.  
See where the helpless soul lies prostrate that is not yet 
sustained by the stability of truth!  Just as the breezes of 
speech blow from the breast of the opinionated, so also the soul 
is tossed this way and that, driven forward and backward, and the 
light is obscured to it and the truth not seen.  And yet, there it 
is in front of us.  And to me it was a great matter that both my 
literary work and my zest for learning should be known by that 
man.  For if he approved them, I would be even more fond of him; 
but if he disapproved, this vain heart of mine, devoid of thy 
steadfastness, would have been offended.  And so I meditated on 
the problem "of the beautiful and the fitting" and dedicated my 
essay on it to him.  I regarded it admiringly, though no one else 
joined me in doing so.

                          CHAPTER XV

     24.  But I had not seen how the main point in these great 
issues [concerning the nature of beauty] lay really in thy 
craftsmanship, O Omnipotent One, "who alone doest great 
wonders."[107]  And so my mind ranged through the corporeal forms, 
and I defined and distinguished as "beautiful" that which is so in 
itself and as "fit" that which is beautiful in relation to some 
other thing.  This argument I supported by corporeal examples.  
And I turned my attention to the nature of the mind, but the false 
opinions which I held concerning spiritual things prevented me 
from seeing the truth.  Still, the very power of truth forced 
itself on my gaze, and I turned my throbbing soul away from 
incorporeal substance to qualities of line and color and shape, 
and, because I could not perceive these with my mind, I concluded 
that I could not perceive my mind.  And since I loved the peace 
which is in virtue, and hated the discord which is in vice, I 
distinguished between the unity there is in virtue and the discord 
there is in vice.  I conceived that unity consisted of the 
rational soul and the nature of truth and the highest good.  But I 
imagined that in the disunity there was some kind of substance of 
irrational life and some kind of entity in the supreme evil.  This 
evil I thought was not only a substance but real life as well, and 
yet I believed that it did not come from thee, O my God, from whom 
are all things.  And the first I called a Monad, as if it were a 
soul without sex.  The other I called a Dyad, which showed itself 
in anger in deeds of violence, in deeds of passion and lust -- but 
I did not know what I was talking about.  For I had not understood 
nor had I been taught that evil is not a substance at all and that 
our soul is not that supreme and unchangeable good.

     25.  For just as in violent acts, if the emotion of the soul 
from whence the violent impulse springs is depraved and asserts 
itself insolently and mutinously -- and just as in the acts of 
passion, if the affection of the soul which gives rise to carnal 
desires is unrestrained -- so also, in the same way, errors and 
false opinions contaminate life if the rational soul itself is 
depraved.  Thus it was then with me, for I was ignorant that my 
soul had to be enlightened by another light, if it was to be 
partaker of the truth, since it is not itself the essence of 
truth.  "For thou wilt light my lamp; the Lord my God will lighten 
my darkness"[108]; and "of his fullness have we all 
received,"[109] for "that was the true Light that lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world"[110]; for "in thee there is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning."[111]

     26.  But I pushed on toward thee, and was pressed back by 
thee that I might know the taste of death, for "thou resistest the 
proud."[112]  And what greater pride could there be for me than, 
with a marvelous madness, to assert myself to be that nature which 
thou art?  I was mutable -- this much was clear enough to me 
because my very longing to become wise arose out of a wish to 
change from worse to better -- yet I chose rather to think thee 
mutable than to think that I was not as thou art.  For this reason 
I was thrust back; thou didst resist my fickle pride.  Thus I went 
on imagining corporeal forms, and, since I was flesh I accused the 
flesh, and, since I was "a wind that passes away,"[113] I did not 
return to thee but went wandering and wandering on toward those 
things that have no being -- neither in thee nor in me, nor in the 
body.  These fancies were not created for me by thy truth but 
conceived by my own vain conceit out of sensory notions.  And I 
used to ask thy faithful children -- my own fellow citizens, from 
whom I stood unconsciously exiled -- I used flippantly and 
foolishly to ask them, "Why, then, does the soul, which God 
created, err?"  But I would not allow anyone to ask me, "Why, 
then, does God err?"  I preferred to contend that thy immutable 
substance was involved in error through necessity rather than 
admit that my own mutable substance had gone astray of its own 
free will and had fallen into error as its punishment.

     27.  I was about twenty-six or twenty-seven when I wrote 
those books, analyzing and reflecting upon those sensory images 
which clamored in the ears of my heart.  I was straining those 
ears to hear thy inward melody, O sweet Truth, pondering on "the 
beautiful and the fitting" and longing to stay and hear thee, and 
to rejoice greatly at "the Bridegroom's voice."[114]  Yet I could 
not, for by the clamor of my own errors I was hurried outside 
myself, and by the weight of my own pride I was sinking ever 
lower.  You did not "make me to hear joy and gladness," nor did 
the bones rejoice which were not yet humbled.[115] 

     28.  And what did it profit me that, when I was scarcely 
twenty years old, a book of Aristotle's entitled The Ten 
Categories[116] fell into my hands?  On the very title of this I 
hung as on something great and divine, since my rhetoric master at 
Carthage and others who had reputations for learning were always 
referring to it with such swelling pride.  I read it by myself and 
understood it.  And what did it mean that when I discussed it with 
others they said that even with the assistance of tutors -- who 
not only explained it orally, but drew many diagrams in the sand 
-- they scarcely understood it and could tell me no more about it 
than I had acquired in the reading of it by myself alone?  For the 
book appeared to me to speak plainly enough about substances, such 
as a man; and of their qualities, such as the shape of a man, his 
kind, his stature, how many feet high, and his family 
relationship, his status, when born, whether he is sitting or 
standing, is shod or armed, or is doing something or having 
something done to him -- and all the innumerable things that are 
classified under these nine categories (of which I have given some 
examples) or under the chief category of substance.

     29.  What did all this profit me, since it actually hindered 
me when I imagined that whatever existed was comprehended within 
those ten categories?  I tried to interpret them, O my God, so 
that even thy wonderful and unchangeable unity could be understood 
as subjected to thy own magnitude or beauty, as if they existed in 
thee as their Subject -- as they do in corporeal bodies -- whereas 
thou art thyself thy own magnitude and beauty.  A body is not 
great or fair because it is a body, because, even if it were less 
great or less beautiful, it would still be a body.  But my 
conception of thee was falsity, not truth.  It was a figment of my 
own misery, not the stable ground of thy blessedness.  For thou 
hadst commanded, and it was carried out in me, that the earth 
should bring forth briars and thorns for me, and that with heavy 
labor I should gain my bread.[117] 

     30.  And what did it profit me that I could read and 
understand for myself all the books I could get in the so-called 
"liberal arts," when I was actually a worthless slave of wicked 
lust?  I took delight in them, not knowing the real source of what 
it was in them that was true and certain.  For I had my back 
toward the light, and my face toward the things on which the light 
falls, so that my face, which looked toward the illuminated 
things, was not itself illuminated.  Whatever was written in any 
of the fields of rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, or 
arithmetic, I could understand without any great difficulty and 
without the instruction of another man.  All this thou knowest, O 
Lord my God, because both quickness in understanding and acuteness 
in insight are thy gifts.  Yet for such gifts I made no thank 
offering to thee.  Therefore, my abilities served not my profit 
but rather my loss, since I went about trying to bring so large a 
part of my substance into my own power.  And I did not store up my 
strength for thee, but went away from thee into the far country to 
prostitute my gifts in disordered appetite.[118]  And what did 
these abilities profit me, if I did not put them to good use?  I 
did not realize that those arts were understood with great 
difficulty, even by the studious and the intelligent, until I 
tried to explain them to others and discovered that even the most 
proficient in them followed my explanations all too slowly.

     31.  And yet what did this profit me, since I still supposed 
that thou, O Lord God, the Truth, wert a bright and vast body and 
that I was a particle of that body?  O perversity gone too far!  
But so it was with me.  And I do not blush, O my God, to confess 
thy mercies to me in thy presence, or to call upon thee -- any 
more than I did not blush when I openly avowed my blasphemies 
before men, and bayed, houndlike, against thee.  What good was it 
for me that my nimble wit could run through those studies and 
disentangle all those knotty volumes, without help from a human 
teacher, since all the while I was erring so hatefully and with 
such sacrilege as far as the right substance of pious faith was 
concerned?  And what kind of burden was it for thy little ones to 
have a far slower wit, since they did not use it to depart from 
thee, and since they remained in the nest of thy Church to become 
safely fledged and to nourish the wings of love by the food of a 
sound faith.

     O Lord our God, under the shadow of thy wings let us hope -- 
defend us and support us.[119]  Thou wilt bear us up when we are 
little and even down to our gray hairs thou wilt carry us.  For 
our stability, when it is in thee, is stability indeed; but when 
it is in ourselves, then it is all unstable.  Our good lives 
forever with thee, and when we turn from thee with aversion, we 
fall into our own perversion.  Let us now, O Lord, return that we 
be not overturned, because with thee our good lives without 
blemish -- for our good is thee thyself.  And we need not fear 
that we shall find no place to return to because we fell away from 
it.  For, in our absence, our home -- which is thy eternity -- 
does not fall away.

     

                          BOOK FIVE

     A year of decision.  Faustus comes to Carthage and Augustine 
is disenchanted in his hope for solid demonstration of the truth 
of Manichean doctrine.  He decides to flee from his known troubles 
at Carthage to troubles yet unknown at Rome.  His experiences at 
Rome prove disappointing and he applies for a teaching post at 
Milan.  Here he meets Ambrose, who confronts him as an impressive 
witness for Catholic Christianity and opens out the possibilities 
of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture.  Augustine decides 
to become a Christian catechumen.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  Accept this sacrifice of my confessions from the hand of 
my tongue.  Thou didst form it and hast prompted it to praise thy 
name.  Heal all my bones and let them say, "O Lord, who is like 
unto thee?"[120]  It is not that one who confesses to thee 
instructs thee as to what goes on within him.  For the closed 
heart does not bar thy sight into it, nor does the hardness of our 
heart hold back thy hands, for thou canst soften it at will, 
either by mercy or in vengeance, "and there is no one who can hide 
himself from thy heat."[121]  But let my soul praise thee, that it 
may love thee, and let it confess thy mercies to thee, that it may 
praise thee.  Thy whole creation praises thee without ceasing: the 
spirit of man, by his own lips, by his own voice, lifted up to 
thee; animals and lifeless matter by the mouths of those who 
meditate upon them.  Thus our souls may climb out of their 
weariness toward thee and lean on those things which thou hast 
created and pass through them to thee, who didst create them in a 
marvelous way.  With thee, there is refreshment and true strength.  

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  Let the restless and the unrighteous depart, and flee 
away from thee.  Even so, thou seest them and thy eye pierces 
through the shadows in which they run.  For lo, they live in a 
world of beauty and yet are themselves most foul.  And how have 
they harmed thee?  Or in what way have they discredited thy power, 
which is just and perfect in its rule even to the last item in 
creation?  Indeed, where would they fly when they fled from thy 
presence?  Wouldst thou be unable to find them?  But they fled 
that they might not see thee, who sawest them; that they might be 
blinded and stumble into thee.  But thou forsakest nothing that 
thou hast made.  The unrighteous stumble against thee that they 
may be justly plagued, fleeing from thy gentleness and colliding 
with thy justice, and falling on their own rough paths.  For in 
truth they do not know that thou art everywhere; that no place 
contains thee, and that only thou art near even to those who go 
farthest from thee.  Let them, therefore, turn back and seek thee, 
because even if they have abandoned thee, their Creator, thou hast 
not abandoned thy creatures.  Let them turn back and seek thee -- 
and lo, thou art there in their hearts, there in the hearts of 
those who confess to thee.  Let them cast themselves upon thee, 
and weep on thy bosom, after all their weary wanderings; and thou 
wilt gently wipe away their tears.[122]  And they weep the more 
and rejoice in their weeping, since thou, O Lord, art not a man of 
flesh and blood.  Thou art the Lord, who canst remake what thou 
didst make and canst comfort them.  And where was I when I was 
seeking thee?  There thou wast, before me; but I had gone away, 
even from myself, and I could not find myself, much less thee.

                          CHAPTER III

     3.  Let me now lay bare in the sight of God the twenty-ninth 
year of my age.  There had just come to Carthage a certain bishop 
of the Manicheans, Faustus by name, a great snare of the devil; 
and many were entangled by him through the charm of his eloquence.  
Now, even though I found this eloquence admirable, I was beginning 
to distinguish the charm of words from the truth of things, which 
I was eager to learn.  Nor did I consider the dish as much as I 
did the kind of meat that their famous Faustus served up to me in 
it.  His fame had run before him, as one very skilled in an 
honorable learning and pre-eminently skilled in the liberal arts.

     And as I had already read and stored up in memory many of the 
injunctions of the philosophers, I began to compare some of their 
doctrines with the tedious fables of the Manicheans; and it struck 
me that the probability was on the side of the philosophers, whose 
power reached far enough to enable them to form a fair judgment of 
the world, even though they had not discovered the sovereign Lord 
of it all.  For thou art great, O Lord, and thou hast respect unto 
the lowly, but the proud thou knowest afar off.[123]  Thou drawest 
near to none but the contrite in heart, and canst not be found by 
the proud, even if in their inquisitive skill they may number the 
stars and the sands, and map out the constellations, and trace the 
courses of the planets.

     4.  For it is by the mind and the intelligence which thou 
gavest them that they investigate these things.  They have 
discovered much; and have foretold, many years in advance, the 
day, the hour, and the extent of the eclipses of those luminaries, 
the sun and the moon.  Their calculations did not fail, and it 
came to pass as they predicted.  And they wrote down the rules 
they had discovered, so that to this day they may be read and from 
them may be calculated in what year and month and day and hour of 
the day, and at what quarter of its light, either the moon or the 
sun will be eclipsed, and it will come to pass just as predicted.  
And men who are ignorant in these matters marvel and are amazed; 
and those who understand them exult and are exalted.  Both, by an 
impious pride, withdraw from thee and forsake thy light.  They 
foretell an eclipse of the sun before it happens, but they do not 
see their own eclipse which is even now occurring.  For they do 
not ask, as religious men should, what is the source of the 
intelligence by which they investigate these matters.  Moreover, 
when they discover that thou didst make them, they do not give 
themselves up to thee that thou mightest preserve what thou hast 
made.  Nor do they offer, as sacrifice to thee, what they have 
made of themselves.  For they do not slaughter their own pride -- 
as they do the sacrificial fowls -- nor their own curiosities by 
which, like the fishes of the sea, they wander through the unknown 
paths of the deep.  Nor do they curb their own extravagances as 
they do those of "the beasts of the field,"[124] so that thou, O 
Lord, "a consuming fire,"[125] mayest burn up their mortal cares 
and renew them unto immortality.  

     5.  They do not know the way which is thy word, by which thou 
didst create all the things that are and also the men who measure 
them, and the senses by which they perceive what they measure, and 
the intelligence whereby they discern the patterns of measure.  
Thus they know not that thy wisdom is not a matter of 
measure.[126]  But the Only Begotten hath been "made unto us 
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification"[127] and hath been 
numbered among us and paid tribute to Caesar.[128]  And they do 
not know this "Way" by which they could descend from themselves to 
him in order to ascend through him to him.  They did not know this 
"Way," and so they fancied themselves exalted to the stars and the 
shining heavens.  And lo, they fell upon the earth, and "their 
foolish heart was darkened."[129]  They saw many true things about 
the creature but they do not seek with true piety for the Truth, 
the Architect of Creation, and hence they do not find him.  Or, if 
they do find him, and know that he is God, they do not glorify him 
as God; neither are they thankful but become vain in their 
imagination, and say that they themselves are wise, and attribute 
to themselves what is thine.  At the same time, with the most 
perverse blindness, they wish to attribute to thee their own 
quality -- so that they load their lies on thee who art the Truth, 
"changing the glory of the incorruptible God for an image of 
corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping 
things."[130]  "They exchanged thy truth for a lie, and worshiped 
and served the creature rather than the Creator."[131] 

     6.  Yet I remembered many a true saying of the philosophers 
about the creation, and I saw the confirmation of their 
calculations in the orderly sequence of seasons and in the visible 
evidence of the stars.  And I compared this with the doctrines of 
Mani, who in his voluminous folly wrote many books on these 
subjects.  But I could not discover there any account, of either 
the solstices or the equinoxes, or the eclipses of the sun and 
moon, or anything of the sort that I had learned in the books of 
secular philosophy.  But still I was ordered to believe, even 
where the ideas did not correspond with -- even when they 
contradicted -- the rational theories established by mathematics 
and my own eyes, but were very different.  

                          CHAPTER IV

     7.  Yet, O Lord God of Truth, is any man pleasing to thee 
because he knows these things?  No, for surely that man is unhappy 
who knows these things and does not know thee.  And that man is 
happy who knows thee, even though he does not know these things.  
He who knows both thee and these things is not the more blessed 
for his learning, for thou only art his blessing, if knowing thee 
as God he glorifies thee and gives thanks and does not become vain 
in his thoughts.

     For just as that man who knows how to possess a tree, and 
give thanks to thee for the use of it -- although he may not know 
how many feet high it is or how wide it spreads -- is better than 
the man who can measure it and count all its branches, but neither 
owns it nor knows or loves its Creator: just so is a faithful man 
who possesses the world's wealth as though he had nothing, and 
possesses all things through his union through thee, whom all 
things serve, even though he does not know the circlings of the 
Great Bear.  Just so it is foolish to doubt that this faithful man 
may truly be better than the one who can measure the heavens and 
number the stars and weigh the elements, but who is forgetful of 
thee "who hast set in order all things in number, weight, and 
measure."[132]

                           CHAPTER V

     8.  And who ordered this Mani to write about these things, 
knowledge of which is not necessary to piety?  For thou hast said 
to man, "Behold, godliness is wisdom"[133] -- and of this he might 
have been ignorant, however perfectly he may have known these 
other things.  Yet, since he did not know even these other things, 
and most impudently dared to teach them, it is clear that he had 
no knowledge of piety.  For, even when we have a knowledge of this 
worldly lore, it is folly to make a _profession_ of it, when piety 
comes from _confession_ to thee.  From piety, therefore, Mani had 
gone astray, and all his show of learning only enabled the truly 
learned to perceive, from his ignorance of what they knew, how 
little he was to be trusted to make plain these more really 
difficult matters.  For he did not aim to be lightly esteemed, but 
went around trying to persuade men that the Holy Spirit, the 
Comforter and Enricher of thy faithful ones, was personally 
resident in him with full authority.  And, therefore, when he was 
detected in manifest errors about the sky, the stars, the 
movements of the sun and moon, even though these things do not 
relate to religious doctrine, the impious presumption of the man 
became clearly evident; for he not only taught things about which 
he was ignorant but also perverted them, and this with pride so 
foolish and mad that he sought to claim that his own utterances 
were as if they had been those of a divine person.

     9.  When I hear of a Christian brother, ignorant of these 
things, or in error concerning them, I can tolerate his uninformed 
opinion; and I do not see that any lack of knowledge as to the 
form or nature of this material creation can do him much harm, as 
long as he does not hold a belief in anything which is unworthy of 
thee, O Lord, the Creator of all.  But if he thinks that his 
secular knowledge pertains to the essence of the doctrine of 
piety, or ventures to assert dogmatic opinions in matters in which 
he is ignorant -- there lies the injury.  And yet even a weakness 
such as this, in the infancy of our faith, is tolerated by our 
Mother Charity until the new man can grow up "unto a perfect man," 
and not be "carried away with every wind of doctrine."[134]

     But Mani had presumed to be at once the teacher, author, 
guide, and leader of all whom he could persuade to believe this, 
so that all who followed him believed that they were following not 
an ordinary man but thy Holy Spirit.  And who would not judge that 
such great madness, when it once stood convicted of false 
teaching, should then be abhorred and utterly rejected?  But I had 
not yet clearly decided whether the alternation of day and night, 
and of longer and shorter days and nights, and the eclipses of sun 
and moon, and whatever else I read about in other books could be 
explained consistently with his theories.  If they could have been 
so explained, there would still have remained a doubt in my mind 
whether the theories were right or wrong.  Yet I was prepared, on 
the strength of his reputed godliness, to rest my faith on his 
authority.

                           CHAPTER VI

     10.  For almost the whole of the nine years that I listened 
with unsettled mind to the Manichean teaching I had been looking 
forward with unbounded eagerness to the arrival of this Faustus.  
For all the other members of the sect that I happened to meet, 
when they were unable to answer the questions I raised, always 
referred me to his coming.  They promised that, in discussion with 
him, these and even greater difficulties, if I had them, would be 
quite easily and amply cleared away.  When at last he did come, I 
found him to be a man of pleasant speech, who spoke of the very 
same things they themselves did, although more fluently and in a 
more agreeable style.  But what profit was there to me in the 
elegance of my cupbearer, since he could not offer me the more 
precious draught for which I thirsted?  My ears had already had 
their fill of such stuff, and now it did not seem any better 
because it was better expressed nor more true because it was 
dressed up in rhetoric; nor could I think the man's soul 
necessarily wise because his face was comely and his language 
eloquent.  But they who extolled him to me were not competent 
judges.  They thought him able and wise because his eloquence 
delighted them.  At the same time I realized that there is another 
kind of man who is suspicious even of truth itself, if it is 
expressed in smooth and flowing language.  But thou, O my God, 
hadst already taught me in wonderful and marvelous ways, and 
therefore I believed -- because it is true -- that thou didst 
teach me and that beside thee there is no other teacher of truth, 
wherever truth shines forth.  Already I had learned from thee that 
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to 
be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering 
lips should it be supposed false.  Nor, again, is it necessarily 
true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is 
brilliant.  Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are 
wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like 
town-made or rustic vessels -- both kinds of food may be served in 
either kind of dish.

     11.  That eagerness, therefore, with which I had so long 
awaited this man, was in truth delighted with his action and 
feeling in a disputation, and with the fluent and apt words with 
which he clothed his ideas.  I was delighted, therefore, and I 
joined with others -- and even exceeded them -- in exalting and 
praising him.  Yet it was a source of annoyance to me that, in his 
lecture room, I was not allowed to introduce and raise any of 
those questions that troubled me, in a familiar exchange of 
discussion with him.  As soon as I found an opportunity for this, 
and gained his ear at a time when it was not inconvenient for him 
to enter into a discussion with me and my friends, I laid before 
him some of my doubts.  I discovered at once that he knew nothing 
of the liberal arts except grammar, and that only in an ordinary 
way.  He had, however, read some of Tully's orations, a very few 
books of Seneca, and some of the poets, and such few books of his 
own sect as were written in good Latin.  With this meager learning 
and his daily practice in speaking, he had acquired a sort of 
eloquence which proved the more delightful and enticing because it 
was under the direction of a ready wit and a sort of native grace.  
Was this not even as I now recall it, O Lord my God, Judge of my 
conscience?  My heart and my memory are laid open before thee, who 
wast even then guiding me by the secret impulse of thy providence 
and wast setting my shameful errors before my face so that I might 
see and hate them.

                         CHAPTER VII

     12.  For as soon as it became plain to me that Faustus was 
ignorant in those arts in which I had believed him eminent, I 
began to despair of his being able to clarify and explain all 
these perplexities that troubled me -- though I realized that such 
ignorance need not have affected the authenticity of his piety, if 
he had not been a Manichean.  For their books are full of long 
fables about the sky and the stars, the sun and the moon; and I 
had ceased to believe him able to show me in any satisfactory 
fashion what I so ardently desired: whether the explanations 
contained in the Manichean books were better or at least as good 
as the mathematical explanations I had read elsewhere.  But when I 
proposed that these subjects should be considered and discussed, 
he quite modestly did not dare to undertake the task, for he was 
aware that he had no knowledge of these things and was not ashamed 
to confess it.  For he was not one of those talkative people -- 
from whom I had endured so much -- who undertook to teach me what 
I wanted to know, and then said nothing.  Faustus had a heart 
which, if not right toward thee, was at least not altogether false 
toward himself; for he was not ignorant of his own ignorance, and 
he did not choose to be entangled in a controversy from which he 
could not draw back or retire gracefully.  For this I liked him 
all the more.  For the modesty of an ingenious mind is a finer 
thing than the acquisition of that knowledge I desired; and this I 
found to be his attitude toward all abstruse and difficult 
questions.

     13.  Thus the zeal with which I had plunged into the 
Manichean system was checked, and I despaired even more of their 
other teachers, because Faustus who was so famous among them had 
turned out so poorly in the various matters that puzzled me.  And 
so I began to occupy myself with him in the study of his own 
favorite pursuit, that of literature, in which I was already 
teaching a class as a professor of rhetoric among the young 
Carthaginian students.  With Faustus then I read whatever he 
himself wished to read, or what I judged suitable to his bent of 
mind.  But all my endeavors to make further progress in Manicheism 
came completely to an end through my acquaintance with that man.  
I did not wholly separate myself from them, but as one who had not 
yet found anything better I decided to content myself, for the 
time being, with what I had stumbled upon one way or another, 
until by chance something more desirable should present itself.  
Thus that Faustus who had entrapped so many to their death -- 
though neither willing nor witting it -- now began to loosen the 
snare in which I had been caught.  For thy hands, O my God, in the 
hidden design of thy providence did not desert my soul; and out of 
the blood of my mother's heart, through the tears that she poured 
out by day and by night, there was a sacrifice offered to thee for 
me, and by marvelous ways thou didst deal with me.  For it was 
thou, O my God, who didst it: for "the steps of a man are ordered 
by the Lord, and he shall choose his way."[135]  How shall we 
attain salvation without thy hand remaking what it had already 
made? 

                         CHAPTER VIII

     14.  Thou didst so deal with me, therefore, that I was 
persuaded to go to Rome and teach there what I had been teaching 
at Carthage.  And how I was persuaded to do this I will not omit 
to confess to thee, for in this also the profoundest workings of 
thy wisdom and thy constant mercy toward us must be pondered and 
acknowledged.  I did not wish to go to Rome because of the richer 
fees and the higher dignity which my friends promised me there -- 
though these considerations did affect my decision.  My principal 
and almost sole motive was that I had been informed that the 
students there studied more quietly and were better kept under the 
control of stern discipline, so that they did not capriciously and 
impudently rush into the classroom of a teacher not their own -- 
indeed, they were not admitted at all without the permission of 
the teacher.  At Carthage, on the contrary, there was a shameful 
and intemperate license among the students.  They burst in rudely 
and, with furious gestures, would disrupt the discipline which the 
teacher had established for the good of his pupils.  Many outrages 
they perpetrated with astounding effrontery, things that would be 
punishable by law if they were not sustained by custom.  Thus 
custom makes plain that such behavior is all the more worthless 
because it allows men to do what thy eternal law never will allow.  
They think that they act thus with impunity, though the very 
blindness with which they act is their punishment, and they suffer 
far greater harm than they inflict.

     The manners that I would not adopt as a student I was 
compelled as a teacher to endure in others.  And so I was glad to 
go where all who knew the situation assured me that such conduct 
was not allowed.  But thou, "O my refuge and my portion in the 
land of the living,"[136] didst goad me thus at Carthage so that I 
might thereby be pulled away from it and change my worldly 
habitation for the preservation of my soul.  At the same time, 
thou didst offer me at Rome an enticement, through the agency of 
men enchanted with this death-in-life -- by their insane conduct 
in the one place and their empty promises in the other.  To 
correct my wandering footsteps, thou didst secretly employ their 
perversity and my own.  For those who disturbed my tranquillity 
were blinded by shameful madness and also those who allured me 
elsewhere had nothing better than the earth's cunning.  And I who 
hated actual misery in the one place sought fictitious happiness 
in the other.

     15.  Thou knewest the cause of my going from one country to 
the other, O God, but thou didst not disclose it either to me or 
to my mother, who grieved deeply over my departure and followed me 
down to the sea.  She clasped me tight in her embrace, willing 
either to keep me back or to go with me, but I deceived her, 
pretending that I had a friend whom I could not leave until he had 
a favorable wind to set sail.  Thus I lied to my mother -- and 
such a mother! -- and escaped.  For this too thou didst mercifully 
pardon me -- fool that I was -- and didst preserve me from the 
waters of the sea for the water of thy grace; so that, when I was 
purified by that, the fountain of my mother's eyes, from which she 
had daily watered the ground for me as she prayed to thee, should 
be dried.  And, since she refused to return without me, I 
persuaded her, with some difficulty, to remain that night in a 
place quite close to our ship, where there was a shrine in memory 
of the blessed Cyprian.  That night I slipped away secretly, and 
she remained to pray and weep.  And what was it, O Lord, that she 
was asking of thee in such a flood of tears but that thou wouldst 
not allow me to sail?  But thou, taking thy own secret counsel and 
noting the real point to her desire, didst not grant what she was 
then asking in order to grant to her the thing that she had always 
been asking.

     The wind blew and filled our sails, and the shore dropped out 
of sight.  Wild with grief, she was there the next morning and 
filled thy ears with complaints and groans which thou didst 
disregard, although, at the very same time, thou wast using my 
longings as a means and wast hastening me on to the fulfillment of 
all longing.  Thus the earthly part of her love to me was justly 
purged by the scourge of sorrow.  Still, like all mothers -- 
though even more than others -- she loved to have me with her, and 
did not know what joy thou wast preparing for her through my going 
away.  Not knowing this secret end, she wept and mourned and saw 
in her agony the inheritance of Eve -- seeking in sorrow what she 
had brought forth in sorrow.  And yet, after accusing me of 
perfidy and cruelty, she still continued her intercessions for me 
to thee.  She returned to her own home, and I went on to Rome.

                          CHAPTER IX

     16.  And lo, I was received in Rome by the scourge of bodily 
sickness; and I was very near to falling into hell, burdened with 
all the many and grievous sins I had committed against thee, 
myself, and others -- all over and above that fetter of original 
sin whereby we all die in Adam.  For thou hadst forgiven me none 
of these things in Christ, neither had he abolished by his cross 
the enmity[137] that I had incurred from thee through my sins.  
For how could he do so by the crucifixion of a phantom, which was 
all I supposed him to be?  The death of my soul was as real then 
as the death of his flesh appeared to me unreal.  And the life of 
my soul was as false, because it was as unreal as the death of his 
flesh was real, though I believed it not.

     My fever increased, and I was on the verge of passing away 
and perishing; for, if I had passed away then, where should I have 
gone but into the fiery torment which my misdeeds deserved, 
measured by the truth of thy rule?  My mother knew nothing of 
this; yet, far away, she went on praying for me.  And thou, 
present everywhere, didst hear her where she was and had pity on 
me where I was, so that I regained my bodily health, although I 
was still disordered in my sacrilegious heart.  For that peril of 
death did not make me wish to be baptized.  I was even better 
when, as a lad, I entreated baptism of my mother's devotion, as I 
have already related and confessed.[138]  But now I had since 
increased in dishonor, and I madly scoffed at all the purposes of 
thy medicine which would not have allowed me, though a sinner such 
as I was, to die a double death.  Had my mother's heart been 
pierced with this wound, it never could have been cured, for I 
cannot adequately tell of the love she had for me, or how she 
still travailed for me in the spirit with a far keener anguish 
than when she bore me in the flesh.

     17.  I cannot conceive, therefore, how she could have been 
healed if my death (still in my sins) had pierced her inmost love.  
Where, then, would have been all her earnest, frequent, and 
ceaseless prayers to thee?  Nowhere but with thee.  But couldst 
thou, O most merciful God, despise the "contrite and humble 
heart"[139] of that pure and prudent widow, who was so constant in 
her alms, so gracious and attentive to thy saints, never missing a 
visit to church twice a day, morning and evening -- and this not 
for vain gossiping, nor old wives' fables, but in order that she 
might listen to thee in thy sermons, and thou to her in her 
prayers?  Couldst thou, by whose gifts she was so inspired, 
despise and disregard the tears of such a one without coming to 
her aid -- those tears by which she entreated thee, not for gold 
or silver, and not for any changing or fleeting good, but for the 
salvation of the soul of her son?  By no means, O Lord.  It is 
certain that thou wast near and wast hearing and wast carrying out 
the plan by which thou hadst predetermined it should be done.  Far 
be it from thee that thou shouldst have deluded her in those 
visions and the answers she had received from thee -- some of 
which I have mentioned, and others not -- which she kept in her 
faithful heart, and, forever beseeching, urged them on thee as if 
they had thy own signature.  For thou, "because thy mercy endureth 
forever,"[140] hast so condescended to those whose debts thou hast 
pardoned that thou likewise dost become a debtor by thy promises.

                           CHAPTER X

     18.  Thou didst restore me then from that illness, and didst 
heal the son of thy handmaid in his body, that he might live for 
thee and that thou mightest endow him with a better and more 
certain health.  After this, at Rome, I again joined those 
deluding and deluded "saints"; and not their "hearers" only, such 
as the man was in whose house I had fallen sick, but also with 
those whom they called "the elect." For it still seemed to me 
"that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us." 
And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when _I_ did 
anything wrong not to have to confess that _I_ had done wrong -- 
"that thou mightest heal my soul because it had sinned against 
thee"[141] -- and I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse 
something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I.  
But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided 
me against myself.  That sin then was all the more incurable 
because I did not deem myself a sinner.  It was an execrable 
iniquity, O God Omnipotent, that I would have preferred to have 
thee defeated in me, to my destruction, than to be defeated by 
thee to my salvation.  Not yet, therefore, hadst thou set a watch 
upon my mouth and a door around my lips that my heart might not 
incline to evil speech, to make excuse for sin with men that work 
iniquity.[142]  And, therefore, I continued still in the company 
of their "elect."

     19.  But now, hopeless of gaining any profit from that false 
doctrine, I began to hold more loosely and negligently even to 
those points which I had decided to rest content with, if I could 
find nothing better.  I was now half inclined to believe that 
those philosophers whom they call "The Academics"[143] were wiser 
than the rest in holding that we ought to doubt everything, and in 
maintaining that man does not have the power of comprehending any 
certain truth, for, although I had not yet understood their 
meaning, I was fully persuaded that they thought just as they are 
commonly reputed to do.  And I did not fail openly to dissuade my 
host from his confidence which I observed that he had in those 
fictions of which the works of Mani are full.  For all this, I was 
still on terms of more intimate friendship with these people than 
with others who were not of their heresy.  I did not indeed defend 
it with my former ardor; but my familiarity with that group -- and 
there were many of them concealed in Rome at that time[144] -- 
made me slower to seek any other way.  This was particularly easy 
since I had no hope of finding in thy Church the truth from which 
they had turned me aside, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of 
all things visible and invisible.  And it still seemed to me most 
unseemly to believe that thou couldst have the form of human flesh 
and be bounded by the bodily shape of our limbs.  And when I 
desired to meditate on my God, I did not know what to think of but 
a huge extended body -- for what did not have bodily extension did 
not seem to me to exist -- and this was the greatest and almost 
the sole cause of my unavoidable errors.

     20.  And thus I also believed that evil was a similar kind of 
substance, and that it had its own hideous and deformed extended 
body -- either in a dense form which they called the earth or in a 
thin and subtle form as, for example, the substance of the air, 
which they imagined as some malignant spirit penetrating that 
earth.  And because my piety -- such as it was -- still compelled 
me to believe that the good God never created any evil substance, 
I formed the idea of two masses, one opposed to the other, both 
infinite but with the evil more contracted and the good more 
expansive.  And from this diseased beginning, the other sacrileges 
followed after.

     For when my mind tried to turn back to the Catholic faith, I 
was cast down, since the Catholic faith was not what I judged it 
to be.  And it seemed to me a greater piety to regard thee, my God 
-- to whom I make confession of thy mercies -- as infinite in all 
respects save that one: where the extended mass of evil stood 
opposed to thee, where I was compelled to confess that thou art 
finite -- than if I should think that thou couldst be confined by 
the form of a human body on every side.  And it seemed better to 
me to believe that no evil had been created by thee -- for in my 
ignorance evil appeared not only to be some kind of substance but 
a corporeal one at that.  This was because I had, thus far, no 
conception of mind, except as a subtle body diffused throughout 
local spaces.  This seemed better than to believe that anything 
could emanate from thee which had the character that I considered 
evil to be in its nature.  And I believed that our Saviour himself 
also -- thy Only Begotten -- had been brought forth, as it were, 
for our salvation out of the mass of thy bright shining substance.  
So that I could believe nothing about him except what I was able 
to harmonize with these vain imaginations.  I thought, therefore, 
that such a nature could not be born of the Virgin Mary without 
being mingled with the flesh, and I could not see how the divine 
substance, as I had conceived it, could be mingled thus without 
being contaminated.  I was afraid, therefore, to believe that he 
had been born in the flesh, lest I should also be compelled to 
believe that he had been contaminated by the flesh.  Now will thy 
spiritual ones smile blandly and lovingly at me if they read these 
confessions.  Yet such was I.

                          CHAPTER XI

     21.  Furthermore, the things they censured in thy Scriptures 
I thought impossible to be defended.  And yet, occasionally, I 
desired to confer on various matters with someone well learned in 
those books, to test what he thought of them.  For already the 
words of one Elpidius, who spoke and disputed face to face against 
these same Manicheans, had begun to impress me, even when I was at 
Carthage; because he brought forth things out of the Scriptures 
that were not easily withstood, to which their answers appeared to 
me feeble.  One of their answers they did not give forth publicly, 
but only to us in private -- when they said that the writings of 
the New Testament had been tampered with by unknown persons who 
desired to ingraft the Jewish law into the Christian faith.  But 
they themselves never brought forward any uncorrupted copies.  
Still thinking in corporeal categories and very much ensnared and 
to some extent stifled, I was borne down by those conceptions of 
bodily substance.  I panted under this load for the air of thy 
truth, but I was not able to breathe it pure and undefiled.

                          CHAPTER XII

     22.  I set about diligently to practice what I came to Rome 
to do -- the teaching of rhetoric.  The first task was to bring 
together in my home a few people to whom and through whom I had 
begun to be known.  And lo, I then began to learn that other 
offenses were committed in Rome which I had not had to bear in 
Africa.  Just as I had been told, those riotous disruptions by 
young blackguards were not practiced here.  Yet, now, my friends 
told me, many of the Roman students -- breakers of faith, who, for 
the love of money, set a small value on justice -- would conspire 
together and suddenly transfer to another teacher, to evade paying 
their master's fees.  My heart hated such people, though not with 
a "perfect hatred"[145]; for doubtless I hated them more because I 
was to suffer from them than on account of their own illicit acts.  
Still, such people are base indeed; they fornicate against thee, 
for they love the transitory mockeries of temporal things and the 
filthy gain which begrimes the hand that grabs it; they embrace 
the fleeting world and scorn thee, who abidest and invitest us to 
return to thee and who pardonest the prostituted human soul when 
it does return to thee.  Now I hate such crooked and perverse men, 
although I love them if they will be corrected and come to prefer 
the learning they obtain to money and, above all, to prefer thee 
to such learning, O God, the truth and fullness of our positive 
good, and our most pure peace.  But then the wish was stronger in 
me for my own sake not to suffer evil from them than was my desire 
that they should become good for thy sake.

                         CHAPTER XIII

     23.  When, therefore, the officials of Milan sent to Rome, to 
the prefect of the city, to ask that he provide them with a 
teacher of rhetoric for their city and to send him at the public 
expense, I applied for the job through those same persons, drunk 
with the Manichean vanities, to be freed from whom I was going 
away -- though neither they nor I were aware of it at the time.  
They recommended that Symmachus, who was then prefect, after he 
had proved me by audition, should appoint me.

     And to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, famed through the 
whole world as one of the best of men, thy devoted servant.  His 
eloquent discourse in those times abundantly provided thy people 
with the flour of thy wheat, the gladness of thy oil, and the 
sober intoxication of thy wine.[146]  To him I was led by thee 
without my knowledge, that by him I might be led to thee in full 
knowledge.  That man of God received me as a father would, and 
welcomed my coming as a good bishop should.  And I began to love 
him, of course, not at the first as a teacher of the truth, for I 
had entirely despaired of finding that in thy Church -- but as a 
friendly man.  And I studiously listened to him -- though not with 
the right motive -- as he preached to the people.  I was trying to 
discover whether his eloquence came up to his reputation, and 
whether it flowed fuller or thinner than others said it did.  And 
thus I hung on his words intently, but, as to his subject matter, 
I was only a careless and contemptuous listener.  I was delighted 
with the charm of his speech, which was more erudite, though less 
cheerful and soothing, than Faustus' style.  As for subject 
matter, however, there could be no comparison, for the latter was 
wandering around in Manichean deceptions, while the former was 
teaching salvation most soundly.  But "salvation is far from the 
wicked,"[147] such as I was then when I stood before him.  Yet I 
was drawing nearer, gradually and unconsciously.

                          CHAPTER XIV

     24.  For, although I took no trouble to learn what he said, 
but only to hear how he said it -- for this empty concern remained 
foremost with me as long as I despaired of finding a clear path 
from man to thee -- yet, along with the eloquence I prized, there 
also came into my mind the ideas which I ignored; for I could not 
separate them.  And, while I opened my heart to acknowledge how 
skillfully he spoke, there also came an awareness of how _truly_ 
he spoke -- but only gradually.  First of all, his ideas had 
already begun to appear to me defensible; and the Catholic faith, 
for which I supposed that nothing could be said against the 
onslaught of the Manicheans, I now realized could be maintained 
without presumption.  This was especially clear after I had heard 
one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically -- 
whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they 
had "killed" me spiritually.[148]  However, when many of these 
passages in those books were expounded to me thus, I came to blame 
my own despair for having believed that no reply could be given to 
those who hated and scoffed at the Law and the Prophets.  Yet I 
did not see that this was reason enough to follow the Catholic 
way, just because it had learned advocates who could answer 
objections adequately and without absurdity.  Nor could I see that 
what I had held to heretofore should now be condemned, because 
both sides were equally defensible.  For that way did not appear 
to me yet vanquished; but neither did it seem yet victorious.

     25.  But now I earnestly bent my mind to require if there was 
possible any way to prove the Manicheans guilty of falsehood.  If 
I could have conceived of a spiritual substance, all their 
strongholds would have collapsed and been cast out of my mind.  
But I could not.  Still, concerning the body of this world, nature 
as a whole -- now that I was able to consider and compare such 
things more and more -- I now decided that the majority of the 
philosophers held the more probable views.  So, in what I thought 
was the method of the Academics -- doubting everything and 
fluctuating between all the options -- I came to the conclusion 
that the Manicheans were to be abandoned.  For I judged, even in 
that period of doubt, that I could not remain in a sect to which I 
preferred some of the philosophers.  But I refused to commit the 
cure of my fainting soul to the philosophers, because they were 
without the saving name of Christ.  I resolved, therefore, to 
become a catechumen in the Catholic Church -- which my parents had 
so much urged upon me -- until something certain shone forth by 
which I might guide my course.

     

                          BOOK SIX

     Turmoil in the twenties.  Monica follows Augustine to Milan 
and finds him a catechumen in the Catholic Church. Both admire 
Ambrose but Augustine gets no help from him on his personal 
problems.  Ambition spurs and Alypius and Nebridius join him in a 
confused quest for the happy life.  Augustine becomes engaged, 
dismisses his first mistress, takes another, and continues his 
fruitless search for truth.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  O Hope from my youth,[149] where wast thou to me and 
where hadst thou gone away?[150]  For hadst thou not created me 
and differentiated me from the beasts of the field and the birds 
of the air, making me wiser than they?  And yet I was wandering 
about in a dark and slippery way, seeking thee outside myself and 
thus not finding the God of my heart.  I had gone down into the 
depths of the sea and had lost faith, and had despaired of ever 
finding the truth.

     By this time my mother had come to me, having mustered the 
courage of piety, following over sea and land, secure in thee 
through all the perils of the journey.  For in the dangers of the 
voyage she comforted the sailors -- to whom the inexperienced 
voyagers, when alarmed, were accustomed to go for comfort -- and 
assured them of a safe arrival because she had been so assured by 
thee in a vision.

     She found me in deadly peril through my despair of ever 
finding the truth.  But when I told her that I was now no longer a 
Manichean, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she did not leap 
for joy as if this were unexpected; for she had already been 
reassured about that part of my misery for which she had mourned 
me as one dead, but also as one who would be raised to thee.  She 
had carried me out on the bier of her thoughts, that thou mightest 
say to the widow's son, "Young man, I say unto you, arise!"[151] 
and then he would revive and begin to speak, and thou wouldst 
deliver him to his mother.  Therefore, her heart was not agitated 
with any violent exultation when she heard that so great a part of 
what she daily entreated thee to do had actually already been done 
-- that, though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued 
from falsehood.  Instead, she was fully confident that thou who 
hadst promised the whole would give her the rest, and thus most 
calmly, and with a fully confident heart, she replied to me that 
she believed, in Christ, that before she died she would see me a 
faithful Catholic.  And she said no more than this to me.  But to 
thee, O Fountain of mercy, she poured out still more frequent 
prayers and tears that thou wouldst hasten thy aid and enlighten 
my darkness, and she hurried all the more zealously to the church 
and hung upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the fountain of 
water that springs up into everlasting life.[152]  For she loved 
that man as an angel of God, since she knew that it was by him 
that I had been brought thus far to that wavering state of 
agitation I was now in, through which she was fully persuaded I 
should pass from sickness to health, even though it would be after 
a still sharper convulsion which physicians call "the crisis."

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  So also my mother brought to certain oratories, erected 
in the memory of the saints, offerings of porridge, bread, and 
wine -- as had been her custom in Africa -- and she was forbidden 
to do so by the doorkeeper [ostiarius].  And as soon as she 
learned that it was the bishop who had forbidden it, she 
acquiesced so devoutly and obediently that I myself marveled how 
readily she could bring herself to turn critic of her own customs, 
rather than question his prohibition.  For winebibbing had not 
taken possession of her spirit, nor did the love of wine stimulate 
her to hate the truth, as it does too many, both male and female, 
who turn as sick at a hymn to sobriety as drunkards do at a 
draught of water.  When she had brought her basket with the 
festive gifts, which she would taste first herself and give the 
rest away, she would never allow herself more than one little cup 
of wine, diluted according to her own temperate palate, which she 
would taste out of courtesy.  And, if there were many oratories of 
departed saints that ought to be honored in the same way, she 
still carried around with her the same little cup, to be used 
everywhere.  This became not only very much watered but also quite 
tepid with carrying it about.  She would distribute it by small 
sips to those around, for she sought to stimulate their devotion, 
not pleasure.

     But as soon as she found that this custom was forbidden by 
that famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those who 
would use it in moderation, lest thereby it might be an occasion 
of gluttony for those who were already drunken (and also because 
these funereal memorials were very much like some of the 
superstitious practices of the pagans), she most willingly 
abstained from it.  And, in place of a basket filled with fruits 
of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the 
martyrs a heart full of purer petitions, and to give all that she 
could to the poor -- so that the Communion of the Lord's body 
might be rightly celebrated in those places where, after the 
example of his Passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and 
crowned.  But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God -- and my heart 
thinks of it this way in thy sight -- that my mother would 
probably not have given way so easily to the rejection of this 
custom if it had been forbidden by another, whom she did not love 
as she did Ambrose.  For, out of her concern for my salvation, she 
loved him most dearly; and he loved her truly, on account of her 
faithful religious life, in which she frequented the church with 
good works, "fervent in spirit."[153]  Thus he would, when he saw 
me, often burst forth into praise of her, congratulating me that I 
had such a mother -- little knowing what a son she had in me, who 
was still a skeptic in all these matters and who could not 
conceive that the way of life could be found out.

                          CHAPTER III

     3.  Nor had I come yet to groan in my prayers that thou 
wouldst help me.  My mind was wholly intent on knowledge and eager 
for disputation.  Ambrose himself I esteemed a happy man, as the 
world counted happiness, because great personages held him in 
honor.  Only his celibacy appeared to me a painful burden.  But 
what hope he cherished, what struggles he had against the 
temptations that beset his high station, what solace in adversity, 
and what savory joys thy bread possessed for the hidden mouth of 
his heart when feeding on it, I could neither 

     conjecture nor experience.  

     Nor did he know my own frustrations, nor the pit of my 
danger.  For I could not request of him what I wanted as I wanted 
it, because I was debarred from hearing and speaking to him by 
crowds of busy people to whose infirmities he devoted himself.  
And when he was not engaged with them -- which was never for long 
at a time -- he was either refreshing his body with necessary food 
or his mind with reading.  

     Now, as he read, his eyes glanced over the pages and his 
heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were 
silent.  Often when we came to his room -- for no one was 
forbidden to enter, nor was it his custom that the arrival of 
visitors should be announced to him -- we would see him thus 
reading to himself.  After we had sat for a long time in silence 
-- for who would dare interrupt one so intent? -- we would then 
depart, realizing that he was unwilling to be distracted in the 
little time he could gain for the recruiting of his mind, free 
from the clamor of other men's business.  Perhaps he was fearful 
lest, if the author he was studying should express himself 
vaguely, some doubtful and attentive hearer would ask him to 
expound it or discuss some of the more abstruse questions, so that 
he could not get over as much material as he wished, if his time 
was occupied with others.  And even a truer reason for his reading 
to himself might have been the care for preserving his voice, 
which was very easily weakened.  Whatever his motive was in so 
doing, it was doubtless, in such a man, a good one.  

     4.  But actually I could find no opportunity of putting the 
questions I desired to that holy oracle of thine in his heart, 
unless it was a matter which could be dealt with briefly.  
However, those surgings in me required that he should give me his 
full leisure so that I might pour them out to him; but I never 
found him so.  I heard him, indeed, every Lord's Day, "rightly 
dividing the word of truth"[154] among the people.  And I became 
all the more convinced that all those knots of crafty calumnies 
which those deceivers of ours had knit together against the divine 
books could be unraveled.  

     I soon understood that the statement that man was made after 
the image of Him that created him[155] was not understood by thy 
spiritual sons -- whom thou hadst regenerated through the Catholic 
Mother[156] through grace -- as if they believed and imagined that 
thou wert bounded by a human form, although what was the nature of 
a spiritual substance I had not the faintest or vaguest notion.  
Still rejoicing, I blushed that for so many years I had bayed, not 
against the Catholic faith, but against the fables of fleshly 
imagination.  For I had been both impious and rash in this, that I 
had condemned by pronouncement what I ought to have learned by 
inquiry.  For thou, O Most High, and most near, most secret, yet 
most present, who dost not have limbs, some of which are larger 
and some smaller, but who art wholly everywhere and nowhere in 
space, and art not shaped by some corporeal form: thou didst 
create man after thy own image and, see, he dwells in space, both 
head and feet.

                          CHAPTER IV

     5.  Since I could not then understand how this image of thine 
could subsist, I should have knocked on the door and propounded 
the doubt as to how it was to be believed, and not have 
insultingly opposed it as if it were actually believed.  
Therefore, my anxiety as to what I could retain as certain gnawed 
all the more sharply into my soul, and I felt quite ashamed 
because during the long time I had been deluded and deceived by 
the [Manichean] promises of certainties, I had, with childish 
petulance, prated of so many uncertainties as if they were 
certain.  That they were falsehoods became apparent to me only 
afterward.  However, I was certain that they were uncertain and 
since I had held them as certainly uncertain I had accused thy 
Catholic Church with a blind contentiousness.  I had not yet 
discovered that it taught the truth, but I now knew that it did 
not teach what I had so vehemently accused it of.  In this 
respect, at least, I was confounded and converted; and I rejoiced, 
O my God, that the one Church, the body of thy only Son -- in 
which the name of Christ had been sealed upon me as an infant -- 
did not relish these childish trifles and did not maintain in its 
sound doctrine any tenet that would involve pressing thee, the 
Creator of all, into space, which, however extended and immense, 
would still be bounded on all sides -- like the shape of a human 
body.

     6.  I was also glad that the old Scriptures of the Law and 
the Prophets were laid before me to be read, not now with an eye 
to what had seemed absurd in them when formerly I censured thy 
holy ones for thinking thus, when they actually did not think in 
that way.  And I listened with delight to Ambrose, in his sermons 
to the people, often recommending this text most diligently as a 
rule: "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life,"[157] while at 
the same time he drew aside the mystic veil and opened to view the 
spiritual meaning of what seemed to teach perverse doctrine if it 
were taken according to the letter.  I found nothing in his 
teachings that offended me, though I could not yet know for 
certain whether what he taught was true.  For all this time I 
restrained my heart from assenting to anything, fearing to fall 
headlong into error.  Instead, by this hanging in suspense, I was 
being strangled.[158]  For my desire was to be as certain of 
invisible things as I was that seven and three are ten.  I was not 
so deranged as to believe that _this_ could not be comprehended, 
but my desire was to have other things as clear as this, whether 
they were physical objects, which were not present to my senses, 
or spiritual objects, which I did not know how to conceive of 
except in physical terms.

     If I could have believed, I might have been cured, and, with 
the sight of my soul cleared up, it might in some way have been 
directed toward thy truth, which always abides and fails in 
nothing.  But, just as it happens that a man who has tried a bad 
physician fears to trust himself with a good one, so it was with 
the health of my soul, which could not be healed except by 
believing.  But lest it should believe falsehoods, it refused to 
be cured, resisting thy hand, who hast prepared for us the 
medicines of faith and applied them to the maladies of the whole 
world, and endowed them with such great efficacy.

                           CHAPTER V

     7.  Still, from this time forward, I began to prefer the 
Catholic doctrine.  I felt that it was with moderation and honesty 
that it commanded things to be believed that were not demonstrated 
-- whether they could be demonstrated, but not to everyone, or 
whether they could not be demonstrated at all.  This was far 
better than the method of the Manicheans, in which our credulity 
was mocked by an audacious promise of knowledge and then many 
fabulous and absurd things were forced upon believers _because_ 
they were incapable of demonstration.  After that, O Lord, little 
by little, with a gentle and most merciful hand, drawing and 
calming my heart, thou didst persuade me that, if I took into 
account the multitude of things I had never seen, nor been present 
when they were enacted -- such as many of the events of secular 
history; and the numerous reports of places and cities which I had 
not seen; or such as my relations with many friends, or 
physicians, or with these men and those -- that unless we should 
believe, we should do nothing at all in this life.[159]  Finally, 
I was impressed with what an unalterable assurance I believed 
which two people were my parents, though this was impossible for 
me to know otherwise than by hearsay.  By bringing all this into 
my consideration, thou didst persuade me that it was not the ones 
who believed thy books -- which with so great authority thou hast 
established among nearly all nations -- but those who did not 
believe them who were to be blamed.  Moreover, those men were not 
to be listened to who would say to me, "How do you know that those 
Scriptures were imparted to mankind by the Spirit of the one and 
most true God?"  For this was the point that was most of all to be 
believed, since no wranglings of blasphemous questions such as I 
had read in the books of the self-contradicting philosophers could 
once snatch from me the belief that thou dost exist -- although 
_what_ thou art I did not know -- and that to thee belongs the 
governance of human affairs.

     8.  This much I believed, some times more strongly than other 
times.  But I always believed both that thou art and that thou 
hast a care for us,[160] although I was ignorant both as to what 
should be thought about thy substance and as to which way led, or 
led back, to thee.  Thus, since we are too weak by unaided reason 
to find out truth, and since, because of this, we need the 
authority of the Holy Writings, I had now begun to believe that 
thou wouldst not, under any circumstances, have given such eminent 
authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands if it had not 
been that through them thy will may be believed in and that thou 
mightest be sought.  For, as to those passages in the Scripture 
which had heretofore appeared incongruous and offensive to me, now 
that I had heard several of them expounded reasonably, I could see 
that they were to be resolved by the mysteries of spiritual 
interpretation.  The authority of Scripture seemed to me all the 
more revered and worthy of devout belief because, although it was 
visible for all to read, it reserved the full majesty of its 
secret wisdom within its spiritual profundity.  While it stooped 
to all in the great plainness of its language and simplicity of 
style, it yet required the closest attention of the most serious-
minded -- so that it might receive all into its common bosom, and 
direct some few through its narrow passages toward thee, yet many 
more than would have been the case had there not been in it such a 
lofty authority, which nevertheless allured multitudes to its 
bosom by its holy humility.  I continued to reflect upon these 
things, and thou wast with me.  I sighed, and thou didst hear me.  
I vacillated, and thou guidedst me.  I roamed the broad way of the 
world, and thou didst not desert me.

                          CHAPTER VI

     9.  I was still eagerly aspiring to honors, money, and 
matrimony; and thou didst mock me.  In pursuit of these ambitions 
I endured the most bitter hardships, in which thou wast being the 
more gracious the less thou wouldst allow anything that was not 
thee to grow sweet to me.  Look into my heart, O Lord, whose 
prompting it is that I should recall all this, and confess it to 
thee.  Now let my soul cleave to thee, now that thou hast freed 
her from that fast-sticking glue of death.

     How wretched she was!  And thou didst irritate her sore wound 
so that she might forsake all else and turn to thee -- who art 
above all and without whom all things would be nothing at all -- 
so that she should be converted and healed.  How wretched I was at 
that time, and how thou didst deal with me so as to make me aware 
of my wretchedness, I recall from the incident of the day on which 
I was preparing to recite a panegyric on the emperor.  In it I was 
to deliver many a lie, and the lying was to be applauded by those 
who knew I was lying.  My heart was agitated with this sense of 
guilt and it seethed with the fever of my uneasiness.  For, while 
walking along one of the streets of Milan, I saw a poor beggar -- 
with what I believe was a full belly -- joking and hilarious.  And 
I sighed and spoke to the friends around me of the many sorrows 
that flowed from our madness, because in spite of all our 
exertions -- such as those I was then laboring in, dragging the 
burden of my unhappiness under the spur of ambition, and, by 
dragging it, increasing it at the same time -- still and all we 
aimed only to attain that very happiness which this beggar had 
reached before us; and there was a grim chance that we should 
never attain it!  For what he had obtained through a few coins, 
got by his begging, I was still scheming for by many a wretched 
and tortuous turning -- namely, the joy of a passing felicity.  He 
had not, indeed, gained true joy, but, at the same time, with all 
my ambitions, I was seeking one still more untrue.  Anyhow, he was 
now joyous and I was anxious.  He was free from care, and I was 
full of alarms.  Now, if anyone should inquire of me whether I 
should prefer to be merry or anxious, I would reply, "Merry." 
Again, if I had been asked whether I should prefer to be as he was 
or as I myself then was, I would have chosen to be myself; though 
I was beset with cares and alarms.  But would not this have been a 
false choice?  Was the contrast valid?  Actually, I ought not to 
prefer myself to him because I happened to be more learned than he 
was; for I got no great pleasure from my learning, but sought, 
rather, to please men by its exhibition -- and this not to 
instruct, but only to please.  Thus thou didst break my bones with 
the rod of thy correction.

     10.  Let my soul take its leave of those who say: "It makes a 
difference as to the object from which a man derives his joy.  The 
beggar rejoiced in drunkenness; you longed to rejoice in glory." 
What glory, O Lord?  The kind that is not in thee, for, just as 
his was no true joy, so was mine no true glory; but it turned my 
head all the more.  He would get over his drunkenness that same 
night, but I had slept with mine many a night and risen again with 
it, and was to sleep again and rise again with it, I know not how 
many times.  It does indeed make a difference as to the object 
from which a man's joy is gained.  I know this is so, and I know 
that the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably beyond such 
vanity.  Yet, at the same time, this beggar was beyond me, for he 
truly was the happier man -- not only because he was thoroughly 
steeped in his mirth while I was torn to pieces with my cares, but 
because he had gotten his wine by giving good wishes to the 
passers-by while I was following after the ambition of my pride by 
lying.  Much to this effect I said to my good companions, and I 
saw how readily they reacted pretty much as I did.  Thus I found 
that it went ill with me; and I fretted, and doubled that very 
ill.  And if any prosperity smiled upon me, I loathed to seize it, 
for almost before I could grasp it, it would fly away.

                          CHAPTER VII

     11.  Those of us who were living like friends together used 
to bemoan our lot in our common talk; but I discussed it with 
Alypius and Nebridius more especially and in very familiar terms.  
Alypius had been born in the same town as I; his parents were of 
the highest rank there, but he was a bit younger than I.  He had 
studied under me when I first taught in our town, and then 
afterward at Carthage.  He esteemed me highly because I appeared 
to him good and learned, and I esteemed him for his inborn love of 
virtue, which was uncommonly marked in a man so young.  But in the 
whirlpool of Carthaginian fashion -- where frivolous spectacles 
are hotly followed -- he had been inveigled into the madness of 
the gladiatorial games.  While he was miserably tossed about in 
this fad, I was teaching rhetoric there in a public school.  At 
that time he was not attending my classes because of some ill 
feeling that had arisen between me and his father.  I then came to 
discover how fatally he doted upon the circus, and I was deeply 
grieved, for he seemed likely to cast away his very great promise 
-- if, indeed, he had not already done so.  Yet I had no means of 
advising him, or any way of reclaiming him through restraint, 
either by the kindness of a friend or by the authority of a 
teacher.  For I imagined that his feelings toward me were the same 
as his father's.  But this turned out not to be the case.  Indeed, 
disregarding his father's will in the matter, he began to be 
friendly and to visit my lecture room, to listen for a while and 
then depart.

     12.  But it slipped my memory to try to deal with his 
problem, to prevent him from ruining his excellent mind in his 
blind and headstrong passion for frivolous sport.  But thou, O 
Lord, who holdest the helm of all that thou hast created,[161] 
thou hadst not forgotten him who was one day to be numbered among 
thy sons, a chief minister of thy sacrament.[162]  And in order 
that his amendment might plainly be attributed to thee, thou 
broughtest it about through me while I knew nothing of it.

     One day, when I was sitting in my accustomed place with my 
scholars before me, he came in, greeted me, sat himself down, and 
fixed his attention on the subject I was then discussing.  It so 
happened that I had a passage in hand and, while I was 
interpreting it, a simile occurred to me, taken from the 
gladiatorial games.  It struck me as relevant to make more 
pleasant and plain the point I wanted to convey by adding a biting 
gibe at those whom that madness had enthralled.  Thou knowest, O 
our God, that I had no thought at that time of curing Alypius of 
that plague.  But he took it to himself and thought that I would 
not have said it but for his sake.  And what any other man would 
have taken as an occasion of offense against me, this worthy young 
man took as a reason for being offended at himself, and for loving 
me the more fervently.  Thou hast said it long ago and written in 
thy Book, "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you."[163]  Now I 
had not rebuked him; but thou who canst make use of everything, 
both witting and unwitting, and in the order which thou thyself 
knowest to be best -- and that order is right -- thou madest my 
heart and tongue into burning coals with which thou mightest 
cauterize and cure the hopeful mind thus languishing.  Let him be 
silent in thy praise who does not meditate on thy mercy, which 
rises up in my inmost parts to confess to thee.  For after that 
speech Alypius rushed up out of that deep pit into which he had 
willfully plunged and in which he had been blinded by its 
miserable pleasures.  And he roused his mind with a resolve to 
moderation.  When he had done this, all the filth of the 
gladiatorial pleasures dropped away from him, and he went to them 
no more.  Then he also prevailed upon his reluctant father to let 
him be my pupil.  And, at the son's urging, the father at last 
consented.  Thus Alypius began again to hear my lectures and 
became involved with me in the same superstition, loving in the 
Manicheans that outward display of ascetic discipline which he 
believed was true and unfeigned.  It was, however, a senseless and 
seducing continence, which ensnared precious souls who were not 
able as yet to reach the height of true virtue, and who were 
easily beguiled with the veneer of what was only a shadowy and 
feigned virtue.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     13.  He had gone on to Rome before me to study law -- which 
was the worldly way which his parents were forever urging him to 
pursue -- and there he was carried away again with an incredible 
passion for the gladiatorial shows.  For, although he had been 
utterly opposed to such spectacles and detested them, one day he 
met by chance a company of his acquaintances and fellow students 
returning from dinner; and, with a friendly violence, they drew 
him, resisting and objecting vehemently, into the amphitheater, on 
a day of those cruel and murderous shows.  He protested to them: 
"Though you drag my body to that place and set me down there, you 
cannot force me to give my mind or lend my eyes to these shows.  
Thus I will be absent while present, and so overcome both you and 
them." When they heard this, they dragged him on in, probably 
interested to see whether he could do as he said.  When they got 
to the arena, and had taken what seats they could get, the whole 
place became a tumult of inhuman frenzy.  But Alypius kept his 
eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such 
wickedness.  Would that he had shut his ears also!  For when one 
of the combatants fell in the fight, a mighty cry from the whole 
audience stirred him so strongly that, overcome by curiosity and 
still prepared (as he thought) to despise and rise superior to it 
no matter what it was, he opened his eyes and was struck with a 
deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to see 
had been in his body.  Thus he fell more miserably than the one 
whose fall had raised that mighty clamor which had entered through 
his ears and unlocked his eyes to make way for the wounding and 
beating down of his soul, which was more audacious than truly 
valiant -- also it was weaker because it presumed on its own 
strength when it ought to have depended on Thee.  For, as soon as 
he saw the blood, he drank in with it a savage temper, and he did 
not turn away, but fixed his eyes on the bloody pastime, 
unwittingly drinking in the madness -- delighted with the wicked 
contest and drunk with blood lust.  He was now no longer the same 
man who came in, but was one of the mob he came into, a true 
companion of those who had brought him thither.  Why need I say 
more?  He looked, he shouted, he was excited, and he took away 
with him the madness that would stimulate him to come again: not 
only with those who first enticed him, but even without them; 
indeed, dragging in others besides.  And yet from all this, with a 
most powerful and most merciful hand, thou didst pluck him and 
taught him not to rest his confidence in himself but in thee -- 
but not till long after.

                          CHAPTER IX

     14.  But this was all being stored up in his memory as 
medicine for the future.  So also was that other incident when he 
was still studying under me at Carthage and was meditating at 
noonday in the market place on what he had to recite -- as 
scholars usually have to do for practice -- and thou didst allow 
him to be arrested by the police officers in the market place as a 
thief.  I believe, O my God, that thou didst allow this for no 
other reason than that this man who was in the future to prove so 
great should now begin to learn that, in making just decisions, a 
man should not readily be condemned by other men with reckless 
credulity.

     For as he was walking up and down alone before the judgment 
seat with his tablets and pen, lo, a young man -- another one of 
the scholars, who was the real thief -- secretly brought a hatchet 
and, without Alypius seeing him, got in as far as the leaden bars 
which protected the silversmith shop and began to hack away at the 
lead gratings.  But when the noise of the hatchet was heard the 
silversmiths below began to call to each other in whispers and 
sent men to arrest whomsoever they should find.  The thief heard 
their voices and ran away, leaving his hatchet because he was 
afraid to be caught with it.  Now Alypius, who had not seen him 
come in, got a glimpse of him as he went out and noticed that he 
went off in great haste.  Being curious to know the reasons, he 
went up to the place, where he found the hatchet, and stood 
wondering and pondering when, behold, those that were sent caught 
him alone, holding the hatchet which had made the noise which had 
startled them and brought them there.  They seized him and dragged 
him away, gathering the tenants of the market place about them and 
boasting that they had caught a notorious thief.  Thereupon he was 
led away to appear before the judge.

     15.  But this is as far as his lesson was to go.  For 
immediately, O Lord, thou didst come to the rescue of his 
innocence, of which thou wast the sole witness.  As he was being 
led off to prison or punishment, they were met by the master 
builder who had charge of the public buildings.  The captors were 
especially glad to meet him because he had more than once 
suspected them of stealing the goods that had been lost out of the 
market place.  Now, at last, they thought they could convince him 
who it was that had committed the thefts.  But the custodian had 
often met Alypius at the house of a certain senator, whose 
receptions he used to attend.  He recognized him at once and, 
taking his hand, led him apart from the throng, inquired the cause 
of all the trouble, and learned what had occurred.  He then 
commanded all the rabble still around -- and very uproarious and 
full of threatenings they were -- to come along with him, and they 
came to the house of the young man who had committed the deed.  
There, before the door, was a slave boy so young that he was not 
restrained from telling the whole story by fear of harming his 
master.  And he had followed his master to the market place.  
Alypius recognized him, and whispered to the architect, who showed 
the boy the hatchet and asked whose it was.  "Ours," he answered 
directly.  And, being further questioned, he disclosed the whole 
affair.  Thus the guilt was shifted to that household and the 
rabble, who had begun to triumph over Alypius, were shamed.  And 
so he went away home, this man who was to be the future steward of 
thy Word and judge of so many causes in thy Church -- a wiser and 
more experienced man.

                           CHAPTER X

     16.  I found him at Rome, and he was bound to me with the 
strongest possible ties, and he went with me to Milan, in order 
that he might not be separated from me, and also that he might 
obtain some law practice, for which he had qualified with a view 
to pleasing his parents more than himself.  He had already sat 
three times as assessor, showing an integrity that seemed strange 
to many others, though he thought them strange who could prefer 
gold to integrity.  His character had also been tested, not only 
by the bait of covetousness, but by the spur of fear.  At Rome he 
was assessor to the secretary of the Italian Treasury.  There was 
at that time a very powerful senator to whose favors many were 
indebted, and of whom many stood in fear.  In his usual highhanded 
way he demanded to have a favor granted him that was forbidden by 
the laws.  This Alypius resisted.  A bribe was promised, but he 
scorned it with all his heart.  Threats were employed, but he 
trampled them underfoot -- so that all men marveled at so rare a 
spirit, which neither coveted the friendship nor feared the enmity 
of a man at once so powerful and so widely known for his great 
resources of helping his friends and doing harm to his enemies.  
Even the official whose counselor Alypius was -- although he was 
unwilling that the favor should be granted -- would not openly 
refuse the request, but passed the responsibility on to Alypius, 
alleging that he would not permit him to give his assent.  And the 
truth was that even if the judge had agreed, Alypius would have 
simply left the court.

     There was one matter, however, which appealed to his love of 
learning, in which he was very nearly led astray.  He found out 
that he might have books copied for himself at praetorian rates 
[i.e., at public expense].  But his sense of justice prevailed, 
and he changed his mind for the better, thinking that the rule 
that forbade him was still more profitable than the privilege that 
his office would have allowed him.  These are little things, but 
"he that is faithful in a little matter is faithful also in a 
great one."[164]  Nor can that possibly be void which was uttered 
by the mouth of Thy truth: "If, therefore, you have not been 
faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust 
the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful in that which 
is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?"[165] 
Such a man was Alypius, who clung to me at that time and who 
wavered in his purpose, just as I did, as to what course of life 
to follow.

     17.  Nebridius also had come to Milan for no other reason 
than that he might live with me in a most ardent search after 
truth and wisdom.  He had left his native place near Carthage -- 
and Carthage itself, where he usually lived -- leaving behind his 
fine family estate, his house, and his mother, who would not 
follow him.  Like me, he sighed; like me, he wavered; an ardent 
seeker after the true life and a most acute analyst of the most 
abstruse questions.  So there were three begging mouths, sighing 
out their wants one to the other, and waiting upon thee, that thou 
mightest give them their meat in due season.[166]  And in all the 
vexations with which thy mercy followed our worldly pursuits, we 
sought for the reason why we suffered so -- and all was darkness!  
We turned away groaning and exclaiming, "How long shall these 
things be?"  And this we often asked, yet for all our asking we 
did not relinquish them; for as yet we had not discovered anything 
certain which, when we gave those others up, we might grasp in 
their stead.

                          CHAPTER XI

     18.  And I especially puzzled and wondered when I remembered 
how long a time had passed since my nineteenth year, in which I 
had first fallen in love with wisdom and had determined as soon as 
I could find her to abandon the empty hopes and mad delusions of 
vain desires.  Behold, I was now getting close to thirty, still 
stuck fast in the same mire, still greedy of enjoying present 
goods which fly away and distract me; and I was still saying, 
"Tomorrow I shall discover it; behold, it will become plain, and I 
shall see it; behold, Faustus will come and explain everything." 
Or I would say[167]:"O you mighty Academics, is there no certainty 
that man can grasp for the guidance of his life?  No, let us 
search the more diligently, and let us not despair.  See, the 
things in the Church's books that appeared so absurd to us before 
do not appear so now, and may be otherwise and honestly 
interpreted.  I will set my feet upon that step where, as a child, 
my parents placed me, until the clear truth is discovered.  But 
where and when shall it be sought?  Ambrose has no leisure -- we 
have no leisure to read.  Where are we to find the books?  How or 
where could I get hold of them?  From whom could I borrow them?  
Let me set a schedule for my days and set apart certain hours for 
the health of the soul.  A great hope has risen up in us, because 
the Catholic faith does not teach what we thought it did, and 
vainly accused it of.  Its teachers hold it as an abomination to 
believe that God is limited by the form of a human body.  And do I 
doubt that I should 'knock' in order for the rest also to be 
'opened' unto me?  My pupils take up the morning hours; what am I 
doing with the rest of the day?  Why not do this?  But, then, when 
am I to visit my influential friends, whose favors I need?  When 
am I to prepare the orations that I sell to the class?  When would 
I get some recreation and relax my mind from the strain of work?

     19.  "Perish everything and let us dismiss these idle 
triflings.  Let me devote myself solely to the search for truth.  
This life is unhappy, death uncertain.  If it comes upon me 
suddenly, in what state shall I go hence and where shall I learn 
what here I have neglected?  Should I not indeed suffer the 
punishment of my negligence here?  But suppose death cuts off and 
finishes all care and feeling.  This too is a question that calls 
for inquiry.  God forbid that it should be so.  It is not without 
reason, it is not in vain, that the stately authority of the 
Christian faith has spread over the entire world, and God would 
never have done such great things for us if the life of the soul 
perished with the death of the body.  Why, therefore, do I delay 
in abandoning my hopes of this world and giving myself wholly to 
seek after God and the blessed life?

     "But wait a moment.  This life also is pleasant, and it has a 
sweetness of its own, not at all negligible.  We must not abandon 
it lightly, for it would be shameful to lapse back into it again.  
See now, it is important to gain some post of honor.  And what 
more should I desire?  I have crowds of influential friends, if 
nothing else; and, if I push my claims, a governorship may be 
offered me, and a wife with some money, so that she would not be 
an added expense.  This would be the height of my desire.  Many 
men, who are great and worthy of imitation, have combined the 
pursuit of wisdom with a marriage life."

     20.  While I talked about these things, and the winds of 
opinions veered about and tossed my heart hither and thither, time 
was slipping away.  I delayed my conversion to the Lord; I 
postponed from day to day the life in thee, but I could not 
postpone the daily death in myself.  I was enamored of a happy 
life, but I still feared to seek it in its own abode, and so I 
fled from it while I sought it.  I thought I should be miserable 
if I were deprived of the embraces of a woman, and I never gave a 
thought to the medicine that thy mercy has provided for the 
healing of that infirmity, for I had never tried it.  As for 
continence, I imagined that it depended on one's own strength, 
though I found no such strength in myself, for in my folly I knew 
not what is written, "None can be continent unless thou dost grant 
it."[168]  Certainly thou wouldst have given it, if I had 
beseeched thy ears with heartfelt groaning, and if I had cast my 
care upon thee with firm faith.

                          CHAPTER XII

     21.  Actually, it was Alypius who prevented me from marrying, 
urging that if I did so it would not be possible for us to live 
together and to have as much undistracted leisure in the love of 
wisdom as we had long desired.  For he himself was so chaste that 
it was wonderful, all the more because in his early youth he had 
entered upon the path of promiscuity, but had not continued in it.  
Instead, feeling sorrow and disgust at it, he had lived from that 
time down to the present most continently.  I quoted against him 
the examples of men who had been married and still lovers of 
wisdom, who had pleased God and had been loyal and affectionate to 
their friends.  I fell far short of them in greatness of soul, 
and, enthralled with the disease of my carnality and its deadly 
sweetness, I dragged my chain along, fearing to be loosed of it.  
Thus I rejected the words of him who counseled me wisely, as if 
the hand that would have loosed the chain only hurt my wound.  
Moreover, the serpent spoke to Alypius himself by me, weaving and 
lying in his path, by my tongue to catch him with pleasant snares 
in which his honorable and free feet might be entangled.

     22.  For he wondered that I, for whom he had such a great 
esteem, should be stuck so fast in the gluepot of pleasure as to 
maintain, whenever we discussed the subject, that I could not 
possibly live a celibate life.  And when I urged in my defense 
against his accusing questions that the hasty and stolen delight, 
which he had tasted and now hardly remembered, and therefore too 
easily disparaged, was not to be compared with a settled 
acquaintance with it; and that, if to this stable acquaintance 
were added the honorable name of marriage, he would not then be 
astonished at my inability to give it up -- when I spoke thus, 
then he also began to wish to be married, not because he was 
overcome by the lust for such pleasures, but out of curiosity.  
For, he said, he longed to know what that could be without which 
my life, which he thought was so happy, seemed to me to be no life 
at all, but a punishment.  For he who wore no chain was amazed at 
my slavery, and his amazement awoke the desire for experience, and 
from that he would have gone on to the experiment itself, and then 
perhaps he would have fallen into the very slavery that amazed him 
in me, since he was ready to enter into "a covenant with 
death,"[169] for "he that loves danger shall fall into it."[170]

     Now, the question of conjugal honor in the ordering of a good 
married life and the bringing up of children interested us but 
slightly.  What afflicted me most and what had made me already a 
slave to it was the habit of satisfying an insatiable lust; but 
Alypius was about to be enslaved by a merely curious wonder.  This 
is the state we were in until thou, O Most High, who never 
forsakest our lowliness, didst take pity on our misery and didst 
come to our rescue in wonderful and secret ways.

                         CHAPTER XIII

     23.  Active efforts were made to get me a wife.  I wooed; I 
was engaged; and my mother took the greatest pains in the matter.  
For her hope was that, when I was once married, I might be washed 
clean in health-giving baptism for which I was being daily 
prepared, as she joyfully saw, taking note that her desires and 
promises were being fulfilled in my faith.  Yet, when, at my 
request and her own impulse, she called upon thee daily with 
strong, heartfelt cries, that thou wouldst, by a vision, disclose 
unto her a leading about my future marriage, thou wouldst not.  
She did, indeed, see certain vain and fantastic things, such as 
are conjured up by the strong preoccupation of the human spirit, 
and these she supposed had some reference to me.  And she told me 
about them, but not with the confidence she usually had when thou 
hadst shown her anything.  For she always said that she could 
distinguish, by a certain feeling impossible to describe, between 
thy revelations and the dreams of her own soul.  Yet the matter 
was pressed forward, and proposals were made for a girl who was as 
yet some two years too young to marry.[171]  And because she 
pleased me, I agreed to wait for her.

                          CHAPTER XIV

     24.  Many in my band of friends, consulting about and 
abhorring the turbulent vexations of human life, had often 
considered and were now almost determined to undertake a peaceful 
life, away from the turmoil of men.  This we thought could be 
obtained by bringing together what we severally owned and thus 
making of it a common household, so that in the sincerity of our 
friendship nothing should belong more to one than to the other; 
but all were to have one purse and the whole was to belong to each 
and to all.  We thought that this group might consist of ten 
persons, some of whom were very rich -- especially Romanianus, my 
fellow townsman, an intimate friend from childhood days.  He had 
been brought up to the court on grave business matters and he was 
the most earnest of us all about the project and his voice was of 
great weight in commending it because his estate was far more 
ample than that of the others.  We had resolved, also, that each 
year two of us should be managers and provide all that was 
needful, while the rest were left undisturbed.  But when we began 
to reflect whether this would be permitted by our wives, which 
some of us had already and others hoped to have, the whole plan, 
so excellently framed, collapsed in our hands and was utterly 
wrecked and cast aside.  From this we fell again into sighs and 
groans, and our steps followed the broad and beaten ways of the 
world; for many thoughts were in our hearts, but "Thy counsel 
standeth fast forever."[172]  In thy counsel thou didst mock ours, 
and didst prepare thy own plan, for it was thy purpose "to give us 
meat in due season, to open thy hand, and to fill our souls with 
blessing."[173]

                          CHAPTER XV

     25.  Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied.  My mistress 
was torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, and my 
heart which clung to her was torn and wounded till it bled.  And 
she went back to Africa, vowing to thee never to know any other 
man and leaving with me my natural son by her.  But I, unhappy as 
I was, and weaker than a woman, could not bear the delay of the 
two years that should elapse before I could obtain the bride I 
sought.  And so, since I was not a lover of wedlock so much as a 
slave of lust, I procured another mistress -- not a wife, of 
course.  Thus in bondage to a lasting habit, the disease of my 
soul might be nursed up and kept in its vigor or even increased 
until it reached the realm of matrimony.  Nor indeed was the wound 
healed that had been caused by cutting away my former mistress; 
only it ceased to burn and throb, and began to fester, and was 
more dangerous because it was less painful.

                          CHAPTER XVI

     26.  Thine be the praise; unto thee be the glory, O Fountain 
of mercies.  I became more wretched and thou didst come nearer.  
Thy right hand was ever ready to pluck me out of the mire and to 
cleanse me, but I did not know it.  Nor did anything call me back 
from a still deeper plunge into carnal pleasure except the fear of 
death and of thy future judgment, which, amid all the waverings of 
my opinions, never faded from my breast.  And I discussed with my 
friends, Alypius and Nebridius, the nature of good and evil, 
maintaining that, in my judgment, Epicurus would have carried off 
the palm if I had not believed what Epicurus would not believe: 
that after death there remains a life for the soul, and places of 
recompense.  And I demanded of them: "Suppose we are immortal and 
live in the enjoyment of perpetual bodily pleasure, and that 
without any fear of losing it -- why, then, should we not be 
happy, or why should we search for anything else?"  I did not know 
that this was in fact the root of my misery: that I was so fallen 
and blinded that I could not discern the light of virtue and of 
beauty which must be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of 
flesh cannot see, and only the inner vision can see.  Nor did I, 
alas, consider the reason why I found delight in discussing these 
very perplexities, shameful as they were, with my friends.  For I 
could not be happy without friends, even according to the notions 
of happiness I had then, and no matter how rich the store of my 
carnal pleasures might be.  Yet of a truth I loved my friends for 
their own sakes, and felt that they in turn loved me for my own 
sake.

     O crooked ways!  Woe to the audacious soul which hoped that 
by forsaking thee it would find some better thing!  It tossed and 
turned, upon back and side and belly -- but the bed is hard, and 
thou alone givest it rest.[174]  And lo, thou art near, and thou 
deliverest us from our wretched wanderings and establishest us in 
thy way, and thou comfortest us and sayest, "Run, I will carry 
you; yea, I will lead you home and then I will set you free."[175]

                         BOOK SEVEN

     The conversion to Neoplatonism.  Augustine traces his growing 
disenchantment with the Manichean conceptions of God and evil and 
the dawning understanding of God's incorruptibility.  But his 
thought is still bound by his materialistic notions of reality.  
He rejects astrology and turns to the stud of Neoplatonism.  There 
follows an analysis of the differences between Platonism and 
Christianity and a remarkable account of his appropriation of 
Plotinian wisdom and his experience of a Plotinian ecstasy.  From 
this, he comes finally to the diligent study of the Bible, 
especially the writings of the apostle Paul.  His pilgrimage is 
drawing toward its goal, as he begins to know Jesus Christ and to 
be drawn to him in hesitant faith.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  Dead now was that evil and shameful youth of mine, and I 
was passing into full manhood.[176]  As I increased in years, the 
worse was my vanity.  For I could not conceive of any substance 
but the sort I could see with my own eyes.  I no longer thought of 
thee, O God, by the analogy of a human body.  Ever since I 
inclined my ear to philosophy I had avoided this error -- and the 
truth on this point I rejoiced to find in the faith of our 
spiritual mother, thy Catholic Church. Yet I could not see how 
else to conceive thee.  And I, a man -- and such a man! -- sought 
to conceive thee, the sovereign and only true God.  In my inmost 
heart, I believed that thou art incorruptible and inviolable and 
unchangeable, because -- though I knew not how or why -- I could 
still see plainly and without doubt that the corruptible is 
inferior to the incorruptible, the inviolable obviously superior 
to its opposite, and the unchangeable better than the changeable.

     My heart cried out violently against all fantasms,[177] and 
with this one clear certainty I endeavored to brush away the swarm 
of unclean flies that swarmed around the eyes of my mind.  But 
behold they were scarcely scattered before they gathered again, 
buzzed against my face, and beclouded my vision.  I no longer 
thought of God in the analogy of a human body, yet I was 
constrained to conceive thee to be some kind of body in space, 
either infused into the world, or infinitely diffused beyond the 
world -- and this was the incorruptible, inviolable, unchangeable 
substance, which I thought was better than the corruptible, the 
violable, and the changeable.[178]  For whatever I conceived to be 
deprived of the dimensions of space appeared to me to be nothing, 
absolutely nothing; not even a void, for if a body is taken out of 
space, or if space is emptied of all its contents (of earth, 
water, air, or heaven), yet it remains an empty space -- a 
spacious nothing, as it were.

     2.  Being thus gross-hearted and not clear even to myself, I 
then held that whatever had neither length nor breadth nor density 
nor solidity, and did not or could not receive such dimensions, 
was absolutely nothing.  For at that time my mind dwelt only with 
ideas, which resembled the forms with which my eyes are still 
familiar, nor could I see that the act of thought, by which I 
formed those ideas, was itself immaterial, and yet it could not 
have formed them if it were not itself a measurable entity.

     So also I thought about thee, O Life of my life, as stretched 
out through infinite space, interpenetrating the whole mass of the 
world, reaching out beyond in all directions, to immensity without 
end; so that the earth should have thee, the heaven have thee, all 
things have thee, and all of them be limited in thee, while thou 
art placed nowhere at all.  As the body of the air above the earth 
does not bar the passage of the light of the sun, so that the 
light penetrates it, not by bursting nor dividing, but filling it 
entirely, so I imagined that the body of heaven and air and sea, 
and even of the earth, was all open to thee and, in all its 
greatest parts as well as the smallest, was ready to receive thy 
presence by a secret inspiration which, from within or without 
all, orders all things thou hast created.  This was my conjecture, 
because I was unable to think of anything else; yet it was untrue.  
For in this way a greater part of the earth would contain a 
greater part of thee; a smaller part, a smaller fraction of thee.  
All things would be full of thee in such a sense that there would 
be more of thee in an elephant than in a sparrow, because one is 
larger than the other and fills a larger space.  And this would 
make the portions of thyself present in the several portions of 
the world in fragments, great to the great, small to the small.  
But thou art not such a one.  But as yet thou hadst not 
enlightened my darkness.

                          CHAPTER II

     3.  But it was not sufficient for me, O Lord, to be able to 
oppose those deceived deceivers and those dumb orators -- dumb 
because thy Word did not sound forth from them -- to oppose them 
with the answer which, in the old Carthaginian days, Nebridius 
used to propound, shaking all of us who heard it: "What could this 
imaginary people of darkness, which the Manicheans usually set up 
as an army opposed to thee, have done to thee if thou hadst 
declined the combat?"  If they replied that it could have hurt 
thee, they would then have made thee violable and corruptible.  
If, on the other hand, the dark could have done thee no harm, then 
there was no cause for any battle at all; there was less cause for 
a battle in which a part of thee, one of thy members, a child of 
thy own substance, should be mixed up with opposing powers, not of 
thy creation; and should be corrupted and deteriorated and changed 
by them from happiness into misery, so that it could not be 
delivered and cleansed without thy help.  This offspring of thy 
substance was supposed to be the human soul to which thy Word -- 
free, pure, and entire -- could bring help when it was being 
enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted.  But on their hypothesis 
that Word was itself corruptible because it is one and the same 
substance as the soul.

     And therefore if they admitted that thy nature -- whatsoever 
thou art -- is incorruptible, then all these assertions of theirs 
are false and should be rejected with horror.  But if thy 
substance is corruptible, then this is self-evidently false and 
should be abhorred at first utterance.  This line of argument, 
then, was enough against those deceivers who ought to be cast 
forth from a surfeited stomach -- for out of this dilemma they 
could find no way of escape without dreadful sacrilege of mind and 
tongue, when they think and speak such things about thee.

                          CHAPTER III

     4.  But as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded that 
thou our Lord, the true God, who madest not only our souls but our 
bodies as well -- and not only our souls and bodies but all 
creatures and all things -- wast free from stain and alteration 
and in no way mutable, yet I could not readily and clearly 
understand what was the cause of evil.  Whatever it was, I 
realized that the question must be so analyzed as not to constrain 
me by any answer to believe that the immutable God was mutable, 
lest I should myself become the thing that I was seeking out.  And 
so I pursued the search with a quiet mind, now in a confident 
feeling that what had been said by the Manicheans -- and I shrank 
from them with my whole heart -- could not be true.  I now 
realized that when they asked what was the origin of evil their 
answer was dictated by a wicked pride, which would rather affirm 
that thy nature is capable of suffering evil than that their own 
nature is capable of doing it.  

     5.  And I directed my attention to understand what I now was 
told, that free will is the cause of our doing evil and that thy 
just judgment is the cause of our having to suffer from its 
consequences.  But I could not see this clearly.  So then, trying 
to draw the eye of my mind up out of that pit, I was plunged back 
into it again, and trying often was just as often plunged back 
down.  But one thing lifted me up toward thy light: it was that I 
had come to know that I had a will as certainly as I knew that I 
had life.  When, therefore, I willed or was unwilling to do 
something, I was utterly certain that it was none but myself who 
willed or was unwilling -- and immediately I realized that there 
was the cause of my sin.  I could see that what I did against my 
will I suffered rather than did; and I did not regard such actions 
as faults, but rather as punishments in which I might quickly 
confess that I was not unjustly punished, since I believed thee to 
be most just.  Who was it that put this in me, and implanted in me 
the root of bitterness, in spite of the fact that I was altogether 
the handiwork of my most sweet God?  If the devil is to blame, who 
made the devil himself?  And if he was a good angel who by his own 
wicked will became the devil, how did there happen to be in him 
that wicked will by which he became a devil, since a good Creator 
made him wholly a good angel?  By these reflections was I again 
cast down and stultified.  Yet I was not plunged into that hell of 
error -- where no man confesses to thee -- where I thought that 
thou didst suffer evil, rather than that men do it.

                          CHAPTER IV

     6.  For in my struggle to solve the rest of my difficulties, 
I now assumed henceforth as settled truth that the incorruptible 
must be superior to the corruptible, and I did acknowledge that 
thou, whatever thou art, art incorruptible.  For there never yet 
was, nor will be, a soul able to conceive of anything better than 
thee, who art the highest and best good.[179]  And since most 
truly and certainly the incorruptible is to be placed above the 
corruptible -- as I now admit it -- it followed that I could rise 
in my thoughts to something better than my God, if thou wert not 
incorruptible.  When, therefore, I saw that the incorruptible was 
to be preferred to the corruptible, I saw then where I ought to 
seek thee, and where I should look for the source of evil: that 
is, the corruption by which thy substance can in no way be 
profaned.  For it is obvious that corruption in no way injures our 
God, by no inclination, by no necessity, by no unforeseen chance 
-- because he is our God, and what he wills is good, and he 
himself is that good.  But to be corrupted is not good.  Nor art 
thou compelled to do anything against thy will, since thy will is 
not greater than thy power.  But it would have to be greater if 
thou thyself wert greater than thyself -- for the will and power 
of God are God himself.  And what can take thee by surprise, since 
thou knowest all, and there is no sort of nature but thou knowest 
it?  And what more should we say about why that substance which 
God is cannot be corrupted; because if this were so it could not 
be God? 

                           CHAPTER V

     7.  And I kept seeking for an answer to the question, Whence 
is evil?  And I sought it in an evil way, and I did not see the 
evil in my very search. I marshaled before the sight of my spirit 
all creation: all that we see of earth and sea and air and stars 
and trees and animals; and all that we do not see, the firmament 
of the sky above and all the angels and all spiritual things, for 
my imagination arranged these also, as if they were bodies, in 
this place or that.  And I pictured to myself thy creation as one 
vast mass, composed of various kinds of bodies -- some of which 
were actually bodies, some of those which I imagined spirits were 
like.  I pictured this mass as vast -- of course not in its full 
dimensions, for these I could not know -- but as large as I could 
possibly think, still only finite on every side.  But thou, O 
Lord, I imagined as environing the mass on every side and 
penetrating it, still infinite in every direction -- as if there 
were a sea everywhere, and everywhere through measureless space 
nothing but an infinite sea; and it contained within itself some 
sort of sponge, huge but still finite, so that the sponge would in 
all its parts be filled from the immeasurable sea.[180]

     Thus I conceived thy creation itself to be finite, and filled 
by thee, the infinite.  And I said, "Behold God, and behold what 
God hath created!"  God is good, yea, most mightily and 
incomparably better than all his works.  But yet he who is good 
has created them good; behold how he encircles and fills them.  
Where, then, is evil, and whence does it come and how has it crept 
in?  What is its root and what its seed?  Has it no being at all?  
Why, then, do we fear and shun what has no being?  Or if we fear 
it needlessly, then surely that fear is evil by which the heart is 
unnecessarily stabbed and tortured -- and indeed a greater evil 
since we have nothing real to fear, and yet do fear.  Therefore, 
either that is evil which we fear, or the act of fearing is in 
itself evil.  But, then, whence does it come, since God who is 
good has made all these things good?  Indeed, he is the greatest 
and chiefest Good, and hath created these lesser goods; but both 
Creator and created are all good.  Whence, then, is evil?  Or, 
again, was there some evil matter out of which he made and formed 
and ordered it, but left something in his creation that he did not 
convert into good?  But why should this be?  Was he powerless to 
change the whole lump so that no evil would remain in it, if he is 
the Omnipotent?  Finally, why would he make anything at all out of 
such stuff?  Why did he not, rather, annihilate it by his same 
almighty power?  Could evil exist contrary to his will?  And if it 
were from eternity, why did he permit it to be nonexistent for 
unmeasured intervals of time in the past, and why, then, was he 
pleased to make something out of it after so long a time?  Or, if 
he wished now all of a sudden to create something, would not an 
almighty being have chosen to annihilate this evil matter and live 
by himself -- the perfect, true, sovereign, and infinite Good?  
Or, if it were not good that he who was good should not also be 
the framer and creator of what was good, then why was that evil 
matter not removed and brought to nothing, so that he might form 
good matter, out of which he might then create all things?  For he 
would not be omnipotent if he were not able to create something 
good without being assisted by that matter which had not been 
created by himself.

     Such perplexities I revolved in my wretched breast, 
overwhelmed with gnawing cares lest I die before I discovered the 
truth.  And still the faith of thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, 
as it was taught me by the Catholic Church, stuck fast in my 
heart.  As yet it was unformed on many points and diverged from 
the rule of right doctrine, but my mind did not utterly lose it, 
and every day drank in more and more of it.

                           CHAPTER VI

     8.  By now I had also repudiated the lying divinations and 
impious absurdities of the astrologers.  Let thy mercies, out of 
the depth of my soul, confess this to thee also, O my God.  For 
thou, thou only (for who else is it who calls us back from the 
death of all errors except the Life which does not know how to die 
and the Wisdom which gives light to minds that need it, although 
it itself has no need of light -- by which the whole universe is 
governed, even to the fluttering leaves of the trees?) -- thou 
alone providedst also for my obstinacy with which I struggled 
against Vindicianus, a sagacious old man, and Nebridius, that 
remarkably talented young man.  The former declared vehemently and 
the latter frequently -- though with some reservation -- that no 
art existed by which we foresee future things.  But men's surmises 
have oftentimes the help of chance, and out of many things which 
they foretold some came to pass unawares to the predictors, who 
lighted on the truth by making so many guesses.

     And thou also providedst a friend for me, who was not a 
negligent consulter of the astrologers even though he was not 
thoroughly skilled in the art either -- as I said, one who 
consulted them out of curiosity.  He knew a good, deal about it, 
which, he said, he had heard from his father, and he never 
realized how far his ideas would help to overthrow my estimation 
of that art.  His name was Firminus and he had received a liberal 
education and was a cultivated rhetorician.  It so happened that 
he consulted me, as one very dear to him, as to what I thought 
about some affairs of his in which his worldly hopes had risen, 
viewed in the light of his so-called horoscope.  Although I had 
now begun to learn in this matter toward Nebridius' opinion, I did 
not quite decline to speculate about the matter or to tell him 
what thoughts still came into my irresolute mind, although I did 
add that I was almost persuaded now that these were but empty and 
ridiculous follies.  He then told me that his father had been very 
much interested in such books, and that he had a friend who was as 
much interested in them as he was himself.  They, in combined 
study and consultation, fanned the flame of their affection for 
this folly, going so far as to observe the moment when the dumb 
animals which belonged to their household gave birth to young, and 
then observed the position of the heavens with regard to them, so 
as to gather fresh evidence for this so-called art.  Moreover, he 
reported that his father had told him that, at the same time his 
mother was about to give birth to him [Firminus], a female slave 
of a friend of his father's was also pregnant.  This could not be 
hidden from her master, who kept records with the most diligent 
exactness of the birth dates even of his dogs.  And so it happened 
to pass that -- under the most careful observations, one for his 
wife and the other for his servant, with exact calculations of the 
days, hours, and minutes -- both women were delivered at the same 
moment, so that both were compelled to cast the selfsame 
horoscope, down to the minute: the one for his son, the other for 
his young slave.  For as soon as the women began to be in labor, 
they each sent word to the other as to what was happening in their 
respective houses and had messengers ready to dispatch to one 
another as soon as they had information of the actual birth -- and 
each, of course, knew instantly the exact time.  It turned out, 
Firminus said, that the messengers from the respective houses met 
one another at a point equidistant from either house, so that 
neither of them could discern any difference either in the 
position of the stars or any other of the most minute points.  And 
yet Firminus, born in a high estate in his parents' house, ran his 
course through the prosperous paths of this world, was increased 
in wealth, and elevated to honors.  At the same time, the slave, 
the yoke of his condition being still unrelaxed, continued to 
serve his masters as Firminus, who knew him, was able to report.

     9.  Upon hearing and believing these things related by so 
reliable a person all my resistance melted away.  First, I 
endeavored to reclaim Firminus himself from his superstition by 
telling him that after inspecting his horoscope, I ought, if I 
could foretell truly, to have seen in it parents eminent among 
their neighbors, a noble family in its own city, a good birth, a 
proper education, and liberal learning.  But if that servant had 
consulted me with the same horoscope, since he had the same one, I 
ought again to tell him likewise truly that I saw in it the 
lowliness of his origin, the abjectness of his condition, and 
everything else different and contrary to the former prediction.  
If, then, by casting up the same horoscopes I should, in order to 
speak the truth, make contrary analyses, or else speak falsely if 
I made identical readings, then surely it followed that whatever 
was truly foretold by the analysis of the horoscopes was not by 
art, but by chance.  And whatever was said falsely was not from 
incompetence in the art, but from the error of chance.

     10.  An opening being thus made in my darkness, I began to 
consider other implications involved here.  Suppose that one of 
the fools -- who followed such an occupation and whom I longed to 
assail, and to reduce to confusion -- should urge against me that 
Firminus had given me false information, or that his father had 
informed him falsely.  I then turned my thoughts to those that are 
born twins, who generally come out of the womb so near the one to 
the other that the short interval between them -- whatever 
importance they may ascribe to it in the nature of things -- 
cannot be noted by human observation or expressed in those tables 
which the astrologer uses to examine when he undertakes to 
pronounce the truth.  But such pronouncements cannot be true.  For 
looking into the same horoscopes, he must have foretold the same 
future for Esau and Jacob,[181] whereas the same future did not 
turn out for them.  He must therefore speak falsely.  If he is to 
speak truly, then he must read contrary predictions into the same 
horoscopes.  But this would mean that it was not by art, but by 
chance, that he would speak truly.

     For thou, O Lord, most righteous ruler of the universe, dost 
work by a secret impulse -- whether those who inquire or those 
inquired of know it or not -- so that the inquirer may hear what, 
according to the secret merit of his soul, he ought to hear from 
the deeps of thy righteous judgment.  Therefore let no man say to 
thee, "What is this?" or, "Why is that?" Let him not speak thus, 
for he is only a man.

                          CHAPTER VII

     11.  By now, O my Helper, thou hadst freed me from those 
fetters.  But still I inquired, "Whence is evil?" -- and found no 
answer.  But thou didst not allow me to be carried away from the 
faith by these fluctuations of thought.  I still believed both 
that thou dost exist and that thy substance is immutable, and that 
thou dost care for and wilt judge all men, and that in Christ, thy 
Son our Lord, and the Holy Scriptures, which the authority of thy 
Catholic Church pressed on me, thou hast planned the way of man's 
salvation to that life which is to come after this death.

     With these convictions safe and immovably settled in my mind, 
I eagerly inquired, "Whence is evil?"  What torments did my 
travailing heart then endure!  What sighs, O my God!  Yet even 
then thy ears were open and I knew it not, and when in stillness I 
sought earnestly, those silent contritions of my soul were loud 
cries to thy mercy.  No man knew, but thou knewest what I endured.  
How little of it could I express in words to the ears of my 
dearest friends!  How could the whole tumult of my soul, for which 
neither time nor speech was sufficient, come to them?  Yet the 
whole of it went into thy ears, all of which I bellowed out in the 
anguish of my heart.  My desire was before thee, and the light of 
my eyes was not with me; for it was within and I was without.  Nor 
was that light in any place; but I still kept thinking only of 
things that are contained in a place, and could find among them no 
place to rest in.  They did not receive me in such a way that I 
could say, "It is sufficient; it is well." Nor did they allow me 
to turn back to where it might be well enough with me.  For I was 
higher than they, though lower than thou.  Thou art my true joy if 
I depend upon thee, and thou hadst subjected to me what thou didst 
create lower than I.  And this was the true mean and middle way of 
salvation for me, to continue in thy image and by serving thee 
have dominion over the body.  But when I lifted myself proudly 
against thee, and "ran against the Lord, even against his neck, 
with the thick bosses of my buckler,"[182] even the lower things 
were placed above me and pressed down on me, so that there was no 
respite or breathing space.  They thrust on my sight on every 
side, in crowds and masses, and when I tried to think, the images 
of bodies obtruded themselves into my way back to thee, as if they 
would say to me, "Where are you going, unworthy and unclean one?" 
And all these had sprung out of my wound, for thou hadst humbled 
the haughty as one that is wounded.  By my swelling pride I was 
separated from thee, and my bloated cheeks blinded my eyes.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     12.  But thou, O Lord, art forever the same, yet thou art not 
forever angry with us, for thou hast compassion on our dust and 
ashes.[183]  It was pleasing in thy sight to reform my deformity, 
and by inward stings thou didst disturb me so that I was impatient 
until thou wert made clear to my inward sight.  By the secret hand 
of thy healing my swelling was lessened, the disordered and 
darkened eyesight of my mind was from day to day made whole by the 
stinging salve of wholesome grief.

                          CHAPTER IX

     13.  And first of all, willing to show me how thou dost 
"resist the proud, but give grace to the humble,"[184] and how 
mercifully thou hast made known to men the way of humility in that 
thy Word "was made flesh and dwelt among men,"[185] thou didst 
procure for me, through one inflated with the most monstrous 
pride, certain books of the Platonists, translated from Greek into 
Latin.[186]  And therein I found, not indeed in the same words, 
but to the selfsame effect, enforced by many and various reasons 
that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  
All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made 
that was made." That which was made by him is "life, and the life 
was the light of men.  And the light shined in darkness; and the 
darkness comprehended it not." Furthermore, I read that the soul 
of man, though it "bears witness to the light," yet itself "is not 
the light; but the Word of God, being God, is that true light that 
lights every man who comes into the world." And further, that "he 
was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world 
knew him not."[187]  But that "he came unto his own, and his own 
received him not.  And as many as received him, to them gave he 
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his 
name"[188] -- this I did not find there.

     14.  Similarly, I read there that God the Word was born "not 
of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor the will of the 
flesh, but of God."[189]  But, that "the Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us"[190] -- I found this nowhere there.  And I 
discovered in those books, expressed in many and various ways, 
that "the Son was in the form of God and thought it not robbery to 
be equal in God,"[191] for he was naturally of the same substance.  
But, that "he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a 
servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in 
fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also hath 
highly exalted him" from the dead, "and given him a name above 
every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to 
the glory of God the Father"[192] -- this those books have not.  I 
read further in them that before all times and beyond all times, 
thy only Son remaineth unchangeably coeternal with thee, and that 
of his fullness all souls receive that they may be blessed, and 
that by participation in that wisdom which abides in them, they 
are renewed that they may be wise.  But, that "in due time, Christ 
died for the ungodly" and that thou "sparedst not thy only Son, 
but deliveredst him up for us all"[193] -- this is not there.  
"For thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
hast revealed them unto babes"[194]; that they "that labor and are 
heavy laden" might "come unto him and he might refresh them" 
because he is "meek and lowly in heart."[195]  "The meek will he 
guide in judgment; and the meek will he teach his way; beholding 
our lowliness and our trouble and forgiving all our sins."[196]  
But those who strut in the high boots of what they deem to be 
superior knowledge will not hear Him who says, "Learn of me, for I 
am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your 
souls."[197]  Thus, though they know God, yet they do not glorify 
him as God, nor are they thankful.  Therefore, they "become vain 
in their imaginations; their foolish heart is darkened, and 
professing themselves to be wise they become fools."[198]

     15.  And, moreover, I also read there how "they changed the 
glory of thy incorruptible nature into idols and various images -- 
into an image made like corruptible man and to birds and four-
footed beasts, and creeping things"[199]: namely, into that 
Egyptian food[200] for which Esau lost his birthright; so that thy 
first-born people worshiped the head of a four-footed beast 
instead of thee, turning back in their hearts toward Egypt and 
prostrating thy image (their own soul) before the image of an ox 
that eats grass.  These things I found there, but I fed not on 
them.  For it pleased thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of 
his minority from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger 
and thou mightest call the Gentiles, and I had sought strenuously 
after that gold which thou didst allow thy people to take from 
Egypt, since wherever it was it was thine.[201]  And thou saidst 
unto the Athenians by the mouth of thy apostle that in thee "we 
live and move and have our being," as one of their own poets had 
said.[202]  And truly these books came from there.  But I did not 
set my mind on the idols of Egypt which they fashioned of gold, 
"changing the truth of God into a lie and worshiping and serving 
the creature more than the Creator."[203]

                           CHAPTER X

     16.  And being admonished by these books to return into 
myself, I entered into my inward soul, guided by thee.  This I 
could do because thou wast my helper.  And I entered, and with the 
eye of my soul -- such as it was -- saw above the same eye of my 
soul and above my mind the Immutable Light.  It was not the common 
light, which all flesh can see; nor was it simply a greater one of 
the same sort, as if the light of day were to grow brighter and 
brighter, and flood all space.  It was not like that light, but 
different, yea, very different from all earthly light whatever.  
Nor was it above my mind in the same way as oil is above water, or 
heaven above earth, but it was higher, because it made me, and I 
was below it, because I was made by it.  He who knows the Truth 
knows that Light, and he who knows it knows eternity.  Love knows 
it, O Eternal Truth and True Love and Beloved Eternity!  Thou art 
my God, to whom I sigh both night and day.  When I first knew 
thee, thou didst lift me up, that I might see that there was 
something to be seen, though I was not yet fit to see it.  And 
thou didst beat back the weakness of my sight, shining forth upon 
me thy dazzling beams of light, and I trembled with love and fear.  
I realized that I was far away from thee in the land of 
unlikeness, as if I heard thy voice from on high: "I am the food 
of strong men; grow and you shall feed on me; nor shall you change 
me, like the food of your flesh into yourself, but you shall be 
changed into my likeness." And I understood that thou chastenest 
man for his iniquity, and makest my soul to be eaten away as 
though by a spider.[204]  And I said, "Is Truth, therefore, 
nothing, because it is not diffused through space -- neither 
finite nor infinite?"  And thou didst cry to me from afar, "I am 
that I am."[205]  And I heard this, as things are heard in the 
heart, and there was no room for doubt.  I should have more 
readily doubted that I am alive than that the Truth exists -- the 
Truth which is "clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made."[206]

                          CHAPTER XI

     17.  And I viewed all the other things that are beneath thee, 
and I realized that they are neither wholly real nor wholly 
unreal.  They are real in so far as they come from thee; but they 
are unreal in so far as they are not what thou art.  For that is 
truly real which remains immutable.  It is good, then, for me to 
hold fast to God, for if I do not remain in him, neither shall I 
abide in myself; but he, remaining in himself, renews all things.  
And thou art the Lord my God, since thou standest in no need of my 
goodness.

                          CHAPTER XII

     18.  And it was made clear to me that all things are good 
even if they are corrupted.  They could not be corrupted if they 
were supremely good; but unless they were good they could not be 
corrupted.  If they were supremely good, they would be 
incorruptible; if they were not good at all, there would be 
nothing in them to be corrupted.  For corruption harms; but unless 
it could diminish goodness, it could not harm.  Either, then, 
corruption does not harm -- which cannot be -- or, as is certain, 
all that is corrupted is thereby deprived of good.  But if they 
are deprived of all good, they will cease to be.  For if they are 
at all and cannot be at all corrupted, they will become better, 
because they will remain incorruptible.  Now what can be more 
monstrous than to maintain that by losing all good they have 
become better?  If, then, they are deprived of all good, they will 
cease to exist.  So long as they are, therefore, they are good.  
Therefore, whatsoever is, is good.  Evil, then, the origin of 
which I had been seeking, has no substance at all; for if it were 
a substance, it would be good.  For either it would be an 
incorruptible substance and so a supreme good, or a corruptible 
substance, which could not be corrupted unless it were good.  I 
understood, therefore, and it was made clear to me that thou 
madest all things good, nor is there any substance at all not made 
by thee.  And because all that thou madest is not equal, each by 
itself is good, and the sum of all of them is very good, for our 
God made all things very good.[207]

                         CHAPTER XIII

     19.  To thee there is no such thing as evil, and even in thy 
whole creation taken as a whole, there is not; because there is 
nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order 
which thou hast appointed for it.  But in the parts of creation, 
some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are 
considered evil.  Yet those same things harmonize with others and 
are good, and in themselves are good.  And all these things which 
do not harmonize with each other still harmonize with the inferior 
part of creation which we call the earth, having its own cloudy 
and windy sky of like nature with itself.  Far be it from me, 
then, to say, "These things should not be." For if I could see 
nothing but these, I should indeed desire something better -- but 
still I ought to praise thee, if only for these created things.  
For that thou art to be praised is shown from the fact that 
"earth, dragons, and all deeps; fire, and hail, snow and vapors, 
stormy winds fulfilling thy word; mountains, and all hills, 
fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping 
things, and flying fowl; things of the earth, and all people; 
princes, and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens, 
old men and children,"[208] praise thy name!  But seeing also that 
in heaven all thy angels praise thee, O God, praise thee in the 
heights, "and all thy hosts, sun and moon, all stars and light, 
the heavens of heavens, and the waters that are above the 
heavens,"[209] praise thy name -- seeing this, I say, I no longer 
desire a better world, because my thought ranged over all, and 
with a sounder judgment I reflected that the things above were 
better than those below, yet that all creation together was better 
than the higher things alone.

                          CHAPTER XIV

     20.  There is no health in those who find fault with any part 
of thy creation; as there was no health in me when I found fault 
with so many of thy works.  And, because my soul dared not be 
displeased with my God, it would not allow that the things which 
displeased me were from thee.  Hence it had wandered into the 
notion of two substances, and could find no rest, but talked 
foolishly, And turning from that error, it had then made for 
itself a god extended through infinite space; and it thought this 
was thou and set it up in its heart, and it became once more the 
temple of its own idol, an abomination to thee.  But thou didst 
soothe my brain, though I was unaware of it, and closed my eyes 
lest they should behold vanity; and thus I ceased from 
preoccupation with self by a little and my madness was lulled to 
sleep; and I awoke in thee, and beheld thee as the Infinite, but 
not in the way I had thought -- and this vision was not derived 
from the flesh.

                          CHAPTER XV

     21.  And I looked around at other things, and I saw that it 
was to thee that all of them owed their being, and that they were 
all finite in thee; yet they are in thee not as in a space, but 
because thou holdest all things in the hand of thy truth, and 
because all things are true in so far as they are; and because 
falsehood is nothing except the existence in thought of what does 
not exist in fact.  And I saw that all things harmonize, not only 
in their places but also in their seasons.  And I saw that thou, 
who alone art eternal, didst not _begin_ to work after unnumbered 
periods of time -- because all ages, both those which are past and 
those which shall pass, neither go nor come except through thy 
working and abiding.

                          CHAPTER XVI

     22.  And I saw and found it no marvel that bread which is 
distasteful to an unhealthy palate is pleasant to a healthy one; 
or that the light, which is painful to sore eyes, is a delight to 
sound ones.  Thy righteousness displeases the wicked, and they 
find even more fault with the viper and the little worm, which 
thou hast created good, fitting in as they do with the inferior 
parts of creation.  The wicked themselves also fit in here, and 
proportionately more so as they become unlike thee -- but they 
harmonize with the higher creation proportionately as they become 
like thee.  And I asked what wickedness was, and I found that it 
was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from 
thee, O God, the supreme substance, toward these lower things, 
casting away its inmost treasure and becoming bloated with 
external good.[210]

                         CHAPTER XVII

     23.  And I marveled that I now loved thee, and no fantasm in 
thy stead, and yet I was not stable enough to enjoy my God 
steadily.  Instead I was transported to thee by thy beauty, and 
then presently torn away from thee by my own weight, sinking with 
grief into these lower things.  This weight was carnal habit.  But 
thy memory dwelt with me, and I never doubted in the least that 
there was One for me to cleave to; but I was not yet ready to 
cleave to thee firmly.  For the body which is corrupted presses 
down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind, 
which muses upon many things.[211]  My greatest certainty was that 
"the invisible things of thine from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even 
thy eternal power and Godhead."[212]  For when I inquired how it 
was that I could appreciate the beauty of bodies, both celestial 
and terrestrial; and what it was that supported me in making 
correct judgments about things mutable; and when I concluded, 
"This ought to be thus; this ought not" -- _then_ when I inquired 
how it was that I could make such judgments (since I did, in fact, 
make them), I realized that I had found the unchangeable and true 
eternity of truth above my changeable mind.

     And thus by degrees I was led upward from bodies to the soul 
which perceives them by means of the bodily senses, and from there 
on to the soul's inward faculty, to which the bodily senses report 
outward things -- and this belongs even to the capacities of the 
beasts -- and thence on up to the reasoning power, to whose 
judgment is referred the experience received from the bodily 
sense.  And when this power of reason within me also found that it 
was changeable, it raised itself up to its own intellectual 
principle,[213] and withdrew its thoughts from experience, 
abstracting itself from the contradictory throng of fantasms in 
order to seek for that light in which it was bathed.  Then, 
without any doubting, it cried out that the unchangeable was 
better than the changeable.  From this it follows that the mind 
somehow knew the unchangeable, for, unless it had known it in some 
fashion, it could have had no sure ground for preferring it to the 
changeable.  And thus with the flash of a trembling glance, it 
arrived at _that which is_.[214]  And I saw thy invisibility 
[invisibilia tua] understood by means of the things that are made.  
But I was not able to sustain my gaze.  My weakness was dashed 
back, and I lapsed again into my accustomed ways, carrying along 
with me nothing but a loving memory of my vision, and an appetite 
for what I had, as it were, smelled the odor of, but was not yet 
able to eat.

                         CHAPTER XVIII

     24.  I sought, therefore, some way to acquire the strength 
sufficient to enjoy thee; but I did not find it until I embraced 
that "Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,"[215] 
"who is over all, God blessed forever,"[216] who came calling and 
saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life,"[217] and mingling 
with our fleshly humanity the heavenly food I was unable to 
receive.  For "the Word was made flesh" in order that thy wisdom, 
by which thou didst create all things, might become milk for our 
infancy.  And, as yet, I was not humble enough to hold the humble 
Jesus; nor did I understand what lesson his weakness was meant to 
teach us.  For thy Word, the eternal Truth, far exalted above even 
the higher parts of thy creation, lifts his subjects up toward 
himself.  But in this lower world, he built for himself a humble 
habitation of our own clay, so that he might pull down from 
themselves and win over to himself those whom he is to bring 
subject to him; lowering their pride and heightening their love, 
to the end that they might go on no farther in self-confidence -- 
but rather should become weak, seeing at their feet the Deity made 
weak by sharing our coats of skin -- so that they might cast 
themselves, exhausted, upon him and be uplifted by his rising.

                          CHAPTER XIX

     25.  But I thought otherwise.  I saw in our Lord Christ only 
a man of eminent wisdom to whom no other man could be compared -- 
especially because he was miraculously born of a virgin -- sent to 
set us an example of despising worldly things for the attainment 
of immortality, and thus exhibiting his divine care for us.  
Because of this, I held that he had merited his great authority as 
leader.  But concerning the mystery contained in "the Word was 
made flesh," I could not even form a notion.  From what I learned 
from what has been handed down to us in the books about him -- 
that he ate, drank, slept, walked, rejoiced in spirit, was sad, 
and discoursed with his fellows -- I realized that his flesh alone 
was not bound unto thy Word, but also that there was a bond with 
the human soul and body.  Everyone knows this who knows the 
unchangeableness of thy Word, and this I knew by now, as far as I 
was able, and I had no doubts at all about it.  For at one time to 
move the limbs by an act of will, at another time not; at one time 
to feel some emotion, at another time not; at one time to speak 
intelligibly through verbal signs, at another, not -- these are 
all properties of a soul and mind subject to change.  And if these 
things were falsely written about him, all the rest would risk the 
imputation of falsehood, and there would remain in those books no 
saving faith for the human race.

     Therefore, because they were written truthfully, I 
acknowledged a perfect man to be in Christ -- not the body of a 
man only, nor, in the body, an animal soul without a rational one 
as well, but a true man.  And this man I held to be superior to 
all others, not only because he was a form of the Truth, but also 
because of the great excellence and perfection of his human 
nature, due to his participation in wisdom.

     Alypius, on the other hand, supposed the Catholics to believe 
that God was so clothed with flesh that besides God and the flesh 
there was no soul in Christ, and he did not think that a human 
mind was ascribed to him.[218]  And because he was fully persuaded 
that the actions recorded of him could not have been performed 
except by a living rational creature, he moved the more slowly 
toward Christian faith.[219]  But when he later learned that this 
was the error of the Apollinarian heretics, he rejoiced in the 
Catholic faith and accepted it.  For myself, I must confess that 
it was even later that I learned how in the sentence, "The Word 
was made flesh," the Catholic truth can be distinguished from the 
falsehood of Photinus.  For the refutation of heretics[220] makes 
the tenets of thy Church and sound doctrine to stand out boldly.  
"For there must also be heresies [factions] that those who are 
approved may be made manifest among the weak."[221]

                          CHAPTER XX

     26.  By having thus read the books of the Platonists, and 
having been taught by them to search for the incorporeal Truth, I 
saw how thy invisible things are understood through the things 
that are made.  And, even when I was thrown back, I still sensed 
what it was that the dullness of my soul would not allow me to 
contemplate.  I was assured that thou wast, and wast infinite, 
though not diffused in finite space or infinity; that thou truly 
art, who art ever the same, varying neither in part nor motion; 
and that all things are from thee, as is proved by this sure cause 
alone: that they exist.

     Of all this I was convinced, yet I was too weak to enjoy 
thee.  I chattered away as if I were an expert; but if I had not 
sought thy Way in Christ our Saviour, my knowledge would have 
turned out to be not instruction but destruction.[222]  For now 
full of what was in fact my punishment, I had begun to desire to 
seem wise.  I did not mourn my ignorance, but rather was puffed up 
with knowledge.  For where was that love which builds upon the 
foundation of humility, which is Jesus Christ?[223]  Or, when 
would these books teach me this?  I now believe that it was thy 
pleasure that I should fall upon these books before I studied thy 
Scriptures, that it might be impressed on my memory how I was 
affected by them; and then afterward, when I was subdued by thy 
Scriptures and when my wounds were touched by thy healing fingers, 
I might discern and distinguish what a difference there is between 
presumption and confession -- between those who saw where they 
were to go even if they did not see the way, and the Way which 
leads, not only to the observing, but also the inhabiting of the 
blessed country.  For had I first been molded in thy Holy 
Scriptures, and if thou hadst grown sweet to me through my 
familiar use of them, and if then I had afterward fallen on those 
volumes, they might have pushed me off the solid ground of 
godliness -- or if I had stood firm in that wholesome disposition 
which I had there acquired, I might have thought that wisdom could 
be attained by the study of those [Platonist] books alone.

                          CHAPTER XXI

     27.  With great eagerness, then, I fastened upon the 
venerable writings of thy Spirit and principally upon the apostle 
Paul.  I had thought that he sometimes contradicted himself and 
that the text of his teaching did not agree with the testimonies 
of the Law and the Prophets; but now all these doubts vanished 
away.  And I saw that those pure words had but one face, and I 
learned to rejoice with trembling.  So I began, and I found that 
whatever truth I had read [in the Platonists] was here combined 
with the exaltation of thy grace.  Thus, he who sees must not 
glory as if he had not received, not only the things that he sees, 
but the very power of sight -- for what does he have that he has 
not received as a gift?  By this he is not only exhorted to see, 
but also to be cleansed, that he may grasp thee, who art ever the 
same; and thus he who cannot see thee afar off may yet enter upon 
the road that leads to reaching, seeing, and possessing thee.  For 
although a man may "delight in the law of God after the inward 
man," what shall he do with that other "law in his members which 
wars against the law of his mind, and brings him into captivity 
under the law of sin, which is in his members"?[224]  Thou art 
righteous, O Lord; but we have sinned and committed iniquities, 
and have done wickedly.  Thy hand has grown heavy upon us, and we 
are justly delivered over to that ancient sinner, the lord of 
death.  For he persuaded our wills to become like his will, by 
which he remained not in thy truth.  What shall "wretched man" do?  
"Who shall deliver him from the body of this death,"[225] except 
thy grace through Jesus Christ our Lord; whom thou hast begotten, 
coeternal with thyself, and didst create in the beginning of thy 
ways[226] -- in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy 
of death, yet he killed him -- and so the handwriting which was 
all against us was blotted out? 

     The books of the Platonists tell nothing of this.  Their 
pages do not contain the expression of this kind of godliness -- 
the tears of confession, thy sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a 
broken and a contrite heart, the salvation of thy people, the 
espoused City, the earnest of the Holy Spirit, the cup of our 
redemption.  In them, no man sings: "Shall not my soul be subject 
unto God, for from him comes my salvation?  He is my God and my 
salvation, my defender; I shall no more be moved."[227]  In them, 
no one hears him calling, "Come unto me all you who labor." They 
scorn to learn of him because he is "meek and lowly of heart"; for 
"thou hast hidden those things from the wise and prudent, and hast 
revealed them unto babes." For it is one thing to see the land of 
peace from a wooded mountaintop: and fail to find the way thither 
-- to attempt impassable ways in vain, opposed and waylaid by 
fugitives and deserters under their captain, the "lion" and 
"dragon"[228]; but it is quite another thing to keep to the 
highway that leads thither, guarded by the hosts of the heavenly 
Emperor, on which there are no deserters from the heavenly army to 
rob the passers-by, for they shun it as a torment.[229]  These 
thoughts sank wondrously into my heart, when I read that "least of 
thy apostles"[230] and when I had considered all thy works and 
trembled.

                         BOOK EIGHT

     Conversion to Christ.  Augustine is deeply impressed by 
Simplicianus' story of the conversion to Christ of the famous 
orator and philosopher, Marius Victorinus.  He is stirred to 
emulate him, but finds himself still enchained by his incontinence 
and preoccupation with worldly affairs.  He is then visited by a 
court official, Ponticianus, who tells him and Alypius the stories 
of the conversion of Anthony and also of two imperial "secret 
service agents." These stories throw him into a violent turmoil, 
in which his divided will struggles against himself.  He almost 
succeeds in making the decision for continence, but is still held 
back.  Finally, a child's song, overheard by chance, sends him to 
the Bible; a text from Paul resolves the crisis; the conversion is 
a fact.  Alypius also makes his decision, and the two inform the 
rejoicing Monica.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  O my God, let me remember with gratitude and confess to 
thee thy mercies toward me.  Let my bones be bathed in thy love, 
and let them say: "Lord, who is like unto thee?[231]  Thou hast 
broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of 
thanksgiving."[232]  And how thou didst break them I will declare, 
and all who worship thee shall say, when they hear these things: 
"Blessed be the Lord in heaven and earth, great and wonderful is 
his name."[233]

     Thy words had stuck fast in my breast, and I was hedged round 
about by thee on every side.  Of thy eternal life I was now 
certain, although I had seen it "through a glass darkly."[234]  
And I had been relieved of all doubt that there is an 
incorruptible substance and that it is the source of every other 
substance.  Nor did I any longer crave greater certainty about 
thee, but rather greater steadfastness in thee.

     But as for my temporal life, everything was uncertain, and my 
heart had to be purged of the old leaven.  "The Way" -- the 
Saviour himself -- pleased me well, but as yet I was reluctant to 
pass through the strait gate.

     And thou didst put it into my mind, and it seemed good in my 
own sight, to go to Simplicianus, who appeared to me a faithful 
servant of thine, and thy grace shone forth in him.  I had also 
been told that from his youth up he had lived in entire devotion 
to thee.  He was already an old man, and because of his great age, 
which he had passed in such a zealous discipleship in thy way, he 
appeared to me likely to have gained much wisdom -- and, indeed, 
he had.  From all his experience, I desired him to tell me -- 
setting before him all my agitations -- which would be the most 
fitting way for one who felt as I did to walk in thy way.

     2.  For I saw the Church full; and one man was going this way 
and another that.  Still, I could not be satisfied with the life I 
was living in the world.  Now, indeed, my passions had ceased to 
excite me as of old with hopes of honor and wealth, and it was a 
grievous burden to go on in such servitude.  For, compared with 
thy sweetness and the beauty of thy house -- which I loved -- 
those things delighted me no longer.  But I was still tightly 
bound by the love of women; nor did the apostle forbid me to 
marry, although he exhorted me to something better, wishing 
earnestly that all men were as he himself was.

     But I was weak and chose the easier way, and for this single 
reason my whole life was one of inner turbulence and listless 
indecision, because from so many influences I was compelled -- 
even though unwilling -- to agree to a married life which bound me 
hand and foot.  I had heard from the mouth of Truth that "there 
are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of 
Heaven's sake"[235] but, said he, "He that is able to receive it, 
let him receive it." Of a certainty, all men are vain who do not 
have the knowledge of God, or have not been able, from the good 
things that are seen, to find him who is good.  But I was no 
longer fettered in that vanity.  I had surmounted it, and from the 
united testimony of thy whole creation had found thee, our 
Creator, and thy Word -- God with thee, and together with thee and 
the Holy Spirit, one God -- by whom thou hast created all things.  
There is still another sort of wicked men, who "when they knew 
God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful."[236]  
Into this also I had fallen, but thy right hand held me up and 
bore me away, and thou didst place me where I might recover.  For 
thou hast said to men, "Behold the fear of the Lord, this is 
wisdom,"[237] and, "Be not wise in your own eyes,"[238] because 
"they that profess themselves to be wise become fools."[239]  But 
I had now found the goodly pearl; and I ought to have sold all 
that I had and bought it -- yet I hesitated.

                          CHAPTER II

     3.  I went, therefore, to Simplicianus, the spiritual father 
of Ambrose (then a bishop), whom Ambrose truly loved as a father.  
I recounted to him all the mazes of my wanderings, but when I 
mentioned to him that I had read certain books of the Platonists 
which Victorinus -- formerly professor of rhetoric at Rome, who 
died a Christian, as I had been told -- had translated into Latin, 
Simplicianus congratulated me that I had not fallen upon the 
writings of other philosophers, which were full of fallacies and 
deceit, "after the beggarly elements of this world,"[240] whereas 
in the Platonists, at every turn, the pathway led to belief in God 
and his Word.

     Then, to encourage me to copy the humility of Christ, which 
is hidden from the wise and revealed to babes, he told me about 
Victorinus himself, whom he had known intimately at Rome.  And I 
cannot refrain from repeating what he told me about him.  For it 
contains a glorious proof of thy grace, which ought to be 
confessed to thee: how that old man, most learned, most skilled in 
all the liberal arts; who had read, criticized, and explained so 
many of the writings of the philosophers; the teacher of so many 
noble senators; one who, as a mark of his distinguished service in 
office had both merited and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum 
-- which men of this world esteem a great honor -- this man who, 
up to an advanced age, had been a worshiper of idols, a 
communicant in the sacrilegious rites to which almost all the 
nobility of Rome were wedded; and who had inspired the people with 
the love of Osiris and

     "The dog Anubis, and a medley crew

     Of monster gods who 'gainst Neptune stand in arms 

     'Gainst Venus and Minerva, steel-clad Mars,"[241]

     whom Rome once conquered, and now worshiped; all of which old 
Victorinus had with thundering eloquence defended for so many 
years -- despite all this, he did not blush to become a child of 
thy Christ, a babe at thy font, bowing his neck to the yoke of 
humility and submitting his forehead to the ignominy of the cross.

     4.  O Lord, Lord, "who didst bow the heavens and didst 
descend, who didst touch the mountains and they smoked,"[242] by 
what means didst thou find thy way into that breast?  He used to 
read the Holy Scriptures, as Simplicianus said, and thought out 
and studied all the Christian writings most studiously.  He said 
to Simplicianus -- not openly but secretly as a friend -- "You 
must know that I am a Christian." To which Simplicianus replied, 
"I shall not believe it, nor shall I count you among the 
Christians, until I see you in the Church of Christ." Victorinus 
then asked, with mild mockery, "Is it then the walls that make 
Christians?"  Thus he often would affirm that he was already a 
Christian, and as often Simplicianus made the same answer; and 
just as often his jest about the walls was repeated.  He was 
fearful of offending his friends, proud demon worshipers, from the 
height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from the tops of the cedars 
of Lebanon which the Lord had not yet broken down, he feared that 
a storm of enmity would descend upon him.

     But he steadily gained strength from reading and inquiry, and 
came to fear lest he should be denied by Christ before the holy 
angels if he now was afraid to confess him before men.  Thus he 
came to appear to himself guilty of a great fault, in being 
ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of thy Word, when he was 
not ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons, whose 
pride he had imitated and whose rites he had shared.  From this he 
became bold-faced against vanity and shamefaced toward the truth.  
Thus, suddenly and unexpectedly, he said to Simplicianus -- as he 
himself told me -- "Let us go to the church; I wish to become a 
Christian." Simplicianus went with him, scarcely able to contain 
himself for joy.  He was admitted to the first sacraments of 
instruction, and not long afterward gave in his name that he might 
receive the baptism of regeneration.  At this Rome marveled and 
the Church rejoiced.  The proud saw and were enraged; they gnashed 
their teeth and melted away!  But the Lord God was thy servant's 
hope and he paid no attention to their vanity and lying madness.

     5.  Finally, when the hour arrived for him to make a public 
profession of his faith -- which at Rome those who are about to 
enter into thy grace make from a platform in the full sight of the 
faithful people, in a set form of words learned by heart -- the 
presbyters offered Victorinus the chance to make his profession 
more privately, for this was the custom for some who were likely 
to be afraid through bashfulness.  But Victorinus chose rather to 
profess his salvation in the presence of the holy congregation.  
For there was no salvation in the rhetoric which he taught: yet he 
had professed that openly.  Why, then, should he shrink from 
naming thy Word before the sheep of thy flock, when he had not 
shrunk from uttering his own words before the mad multitude?

     So, then, when he ascended the platform to make his 
profession, everyone, as they recognized him, whispered his name 
one to the other, in tones of jubilation.  Who was there among 
them that did not know him?  And a low murmur ran through the 
mouths of all the rejoicing multitude: "Victorinus!  Victorinus!" 
There was a sudden burst of exaltation at the sight of him, and 
suddenly they were hushed that they might hear him.  He pronounced 
the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all desired to take 
him to their very heart -- indeed, by their love and joy they did 
take him to their heart.  And they received him with loving and 
joyful hands.

                          CHAPTER III

     6.  O good God, what happens in a man to make him rejoice 
more at the salvation of a soul that has been despaired of and 
then delivered from greater danger than over one who has never 
lost hope, or never been in such imminent danger?  For thou also, 
O most merciful Father, "dost rejoice more over one that repents 
than over ninety and nine just persons that need no 
repentance."[243]  And we listen with much delight whenever we 
hear how the lost sheep is brought home again on the shepherd's 
shoulders while the angels rejoice; or when the piece of money is 
restored to its place in the treasury and the neighbors rejoice 
with the woman who found it.[244]  And the joy of the solemn 
festival of thy house constrains us to tears when it is read in 
thy house: about the younger son who "was dead and is alive again, 
was lost and is found." For it is thou who rejoicest both in us 
and in thy angels, who are holy through holy love.  For thou art 
ever the same because thou knowest unchangeably all things which 
remain neither the same nor forever.

     7.  What, then, happens in the soul when it takes more 
delight at finding or having restored to it the things it loves 
than if it had always possessed them?  Indeed, many other things 
bear witness that this is so -- all things are full of witnesses, 
crying out, "So it is." The commander triumphs in victory; yet he 
could not have conquered if he had not fought; and the greater the 
peril of the battle, the more the joy of the triumph.  The storm 
tosses the voyagers, threatens shipwreck, and everyone turns pale 
in the presence of death.  Then the sky and sea grow calm, and 
they rejoice as much as they had feared.  A loved one is sick and 
his pulse indicates danger; all who desire his safety are 
themselves sick at heart; he recovers, though not able as yet to 
walk with his former strength; and there is more joy now than 
there was before when he walked sound and strong.  Indeed, the 
very pleasures of human life -- not only those which rush upon us 
unexpectedly and involuntarily, but also those which are voluntary 
and planned -- men obtain by difficulties.  There is no pleasure 
in caring and drinking unless the pains of hunger and thirst have 
preceded.  Drunkards even eat certain salt meats in order to 
create a painful thirst -- and when the drink allays this, it 
causes pleasure.  It is also the custom that the affianced bride 
should not be immediately given in marriage so that the husband 
may not esteem her any less, whom as his betrothed he longed for.

     8.  This can be seen in the case of base and dishonorable 
pleasure.  But it is also apparent in pleasures that are permitted 
and lawful: in the sincerity of honest friendship; and in him who 
was dead and lived again, who had been lost and was found.  The 
greater joy is everywhere preceded by the greater pain.  What does 
this mean, O Lord my God, when thou art an everlasting joy to 
thyself, and some creatures about thee are ever rejoicing in thee?  
What does it mean that this portion of creation thus ebbs and 
flows, alternately in want and satiety?  Is this their mode of 
being and is this all thou hast allotted to them: that, from the 
highest heaven to the lowest earth, from the beginning of the 
world to the end, from the angels to the worm, from the first 
movement to the last, thou wast assigning to all their proper 
places and their proper seasons -- to all the kinds of good things 
and to all thy just works?  Alas, how high thou art in the highest 
and how deep in the deepest!  Thou never departest from us, and 
yet only with difficulty do we return to thee.

                          CHAPTER IV

     9.  Go on, O Lord, and act: stir us up and call us back; 
inflame us and draw us to thee; stir us up and grow sweet to us; 
let us now love thee, let us run to thee.  Are there not many men 
who, out of a deeper pit of darkness than that of Victorinus, 
return to thee -- who draw near to thee and are illuminated by 
that light which gives those who receive it power from thee to 
become thy sons?  But if they are less well-known, even those who 
know them rejoice less for them.  For when many rejoice together 
the joy of each one is fuller, in that they warm one another, 
catch fire from each other; moreover, those who are well-known 
influence many toward salvation and take the lead with many to 
follow them.  Therefore, even those who took the way before them 
rejoice over them greatly, because they do not rejoice over them 
alone.  But it ought never to be that in thy tabernacle the 
persons of the rich should be welcome before the poor, or the 
nobly born before the rest -- since "thou hast rather chosen the 
weak things of the world to confound the strong; and hast chosen 
the base things of the world and things that are despised, and the 
things that are not, in order to bring to nought the things that 
are."[245]  It was even "the least of the apostles" by whose 
tongue thou didst sound forth these words.  And when Paulus the 
proconsul had his pride overcome by the onslaught of the apostle 
and he was made to pass under the easy yoke of thy Christ and 
became an officer of the great King, he also desired to be called 
Paul instead of Saul, his former name, in testimony to such a 
great victory.[246]  For the enemy is more overcome in one on whom 
he has a greater hold, and whom he has hold of more completely.  
But the proud he controls more readily through their concern about 
their rank and, through them, he controls more by means of their 
influence.  The more, therefore, the world prized the heart of 
Victorinus (which the devil had held in an impregnable stronghold) 
and the tongue of Victorinus (that sharp, strong weapon with which 
the devil had slain so many), all the more exultingly should Thy 
sons rejoice because our King hath bound the strong man, and they 
saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and made fit for thy 
honor and "profitable to the Lord for every good work."[247]

                           CHAPTER V

     10.  Now when this man of thine, Simplicianus, told me the 
story of Victorinus, I was eager to imitate him.  Indeed, this was 
Simplicianus' purpose in telling it to me.  But when he went on to 
tell how, in the reign of the Emperor Julian, there was a law 
passed by which Christians were forbidden to teach literature and 
rhetoric; and how Victorinus, in ready obedience to the law, chose 
to abandon his "school of words" rather than thy Word, by which 
thou makest eloquent the tongues of the dumb -- he appeared to me 
not so much brave as happy, because he had found a reason for 
giving his time wholly to thee.  For this was what I was longing 
to do; but as yet I was bound by the iron chain of my own will.  
The enemy held fast my will, and had made of it a chain, and had 
bound me tight with it.  For out of the perverse will came lust, 
and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, 
became necessity.  By these links, as it were, forged together -- 
which is why I called it "a chain" -- a hard bondage held me in 
slavery.  But that new will which had begun to spring up in me 
freely to worship thee and to enjoy thee, O my God, the only 
certain Joy, was not able as yet to overcome my former 
willfulness, made strong by long indulgence.  Thus my two wills -- 
the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual -- were in 
conflict within me; and by their discord they tore my soul apart.

     11.  Thus I came to understand from my own experience what I 
had read, how "the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
against the flesh."[248]  I truly lusted both ways, yet more in 
that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved 
in myself.  For in the latter it was not now really I that was 
involved, because here I was rather an unwilling sufferer than a 
willing actor.  And yet it was through me that habit had become an 
armed enemy against me, because I had willingly come to be what I 
unwillingly found myself to be.

     Who, then, can with any justice speak against it, when just 
punishment follows the sinner?  I had now no longer my accustomed 
excuse that, as yet, I hesitated to forsake the world and serve 
thee because my perception of the truth was uncertain.  For now it 
was certain.  But, still bound to the earth, I refused to be thy 
soldier; and was as much afraid of being freed from all 
entanglements as we ought to fear to be entangled.

     12.  Thus with the baggage of the world I was sweetly 
burdened, as one in slumber, and my musings on thee were like the 
efforts of those who desire to awake, but who are still 
overpowered with drowsiness and fall back into deep slumber.  And 
as no one wishes to sleep forever (for all men rightly count 
waking better) -- yet a man will usually defer shaking off his 
drowsiness when there is a heavy lethargy in his limbs; and he is 
glad to sleep on even when his reason disapproves, and the hour 
for rising has struck -- so was I assured that it was much better 
for me to give myself up to thy love than to go on yielding myself 
to my own lust.  Thy love satisfied and vanquished me; my lust 
pleased and fettered me.[249]  I had no answer to thy calling to 
me, "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
shall give you light."[250]  On all sides, thou didst show me that 
thy words are true, and I, convicted by the truth, had nothing at 
all to reply but the drawling and drowsy words: "Presently; see, 
presently.  Leave me alone a little while." But "presently, 
presently," had no present; and my "leave me alone a little while" 
went on for a long while.  In vain did I "delight in thy law in 
the inner man" while "another law in my members warred against the 
law of my mind and brought me into captivity to the law of sin 
which is in my members." For the law of sin is the tyranny of 
habit, by which the mind is drawn and held, even against its will.  
Yet it deserves to be so held because it so willingly falls into 
the habit.  "O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death" but thy grace alone, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord?[251]

                          CHAPTER VI

     13.  And now I will tell and confess unto thy name, O Lord, 
my helper and my redeemer, how thou didst deliver me from the 
chain of sexual desire by which I was so tightly held, and from 
the slavery of worldly business.[252]  With increasing anxiety I 
was going about my usual affairs, and daily sighing to thee.  I 
attended thy church as frequently as my business, under the burden 
of which I groaned, left me free to do so.  Alypius was with me, 
disengaged at last from his legal post, after a third term as 
assessor, and now waiting for private clients to whom he might 
sell his legal advice as I sold the power of speaking (as if it 
could be supplied by teaching).  But Nebridius had consented, for 
the sake of our friendship, to teach under Verecundus -- a citizen 
of Milan and professor of grammar, and a very intimate friend of 
us all -- who ardently desired, and by right of friendship 
demanded from us, the faithful aid he greatly needed.  Nebridius 
was not drawn to this by any desire of gain -- for he could have 
made much more out of his learning had he been so inclined -- but 
as he was a most sweet and kindly friend, he was unwilling, out of 
respect for the duties of friendship, to slight our request.  But 
in this he acted very discreetly, taking care not to become known 
to those persons who had great reputations in the world.  Thus he 
avoided all distractions of mind, and reserved as many hours as 
possible to pursue or read or listen to discussions about wisdom.

     14.  On a certain day, then, when Nebridius was away -- for 
some reason I cannot remember -- there came to visit Alypius and 
me at our house one Ponticianus, a fellow countryman of ours from 
Africa, who held high office in the emperor's court.  What he 
wanted with us I do not know; but we sat down to talk together, 
and it chanced that he noticed a book on a game table before us.  
He took it up, opened it, and, contrary to his expectation, found 
it to be the apostle Paul, for he imagined that it was one of my 
wearisome rhetoric textbooks.  At this, he looked up at me with a 
smile and expressed his delight and wonder that he had so 
unexpectedly found this book and only this one, lying before my 
eyes; for he was indeed a Christian and a faithful one at that, 
and often he prostrated himself before thee, our God, in the 
church in constant daily prayer.  When I had told him that I had 
given much attention to these writings, a conversation followed in 
which he spoke of Anthony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was in 
high repute among thy servants, although up to that time not 
familiar to me.  When he learned this, he lingered on the topic, 
giving us an account of this eminent man, and marveling at our 
ignorance.  We in turn were amazed to hear of thy wonderful works 
so fully manifested in recent times -- almost in our own -- 
occurring in the true faith and the Catholic Church. We all 
wondered -- we, that these things were so great, and he, that we 
had never heard of them.  

     15.  From this, his conversation turned to the multitudes in 
the monasteries and their manners so fragrant to thee, and to the 
teeming solitudes of the wilderness, of which we knew nothing at 
all.  There was even a monastery at Milan, outside the city's 
walls, full of good brothers under the fostering care of Ambrose 
-- and we were ignorant of it.  He went on with his story, and we 
listened intently and in silence.  He then told us how, on a 
certain afternoon, at Trier,[253] when the emperor was occupied 
watching the gladiatorial games, he and three comrades went out 
for a walk in the gardens close to the city walls.  There, as they 
chanced to walk two by two, one strolled away with him, while the 
other two went on by themselves.  As they rambled, these first two 
came upon a certain cottage where lived some of thy servants, some 
of the "poor in spirit" ("of such is the Kingdom of Heaven"), 
where they found the book in which was written the life of 
Anthony!  One of them began to read it, to marvel and to be 
inflamed by it.  While reading, he meditated on embracing just 
such a life, giving up his worldly employment to seek thee alone.  
These two belonged to the group of officials called "secret 
service agents."[254]  Then, suddenly being overwhelmed with a 
holy love and a sober shame and as if in anger with himself, he 
fixed his eyes on his friend, exclaiming: "Tell me, I beg you, 
what goal are we seeking in all these toils of ours?  What is it 
that we desire?  What is our motive in public service?  Can our 
hopes in the court rise higher than to be 'friends of the 
emperor'[255]?  But how frail, how beset with peril, is that 
pride!  Through what dangers must we climb to a greater danger?  
And when shall we succeed?  But if I chose to become a friend of 
God, see, I can become one now." Thus he spoke, and in the pangs 
of the travail of the new life he turned his eyes again onto the 
page and continued reading; he was inwardly changed, as thou didst 
see, and the world dropped away from his mind, as soon became 
plain to others.  For as he read with a heart like a stormy sea, 
more than once he groaned.  Finally he saw the better course, and 
resolved on it.  Then, having become thy servant, he said to his 
friend: "Now I have broken loose from those hopes we had, and I am 
determined to serve God; and I enter into that service from this 
hour in this place.  If you are reluctant to imitate me, do not 
oppose me." The other replied that he would continue bound in his 
friendship, to share in so great a service for so great a prize.  
So both became thine, and began to "build a tower", counting the 
cost -- namely, of forsaking all that they had and following 
thee.[256]  Shortly after, Ponticianus and his companion, who had 
walked with him in the other part of the garden, came in search of 
them to the same place, and having found them reminded them to 
return, as the day was declining.  But the first two, making known 
to Ponticianus their resolution and purpose, and how a resolve had 
sprung up and become confirmed in them, entreated them not to take 
it ill if they refused to join themselves with them.  But 
Ponticianus and his friend, although not changed from their former 
course, did nevertheless (as he told us) bewail themselves and 
congratulated their friends on their godliness, recommending 
themselves to their prayers.  And with hearts inclining again 
toward earthly things, they returned to the palace.  But the other 
two, setting their affections on heavenly things, remained in the 
cottage.  Both of them had affianced brides who, when they heard 
of this, likewise dedicated their virginity to thee.

                          CHAPTER VII

     16.  Such was the story Ponticianus told.  But while he was 
speaking, thou, O Lord, turned me toward myself, taking me from 
behind my back, where I had put myself while unwilling to exercise 
self-scrutiny.  And now thou didst set me face to face with 
myself, that I might see how ugly I was, and how crooked and 
sordid, bespotted and ulcerous.  And I looked and I loathed 
myself; but whither to fly from myself I could not discover.  And 
if I sought to turn my gaze away from myself, he would continue 
his narrative, and thou wouldst oppose me to myself and thrust me 
before my own eyes that I might discover my iniquity and hate it.  
I had known it, but acted as though I knew it not -- I winked at 
it and forgot it.

     17.  But now, the more ardently I loved those whose wholesome 
affections I heard reported -- that they had given themselves up 
wholly to thee to be cured -- the more did I abhor myself when 
compared with them.  For many of my years -- perhaps twelve -- had 
passed away since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading of 
Cicero's Hortensius, I was roused to a desire for wisdom.  And 
here I was, still postponing the abandonment of this world's 
happiness to devote myself to the search. For not just the finding 
alone, but also the bare search for it, ought to have been 
preferred above the treasures and kingdoms of this world; better 
than all bodily pleasures, though they were to be had for the 
taking.  But, wretched youth that I was -- supremely wretched even 
in the very outset of my youth -- I had entreated chastity of thee 
and had prayed, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." 
For I was afraid lest thou shouldst hear me too soon, and too soon 
cure me of my disease of lust which I desired to have satisfied 
rather than extinguished.  And I had wandered through perverse 
ways of godless superstition -- not really sure of it, either, but 
preferring it to the other, which I did not seek in piety, but 
opposed in malice.

     18.  And I had thought that I delayed from day to day in 
rejecting those worldly hopes and following thee alone because 
there did not appear anything certain by which I could direct my 
course.  And now the day had arrived in which I was laid bare to 
myself and my conscience was to chide me: "Where are you, O my 
tongue?  You said indeed that you were not willing to cast off the 
baggage of vanity for uncertain truth.  But behold now it is 
certain, and still that burden oppresses you.  At the same time 
those who have not worn themselves out with searching for it as 
you have, nor spent ten years and more in thinking about it, have 
had their shoulders unburdened and have received wings to fly 
away." Thus was I inwardly confused, and mightily confounded with 
a horrible shame, while Ponticianus went ahead speaking such 
things.  And when he had finished his story and the business he 
came for, he went his way.  And then what did I not say to myself, 
within myself?  With what scourges of rebuke did I not lash my 
soul to make it follow me, as I was struggling to go after thee?  
Yet it drew back.  It refused.  It would not make an effort.  All 
its arguments were exhausted and confuted.  Yet it resisted in 
sullen disquiet, fearing the cutting off of that habit by which it 
was being wasted to death, as if that were death itself.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     19.  Then, as this vehement quarrel, which I waged with my 
soul in the chamber of my heart, was raging inside my inner 
dwelling, agitated both in mind and countenance, I seized upon 
Alypius and exclaimed: "What is the matter with us?  What is this?  
What did you hear?  The uninstructed start up and take heaven, and 
we -- with all our learning but so little heart -- see where we 
wallow in flesh and blood!  Because others have gone before us, 
are we ashamed to follow, and not rather ashamed at our not 
following?"  I scarcely knew what I said, and in my excitement I 
flung away from him, while he gazed at me in silent astonishment.  
For I did not sound like myself: my face, eyes, color, tone 
expressed my meaning more clearly than my words.

     There was a little garden belonging to our lodging, of which 
we had the use -- as of the whole house -- for the master, our 
landlord, did not live there.  The tempest in my breast hurried me 
out into this garden, where no one might interrupt the fiery 
struggle in which I was engaged with myself, until it came to the 
outcome that thou knewest though I did not.  But I was mad for 
health, and dying for life; knowing what evil thing I was, but not 
knowing what good thing I was so shortly to become.

     I fled into the garden, with Alypius following step by step; 
for I had no secret in which he did not share, and how could he 
leave me in such distress?  We sat down, as far from the house as 
possible.  I was greatly disturbed in spirit, angry at myself with 
a turbulent indignation because I had not entered thy will and 
covenant, O my God, while all my bones cried out to me to enter, 
extolling it to the skies.  The way therein is not by ships or 
chariots or feet -- indeed it was not as far as I had come from 
the house to the place where we were seated.  For to go along that 
road and indeed to reach the goal is nothing else but the will to 
go.  But it must be a strong and single will, not staggering and 
swaying about this way and that -- a changeable, twisting, 
fluctuating will, wrestling with itself while one part falls as 
another rises.

     20.  Finally, in the very fever of my indecision, I made many 
motions with my body; like men do when they will to act but 
cannot, either because they do not have the limbs or because their 
limbs are bound or weakened by disease, or incapacitated in some 
other way.  Thus if I tore my hair, struck my forehead, or, 
entwining my fingers, clasped my knee, these I did because I 
willed it.  But I might have willed it and still not have done it, 
if the nerves had not obeyed my will.  Many things then I did, in 
which the will and power to do were not the same.  Yet I did not 
do that one thing which seemed to me infinitely more desirable, 
which before long I should have power to will because shortly when 
I willed, I would will with a single will.  For in this, the power 
of willing is the power of doing; and as yet I could not do it.  
Thus my body more readily obeyed the slightest wish of the soul in 
moving its limbs at the order of my mind than my soul obeyed 
itself to accomplish in the will alone its great resolve.

                          CHAPTER IX

     21.  How can there be such a strange anomaly?  And why is it?  
Let thy mercy shine on me, that I may inquire and find an answer, 
amid the dark labyrinth of human punishment and in the darkest 
contritions of the sons of Adam.  Whence such an anomaly?  And why 
should it be?  The mind commands the body, and the body obeys.  
The mind commands itself and is resisted.  The mind commands the 
hand to be moved and there is such readiness that the command is 
scarcely distinguished from the obedience in act.  Yet the mind is 
mind, and the hand is body.  The mind commands the mind to will, 
and yet though it be itself it does not obey itself.  Whence this 
strange anomaly and why should it be?  I repeat: The will commands 
itself to will, and could not give the command unless it wills; 
yet what is commanded is not done.  But actually the will does not 
will entirely; therefore it does not command entirely.  For as far 
as it wills, it commands.  And as far as it does not will, the 
thing commanded is not done.  For the will commands that there be 
an act of will -- not another, but itself.  But it does not 
command entirely.  Therefore, what is commanded does not happen; 
for if the will were whole and entire, it would not even command 
it to be, because it would already be.  It is, therefore, no 
strange anomaly partly to will and partly to be unwilling.  This 
is actually an infirmity of mind, which cannot wholly rise, while 
pressed down by habit, even though it is supported by the truth.  
And so there are two wills, because one of them is not whole, and 
what is present in this one is lacking in the other.

                           CHAPTER X 

     22.  Let them perish from thy presence, O God, as vain 
talkers, and deceivers of the soul perish, who, when they observe 
that there are two wills in the act of deliberation, go on to 
affirm that there are two kinds of minds in us: one good, the 
other evil.  They are indeed themselves evil when they hold these 
evil opinions -- and they shall become good only when they come to 
hold the truth and consent to the truth that thy apostle may say 
to them: "You were formerly in darkness, but now are you in the 
light in the Lord."[257]  But they desired to be light, not "in 
the Lord," but in themselves.  They conceived the nature of the 
soul to be the same as what God is, and thus have become a thicker 
darkness than they were; for in their dread arrogance they have 
gone farther away from thee, from thee "the true Light, that 
lights every man that comes into the world." Mark what you say and 
blush for shame; draw near to him and be enlightened, and your 
faces shall not be ashamed.[258]

     While I was deliberating whether I would serve the Lord my 
God now, as I had long purposed to do, it was I who willed and it 
was also I who was unwilling.  In either case, it was I.  I 
neither willed with my whole will nor was I wholly unwilling.  And 
so I was at war with myself and torn apart by myself.  And this 
strife was against my will; yet it did not show the presence of 
another mind, but the punishment of my own.  Thus it was no more I 
who did it, but the sin that dwelt in me -- the punishment of a 
sin freely committed by Adam, and I was a son of Adam.  

     23.  For if there are as many opposing natures as there are 
opposing wills, there will not be two but many more.  If any man 
is trying to decide whether he should go to their conventicle or 
to the theater, the Manicheans at once cry out, "See, here are two 
natures -- one good, drawing this way, another bad, drawing back 
that way; for how else can you explain this indecision between 
conflicting wills?"  But I reply that both impulses are bad -- 
that which draws to them and that which draws back to the theater.  
But they do not believe that the will which draws to them can be 
anything but good.  Suppose, then, that one of us should try to 
decide, and through the conflict of his two wills should waver 
whether he should go to the theater or to our Church. Would not 
those also waver about the answer here?  For either they must 
confess, which they are unwilling to do, that the will that leads 
to our church is as good as that which carries their own adherents 
and those captivated by their mysteries; or else they must imagine 
that there are two evil natures and two evil minds in one man, 
both at war with each other, and then it will not be true what 
they say, that there is one good and another bad.  Else they must 
be converted to the truth, and no longer deny that when anyone 
deliberates there is one soul fluctuating between conflicting 
wills.

     24.  Let them no longer maintain that when they perceive two 
wills to be contending with each other in the same man the contest 
is between two opposing minds, of two opposing substances, from 
two opposing principles, the one good and the other bad.  Thus, O 
true God, thou dost reprove and confute and convict them.  For 
both wills may be bad: as when a man tries to decide whether he 
should kill a man by poison or by the sword; whether he should 
take possession of this field or that one belonging to someone 
else, when he cannot get both; whether he should squander his 
money to buy pleasure or hold onto his money through the motive of 
covetousness; whether he should go to the circus or to the 
theater, if both are open on the same day; or, whether he should 
take a third course, open at the same time, and rob another man's 
house; or, a fourth option, whether he should commit adultery, if 
he has the opportunity -- all these things concurring in the same 
space of time and all being equally longed for, although 
impossible to do at one time.  For the mind is pulled four ways by 
four antagonistic wills -- or even more, in view of the vast range 
of human desires -- but even the Manicheans do not affirm that 
there are these many different substances.  The same principle 
applies as in the action of good wills.  For I ask them, "Is it a 
good thing to have delight in reading the apostle, or is it a good 
thing to delight in a sober psalm, or is it a good thing to 
discourse on the gospel?"  To each of these, they will answer, "It 
is good." But what, then, if all delight us equally and all at the 
same time?  Do not different wills distract the mind when a man is 
trying to decide what he should choose?  Yet they are all good, 
and are at variance with each other until one is chosen.  When 
this is done the whole united will may go forward on a single 
track instead of remaining as it was before, divided in many ways.  
So also, when eternity attracts us from above, and the pleasure of 
earthly delight pulls us down from below, the soul does not will 
either the one or the other with all its force, but still it is 
the same soul that does not will this or that with a united will, 
and is therefore pulled apart with grievous perplexities, because 
for truth's sake it prefers this, but for custom's sake it does 
not lay that aside.

                          CHAPTER XI

     25.  Thus I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more 
bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it 
should be utterly broken.  By now I was held but slightly, but 
still was held.  And thou, O Lord, didst press upon me in my 
inmost heart with a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear 
and shame; lest I should again give way and that same slender 
remaining tie not be broken off, but recover strength and enchain 
me yet more securely.

     I kept saying to myself, "See, let it be done now; let it be 
done now." And as I said this I all but came to a firm decision.  
I all but did it -- yet I did not quite.  Still I did not fall 
back to my old condition, but stood aside for a moment and drew 
breath.  And I tried again, and lacked only a very little of 
reaching the resolve -- and then somewhat less, and then all but 
touched and grasped it.  Yet I still did not quite reach or touch 
or grasp the goal, because I hesitated to die to death and to live 
to life.  And the worse way, to which I was habituated, was 
stronger in me than the better, which I had not tried.  And up to 
the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer 
the moment approached, the greater horror did it strike in me.  
But it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but held me in 
suspense.

     26.  It was, in fact, my old mistresses, trifles of trifles 
and vanities of vanities, who still enthralled me.  They tugged at 
my fleshly garments and softly whispered: "Are you going to part 
with us?  And from that moment will we never be with you any more?  
And from that moment will not this and that be forbidden you 
forever?"  What were they suggesting to me in those words "this or 
that"?  What is it they suggested, O my God? Let thy mercy guard 
the soul of thy servant from the vileness and the shame they did 
suggest!  And now I scarcely heard them, for they were not openly 
showing themselves and opposing me face to face; but muttering, as 
it were, behind my back; and furtively plucking at me as I was 
leaving, trying to make me look back at them.  Still they delayed 
me, so that I hesitated to break loose and shake myself free of 
them and leap over to the place to which I was being called -- for 
unruly habit kept saying to me, "Do you think you can live without 
them?"

     27.  But now it said this very faintly; for in the direction 
I had set my face, and yet toward which I still trembled to go, 
the chaste dignity of continence appeared to me -- cheerful but 
not wanton, modestly alluring me to come and doubt nothing, 
extending her holy hands, full of a multitude of good examples -- 
to receive and embrace me.  There were there so many young men and 
maidens, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and 
ancient virgins; and continence herself in their midst: not 
barren, but a fruitful mother of children -- her joys -- by thee, 
O Lord, her husband.  And she smiled on me with a challenging 
smile as if to say: "Can you not do what these young men and 
maidens can?  Or can any of them do it of themselves, and not 
rather in the Lord their God?  The Lord their God gave me to them.  
Why do you stand in your own strength, and so stand not?  Cast 
yourself on him; fear not.  He will not flinch and you will not 
fall.  Cast yourself on him without fear, for he will receive and 
heal you." And I blushed violently, for I still heard the 
muttering of those "trifles" and hung suspended.  Again she seemed 
to speak: "Stop your ears against those unclean members of yours, 
that they may be mortified.  They tell you of delights, but not 
according to the law of the Lord thy God." This struggle raging in 
my heart was nothing but the contest of self against self.  And 
Alypius kept close beside me, and awaited in silence the outcome 
of my extraordinary agitation.

                          CHAPTER XII

     28.  Now when deep reflection had drawn up out of the secret 
depths of my soul all my misery and had heaped it up before the 
sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm, accompanied by a 
mighty rain of tears.  That I might give way fully to my tears and 
lamentations, I stole away from Alypius, for it seemed to me that 
solitude was more appropriate for the business of weeping.  I went 
far enough away that I could feel that even his presence was no 
restraint upon me.  This was the way I felt at the time, and he 
realized it.  I suppose I had said something before I started up 
and he noticed that the sound of my voice was choked with weeping.  
And so he stayed alone, where we had been sitting together, 
greatly astonished.  I flung myself down under a fig tree -- how I 
know not -- and gave free course to my tears.  The streams of my 
eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee.  And, not indeed 
in these words, but to this effect, I cried to thee: "And thou, O 
Lord, how long?  How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou be angry forever?  
Oh, remember not against us our former iniquities."[259]  For I 
felt that I was still enthralled by them.  I sent up these 
sorrowful cries: "How long, how long?  Tomorrow and tomorrow?  Why 
not now?  Why not this very hour make an end to my uncleanness?"

     29.  I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter 
contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy 
or a girl I know not which -- coming from the neighboring house, 
chanting over and over again, "Pick it up, read it; pick it up, 
read it."[260]  Immediately I ceased weeping and began most 
earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind 
of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having 
heard the like.  So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my 
feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to 
open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon.  
For I had heard[261] how Anthony, accidentally coming into church 
while the gospel was being read, received the admonition as if 
what was read had been addressed to him: "Go and sell what you 
have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in 
heaven; and come and follow me."[262]  By such an oracle he was 
forthwith converted to thee.

     So I quickly returned to the bench where Alypius was sitting, 
for there I had put down the apostle's book when I had left there.  
I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on 
which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in 
chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to 
fulfill the lusts thereof."[263]  I wanted to read no further, nor 
did I need to.  For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was 
infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and 
all the gloom of doubt vanished away.[264]

     30.  Closing the book, then, and putting my finger or 
something else for a mark I began -- now with a tranquil 
countenance -- to tell it all to Alypius.  And he in turn 
disclosed to me what had been going on in himself, of which I knew 
nothing.  He asked to see what I had read.  I showed him, and he 
looked on even further than I had read.  I had not known what 
followed.  But indeed it was this, "Him that is weak in the faith, 
receive."[265]  This he applied to himself, and told me so.  By 
these words of warning he was strengthened, and by exercising his 
good resolution and purpose -- all very much in keeping with his 
character, in which, in these respects, he was always far 
different from and better than I -- he joined me in full 
commitment without any restless hesitation.

     Then we went in to my mother, and told her what happened, to 
her great joy.  We explained to her how it had occurred -- and she 
leaped for joy triumphant; and she blessed thee, who art "able to 
do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think."[266]  
For she saw that thou hadst granted her far more than she had ever 
asked for in all her pitiful and doleful lamentations.  For thou 
didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any 
other of this world's hopes, but set my feet on that rule of faith 
which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream 
about me.  And so thou didst turn her grief into gladness more 
plentiful than she had ventured to desire, and dearer and purer 
than the desire she used to cherish of having grandchildren of my 
flesh.

                          BOOK NINE

     The end of the autobiography.  Augustine tells of his 
resigning from his professorship and of the days at Cassiciacum in 
preparation for baptism.  He is baptized together with Adeodatus 
and Alypius.  Shortly thereafter, they start back for Africa.  
Augustine recalls the ecstasy he and his mother shared in Ostia 
and then reports her death and burial and his grief.  The book 
closes with a moving prayer for the souls of Monica, Patricius, 
and all his fellow citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  "O Lord, I am thy servant; I am thy servant and the son 
of thy handmaid.  Thou hast loosed my bonds.  I will offer to thee 
the sacrifice of thanksgiving."[267]  Let my heart and my tongue 
praise thee, and let all my bones say, "Lord, who is like unto 
thee?"  Let them say so, and answer thou me and say unto my soul, 
"I am your salvation."

     Who am I, and what is my nature?  What evil is there not in 
me and my deeds; or if not in my deeds, my words; or if not in my 
words, my will?  But thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and thy 
right hand didst reach into the depth of my death and didst empty 
out the abyss of corruption from the bottom of my heart.  And this 
was the result: now I did not will to do what I willed, and began 
to will to do what thou didst will.

     But where was my free will during all those years and from 
what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single 
moment, whereby I gave my neck to thy "easy yoke" and my shoulders 
to thy "light burden," O Christ Jesus, "my Strength and my 
Redeemer"?  How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without 
the sweetness of trifles!  And it was now a joy to put away what I 
formerly feared to lose.  For thou didst cast them away from me, O 
true and highest Sweetness.  Thou didst cast them away, and in 
their place thou didst enter in thyself -- sweeter than all 
pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, 
but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, 
though not to them that are exalted in their own eyes.  Now was my 
soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of 
wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust.  And I 
prattled like a child to thee, O Lord my God -- my light, my 
riches, and my salvation.

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  And it seemed right to me, in thy sight, not to snatch my 
tongue's service abruptly out of the speech market, but to 
withdraw quietly, so that the young men who were not concerned 
about thy law or thy peace, but with mendacious follies and 
forensic strifes, might no longer purchase from my mouth weapons 
for their frenzy.  Fortunately, there were only a few days before 
the "vintage vacation"[268]; and I determined to endure them, so 
that I might resign in due form and, now bought by thee, return 
for sale no more.

     My plan was known to thee, but, save for my own friends, it 
was not known to other men.  For we had agreed that it should not 
be made public; although, in our ascent from the "valley of tears" 
and our singing of "the song of degrees," thou hadst given us 
sharp arrows and hot burning coals to stop that deceitful tongue 
which opposes under the guise of good counsel, and devours what it 
loves as though it were food.

     3.  Thou hadst pierced our heart with thy love, and we 
carried thy words, as it were, thrust through our vitals.  The 
examples of thy servants whom thou hadst changed from black to 
shining white, and from death to life, crowded into the bosom of 
our thoughts and burned and consumed our sluggish temper, that we 
might not topple back into the abyss.  And they fired us 
exceedingly, so that every breath of the deceitful tongue of our 
detractors might fan the flame and not blow it out.

     Though this vow and purpose of ours should find those who 
would loudly praise it -- for the sake of thy name, which thou 
hast sanctified throughout the earth -- it nevertheless looked 
like a self-vaunting not to wait until the vacation time now so 
near.  For if I had left such a public office ahead of time, and 
had made the break in the eye of the general public, all who took 
notice of this act of mine and observed how near was the vintage 
time that I wished to anticipate would have talked about me a 
great deal, as if I were trying to appear a great person.  And 
what purpose would it serve that people should consider and 
dispute about my conversion so that my good should be evil spoken 
of?

     4.  Furthermore, this same summer my lungs had begun to be 
weak from too much literary labor.  Breathing was difficult; the 
pains in my chest showed that the lungs were affected and were 
soon fatigued by too loud or prolonged speaking.  This had at 
first been a trial to me, for it would have compelled me almost of 
necessity to lay down that burden of teaching; or, if I was to be 
cured and become strong again, at least to take a leave for a 
while.  But as soon as the full desire to be still that I might 
know that thou art the Lord[269] arose and was confirmed in me, 
thou knowest, my God, that I began to rejoice that I had this 
excuse ready -- and not a feigned one, either -- which might 
somewhat temper the displeasure of those who for their sons' 
freedom wished me never to have any freedom of my own.

     Full of joy, then, I bore it until my time ran out -- it was 
perhaps some twenty days -- yet it was some strain to go through 
with it, for the greediness which helped to support the drudgery 
had gone, and I would have been overwhelmed had not its place been 
taken by patience.  Some of thy servants, my brethren, may say 
that I sinned in this, since having once fully and from my heart 
enlisted in thy service, I permitted myself to sit a single hour 
in the chair of falsehood.  I will not dispute it.  But hast thou 
not, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and forgiven this sin in the 
holy water[270] also, along with all the others, horrible and 
deadly as they were?

                          CHAPTER III

     5.  Verecundus was severely disturbed by this new happiness 
of mine, since he was still firmly held by his bonds and saw that 
he would lose my companionship.  For he was not yet a Christian, 
though his wife was; and, indeed, he was more firmly enchained by 
her than by anything else, and held back from that journey on 
which we had set out.  Furthermore, he declared he did not wish to 
be a Christian on any terms except those that were impossible.  
However, he invited us most courteously to make use of his country 
house so long as we would stay there.  O Lord, thou wilt 
recompense him for this "in the resurrection of the just,"[271] 
seeing that thou hast already given him "the lot of the 
righteous."[272]  For while we were absent at Rome, he was 
overtaken with bodily sickness, and during it he was made a 
Christian and departed this life as one of the faithful.  Thus 
thou hadst mercy on him, and not on him only, but on us as well; 
lest, remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend to us and 
not able to count him in thy flock, we should be tortured with 
intolerable grief.  Thanks be unto thee, our God; we are thine.  
Thy exhortations, consolations, and faithful promises assure us 
that thou wilt repay Verecundus for that country house at 
Cassiciacum -- where we found rest in thee from the fever of the 
world -- with the perpetual freshness of thy paradise in which 
thou hast forgiven him his earthly sins, in that mountain flowing 
with milk, that fruitful mountain -- thy own.

     6.  Thus Verecundus was full of grief; but Nebridius was 
joyous.  For he was not yet a Christian, and had fallen into the 
pit of deadly error, believing that the flesh of thy Son, the 
Truth, was a phantom.[273]  Yet he had come up out of that pit and 
now held the same belief that we did.  And though he was not as 
yet initiated in any of the sacraments of thy Church, he was a 
most earnest inquirer after truth.  Not long after our conversion 
and regeneration by thy baptism, he also became a faithful member 
of the Catholic Church, serving thee in perfect chastity and 
continence among his own people in Africa, and bringing his whole 
household with him to Christianity.  Then thou didst release him 
from the flesh, and now he lives in Abraham's bosom.  Whatever is 
signified by that term "bosom," there lives my Nebridius, my sweet 
friend, thy son by adoption, O Lord, and not a freedman any 
longer.  There he lives; for what other place could there be for 
such a soul?  There he lives in that abode about which he used to 
ask me so many questions -- poor ignorant one that I was.  Now he 
does not put his ear up to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth to 
thy fountain, and drinks wisdom as he desires and as he is able -- 
happy without end.  But I do not believe that he is so inebriated 
by that draught as to forget me; since thou, O Lord, who art the 
draught, art mindful of us.

     Thus, then, we were comforting the unhappy Verecundus -- our 
friendship untouched -- reconciling him to our conversion and 
exhorting him to a faith fit for his condition (that is, to his 
being married).  We tarried for Nebridius to follow us, since he 
was so close, and this he was just about to do when at last the 
interim ended.  The days had seemed long and many because of my 
eagerness for leisure and liberty in which I might sing to thee 
from my inmost part, "My heart has said to thee, I have sought thy 
face; thy face, O Lord, will I seek."[274]

                          CHAPTER IV

     7.  Finally the day came on which I was actually to be 
relieved from the professorship of rhetoric, from which I had 
already been released in intention.  And it was done.  And thou 
didst deliver my tongue as thou hadst already delivered my heart; 
and I blessed thee for it with great joy, and retired with my 
friends to the villa.[275]  My books testify to what I got done 
there in writing, which was now hopefully devoted to thy service; 
though in this pause it was still as if I were panting from my 
exertions in the school of pride.[276]  These were the books in 
which I engaged in dialogue with my friends, and also those in 
soliloquy before thee alone.[277]  And there are my letters to 
Nebridius, who was still absent.[278]

     When would there be enough time to recount all thy great 
blessings which thou didst bestow on us in that time, especially 
as I am hastening on to still greater mercies?  For my memory 
recalls them to me and it is pleasant to confess them to thee, O 
Lord: the inward goads by which thou didst subdue me and how thou 
broughtest me low, leveling the mountains and hills of my 
thoughts, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough 
ways.  And I remember by what means thou also didst subdue 
Alypius, my heart's brother, to the name of thy only Son, our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ -- which he at first refused to have 
inserted in our writings.  For at first he preferred that they 
should smell of the cedars of the schools[279] which the Lord hath 
now broken down, rather than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, 
hostile to serpents.[280]

     8.  O my God, how did I cry to thee when I read the psalms of 
David, those hymns of faith, those paeans of devotion which leave 
no room for swelling pride!  I was still a novice in thy true 
love, a catechumen keeping holiday at the villa, with Alypius, a 
catechumen like myself.  My mother was also with us -- in woman's 
garb, but with a man's faith, with the peacefulness of age and the 
fullness of motherly love and Christian piety.  What cries I used 
to send up to thee in those songs, and how I was enkindled toward 
thee by them!  I burned to sing them if possible, throughout the 
whole world, against the pride of the human race.  And yet, 
indeed, they are sung throughout the whole world, and none can 
hide himself from thy heat.  With what strong and bitter regret 
was I indignant at the Manicheans!  Yet I also pitied them; for 
they were ignorant of those sacraments, those medicines[281] -- 
and raved insanely against the cure that might have made them 
sane!  I wished they could have been somewhere close by, and -- 
without my knowledge -- could have seen my face and heard my words 
when, in that time of leisure, I pored over the Fourth Psalm.  And 
I wish they could have seen how that psalm affected me.[282]  
"When I called upon thee, O God of my righteousness, thou didst 
hear me; thou didst enlarge me when I was in distress.  Have mercy 
upon me and hear my prayer." I wish they might have heard what I 
said in comment on those words -- without my knowing that they 
heard, lest they should think that I was speaking it just on their 
account.  For, indeed, I should not have said quite the same 
things, nor quite in the same way, if I had known that I was heard 
and seen by them.  And if I had so spoken, they would not have 
meant the same things to them as they did to me when I spoke by 
and for myself before thee, out of the private affections of my 
soul.

     9.  By turns I trembled with fear and warmed with hope and 
rejoiced in thy mercy, O Father.  And all these feelings showed 
forth in my eyes and voice when thy good Spirit turned to us and 
said, "O sons of men, how long will you be slow of heart, how long 
will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood?"  For I had loved 
vanity and sought after falsehood.  And thou, O Lord, had already 
magnified thy Holy One, raising him from the dead and setting him 
at thy right hand, that thence he should send forth from on high 
his promised "Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth." Already he had sent 
him, and I knew it not.  He had sent him because he was now 
magnified, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven.  For 
till then "the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was 
not yet glorified."[283]  And the prophet cried out: "How long 
will you be slow of heart?  How long will you love vanity, and 
seek after falsehood?  Know this, that the Lord hath magnified his 
Holy One." He cries, "How long?"  He cries, "Know this," and I -- 
so long "loving vanity, and seeking after falsehood" -- heard and 
trembled, because these words were spoken to such a one as I 
remembered that I myself had been.  For in those phantoms which I 
once held for truth there was vanity and falsehood.  And I spoke 
many things loudly and earnestly -- in the contrition of my memory 
-- which I wish they had heard, who still "love vanity and seek 
after falsehood." Perhaps they would have been troubled, and have 
vomited up their error, and thou wouldst have heard them when they 
cried to thee; for by a real death in the flesh He died for us who 
now maketh intercession for us with thee.

     10.  I read on further, "Be angry, and sin not." And how 
deeply was I touched, O my God; for I had now learned to be angry 
with myself for the things past, so that in the future I might not 
sin.  Yes, to be angry with good cause, for it was not another 
nature out of the race of darkness that had sinned for me -- as 
they affirm who are not angry with themselves, and who store up 
for themselves dire wrath against the day of wrath and the 
revelation of thy righteous judgment.  Nor were the good things I 
saw now outside me, nor were they to be seen with the eyes of 
flesh in the light of the earthly sun.  For they that have their 
joys from without sink easily into emptiness and are spilled out 
on those things that are visible and temporal, and in their 
starving thoughts they lick their very shadows.  If only they 
would grow weary with their hunger and would say, "Who will show 
us any good?"  And we would answer, and they would hear, "O Lord, 
the light of thy countenance shines bright upon us." For we are 
not that Light that enlightens every man, but we are enlightened 
by thee, so that we who were formerly in darkness may now be 
alight in thee.  If only they could behold the inner Light Eternal 
which, now that I had tasted it, I gnashed my teeth because I 
could not show it to them unless they brought me their heart in 
their eyes -- their roving eyes -- and said, "Who will show us any 
good?"  But even there, in the inner chamber of my soul -- where I 
was angry with myself; where I was inwardly pricked, where I had 
offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and hoping in thee with 
the new resolve of a new life with my trust laid in thee -- even 
there thou hadst begun to grow sweet to me and to "put gladness in 
my heart." And thus as I read all this, I cried aloud and felt its 
inward meaning.  Nor did I wish to be increased in worldly goods 
which are wasted by time, for now I possessed, in thy eternal 
simplicity, other corn and wine and oil.

     11.  And with a loud cry from my heart, I read the following 
verse: "Oh, in peace!  Oh, in the Selfsame!"[284]  See how he says 
it: "I will lay me down and take my rest."[285]  For who shall 
withstand us when the truth of this saying that is written is made 
manifest: "Death is swallowed up in victory"[286]?  For surely 
thou, who dost not change, art the Selfsame, and in thee is rest 
and oblivion to all distress.  There is none other beside thee, 
nor are we to toil for those many things which are not thee, for 
only thou, O Lord, makest me to dwell in hope."

     These things I read and was enkindled -- but still I could 
not discover what to do with those deaf and dead Manicheans to 
whom I myself had belonged; for I had been a bitter and blind 
reviler against these writings, honeyed with the honey of heaven 
and luminous with thy light.  And I was sorely grieved at these 
enemies of this Scripture.

     12.  When shall I call to mind all that happened during those 
holidays?  I have not forgotten them; nor will I be silent about 
the severity of thy scourge, and the amazing quickness of thy 
mercy.  During that time thou didst torture me with a toothache; 
and when it had become so acute that I was not able to speak, it 
came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray 
for me to thee, the God of all health.  And I wrote it down on the 
tablet and gave it to them to read.  Presently, as we bowed our 
knees in supplication, the pain was gone.  But what pain?  How did 
it go?  I confess that I was terrified, O Lord my God, because 
from my earliest years I had never experienced such pain.  And thy 
purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and rejoicing in 
faith, I praised thy name.  But that faith allowed me no rest in 
respect of my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me through 
thy baptism.

                           CHAPTER V

     13.  Now that the vintage vacation was ended, I gave notice 
to the citizens of Milan that they might provide their scholars 
with another word-merchant.  I gave as my reasons my determination 
to serve thee and also my insufficiency for the task, because of 
the difficulty in breathing and the pain in my chest.

     And by letters I notified thy bishop, the holy man Ambrose, 
of my former errors and my present resolution.  And I asked his 
advice as to which of thy books it was best for me to read so that 
I might be the more ready and fit for the reception of so great a 
grace.  He recommended Isaiah the prophet; and I believe it was 
because Isaiah foreshows more clearly than others the gospel, and 
the calling of the Gentiles.  But because I could not understand 
the first part and because I imagined the rest to be like it, I 
laid it aside with the intention of taking it up again later, when 
better practiced in our Lord's words.

                          CHAPTER VI

     14.  When the time arrived for me to give in my name, we left 
the country and returned to Milan.  Alypius also resolved to be 
born again in thee at the same time.  He was already clothed with 
the humility that befits thy sacraments, and was so brave a tamer 
of his body that he would walk the frozen Italian soil with his 
naked feet, which called for unusual fortitude.  We took with us 
the boy Adeodatus, my son after the flesh, the offspring of my 
sin.  Thou hadst made of him a noble lad.  He was barely fifteen 
years old, but his intelligence excelled that of many grave and 
learned men.  I confess to thee thy gifts, O Lord my God, creator 
of all, who hast power to reform our deformities -- for there was 
nothing of me in that boy but the sin.  For it was thou who didst 
inspire us to foster him in thy discipline, and none other -- thy 
gifts I confess to thee.  There is a book of mine, entitled De 
Magistro.[287]  It is a dialogue between Adeodatus and me, and 
thou knowest that all things there put into the mouth of my 
interlocutor are his, though he was then only in his sixteenth 
year.  Many other gifts even more wonderful I found in him.  His 
talent was a source of awe to me.  And who but thou couldst be the 
worker of such marvels?  And thou didst quickly remove his life 
from the earth, and even now I recall him to mind with a sense of 
security, because I fear nothing for his childhood or youth, nor 
for his whole career.  We took him for our companion, as if he 
were the same age in grace with ourselves, to be trained with 
ourselves in thy discipline.  And so we were baptized and the 
anxiety about our past life left us.

     Nor did I ever have enough in those days of the wondrous 
sweetness of meditating on the depth of thy counsels concerning 
the salvation of the human race.  How freely did I weep in thy 
hymns and canticles; how deeply was I moved by the voices of thy 
sweet-speaking Church!  The voices flowed into my ears; and the 
truth was poured forth into my heart, where the tide of my 
devotion overflowed, and my tears ran down, and I was happy in all 
these things.

                          CHAPTER VII

     15.  The church of Milan had only recently begun to employ 
this mode of consolation and exaltation with all the brethren 
singing together with great earnestness of voice and heart.  For 
it was only about a year -- not much more -- since Justina, the 
mother of the boy-emperor Valentinian, had persecuted thy servant 
Ambrose on behalf of her heresy, in which she had been seduced by 
the Arians.  The devoted people kept guard in the church, prepared 
to die with their bishop, thy servant.  Among them my mother, thy 
handmaid, taking a leading part in those anxieties and vigils, 
lived there in prayer.  And even though we were still not wholly 
melted by the heat of thy Spirit, we were nevertheless excited by 
the alarmed and disturbed city.

     This was the time that the custom began, after the manner of 
the Eastern Church, that hymns and psalms should be sung, so that 
the people would not be worn out with the tedium of lamentation.  
This custom, retained from then till now, has been imitated by 
many, indeed, by almost all thy congregations throughout the rest 
of the world.[288]

     16.  Then by a vision thou madest known to thy renowned 
bishop the spot where lay the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius, 
the martyrs, whom thou hadst preserved uncorrupted for so many 
years in thy secret storehouse, so that thou mightest produce them 
at a fit time to check a woman's fury -- a woman indeed, but also 
a queen!  When they were discovered and dug up and brought with 
due honor to the basilica of Ambrose, as they were borne along the 
road many who were troubled by unclean spirits -- the devils 
confessing themselves -- were healed.  And there was also a 
certain man, a well-known citizen of the city, blind many years, 
who, when he had asked and learned the reason for the people's 
tumultuous joy, rushed out and begged his guide to lead him to the 
place.  When he arrived there, he begged to be permitted to touch 
with his handkerchief the bier of thy saints, whose death is 
precious in thy sight.  When he had done this, and put it to his 
eyes, they were immediately opened.  The fame of all this spread 
abroad; from this thy glory shone more brightly.  And also from 
this the mind of that angry woman, though not enlarged to the 
sanity of a full faith, was nevertheless restrained from the fury 
of persecution.

     Thanks to thee, O my God.  Whence and whither hast thou led 
my memory, that I should confess such things as these to thee -- 
for great as they were, I had forgetfully passed them over?  And 
yet at that time, when the sweet savor of thy ointment was so 
fragrant, I did not run after thee.[289]  Therefore, I wept more 
bitterly as I listened to thy hymns, having so long panted after 
thee.  And now at length I could breathe as much as the space 
allows in this our straw house.[290]

                         CHAPTER VIII 

     17.  Thou, O Lord, who makest men of one mind to dwell in a 
single house, also broughtest Evodius to join our company.  He was 
a young man of our city, who, while serving as a secret service 
agent, was converted to thee and baptized before us.  He had 
relinquished his secular service, and prepared himself for thine.  
We were together, and we were resolved to live together in our 
devout purpose.  

     We cast about for some place where we might be most useful in 
our service to thee, and had planned on going back together to 
Africa.  And when we had got as far as Ostia on the Tiber, my 
mother died.  

     I am passing over many things, for I must hasten.  Receive, O 
my God, my confessions and thanksgiving for the unnumbered things 
about which I am silent.  But I will not omit anything my mind has 
brought back concerning thy handmaid who brought me forth -- in 
her flesh, that I might be born into this world's light, and in 
her heart, that I might be born to life eternal.  I will not speak 
of her gifts, but of thy gift in her; for she neither made herself 
nor trained herself.  Thou didst create her, and neither her 
father nor her mother knew what kind of being was to come forth 
from them.  And it was the rod of thy Christ, the discipline of 
thy only Son, that trained her in thy fear, in the house of one of 
thy faithful ones who was a sound member of thy Church. Yet my 
mother did not attribute this good training of hers as much to the 
diligence of her own mother as to that of a certain elderly 
maidservant who had nursed her father, carrying him around on her 
back, as big girls carried babies.  Because of her long-time 
service and also because of her extreme age and excellent 
character, she was much respected by the heads of that Christian 
household.  The care of her master's daughters was also committed 
to her, and she performed her task with diligence.  She was quite 
earnest in restraining them with a holy severity when necessary 
and instructing them with a sober sagacity.  Thus, except at 
mealtimes at their parents' table -- when they were fed very 
temperately -- she would not allow them to drink even water, 
however parched they were with thirst.  In this way she took 
precautions against an evil custom and added the wholesome advice: 
"You drink water now only because you don't control the wine; but 
when you are married and mistresses of pantry and cellar, you may 
not care for water, but the habit of drinking will be fixed." By 
such a method of instruction, and her authority, she restrained 
the longing of their tender age, and regulated even the thirst of 
the girls to such a decorous control that they no longer wanted 
what they ought not to have.

     18.  And yet, as thy handmaid related to me, her son, there 
had stolen upon her a love of wine.  For, in the ordinary course 
of things, when her parents sent her as a sober maiden to draw 
wine from the cask, she would hold a cup under the tap; and then, 
before she poured the wine into the bottle, she would wet the tips 
of her lips with a little of it, for more than this her taste 
refused.  She did not do this out of any craving for drink, but 
out of the overflowing buoyancy of her time of life, which bubbles 
up with sportiveness and youthful spirits, but is usually borne 
down by the gravity of the old folks.  And so, adding daily a 
little to that little -- for "he that contemns small things shall 
fall by a little here and a little there"[291] -- she slipped into 
such a habit as to drink off eagerly her little cup nearly full of 
wine.

     Where now was that wise old woman and her strict prohibition?  
Could anything prevail against our secret disease if thy medicine, 
O Lord, did not watch over us?  Though father and mother and 
nurturers are absent, thou art present, who dost create, who 
callest, and who also workest some good for our salvation, through 
those who are set over us.  What didst thou do at that time, O my 
God?  How didst thou heal her?  How didst thou make her whole?  
Didst thou not bring forth from another woman's soul a hard and 
bitter insult, like a surgeon's knife from thy secret store, and 
with one thrust drain off all that putrefaction?  For the slave 
girl who used to accompany her to the cellar fell to quarreling 
with her little mistress, as it sometimes happened when she was 
alone with her, and cast in her teeth this vice of hers, along 
with a very bitter insult: calling her "a drunkard." Stung by this 
taunt, my mother saw her own vileness and immediately condemned 
and renounced it.

     As the flattery of friends corrupts, so often do the taunts 
of enemies instruct.  Yet thou repayest them, not for the good 
thou workest through their means, but for the malice they 
intended.  That angry slave girl wanted to infuriate her young 
mistress, not to cure her; and that is why she spoke up when they 
were alone.  Or perhaps it was because their quarrel just happened 
to break out at that time and place; or perhaps she was afraid of 
punishment for having told of it so late.

     But thou, O Lord, ruler of heaven and earth, who changest to 
thy purposes the deepest floods and controls the turbulent tide of 
the ages, thou healest one soul by the unsoundness of another; so 
that no man, when he hears of such a happening, should attribute 
it to his own power if another person whom he wishes to reform is 
reformed through a word of his.

                          CHAPTER IX

     19.  Thus modestly and soberly brought up, she was made 
subject to her parents by thee, rather more than by her parents to 
thee.  She arrived at a marriageable age, and she was given to a 
husband whom she served as her lord.  And she busied herself to 
gain him to thee, preaching thee to him by her behavior, in which 
thou madest her fair and reverently amiable, and admirable to her 
husband.  For she endured with patience his infidelity and never 
had any dissension with her husband on this account.  For she 
waited for thy mercy upon him until, by believing in thee, he 
might become chaste.

     Moreover, even though he was earnest in friendship, he was 
also violent in anger; but she had learned that an angry husband 
should not be resisted, either in deed or in word.  But as soon as 
he had grown calm and was tranquil, and she saw a fitting moment, 
she would give him a reason for her conduct, if he had been 
excited unreasonably.  As a result, while many matrons whose 
husbands were more gentle than hers bore the marks of blows on 
their disfigured faces, and would in private talk blame the 
behavior of their husbands, she would blame their tongues, 
admonishing them seriously -- though in a jesting manner -- that 
from the hour they heard what are called the matrimonial tablets 
read to them, they should think of them as instruments by which 
they were made servants.  So, always being mindful of their 
condition, they ought not to set themselves up in opposition to 
their lords.  And, knowing what a furious, bad-tempered husband 
she endured, they marveled that it had never been rumored, nor was 
there any mark to show, that Patricius had ever beaten his wife, 
or that there had been any domestic strife between them, even for 
a day.  And when they asked her confidentially the reason for 
this, she taught them the rule I have mentioned.  Those who 
observed it confirmed the wisdom of it and rejoiced; those who did 
not observe it were bullied and vexed.

     20.  Even her mother-in-law, who was at first prejudiced 
against her by the whisperings of malicious servants, she 
conquered by submission, persevering in it with patience and 
meekness; with the result that the mother-in-law told her son of 
the tales of the meddling servants which had disturbed the 
domestic peace between herself and her daughter-in-law and begged 
him to punish them for it.  In conformity with his mother's wish, 
and in the interest of family discipline to insure the future 
harmony of its members, he had those servants beaten who were 
pointed out by her who had discovered them; and she promised a 
similar reward to anyone else who, thinking to please her, should 
say anything evil of her daughter-in-law.  After this no one dared 
to do so, and they lived together with a wonderful sweetness of 
mutual good will.

     21.  This other great gift thou also didst bestow, O my God, 
my Mercy, upon that good handmaid of thine, in whose womb thou 
didst create me.  It was that whenever she could she acted as a 
peacemaker between any differing and discordant spirits, and when 
she heard very bitter things on either side of a controversy -- 
the kind of bloated and undigested discord which often belches 
forth bitter words, when crude malice is breathed out by sharp 
tongues to a present friend against an absent enemy -- she would 
disclose nothing about the one to the other except what might 
serve toward their reconciliation.  This might seem a small good 
to me if I did not know to my sorrow countless persons who, 
through the horrid and far-spreading infection of sin, not only 
repeat to enemies mutually enraged things said in passion against 
each other, but also add some things that were never said at all.  
It ought not to be enough in a truly humane man merely not to 
incite or increase the enmities of men by evil-speaking; he ought 
likewise to endeavor by kind words to extinguish them.  Such a one 
was she -- and thou, her most intimate instructor, didst teach her 
in the school of her heart.  

     22.  Finally, her own husband, now toward the end of his 
earthly existence, she won over to thee.  Henceforth, she had no 
cause to complain of unfaithfulness in him, which she had endured 
before he became one of the faithful.  She was also the servant of 
thy servants.  All those who knew her greatly praised, honored, 
and loved thee in her because, through the witness of the fruits 
of a holy life, they recognized thee present in her heart.  For 
she had "been the wife of one man,"[292] had honored her parents, 
had guided her house in piety, was highly reputed for good works, 
and brought up her children, travailing in labor with them as 
often as she saw them swerving from thee.  Lastly, to all of us, O 
Lord -- since of thy favor thou allowest thy servants to speak -- 
to all of us who lived together in that association before her 
death in thee she devoted such care as she might have if she had 
been mother of us all; she served us as if she had been the 
daughter of us all.

                           CHAPTER X

     23.  As the day now approached on which she was to depart 
this life -- a day which thou knewest, but which we did not -- it 
happened (though I believe it was by thy secret ways arranged) 
that she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window from which 
the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen.  Here 
in this place, removed from the crowd, we were resting ourselves 
for the voyage after the fatigues of a long journey.

     We were conversing alone very pleasantly and "forgetting 
those things which are past, and reaching forward toward those 
things which are future."[293]  We were in the present -- and in 
the presence of Truth (which thou art) -- discussing together what 
is the nature of the eternal life of the saints: which eye has not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of 
man.[294]  We opened wide the mouth of our heart, thirsting for 
those supernal streams of thy fountain, "the fountain of life" 
which is with thee,[295] that we might be sprinkled with its 
waters according to our capacity and might in some measure weigh 
the truth of so profound a mystery.

     24.  And when our conversation had brought us to the point 
where the very highest of physical sense and the most intense 
illumination of physical light seemed, in comparison with the 
sweetness of that life to come, not worthy of comparison, nor even 
of mention, we lifted ourselves with a more ardent love toward the 
Selfsame,[296] and we gradually passed through all the levels of 
bodily objects, and even through the heaven itself, where the sun 
and moon and stars shine on the earth.  Indeed, we soared higher 
yet by an inner musing, speaking and marveling at thy works.

     And we came at last to our own minds and went beyond them, 
that we might climb as high as that region of unfailing plenty 
where thou feedest Israel forever with the food of truth, where 
life is that Wisdom by whom all things are made, both which have 
been and which are to be.  Wisdom is not made, but is as she has 
been and forever shall be; for "to have been" and "to be 
hereafter" do not apply to her, but only "to be," because she is 
eternal and "to have been" and "to be hereafter" are not eternal.

     And while we were thus speaking and straining after her, we 
just barely touched her with the whole effort of our hearts.  Then 
with a sigh, leaving the first fruits of the Spirit bound to that 
ecstasy, we returned to the sounds of our own tongue, where the 
spoken word had both beginning and end.[297]  But what is like to 
thy Word, our Lord, who remaineth in himself without becoming old, 
and "makes all things new"[298]? 

     25.  What we said went something like this: "If to any man 
the tumult of the flesh were silenced; and the phantoms of earth 
and waters and air were silenced; and the poles were silent as 
well; indeed, if the very soul grew silent to herself, and went 
beyond herself by not thinking of herself; if fancies and 
imaginary revelations were silenced; if every tongue and every 
sign and every transient thing -- for actually if any man could 
hear them, all these would say, 'We did not create ourselves, but 
were created by Him who abides forever' -- and if, having uttered 
this, they too should be silent, having stirred our ears to hear 
him who created them; and if then he alone spoke, not through them 
but by himself, that we might hear his word, not in fleshly tongue 
or angelic voice, nor sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a 
parable, but might hear him -- him for whose sake we love these 
things -- if we could hear him without these, as we two now 
strained ourselves to do, we then with rapid thought might touch 
on that Eternal Wisdom which abides over all.  And if this could 
be sustained, and other visions of a far different kind be taken 
away, and this one should so ravish and absorb and envelop its 
beholder in these inward joys that his life might be eternally 
like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after -- 
would not _this_ be the reality of the saying, 'Enter into the joy 
of thy Lord'[299]?  But when shall such a thing be?  Shall it not 
be 'when we all shall rise again,' and shall it not be that 'all 
things will be changed'[300]?"

     26.  Such a thought I was expressing, and if not in this 
manner and in these words, still, O Lord, thou knowest that on 
that day we were talking thus and that this world, with all its 
joys, seemed cheap to us even as we spoke.  Then my mother said: 
"Son, for myself I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this 
life.  Now that my hopes in this world are satisfied, I do not 
know what more I want here or why I am here.  There was indeed one 
thing for which I wished to tarry a little in this life, and that 
was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died.  My 
God hath answered this more than abundantly, so that I see you now 
made his servant and spurning all earthly happiness.  What more am 
I to do here?"

                          CHAPTER XI

     27.  I do not well remember what reply I made to her about 
this.  However, it was scarcely five days later -- certainly not 
much more -- that she was prostrated by fever.  While she was 
sick, she fainted one day and was for a short time quite 
unconscious.  We hurried to her, and when she soon regained her 
senses, she looked at me and my brother[301] as we stood by her, 
and said, in inquiry, "Where was I?"  Then looking intently at us, 
dumb in our grief, she said, "Here in this place shall you bury 
your mother." I was silent and held back my tears; but my brother 
said something, wishing her the happier lot of dying in her own 
country and not abroad.  When she heard this, she fixed him with 
her eye and an anxious countenance, because he savored of such 
earthly concerns, and then gazing at me she said, "See how he 
speaks." Soon after, she said to us both: "Lay this body anywhere, 
and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all.  Only 
this I ask: that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, 
wherever you are." And when she had expressed her wish in such 
words as she could, she fell silent, in heavy pain with her 
increasing sickness.

     28.  But as I thought about thy gifts, O invisible God, which 
thou plantest in the heart of thy faithful ones, from which such 
marvelous fruits spring up, I rejoiced and gave thanks to thee, 
remembering what I had known of how she had always been much 
concerned about her burial place, which she had provided and 
prepared for herself by the body of her husband.  For as they had 
lived very peacefully together, her desire had always been -- so 
little is the human mind capable of grasping things divine -- that 
this last should be added to all that happiness, and commented on 
by others: that, after her pilgrimage beyond the sea, it would be 
granted her that the two of them, so united on earth, should lie 
in the same grave.

     When this vanity, through the bounty of thy goodness, had 
begun to be no longer in her heart, I do not know; but I joyfully 
marveled at what she had thus disclosed to me -- though indeed in 
our conversation in the window, when she said, "What is there here 
for me to do any more?"  she appeared not to desire to die in her 
own country.  I heard later on that, during our stay in Ostia, she 
had been talking in maternal confidence to some of my friends 
about her contempt of this life and the blessing of death.  When 
they were amazed at the courage which was given her, a woman, and 
had asked her whether she did not dread having her body buried so 
far from her own city, she replied: "Nothing is far from God.  I 
do not fear that, at the end of time, he should not know the place 
whence he is to resurrect me." And so on the ninth day of her 
sickness, in the fifty-sixth year of her life and the thirty-third 
of mine,[302] that religious and devout soul was set loose from 
the body.

                          CHAPTER XII

     29.  I closed her eyes; and there flowed in a great sadness 
on my heart and it was passing into tears, when at the strong 
behest of my mind my eyes sucked back the fountain dry, and sorrow 
was in me like a convulsion.  As soon as she breathed her last, 
the boy Adeodatus burst out wailing; but he was checked by us all, 
and became quiet.  Likewise, my own childish feeling which was, 
through the youthful voice of my heart, seeking escape in tears, 
was held back and silenced.  For we did not consider it fitting to 
celebrate that death with tearful wails and groanings.  This is 
the way those who die unhappy or are altogether dead are usually 
mourned.  But she neither died unhappy nor did she altogether 
die.[303]  For of this we were assured by the witness of her good 
life, her "faith unfeigned,"[304] and other manifest evidence.

     30.  What was it, then, that hurt me so grievously in my 
heart except the newly made wound, caused from having the sweet 
and dear habit of living together with her suddenly broken?  I was 
full of joy because of her testimony in her last illness, when she 
praised my dutiful attention and called me kind, and recalled with 
great affection of love that she had never heard any harsh or 
reproachful sound from my mouth against her.  But yet, O my God 
who made us, how can that honor I paid her be compared with her 
service to me?  I was then left destitute of a great comfort in 
her, and my soul was stricken; and that life was torn apart, as it 
were, which had been made but one out of hers and mine 
together.[305]

     31.  When the boy was restrained from weeping, Evodius took 
up the Psalter and began to sing, with the whole household 
responding, the psalm, "I will sing of mercy and judgment unto 
thee, O Lord."[306]  And when they heard what we were doing, many 
of the brethren and religious women came together.  And while 
those whose office it was to prepare for the funeral went about 
their task according to custom, I discoursed in another part of 
the house, with those who thought I should not be left alone, on 
what was appropriate to the occasion.  By this balm of truth, I 
softened the anguish known to thee.  They were unconscious of it 
and listened intently and thought me free of any sense of sorrow.  
But in thy ears, where none of them heard, I reproached myself for 
the mildness of my feelings, and restrained the flow of my grief 
which bowed a little to my will.  The paroxysm returned again, and 
I knew what I repressed in my heart, even though it did not make 
me burst forth into tears or even change my countenance; and I was 
greatly annoyed that these human things had such power over me, 
which in the due order and destiny of our natural condition must 
of necessity happen.  And so with a new sorrow I sorrowed for my 
sorrow and was wasted with a twofold sadness.

     32.  So, when the body was carried forth, we both went and 
returned without tears.  For neither in those prayers which we 
poured forth to thee, when the sacrifice of our redemption was 
offered up to thee for her -- with the body placed by the side of 
the grave as the custom is there, before it is lowered down into 
it -- neither in those prayers did I weep.  But I was most 
grievously sad in secret all the day, and with a troubled mind 
entreated thee, as I could, to heal my sorrow; but thou didst not.  
I now believe that thou wast fixing in my memory, by this one 
lesson, the power of the bonds of all habit, even on a mind which 
now no longer feeds upon deception.  It then occurred to me that 
it would be a good thing to go and bathe, for I had heard that the 
word for bath [balneum] took its name from the Greek balaneion, 
because it washes anxiety from the mind.  Now see, this also I 
confess to thy mercy, "O Father of the fatherless"[307]: I bathed 
and felt the same as I had done before.  For the bitterness of my 
grief was not sweated from my heart.

     Then I slept, and when I awoke I found my grief not a little 
assuaged.  And as I lay there on my bed, those true verses of 
Ambrose came to my mind, for thou art truly,

          "Deus, creator omnium, 

     Polique rector, vestiens 

     Diem decoro lumine, 

     Noctem sopora gratia; 

          Artus solutos ut quies 

     Reddat laboris usui 

     Mentesque fessas allevet, 

     Luctusque solvat anxios."

     "O God, Creator of us all, 

     Guiding the orbs celestial, 

     Clothing the day with lovely light, 

     Appointing gracious sleep by night:

     Thy grace our wearied limbs restore

     To strengthened labor, as before,

     And ease the grief of tired minds

     From that deep torment which it finds."[308]

     33.  And then, little by little, there came back to me my 
former memories of thy handmaid: her devout life toward thee, her 
holy tenderness and attentiveness toward us, which had suddenly 
been taken away from me -- and it was a solace for me to weep in 
thy sight, for her and for myself, about her and about myself.  
Thus I set free the tears which before I repressed, that they 
might flow at will, spreading them out as a pillow beneath my 
heart.  And it rested on them, for thy ears were near me -- not 
those of a man, who would have made a scornful comment about my 
weeping.  But now in writing I confess it to thee, O Lord!  Read 
it who will, and comment how he will, and if he finds me to have 
sinned in weeping for my mother for part of an hour -- that mother 
who was for a while dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept 
for me that I might live in thy eyes -- let him not laugh at me; 
but if he be a man of generous love, let him weep for my sins 
against thee, the Father of all the brethren of thy Christ.

                         CHAPTER XIII

     34.  Now that my heart is healed of that wound -- so far as 
it can be charged against me as a carnal affection -- I pour out 
to thee, O our God, on behalf of thy handmaid, tears of a very 
different sort: those which flow from a spirit broken by the 
thoughts of the dangers of every soul that dies in Adam.  And 
while she had been "made alive" in Christ[309] even before she was 
freed from the flesh, and had so lived as to praise thy name both 
by her faith and by her life, yet I would not dare say that from 
the time thou didst regenerate her by baptism no word came out of 
her mouth against thy precepts.  But it has been declared by thy 
Son, the Truth, that "whosoever shall say to his brother, You 
fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire."[310]  And there would be 
doom even for the life of a praiseworthy man if thou judgedst it 
with thy mercy set aside.  But since thou dost not so stringently 
inquire after our sins, we hope with confidence to find some place 
in thy presence.  But whoever recounts his actual and true merits 
to thee, what is he doing but recounting to thee thy own gifts?  
Oh, if only men would know themselves as men, then "he that 
glories" would "glory in the Lord"[311]!

     35.  Thus now, O my Praise and my Life, O God of my heart, 
forgetting for a little her good deeds for which I give joyful 
thanks to thee, I now beseech thee for the sins of my mother.  
Hearken unto me, through that Medicine of our wounds, who didst 
hang upon the tree and who sittest at thy right hand "making 
intercession for us."[312]  I know that she acted in mercy, and 
from the heart forgave her debtors their debts.[313]  I beseech 
thee also to forgive her debts, whatever she contracted during so 
many years since the water of salvation.  Forgive her, O Lord, 
forgive her, I beseech thee; "enter not into judgment" with 
her.[314]  Let thy mercy be exalted above thy justice, for thy 
words are true and thou hast promised mercy to the merciful, that 
the merciful shall obtain mercy.[315]  This is thy gift, who hast 
mercy on whom thou wilt and who wilt have compassion on whom thou 
dost have compassion on.[316]

     36.  Indeed, I believe thou hast already done what I ask of 
thee, but "accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, O 
Lord."[317]  For when the day of her dissolution was so close, she 
took no thought to have her body sumptuously wrapped or embalmed 
with spices.  Nor did she covet a handsome monument, or even care 
to be buried in her own country.  About these things she gave no 
commands at all, but only desired to have her name remembered at 
thy altar, where she had served without the omission of a single 
day, and where she knew that the holy sacrifice was dispensed by 
which that handwriting that was against us is blotted out; and 
that enemy vanquished who, when he summed up our offenses and 
searched for something to bring against us, could find nothing in 
Him, in whom we conquer.

     Who will restore to him the innocent blood?  Who will repay 
him the price with which he bought us, so as to take us from him?  
Thus to the sacrament of our redemption did thy hand maid bind her 
soul by the bond of faith.  Let none separate her from thy 
protection.  Let not the "lion" and "dragon" bar her way by force 
or fraud.  For she will not reply that she owes nothing, lest she 
be convicted and duped by that cunning deceiver.  Rather, she will 
answer that her sins are forgiven by Him to whom no one is able to 
repay the price which he, who owed us nothing, laid down for us 
all.  

     37.  Therefore, let her rest in peace with her husband, 
before and after whom she was married to no other man; whom she 
obeyed with patience, bringing fruit to thee that she might also 
win him for thee.  And inspire, O my Lord my God, inspire thy 
servants, my brothers; thy sons, my masters, who with voice and 
heart and writings I serve, that as many of them as shall read 
these confessions may also at thy altar remember Monica, thy 
handmaid, together with Patricius, once her husband; by whose 
flesh thou didst bring me into this life, in a manner I know not.  
May they with pious affection remember my parents in this 
transitory life, and remember my brothers under thee our Father in 
our Catholic mother; and remember my fellow citizens in the 
eternal Jerusalem, for which thy people sigh in their pilgrimage 
from birth until their return.  So be fulfilled what my mother 
desired of me -- more richly in the prayers of so many gained for 
her through these confessions of mine than by my prayers alone.  

                          BOOK TEN

     From autobiography to self-analysis.  Augustine turns from 
his memories of the past to the inner mysteries of memory itself.  
In doing so, he reviews his motives for these written 
"confessions," and seeks to chart the path by which men come to 
God.  But this brings him into the intricate analysis of memory 
and its relation to the self and its powers.  This done, he 
explores the meaning and mode of true prayer.  In conclusion, he 
undertakes a detailed analysis of appetite and the temptations to 
which the flesh and the soul are heirs, and comes finally to see 
how necessary and right it was for the Mediator between God and 
man to have been the God-Man.  

                           CHAPTER I

     1.  Let me know thee, O my Knower; let me know thee even as I 
am known.[318]  O Strength of my soul, enter it and prepare it for 
thyself that thou mayest have and hold it, without "spot or 
blemish."[319]  This is my hope, therefore have I spoken; and in 
this hope I rejoice whenever I rejoice aright.  But as for the 
other things of this life, they deserve our lamentations less, the 
more we lament them; and some should be lamented all the more, the 
less men care for them.  For see, "Thou desirest truth"[320] and 
"he who does the truth comes to the light."[321]  This is what I 
wish to do through confession in my heart before thee, and in my 
writings before many witnesses.

                          CHAPTER II

     2.  And what is there in me that could be hidden from thee, 
Lord, to whose eyes the abysses of man's conscience are naked, 
even if I were unwilling to confess it to thee?  In doing so I 
would only hide thee from myself, not myself from thee.  But now 
that my groaning is witness to the fact that I am dissatisfied 
with myself, thou shinest forth and satisfiest.  Thou art beloved 
and desired; so that I blush for myself, and renounce myself and 
choose thee, for I can neither please thee nor myself except in 
thee.  To thee, then, O Lord, I am laid bare, whatever I am, and I 
have already said with what profit I may confess to thee.  I do 
not do it with words and sounds of the flesh but with the words of 
the soul, and with the sound of my thoughts, which thy ear knows.  
For when I am wicked, to confess to thee means nothing less than 
to be dissatisfied with myself; but when I am truly devout, it 
means nothing less than not to attribute my virtue to myself; 
because thou, O Lord, blessest the righteous, but first thou 
justifiest him while he is yet ungodly.  My confession therefore, 
O my God, is made unto thee silently in thy sight -- and yet not 
silently.  As far as sound is concerned, it is silent.  But in 
strong affection it cries aloud.  For neither do I give voice to 
something that sounds right to men, which thou hast not heard from 
me before, nor dost thou hear anything of the kind from me which 
thou didst not first say to me.

                          CHAPTER III

     3.  What is it to me that men should hear my confessions as 
if it were they who were going to cure all my infirmities?  People 
are curious to know the lives of others, but slow to correct their 
own.  Why are they anxious to hear from me what I am, when they 
are unwilling to hear from thee what they are?  And how can they 
tell when they hear what I say about myself whether I speak the 
truth, since no man knows what is in a man "save the spirit of man 
which is in him"[322]?  But if they were to hear from thee 
something concerning themselves, they would not be able to say, 
"The Lord is lying." For what does it mean to hear from thee about 
themselves but to know themselves?  And who is he that knows 
himself and says, "This is false," unless he himself is lying?  
But, because "love believes all things"[323] -- at least among 
those who are bound together in love by its bonds -- I confess to 
thee, O Lord, so that men may also hear; for if I cannot prove to 
them that I confess the truth, yet those whose ears love opens to 
me will believe me.

     4.  But wilt thou, O my inner Physician, make clear to me 
what profit I am to gain in doing this?  For the confessions of my 
past sins (which thou hast "forgiven and covered"[324] that thou 
mightest make me blessed in thee, transforming my soul by faith 
and thy sacrament), when _they_ are read and heard, may stir up 
the heart so that it will stop dozing along in despair, saying, "I 
cannot"; but will instead awake in the love of thy mercy and the 
sweetness of thy grace, by which he that is weak is strong, 
provided he is made conscious of his own weakness.  And it will 
please those who are good to hear about the past errors of those 
who are now freed from them.  And they will take delight, not 
because they are errors, but because they were and are so no 
longer.  What profit, then, O Lord my God -- to whom my conscience 
makes her daily confession, far more confident in the hope of thy 
mercy than in her own innocence -- what profit is there, I ask 
thee, in confessing to men in thy presence, through this book, 
both what I am now as well as what I have been?  For I have seen 
and spoken of my harvest of things past.  But what am I _now_, at 
this very moment of making my confessions?  Many different people 
desire to know, both those who know me and those who do not know 
me.  Some have heard about me or from me, but their ear is not 
close to my heart, where I am whatever it is that I am.  They have 
the desire to hear me confess what I am within, where they can 
neither extend eye nor ear nor mind.  They desire as those willing 
to believe -- but will they understand?  For the love by which 
they are good tells them that I am not lying in my confessions, 
and the love in them believes me.

                          CHAPTER IV

     5.  But for what profit do they desire this?  Will they wish 
me happiness when they learn how near I have approached thee, by 
thy gifts?  And will they pray for me when they learn how much I 
am still kept back by my own weight?  To such as these I will 
declare myself.  For it is no small profit, O Lord my God, that 
many people should give thanks to thee on my account and that many 
should entreat thee for my sake.  Let the brotherly soul love in 
me what thou teachest him should be loved, and let him lament in 
me what thou teachest him should be lamented.  Let it be the soul 
of a brother that does this, and not a stranger -- not one of 
those "strange children, whose mouth speaks vanity, and whose 
right hand is the right hand of falsehood."[325]  But let my 
brother do it who, when he approves of me, rejoices for me, but 
when he disapproves of me is sorry for me; because whether he 
approves or disapproves, he loves me.  To such I will declare 
myself.  Let them be refreshed by my good deeds and sigh over my 
evil ones.  My good deeds are thy acts and thy gifts; my evil ones 
are my own faults and thy judgment.  Let them breathe expansively 
at the one and sigh over the other.  And let hymns and tears 
ascend in thy sight out of their brotherly hearts -- which are thy 
censers.[326]  And, O Lord, who takest delight in the incense of 
thy holy temple, have mercy upon me according to thy great mercy, 
for thy name's sake.  And do not, on any account whatever, abandon 
what thou hast begun in me.  Go on, rather, to complete what is 
yet imperfect in me.

     6.  This, then, is the fruit of my confessions (not of what I 
was, but of what I am), that I may not confess this before thee 
alone, in a secret exultation with trembling and a secret sorrow 
with hope, but also in the ears of the believing sons of men -- 
who are the companions of my joy and sharers of my mortality, my 
fellow citizens and fellow pilgrims -- those who have gone before 
and those who are to follow after, as well as the comrades of my 
present way.  These are thy servants, my brothers, whom thou 
desirest to be thy sons.  They are my masters, whom thou hast 
commanded me to serve if I desire to live with and in thee.  But 
this thy Word would mean little to me if it commanded in words 
alone, without thy prevenient action.  I do this, then, both in 
act and word.  I do this under thy wings, in a danger too great to 
risk if it were not that under thy wings my soul is subject to 
thee, and my weakness known to thee.  I am insufficient, but my 
Father liveth forever, and my Defender is sufficient for me.  For 
he is the Selfsame who didst beget me and who watcheth over me; 
thou art the Selfsame who art all my good.  Thou art the 
Omnipotent, who art with me, even before I am with thee.  To 
those, therefore, whom thou commandest me to serve, I will 
declare, not what I was, but what I now am and what I will 
continue to be.  But I do not judge myself.  Thus, therefore, let 
me be heard.

                           CHAPTER V

     7.  For it is thou, O Lord, who judgest me.  For although no 
man "knows the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which 
is in him,"[327] yet there is something of man which "the spirit 
of the man which is in him" does not know itself.  But thou, O 
Lord, who madest him, knowest him completely.  And even I -- 
though in thy sight I despise myself and count myself but dust and 
ashes -- even I know something about thee which I do not know 
about myself.  And it is certain that "now we see through a glass 
darkly," not yet "face to face."[328]  Therefore, as long as I 
journey away from thee, I am more present with myself than with 
thee.  I know that thou canst not suffer violence, but I myself do 
not know what temptations I can resist, and what I cannot.  But 
there is hope, because thou art faithful and thou wilt not allow 
us to be tempted beyond our ability to resist, but wilt with the 
temptation also make a way of escape that we may be able to bear 
it.  I would therefore confess what I know about myself; I will 
also confess what I do not know about myself.  What I do know of 
myself, I know from thy enlightening of me; and what I do not know 
of myself, I will continue not to know until the time when my 
"darkness is as the noonday"[329] in thy sight.

                          CHAPTER VI

     8.  It is not with a doubtful consciousness, but one fully 
certain that I love thee, O Lord.  Thou hast smitten my heart with 
thy Word, and I have loved thee.  And see also the heaven, and 
earth, and all that is in them -- on every side they tell me to 
love thee, and they do not cease to tell this to all men, "so that 
they are without excuse."[330]  Wherefore, still more deeply wilt 
thou have mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy, and compassion on 
whom thou wilt have compassion.[331]  For otherwise, both heaven 
and earth would tell abroad thy praises to deaf ears.

     But what is it that I love in loving thee?  Not physical 
beauty, nor the splendor of time, nor the radiance of the light -- 
so pleasant to our eyes -- nor the sweet melodies of the various 
kinds of songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments 
and spices; not manna and honey, not the limbs embraced in 
physical love -- it is not these I love when I love my God.  Yet 
it is true that I love a certain kind of light and sound and 
fragrance and food and embrace in loving my God, who is the light 
and sound and fragrance and food and embracement of my inner man 
-- where that light shines into my soul which no place can 
contain, where time does not snatch away the lovely sound, where 
no breeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where no eating 
diminishes the food there provided, and where there is an embrace 
that no satiety comes to sunder.  This is what I love when I love 
my God.

     9.  And what is this God?  I asked the earth, and it 
answered, "I am not he"; and everything in the earth made the same 
confession.  I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping 
things, and they replied, "We are not your God; seek above us." I 
asked the fleeting winds, and the whole air with its inhabitants 
answered, "Anaximenes[332] was deceived; I am not God." I asked 
the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars; and they answered, "Neither 
are we the God whom you seek." And I replied to all these things 
which stand around the door of my flesh: "You have told me about 
my God, that you are not he.  Tell me something about him." And 
with a loud voice they all cried out, "He made us." My question 
had come from my observation of them, and their reply came from 
their beauty of order.  And I turned my thoughts into myself and 
said, "Who are you?"  And I answered, "A man." For see, there is 
in me both a body and a soul; the one without, the other within.  
In which of these should I have sought my God, whom I had already 
sought with my body from earth to heaven, as far as I was able to 
send those messengers -- the beams of my eyes?  But the inner part 
is the better part; for to it, as both ruler and judge, all these 
messengers of the senses report the answers of heaven and earth 
and all the things therein, who said, "We are not God, but he made 
us." My inner man knew these things through the ministry of the 
outer man, and I, the inner man, knew all this -- I, the soul, 
through the senses of my body.[333]  I asked the whole frame of 
earth about my God, and it answered, "I am not he, but he made 
me."

     10.  Is not this beauty of form visible to all whose senses 
are unimpaired?  Why, then, does it not say the same things to 
all?  Animals, both small and great, see it but they are unable to 
interrogate its meaning, because their senses are not endowed with 
the reason that would enable them to judge the evidence which the 
senses report.  But man can interrogate it, so that "the invisible 
things of him . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made."[334]  But men love these created things too 
much; they are brought into subjection to them -- and, as 
subjects, are not able to judge.  None of these created things 
reply to their questioners unless they can make rational 
judgments.  The creatures will not alter their voice -- that is, 
their beauty of form -- if one man simply sees what another both 
sees and questions, so that the world appears one way to this man 
and another to that.  It appears the same way to both; but it is 
mute to this one and it speaks to that one.  Indeed, it actually 
speaks to all, but only they understand it who compare the voice 
received from without with the truth within.  For the truth says 
to me, "Neither heaven nor earth nor anybody is your God." Their 
very nature tells this to the one who beholds[335] them.  "They 
are a mass, less in part than the whole." Now, O my soul, you are 
my better part, and to you I speak; since you animate the whole 
mass of your body, giving it life, whereas no body furnishes life 
to a body.  But your God is the life of your life.

                          CHAPTER VII

     11.  What is it, then, that I love when I love my God?  Who 
is he that is beyond the topmost point of my soul?  Yet by this 
very soul will I mount up to him.  I will soar beyond that power 
of mine by which I am united to the body, and by which the whole 
structure of it is filled with life.  Yet it is not by that vital 
power that I find my God.  For then "the horse and the mule, that 
have no understanding,"[336] also might find him, since they have 
the same vital power, by which their bodies also live.  But there 
is, besides the power by which I animate my body, another by which 
I endow my flesh with sense -- a power that the Lord hath provided 
for me; commanding that the eye is not to hear and the ear is not 
to see, but that I am to see by the eye and to hear by the ear; 
and giving to each of the other senses its own proper place and 
function, through the diversity of which I, the single mind, act.  
I will soar also beyond this power of mine, for the horse and mule 
have this too, for they also perceive through their bodily senses.

                         CHAPTER VIII

     12.  I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, 
still rising by degrees toward him who made me.  And I enter the 
fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures 
the countless images that have been brought into them from all 
manner of things by the senses.  There, in the memory, is likewise 
stored what we cogitate, either by enlarging or reducing our 
perceptions, or by altering one way or another those things which 
the senses have made contact with; and everything else that has 
been entrusted to it and stored up in it, which oblivion has not 
yet swallowed up and buried.

     When I go into this storehouse, I ask that what I want should 
be brought forth.  Some things appear immediately, but others 
require to be searched for longer, and then dragged out, as it 
were, from some hidden recess.  Other things hurry forth in 
crowds, on the other hand, and while something else is sought and 
inquired for, they leap into view as if to say, "Is it not we, 
perhaps?"  These I brush away with the hand of my heart from the 
face of my memory, until finally the thing I want makes its 
appearance out of its secret cell.  Some things suggest themselves 
without effort, and in continuous order, just as they are called 
for -- the things that come first give place to those that follow, 
and in so doing are treasured up again to be forthcoming when I 
want them.  All of this happens when I repeat a thing from memory.

     13.  All these things, each one of which came into memory in 
its own particular way, are stored up separately and under the 
general categories of understanding.  For example, light and all 
colors and forms of bodies came in through the eyes; sounds of all 
kinds by the ears; all smells by the passages of the nostrils; all 
flavors by the gate of the mouth; by the sensation of the whole 
body, there is brought in what is hard or soft, hot or cold, 
smooth or rough, heavy or light, whether external or internal to 
the body.  The vast cave of memory, with its numerous and 
mysterious recesses, receives all these things and stores them up, 
to be recalled and brought forth when required.  Each experience 
enters by its own door, and is stored up in the memory.  And yet 
the things themselves do not enter it, but only the images of the 
things perceived are there for thought to remember.  And who can 
tell how these images are formed, even if it is evident which of 
the senses brought which perception in and stored it up?  For even 
when I am in darkness and silence I can bring out colors in my 
memory if I wish, and discern between black and white and the 
other shades as I wish; and at the same time, sounds do not break 
in and disturb what is drawn in by my eyes, and which I am 
considering, because the sounds which are also there are stored 
up, as it were, apart.  And these too I can summon if I please and 
they are immediately present in memory.  And though my tongue is 
at rest and my throat silent, yet I can sing as I will; and those 
images of color, which are as truly present as before, do not 
interpose themselves or interrupt while another treasure which had 
flowed in through the ears is being thought about.  Similarly all 
the other things that were brought in and heaped up by all the 
other senses, I can recall at my pleasure.  And I distinguish the 
scent of lilies from that of violets while actually smelling 
nothing; and I prefer honey to mead, a smooth thing to a rough, 
even though I am neither tasting nor handling them, but only 
remembering them.  

     14.  All this I do within myself, in that huge hall of my 
memory.  For in it, heaven, earth, and sea are present to me, and 
whatever I can cogitate about them -- except what I have 
forgotten.  There also I meet myself and recall myself[337] -- 
what, when, or where I did a thing, and how I felt when I did it.  
There are all the things that I remember, either having 
experienced them myself or been told about them by others.  Out of 
the same storehouse, with these past impressions, I can construct 
now this, now that, image of things that I either have experienced 
or have believed on the basis of experience -- and from these I 
can further construct future actions, events, and hopes; and I can 
meditate on all these things as if they were present.  "I will do 
this or that" -- I say to myself in that vast recess of my mind, 
with its full store of so many and such great images -- "and this 
or that will follow upon it." "O that this or that could happen!" 
"God prevent this or that." I speak to myself in this way; and 
when I speak, the images of what I am speaking about are present 
out of the same store of memory; and if the images were absent I 
could say nothing at all about them.

     15.  Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my 
God -- a large and boundless inner hall!  Who has plumbed the 
depths of it?  Yet it is a power of my mind, and it belongs to my 
nature.  But I do not myself grasp all that I am.  Thus the mind 
is far too narrow to contain itself.  But where can that part of 
it be which it does not contain?  Is it outside and not in itself?  
How can it be, then, that the mind cannot grasp itself?  A great 
marvel rises in me; astonishment seizes me.  Men go forth to 
marvel at the heights of mountains and the huge waves of the sea, 
the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the 
orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves.  
Nor do they wonder how it is that, when I spoke of all these 
things, I was not looking at them with my eyes -- and yet I could 
not have spoken about them had it not been that I was actually 
seeing within, in my memory, those mountains and waves and rivers 
and stars which I have seen, and that ocean which I believe in -- 
and with the same vast spaces between them as when I saw them 
outside me.  But when I saw them outside me, I did not take them 
into me by seeing them; and the things themselves are not inside 
me, but only their images.  And yet I knew through which physical 
sense each experience had made an impression on me.

                          CHAPTER IX

     16.  And yet this is not all that the unlimited capacity of 
my memory stores up.  In memory, there are also all that one has 
learned of the liberal sciences, and has not forgotten -- removed 
still further, so to say, into an inner place which is not a 
place.  Of these things it is not the images that are retained, 
but the things themselves.  For what literature and logic are, and 
what I know about how many different kinds of questions there are 
-- all these are stored in my memory as they are, so that I have 
not taken in the image and left the thing outside.  It is not as 
though a sound had sounded and passed away like a voice heard by 
the ear which leaves a trace by which it can be called into memory 
again, as if it were still sounding in mind while it did so no 
longer outside.  Nor is it the same as an odor which, even after 
it has passed and vanished into the wind, affects the sense of 
smell -- which then conveys into the memory the _image_ of the 
smell which is what we recall and re-create; or like food which, 
once in the belly, surely now has no taste and yet does have a 
kind of taste in the memory; or like anything that is felt by the 
body through the sense of touch, which still remains as an image 
in the memory after the external object is removed.  For these 
things themselves are not put into the memory.  Only the images of 
them are gathered with a marvelous quickness and stored, as it 
were, in the most wonderful filing system, and are thence produced 
in a marvelous way by the act of remembering.

                           CHAPTER X

     17.  But now when I hear that there are three kinds of 
questions -- "Whether a thing is?  What it is?  Of what kind it 
is?" -- I do indeed retain the images of the sounds of which these 
words are composed and I know that those sounds pass through the 
air with a noise and now no longer exist.  But the things 
themselves which were signified by those sounds I never could 
reach by any sense of the body nor see them at all except by my 
mind.  And what I have stored in my memory was not their signs, 
but the things signified.

     How they got into me, let them tell who can.  For I examine 
all the gates of my flesh, but I cannot find the door by which any 
of them entered.  For the eyes say, "If they were colored, we 
reported that." The ears say, "If they gave any sound, we gave 
notice of that." The nostrils say, "If they smell, they passed in 
by us." The sense of taste says, "If they have no flavor, don't 
ask me about them." The sense of touch says, "If it had no bodily 
mass, I did not touch it, and if I never touched it, I gave no 
report about it."

     Whence and how did these things enter into my memory?  I do 
not know.  For when I first learned them, it was not that I 
believed them on the credit of another man's mind, but I 
recognized them in my own; and I saw them as true, took them into 
my mind and laid them up, so to say, where I could get at them 
again whenever I willed.  There they were, then, even before I 
learned them, but they were not in my memory.  Where were they, 
then?  How does it come about that when they were spoken of, I 
could acknowledge them and say, "So it is, it is true," unless 
they were already in the memory, though far back and hidden, as it 
were, in the more secret caves, so that unless they had been drawn 
out by the teaching of another person, I should perhaps never have 
been able to think of them at all? 

                          CHAPTER XI

     18.  Thus we find that learning those things whose images we 
do not take in by our senses, but which we intuit within ourselves 
without images and as they actually are, is nothing else except 
the gathering together of those same things which the memory 
already contains -- but in an indiscriminate and confused manner 
-- and putting them together by careful observation as they are at 
hand in the memory; so that whereas they formerly lay hidden, 
scattered, or neglected, they now come easily to present 
themselves to the mind which is now familiar with them.  And how 
many things of this sort my memory has stored up, which have 
already been discovered and, as I said, laid up for ready 
reference.  These are the things we may be said to have learned 
and to know.  Yet, if I cease to recall them even for short 
intervals of time, they are again so submerged -- and slide back, 
as it were, into the further reaches of the memory -- that they 
must be drawn out again as if new from the same place (for there 
is nowhere else for them to have gone) and must be collected 
[cogenda] so that they can become known.  In other words, they 
must be gathered up [colligenda] from their dispersion.  This is 
where we get the word cogitate [cogitare].  For cogo [collect] and 
cogito [to go on collecting] have the same relation to each other 
as ago [do] and agito [do frequently], and facio [make] and 
factito [make frequently].  But the mind has properly laid claim 
to this word [cogitate] so that not everything that is gathered 
together anywhere, but only what is collected and gathered 
together in the mind, is properly said to be "cogitated."

                          CHAPTER XII

     19.  The memory also contains the principles and the 
unnumbered laws of numbers and dimensions.  None of these has been 
impressed on the memory by a physical sense, because they have 
neither color nor sound, nor taste, nor sense of touch. I have 
heard the sound of the words by which these things are signified 
when they are discussed: but the sounds are one thing, the things 
another.  For the sounds are one thing in Greek, another in Latin; 
but the things themselves are neither Greek nor Latin nor any 
other language.  I have seen the lines of the craftsmen, the 
finest of which are like a spider's web, but mathematical lines 
are different.  They are not the images of such things as the eye 
of my body has showed me.  The man who knows them does so without 
any cogitation of physical objects whatever, but intuits them 
within himself.  I have perceived with all the senses of my body 
the numbers we use in counting; but the numbers by which we count 
are far different from these.  They are not the images of these; 
they simply are.  Let the man who does not see these things mock 
me for saying them; and I will pity him while he laughs at me.

                         CHAPTER XIII

     20.  All these things I hold in my memory, and I remember how 
I learned them.  I also remember many things that I have heard 
quite falsely urged against them, which, even if they are false, 
yet it is not false that I have remembered them.  And I also 
remember that I have distinguished between the truths and the 
false objections, and now I see that it is one thing to 
distinguish these things and another to remember that I did 
distinguish them when I have cogitated on them.  I remember, then, 
both that I have often understood these things and also that I am 
now storing away in my memory what I distinguish and comprehend of 
them so that later on I may remember just as I understand them 
now.  Therefore, I remember that I remembered, so that if 
afterward I call to mind that I once was able to remember these 
things it will be through the power of memory that I recall it.

                          CHAPTER XIV

     21.  This same memory also contains the feelings of my mind; 
not in the manner in which the mind itself experienced them, but 
very differently according to a power peculiar to memory.  For 
without being joyous now, I can remember that I once was joyous, 
and without being sad, I can recall my past sadness.  I can 
remember past fears without fear, and former desires without 
desire.  Again, the contrary happens.  Sometimes when I am joyous 
I remember my past sadness, and when sad, remember past joy.

     This is not to be marveled at as far as the body is 
concerned; for the mind is one thing and the body another.[338]  
If, therefore, when I am happy, I recall some past bodily pain, it 
is not so strange.  But even as this memory is experienced, it is 
identical with the mind -- as when we tell someone to remember 
something we say, "See that you bear this in mind"; and when we 
forget a thing, we say, "It did not enter my mind" or "It slipped 
my mind." Thus we call memory itself mind.

     Since this is so, how does it happen that when I am joyful I 
can still remember past sorrow?  Thus the mind has joy, and the 
memory has sorrow; and the mind is joyful from the joy that is in 
it, yet the memory is not sad from the sadness that is in it.  Is 
it possible that the memory does not belong to the mind?  Who will 
say so?  The memory doubtless is, so to say, the belly of the 
mind: and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food, which 
when they are committed to the memory are, so to say, passed into 
the belly where they can be stored but no longer tasted.  It is 
ridiculous to consider this an analogy; yet they are not utterly 
unlike.

     22.  But look, it is from my memory that I produce it when I 
say that there are four basic emotions of the mind: desire, joy, 
fear, sadness.  Whatever kind of analysis I may be able to make of 
these, by dividing each into its particular species, and by 
defining it, I still find what to say in my memory and it is from 
my memory that I draw it out.  Yet I am not moved by any of these 
emotions when I call them to mind by remembering them.  Moreover, 
before I recalled them and thought about them, they were there in 
the memory; and this is how they could be brought forth in 
remembrance.  Perhaps, therefore, just as food is brought up out 
of the belly by rumination, so also these things are drawn up out 
of the memory by recall.  But why, then, does not the man who is 
thinking about the emotions, and is thus recalling them, feel in 
the mouth of his reflection the sweetness of joy or the bitterness 
of sadness?  Is the comparison unlike in this because it is not 
complete at every point?  For who would willingly speak on these 
subjects, if as often as we used the term sadness or fear, we 
should thereby be compelled to be sad or fearful?  And yet we 
could never speak of them if we did not find them in our memories, 
not merely as the sounds of the names, as their images are 
impressed on it by the physical senses, but also the notions of 
the things themselves -- which we did not receive by any gate of 
the flesh, but which the mind itself recognizes by the experience 
of its own passions, and has entrusted to the memory; or else 
which the memory itself has retained without their being entrusted 
to it.

                          CHAPTER XV

     23.  Now whether all this is by means of images or not, who 
can rightly affirm?  For I name a stone, I name the sun, and those 
things themselves are not present to my senses, but their images 
are present in my memory.  I name some pain of the body, yet it is 
not present when there is no pain; yet if there were not some such 
image of it in my memory, I could not even speak of it, nor should 
I be able to distinguish it from pleasure.  I name bodily health 
when I am sound in body, and the thing itself is indeed present in 
me.  At the same time, unless there were some image of it in my 
memory, I could not possibly call to mind what the sound of this 
name signified.  Nor would sick people know what was meant when 
health was named, unless the same image were preserved by the 
power of memory, even though the thing itself is absent from the 
body.  I can name the numbers we use in counting, and it is not 
their images but themselves that are in my memory.  I name the 
image of the sun, and this too is in my memory.  For I do not 
recall the image of that image, but that image itself, for the 
image itself is present when I remember it.  I name memory and I 
know what I name.  But where do I know it, except in the memory 
itself?  Is it also present to itself by its image, and not by 
itself? 

                          CHAPTER XVI

     24.  When I name forgetfulness, and understand what I mean by 
the name, how could I understand it if I did not remember it?  And 
if I refer not to the sound of the name, but to the thing which 
the term signifies, how could I know what that sound signified if 
I had forgotten what the name means?  When, therefore, I remember 
memory, then memory is present to itself by itself, but when I 
remember forgetfulness then both memory and forgetfulness are 
present together -- the memory by which I remember the 
forgetfulness which I remember.  But what is forgetfulness except 
the privation of memory?  How, then, is that present to my memory 
which, when it controls my mind, I cannot remember?  But if what 
we remember we store up in our memory; and if, unless we 
remembered forgetfulness, we could never know the thing signified 
by the term when we heard it -- then, forgetfulness is contained 
in the memory.  It is present so that we do not forget it, but 
since it is present, we do forget.

     From this it is to be inferred that when we remember 
forgetfulness, it is not present to the memory through itself, but 
through its image; because if forgetfulness were present through 
itself, it would not lead us to remember, but only to forget.  Now 
who will someday work this out?  Who can understand how it is? 

     25.  Truly, O Lord, I toil with this and labor in myself.  I 
have become a troublesome field that requires hard labor and heavy 
sweat.  For we are not now searching out the tracts of heaven, or 
measuring the distances of the stars or inquiring about the weight 
of the earth.  It is I myself -- I, the mind -- who remember.  
This is not much to marvel at, if what I myself am is not far from 
me.  And what is nearer to me than myself?  For see, I am not able 
to comprehend the force of my own memory, though I could not even 
call my own name without it.  But what shall I say, when it is 
clear to me that I remember forgetfulness?  Should I affirm that 
what I remember is not in my memory?  Or should I say that 
forgetfulness is in my memory to the end that I should not forget?  
Both of these views are most absurd.  But what third view is 
there?  How can I say that the image of forgetfulness is retained 
by my memory, and not forgetfulness itself, when I remember it?  
How can I say this, since for the image of anything to be 
imprinted on the memory the thing itself must necessarily have 
been present first by which the image could have been imprinted?  
Thus I remember Carthage; thus, also, I remember all the other 
places where I have been.  And I remember the faces of men whom I 
have seen and things reported by the other senses.  I remember the 
health or sickness of the body.  And when these objects were 
present, my memory received images from them so that they remain 
present in order for me to see them and reflect upon them in my 
mind, if I choose to remember them in their absence.  If, 
therefore, forgetfulness is retained in the memory through its 
image and not through itself, then this means that it itself was 
once present, so that its image might have been imprinted.  But 
when it was present, how did it write its image on the memory, 
since forgetfulness, by its presence, blots out even what it finds 
already written there?  And yet in some way or other, even though 
it is incomprehensible and inexplicable, I am still quite certain 
that I also remember forgetfulness, by which we remember that 
something is blotted out.

                         CHAPTER XVII

     26.  Great is the power of memory.  It is a true marvel, O my 
God, a profound and infinite multiplicity!  And this is the mind, 
and this I myself am.  What, then, am I, O my God?  Of what nature 
am I?  A life various, and manifold, and exceedingly vast.  Behold 
in the numberless halls and caves, in the innumerable fields and 
dens and caverns of my memory, full without measure of numberless 
kinds of things -- present there either through images as all 
bodies are; or present in the things themselves as are our 
thoughts; or by some notion or observation as our emotions are, 
which the memory retains even though the mind feels them no 
longer, as long as whatever is in the memory is also in the mind 
-- through all these I run and fly to and fro.  I penetrate into 
them on this side and that as far as I can and yet there is 
nowhere any end.

     So great is the power of memory, so great the power of life 
in man whose life is mortal!  What, then, shall I do, O thou my 
true life, my God?  I will pass even beyond this power of mine 
that is called memory -- I will pass beyond it, that I may come to 
thee, O lovely Light.  And what art thou saying to me?  See, I 
soar by my mind toward thee, who remainest above me.  I will also 
pass beyond this power of mine that is called memory, desiring to 
reach thee where thou canst be reached, and wishing to cleave to 
thee where it is possible to cleave to thee.  For even beasts and 
birds possess memory, or else they could never find their lairs 
and nests again, nor display many other things they know and do by 
habit.  Indeed, they could not even form their habits except by 
their memories.  I will therefore pass even beyond memory that I 
may reach Him who has differentiated me from the four-footed 
beasts and the fowls of the air by making me a wiser creature.  
Thus I will pass beyond memory; but where shall I find thee, who 
art the true Good and the steadfast Sweetness?  But where shall I 
find thee?  If I find thee without memory, then I shall have no 
memory of thee; and how could I find thee at all, if I do not 
remember thee? 

                         CHAPTER XVIII

     27.  For the woman who lost her small coin[339] and searched 
for it with a light would never have found it unless she had 
remembered it.  For when it was found, how could she have known 
whether it was the same coin, if she had not remembered it?  I 
remember having lost and found many things, and I have learned 
this from that experience: that when I was searching for any of 
them and was asked: "Is this it? Is that it?"  I answered, "No," 
until finally what I was seeking was shown to me.  But if I had 
not remembered it -- whatever it was -- even though it was shown 
to me, I still would not have found it because I could not have 
recognized it.  And this is the way it always is when we search 
for and find anything that is lost.  Still, if anything is 
accidentally lost from sight -- not from memory, as a visible body 
might be -- its image is retained within, and the thing is 
searched for until it is restored to sight.  And when the thing is 
found, it is recognized by the image of it which is within.  And 
we do not say that we have found what we have lost unless we can 
recognize it, and we cannot recognize it unless we remember it.  
But all the while the thing lost to the sight was retained in the 
memory.

                          CHAPTER XIX

     28.  But what happens when the memory itself loses something, 
as when we forget anything and try to recall it?  Where, finally, 
do we search, but in the memory itself?  And there, if by chance 
one thing is offered for another, we refuse it until we meet with 
what we are looking for; and when we do, we recognize that this is 
it.  But we could not do this unless we recognized it, nor could 
we have recognized it unless we remembered it.  Yet we had indeed 
forgotten it.

     Perhaps the whole of it had not slipped out of our memory; 
but a part was retained by which the other lost part was sought 
for, because the memory realized that it was not operating as 
smoothly as usual and was being held up by the crippling of its 
habitual working; hence, it demanded the restoration of what was 
lacking.

     For example, if we see or think of some man we know, and, 
having forgotten his name, try to recall it -- if some other thing 
presents itself, we cannot tie it into the effort to remember, 
because it was not habitually thought of in association with him.  
It is consequently rejected, until something comes into the mind 
on which our knowledge can rightly rest as the familiar and 
sought-for object.  And where does this name come back from, save 
from the memory itself?  For even when we recognize it by 
another's reminding us of it, still it is from the memory that 
this comes, for we do not believe it as something new; but when we 
recall it, we admit that what was said was correct.  But if the 
name had been entirely blotted out of the mind, we should not be 
able to recollect it even when reminded of it.  For we have not 
entirely forgotten anything if we can remember that we have 
forgotten it.  For a lost notion, one that we have entirely 
forgotten, we cannot even search for.

                           CHAPTER XX

     29.  How, then, do I seek thee, O Lord?  For when I seek 
thee, my God, I seek a happy life.  I will seek thee that my soul 
may live.[340]  For my body lives by my soul, and my soul lives by 
thee.  How, then, do I seek a happy life, since happiness is not 
mine till I can rightly say: "It is enough.  This is it." How do I 
seek it?  Is it by remembering, as though I had forgotten it and 
still knew that I had forgotten it?  Do I seek it in longing to 
learn of it as though it were something unknown, which either I 
had never known or had so completely forgotten as not even to 
remember that I had forgotten it?  Is not the happy life the thing 
that all desire, and is there anyone who does not desire it at 
all?[341]  But where would they have gotten the knowledge of it, 
that they should so desire it?  Where have they seen it that they 
should so love it?  It is somehow true that we have it, but how I 
do not know.

     There is, indeed, a sense in which when anyone has his desire 
he is happy.  And then there are some who are happy in hope.  
These are happy in an inferior degree to those that are actually 
happy; yet they are better off than those who are happy neither in 
actuality nor in hope.  But even these, if they had not known 
happiness in some degree, would not then desire to be happy.  And 
yet it is most certain that they do so desire.  How they come to 
know happiness, I cannot tell, but they have it by some kind of 
knowledge unknown to me, for I am very much in doubt as to whether 
it is in the memory.  For if it is in there, then we have been 
happy once on a time -- either each of us individually or all of 
us in that man who first sinned and in whom also we all died and 
from whom we are all born in misery.  How this is, I do not now 
ask; but I do ask whether the happy life is in the memory.  For if 
we did not know it, we should not love it.  We hear the name of 
it, and we all acknowledge that we desire the thing, for we are 
not delighted with the name only.  For when a Greek hears it 
spoken in Latin, he does not feel delighted, for he does not know 
what has been spoken.  But we are as delighted as he would be in 
turn if he heard it in Greek, because the thing itself is neither 
Greek nor Latin, this happiness which Greeks and Latins and men of 
all the other tongues long so earnestly to obtain.  It is, then, 
known to all; and if all could with one voice be asked whether 
they wished to be happy, there is no doubt they would all answer 
that they would.  And this would not be possible unless the thing 
itself, which we name "happiness," were held in the memory.

                          CHAPTER XXI

     30.  But is it the same kind of memory as one who having seen 
Carthage remembers it?  No, for the happy life is not visible to 
the eye, since it is not a physical object.  Is it the sort of 
memory we have for numbers?  No, for the man who has these in his 
understanding does not keep striving to attain more.  Now we know 
something about the happy life and therefore we love it, but still 
we wish to go on striving for it that we may be happy.  Is the 
memory of happiness, then, something like the memory of eloquence?  
No, for although some, when they hear the term eloquence, call the 
thing to mind, even if they are not themselves eloquent -- and 
further, there are many people who would like to be eloquent, from 
which it follows that they must know something about it -- 
nevertheless, these people have noticed through their senses that 
others are eloquent and have been delighted to observe this and 
long to be this way themselves.  But they would not be delighted 
if it were not some interior knowledge; and they would not desire 
to be delighted unless they had been delighted.  But as for a 
happy life, there is no physical perception by which we experience 
it in others.

     Do we remember happiness, then, as we remember joy?  It may 
be so, for I remember my joy even when I am sad, just as I 
remember a happy life when I am miserable.  And I have never, 
through physical perception, either seen, heard, smelled, tasted, 
or touched my joy.  But I have experienced it in my mind when I 
rejoiced; and the knowledge of it clung to my memory so that I can 
call it to mind, sometimes with disdain and at other times with 
longing, depending on the different kinds of things I now remember 
that I rejoiced in.  For I have been bathed with a certain joy 
even by unclean things, which I now detest and execrate as I call 
them to mind.  At other times, I call to mind with longing good 
and honest things, which are not any longer near at hand, and I am 
therefore saddened when I recall my former joy.

     31.  Where and when did I ever experience my happy life that 
I can call it to mind and love it and long for it?  It is not I 
alone or even a few others who wish to be happy, but absolutely 
everybody.  Unless we knew happiness by a knowledge that is 
certain, we should not wish for it with a will which is so 
certain.  Take this example: If two men were asked whether they 
wished to serve as soldiers, one of them might reply that he 
would, and the other that he would not; but if they were asked 
whether they wished to be happy, both of them would unhesitatingly 
say that they would.  But the first one would wish to serve as a 
soldier and the other would not wish to serve, both from no other 
motive than to be happy.  Is it, perhaps, that one finds his joy 
in this and another in that?  Thus they agree in their wish for 
happiness just as they would also agree, if asked, in wishing for 
joy.  Is this joy what they call a happy life?  Although one could 
choose his joy in this way and another in that, all have one goal 
which they strive to attain, namely, to have joy.  This joy, then, 
being something that no one can say he has not experienced, is 
therefore found in the memory and it is recognized whenever the 
phrase "a happy life" is heard.

                         CHAPTER XXII

     32.  Forbid it, O Lord, put it far from the heart of thy 
servant, who confesses to thee -- far be it from me to think I am 
happy because of any and all the joy I have.  For there is a joy 
not granted to the wicked but only to those who worship thee 
thankfully -- and this joy thou thyself art.  The happy life is 
this -- to rejoice to thee, in thee, and for thee.  This it is and 
there is no other.  But those who think there is another follow 
after other joys, and not the true one.  But their will is still 
not moved except by some image or shadow of joy.

                         CHAPTER XXIII

     33.  Is it, then, uncertain that all men wish to be happy, 
since those who do not wish to find their joy in thee -- which is 
alone the happy life -- do not actually desire the happy life?  
Or, is it rather that all desire this, but because "the flesh 
lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh," so 
that they "prevent you from doing what you would,"[342] you fall 
to doing what you are able to do and are content with that.  For 
you do not want to do what you cannot do urgently enough to make 
you able to do it.  

     Now I ask all men whether they would rather rejoice in truth 
or in falsehood.  They will no more hesitate to answer, "In 
truth," than to say that they wish to be happy.  For a happy life 
is joy in the truth.  Yet this is joy in thee, who art the Truth, 
O God my Light, "the health of my countenance and my God."[343]  
All wish for this happy life; all wish for this life which is the 
only happy one: joy in the truth is what all men wish.  

     I have had experience with many who wished to deceive, but 
not one who wished to be deceived.[344]  Where, then, did they 
ever know about this happy life, except where they knew also what 
the truth is?  For they love it, too, since they are not willing 
to be deceived.  And when they love the happy life, which is 
nothing else but joy in the truth, then certainly they also love 
the truth.  And yet they would not love it if there were not some 
knowledge of it in the memory.  

     Why, then, do they not rejoice in it?  Why are they not 
happy?  Because they are so fully preoccupied with other things 
which do more to make them miserable than those which would make 
them happy, which they remember so little about.  Yet there is a 
little light in men.  Let them walk -- let them walk in it, lest 
the darkness overtake them.  

     34.  Why, then, does truth generate hatred, and why does thy 
servant who preaches the truth come to be an enemy to them who 
also love the happy life, which is nothing else than joy in the 
truth -- unless it be that truth is loved in such a way that those 
who love something else besides her wish that to be the truth 
which they do love.  Since they are unwilling to be deceived, they 
are unwilling to be convinced that they have been deceived.  
Therefore, they hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is that 
they love in place of the truth.  They love truth when she shines 
on them; and hate her when she rebukes them.  And since they are 
not willing to be deceived, but do wish to deceive, they love 
truth when she reveals herself and hate her when she reveals them.  
On this account, she will so repay them that those who are 
unwilling to be exposed by her she will indeed expose against 
their will, and yet will not disclose herself to them.  

     Thus, thus, truly thus: the human mind so blind and sick, so 
base and ill-mannered, desires to lie hidden, but does not wish 
that anything should be hidden from it.  And yet the opposite is 
what happens -- the mind itself is not hidden from the truth, but 
the truth is hidden from it.  Yet even so, for all its 
wretchedness, it still prefers to rejoice in truth rather than in 
known falsehoods.  It will, then, be happy only when without other 
distractions it comes to rejoice in that single Truth through 
which all things else are true.

                         CHAPTER XXIV

     35.  Behold how great a territory I have explored in my 
memory seeking thee, O Lord!  And in it all I have still not found 
thee.  Nor have I found anything about thee, except what I had 
already retained in my memory from the time I learned of thee.  
For where I found Truth, there found I my God, who is the Truth.  
From the time I learned this I have not forgotten.  And thus since 
the time I learned of thee, thou hast dwelt in my memory, and it 
is there that I find thee whenever I call thee to remembrance, and 
delight in thee.  These are my holy delights, which thou hast 
bestowed on me in thy mercy, mindful of my poverty.

                          CHAPTER XXV

     36.  But where in my memory dost thou abide, O Lord?  Where 
dost thou dwell there?  What sort of lodging hast thou made for 
thyself there?  What kind of sanctuary hast thou built for 
thyself?  Thou hast done this honor to my memory to take up thy 
abode in it, but I must consider further in what part of it thou 
dost abide.  For in calling thee to mind, I soared beyond those 
parts of memory which the beasts also possess, because I did not 
find thee there among the images of corporeal things.  From there 
I went on to those parts where I had stored the remembered 
affections of my mind, and I did not find thee there.  And I 
entered into the inmost seat of my mind, which is in my memory, 
since the mind remembers itself also -- and thou wast not there.  
For just as thou art not a bodily image, nor the emotion of a 
living creature (such as we feel when we rejoice or are grief-
stricken, when we desire, or fear, or remember, or forget, or 
anything of that kind), so neither art thou the mind itself.  For 
thou art the Lord God of the mind and of all these things that are 
mutable; but thou abidest immutable over all.  Yet thou hast 
elected to dwell in my memory from the time I learned of thee.  
But why do I now inquire about the part of my memory thou dost 
dwell in, as if indeed there were separate parts in it?  
Assuredly, thou dwellest in it, since I have remembered thee from 
the time I learned of thee, and I find thee in my memory when I 
call thee to mind.

                         CHAPTER XXVI

     37.  Where, then, did I find thee so as to be able to learn 
of thee?  For thou wast not in my memory before I learned of thee.  
Where, then, did I find thee so as to be able to learn of thee -- 
save in thyself beyond me.[345]  Place there is none.  We go 
"backward" and "forward" and there is no place.  Everywhere and at 
once, O Truth, thou guidest all who consult thee, and 
simultaneously answerest all even though they consult thee on 
quite different things.  Thou answerest clearly, though all do not 
hear in clarity.  All take counsel of thee on whatever point they 
wish, though they do not always hear what they wish.  He is thy 
best servant who does not look to hear from thee what he himself 
wills, but who wills rather to will what he hears from thee.

                         CHAPTER XXVII

     38.  Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, 
belatedly I loved thee.  For see, thou wast within and I was 
without, and I sought thee out there.  Unlovely, I rushed 
heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made.  Thou wast with 
me, but I was not with thee.  These things kept me far from thee; 
even though they were not at all unless they were in thee.  Thou 
didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness.  Thou 
didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness.  Thou 
didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I 
pant for thee.  I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst.  Thou didst 
touch me, and I burned for thy peace.

                        CHAPTER XXVIII

     39.  When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then 
there will be no more pain and toil for me, and my life shall be a 
real life, being wholly filled by thee.  But since he whom thou 
fillest is the one thou liftest up, I am still a burden to myself 
because I am not yet filled by thee.  Joys of sorrow contend with 
sorrows of joy, and on which side the victory lies I do not know.

     Woe is me!  Lord, have pity on me; my evil sorrows contend 
with my good joys, and on which side the victory lies I do not 
know.  Woe is me!  Lord, have pity on me.  Woe is me!  Behold, I 
do not hide my wounds.  Thou art the Physician, I am the sick man; 
thou art merciful, I need mercy.  Is not the life of man on earth 
an ordeal?  Who is he that wishes for vexations and difficulties?  
Thou commandest them to be endured, not to be loved.  For no man 
loves what he endures, though he may love to endure.  Yet even if 
he rejoices to endure, he would prefer that there were nothing for 
him to endure.  In adversity, I desire prosperity; in prosperity, 
I fear adversity.  What middle place is there, then, between these 
two, where human life is not an ordeal?  There is woe in the 
prosperity of this world; there is woe in the fear of misfortune; 
there is woe in the distortion of joy.  There is woe in the 
adversities of this world -- a second woe, and a third, from the 
desire of prosperity -- because adversity itself is a hard thing 
to bear and makes shipwreck of endurance.  Is not the life of man 
upon the earth an ordeal, and that without surcease? 

                         CHAPTER XXIX

     40.  My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy and that 
alone.  Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt.  
Thou commandest continence from us, and when I knew, as it is 
said, that no one could be continent unless God gave it to him, 
even this was a point of wisdom to know whose gift it was.[346]  
For by continence we are bound up and brought back together in the 
One, whereas before we were scattered abroad among the many.[347]  
For he loves thee too little who loves along with thee anything 
else that he does not love for thy sake, O Love, who dost burn 
forever and art never quenched.  O Love, O my God, enkindle me!  
Thou commandest continence; give what thou commandest, and command 
what thou wilt.

                          CHAPTER XXX

     41.  Obviously thou commandest that I should be continent 
from "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the 
pride of life."[348]  Thou commandest me to abstain from 
fornication, and as for marriage itself, thou hast counseled 
something better than what thou dost allow.  And since thou gavest 
it, it was done -- even before I became a minister of thy 
sacrament.  But there still exist in my memory -- of which I have 
spoken so much -- the images of such things as my habits had fixed 
there.  These things rush into my thoughts with no power when I am 
awake; but in sleep they rush in not only so as to give pleasure, 
but even to obtain consent and what very closely resembles the 
deed itself.  Indeed, the illusion of the image prevails to such 
an extent, in both my soul and my flesh, that the illusion 
persuades me when sleeping to what the reality cannot do when I am 
awake.  Am I not myself at such a time, O Lord my God?  And is 
there so much of a difference between myself awake and myself in 
the moment when I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from 
sleeping to waking? 

     Where, then, is the power of reason which resists such 
suggestions when I am awake -- for even if the things themselves 
be forced upon it I remain unmoved?  Does reason cease when the 
eyes close?  Is it put to sleep with the bodily senses?  But in 
that case how does it come to pass that even in slumber we often 
resist, and with our conscious purposes in mind, continue most 
chastely in them, and yield no assent to such allurements?  Yet 
there is at least this much difference: that when it happens 
otherwise in dreams, when we wake up, we return to peace of 
conscience.  And it is by this difference between sleeping and 
waking that we discover that it was not we who did it, while we 
still feel sorry that in some way it was done in us.

     42.  Is not thy hand, O Almighty God, able to heal all the 
diseases of my soul and, by thy more and more abundant grace, to 
quench even the lascivious motions of my sleep?  Thou wilt 
increase thy gifts in me more and more, O Lord, that my soul may 
follow me to thee, wrenched free from the sticky glue of lust so 
that it is no longer in rebellion against itself, even in dreams; 
that it neither commits nor consents to these debasing corruptions 
which come through sensual images and which result in the 
pollution of the flesh.  For it is no great thing for the 
Almighty, who is "able to do . . . more than we can ask or 
think,"[349] to bring it about that no such influence -- not even 
one so slight that a nod might restrain it -- should afford 
gratification to the feelings of a chaste person even when 
sleeping.  This could come to pass not only in this life but even 
at my present age.  But what I am still in this way of wickedness 
I have confessed unto my good Lord, rejoicing with trembling in 
what thou hast given me and grieving in myself for that in which I 
am still imperfect.  I am trusting that thou wilt perfect thy 
mercies in me, to the fullness of that peace which both my inner 
and outward being shall have with thee when death is swallowed up 
in victory.[350]

                         CHAPTER XXXI

     43.  There is yet another "evil of the day"[351] to which I 
wish I were sufficient.  By eating and drinking we restore the 
daily losses of the body until that day when thou destroyest both 
food and stomach, when thou wilt destroy this emptiness with an 
amazing fullness and wilt clothe this corruptible with an eternal 
incorruption.  But now the necessity of habit is sweet to me, and 
against this sweetness must I fight, lest I be enthralled by it.  
Thus I carry on a daily war by fasting, constantly "bringing my 
body into subjection,"[352] after which my pains are banished by 
pleasure.  For hunger and thirst are actual pain.  They consume 
and destroy like fever does, unless the medicine of food is at 
hand to relieve us.  And since this medicine at hand comes from 
the comfort we receive in thy gifts (by means of which land and 
water and air serve our infirmity), even our calamity is called 
pleasure.

     44.  This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to 
take food as medicine.  But during that time when I pass from the 
pinch of emptiness to the contentment of fullness, it is in that 
very moment that the snare of appetite lies baited for me.  For 
the passage itself is pleasant; there is no other way of passing 
thither, and necessity compels us to pass.  And while health is 
the reason for our eating and drinking, yet a perilous delight 
joins itself to them as a handmaid; and indeed, she tries to take 
precedence in order that I may want to do for her sake what I say 
I want to do for health's sake.  They do not both have the same 
limit either.  What is sufficient for health is not enough for 
pleasure.  And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the 
needful care of the body that still calls for food or whether it 
is the sensual snare of desire still wanting to be served.  In 
this uncertainty my unhappy soul rejoices, and uses it to prepare 
an excuse as a defense.  It is glad that it is not clear as to 
what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the 
pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure.  
These temptations I daily endeavor to resist and I summon thy 
right hand to my help and cast my perplexities onto thee, for I 
have not yet reached a firm conclusion in this matter.

     45.  I hear the voice of my God commanding: "Let not your 
heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness."[353]  
Drunkenness is far from me.  Thou wilt have mercy that it does not 
come near me.  But "surfeiting" sometimes creeps upon thy servant.  
Thou wilt have mercy that it may be put far from me.  For no man 
can be continent unless thou give it.[354]  Many things that we 
pray for thou givest us, and whatever good we receive before we 
prayed for it, we receive it from thee, so that we might afterward 
know that we did receive it from thee.  I never was a drunkard, 
but I have known drunkards made into sober men by thee.  It was 
also thy doing that those who never were drunkards have not been 
-- and likewise, it was from thee that those who have been might 
not remain so always.  And it was likewise from thee that both 
might know from whom all this came.

     I heard another voice of thine: "Do not follow your lusts and 
refrain yourself from your pleasures."[355]  And by thy favor I 
have also heard this saying in which I have taken much delight: 
"Neither if we eat are we the better; nor if we eat not are we the 
worse."[356]  This is to say that neither shall the one make me to 
abound, nor the other to be wretched.  I heard still another 
voice: "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to 
be content.  I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. . . 
.  I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."[357]  
See here a soldier of the heavenly army; not the sort of dust we 
are.  But remember, O Lord, "that we are dust"[358] and that thou 
didst create man out of the dust,[359] and that he "was lost, and 
is found."[360]  Of course, he [the apostle Paul] could not do all 
this by his own power.  He was of the same dust -- he whom I loved 
so much and who spoke of these things through the afflatus of thy 
inspiration: "I can," he said, "do all things through him who 
strengtheneth me." Strengthen me, that I too may be able.  Give 
what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.  This man [Paul] 
confesses that he received the gift of grace and that, when he 
glories, he glories in the Lord.  I have heard yet another voice 
praying that he might receive.  "Take from me," he said, "the 
greediness of the belly."[361]  And from this it appears, O my 
holy God, that thou dost give it, when what thou commandest to be 
done is done.

     46.  Thou hast taught me, good Father, that "to the pure all 
things are pure"[362]; but "it is evil for that man who gives 
offense in eating"[363]; and that "every creature of thine is 
good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with 
thanksgiving"[364]; and that "meat does not commend us to 
God"[365]; and that "no man should judge us in meat or in 
drink."[366]  "Let not him who eats despise him who eats not, and 
let him that does not eat judge not him who does eat."[367]  These 
things I have learned, thanks and praise be to thee, O my God and 
Master, who knockest at my ears and enlightenest my heart.  
Deliver me from all temptation!

     It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the 
uncleanness of an incontinent appetite.  I know that permission 
was granted Noah to eat every kind of flesh that was good for 
food; that Elijah was fed with flesh; that John, blessed with a 
wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by the living creatures 
(that is, the locusts) on which he fed.  And I also know that Esau 
was deceived by his hungering after lentils and that David blamed 
himself for desiring water, and that our King was tempted not by 
flesh but by bread.  And, thus, the people in the wilderness truly 
deserved their reproof, not because they desired meat, but because 
in their desire for food they murmured against the Lord.

     47.  Set down, then, in the midst of these temptations, I 
strive daily against my appetite for food and drink.  For it is 
not the kind of appetite I am able to deal with by cutting it off 
once for all, and thereafter not touching it, as I was able to do 
with fornication.  The bridle of the throat, therefore, must be 
held in the mean between slackness and tightness.  And who, O 
Lord, is he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the 
bounds of necessity?  Whoever he is, he is great; let him magnify 
thy name.  But I am not such a one, "for I am a sinful man."[368]  
Yet I too magnify thy name, for he who hath "overcome the 
world"[369] intercedeth with thee for my sins, numbering me among 
the weak members of his body; for thy eyes did see what was 
imperfect in him, and in thy book all shall be written down.[370]

                         CHAPTER XXXII

     48.  I am not much troubled by the allurement of odors.  When 
they are absent, I do not seek them; when they are present, I do 
not refuse them; and I am always prepared to go without them.  At 
any rate, I appear thus to myself; it is quite possible that I am 
deceived.  For there is a lamentable darkness in which my 
capabilities are concealed, so that when my mind inquires into 
itself concerning its own powers, it does not readily venture to 
believe itself, because what already is in it is largely concealed 
unless experience brings it to light.  Thus no man ought to feel 
secure in this life, the whole of which is called an ordeal, 
ordered so that the man who could be made better from having been 
worse may not also from having been better become worse.  Our sole 
hope, our sole confidence, our only assured promise, is thy mercy.

                        CHAPTER XXXIII

     49.  The delights of the ear drew and held me much more 
powerfully, but thou didst unbind and liberate me.  In those 
melodies which thy words inspire when sung with a sweet and 
trained voice, I still find repose; yet not so as to cling to 
them, but always so as to be able to free myself as I wish.  But 
it is because of the words which are their life that they gain 
entry into me and strive for a place of proper honor in my heart; 
and I can hardly assign them a fitting one.  Sometimes, I seem to 
myself to give them more respect than is fitting, when I see that 
our minds are more devoutly and earnestly inflamed in piety by the 
holy words when they are sung than when they are not.  And I 
recognize that all the diverse affections of our spirits have 
their appropriate measures in the voice and song, to which they 
are stimulated by I know not what secret correlation.  But the 
pleasures of my flesh -- to which the mind ought never to be 
surrendered nor by them enervated -- often beguile me while 
physical sense does not attend on reason, to follow her patiently, 
but having once gained entry to help the reason, it strives to run 
on before her and be her leader.  Thus in these things I sin 
unknowingly, but I come to know it afterward.

     50.  On the other hand, when I avoid very earnestly this kind 
of deception, I err out of too great austerity.  Sometimes I go to 
the point of wishing that all the melodies of the pleasant songs 
to which David's Psalter is adapted should be banished both from 
my ears and from those of the Church itself.  In this mood, the 
safer way seemed to me the one I remember was once related to me 
concerning Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who required the 
readers of the psalm to use so slight an inflection of the voice 
that it was more like speaking than singing.

     However, when I call to mind the tears I shed at the songs of 
thy Church at the outset of my recovered faith, and how even now I 
am moved, not by the singing but by what is sung (when they are 
sung with a clear and skillfully modulated voice), I then come to 
acknowledge the great utility of this custom.  Thus I vacillate 
between dangerous pleasure and healthful exercise.  I am inclined 
-- though I pronounce no irrevocable opinion on the subject -- to 
approve of the use of singing in the church, so that by the 
delights of the ear the weaker minds may be stimulated to a 
devotional mood.[371]  Yet when it happens that I am more moved by 
the singing than by what is sung, I confess myself to have sinned 
wickedly, and then I would rather not have heard the singing.  See 
now what a condition I am in!  Weep with me, and weep for me, 
those of you who can so control your inward feelings that good 
results always come forth.  As for you who do not act this way at 
all, such things do not concern you.  But do thou, O Lord, my God, 
give ear; look and see, and have mercy upon me; and heal me -- 
thou, in whose sight I am become an enigma to myself; this itself 
is my weakness.

                        CHAPTER XXXIV

     51.  There remain the delights of these eyes of my flesh, 
about which I must make my confession in the hearing of the ears 
of thy temple, brotherly and pious ears.  Thus I will finish the 
list of the temptations of carnal appetite which still assail me 
-- groaning and desiring as I am to be clothed upon with my house 
from heaven.[372]

     The eyes delight in fair and varied forms, and bright and 
pleasing colors.  Let these not take possession of my soul!  
Rather let God possess it, he who didst make all these things very 
good indeed.  He is still my good, and not these.  The pleasures 
of sight affect me all the time I am awake.  There is no rest from 
them given me, as there is from the voices of melody, which I can 
occasionally find in silence.  For daylight, that queen of the 
colors, floods all that we look upon everywhere I go during the 
day.  It flits about me in manifold forms and soothes me even when 
I am busy about other things, not noticing it.  And it presents 
itself so forcibly that if it is suddenly withdrawn it is looked 
for with longing, and if it is long absent the mind is saddened.

     52.  O Light, which Tobit saw even with his eyes closed in 
blindness, when he taught his son the way of life -- and went 
before him himself in the steps of love and never went 
astray[373]; or that Light which Isaac saw when his fleshly "eyes 
were dim, so that he could not see"[374] because of old age, and 
it was permitted him unknowingly to bless his sons, but in the 
blessing of them to know them; or that Light which Jacob saw, when 
he too, blind in old age yet with an enlightened heart, threw 
light on the nation of men yet to come -- presignified in the 
persons of his own sons -- and laid his hands mystically crossed 
upon his grandchildren by Joseph (not as their father, who saw 
them from without, but as though he were within them), and 
distinguished them aright[375]: this is the true Light; it is one, 
and all are one who see and love it.

     But that corporeal light, of which I was speaking, seasons 
the life of the world for her blind lovers with a tempting and 
fatal sweetness.  Those who know how to praise thee for it, "O 
God, Creator of Us All," take it up in thy hymn,[376] and are not 
taken over by it in their sleep.  Such a man I desire to be.  I 
resist the seductions of my eyes, lest my feet be entangled as I 
go forward in thy way; and I raise my invisible eyes to thee, that 
thou wouldst be pleased to "pluck my feet out of the net."[377]  
Thou dost continually pluck them out, for they are easily 
ensnared.  Thou ceasest not to pluck them out, but I constantly 
remain fast in the snares set all around me.  However, thou who 
"keepest Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."[378]

     53.  What numberless things there are: products of the 
various arts and manufactures in our clothes, shoes, vessels, and 
all such things; besides such things as pictures and statuary -- 
and all these far beyond the necessary and moderate use of them or 
their significance for the life of piety -- which men have added 
for the delight of the eye, copying the outward forms of the 
things they make; but inwardly forsaking Him by whom they were 
made and destroying what they themselves have been made to be!

     And I, O my God and my Joy, I also raise a hymn to thee for 
all these things, and offer a sacrifice of praise to my 
Sanctifier, because those beautiful forms which pass through the 
medium of the human soul into the artist's hands come from that 
beauty which is above our minds, which my soul sighs for day and 
night.  But the craftsmen and devotees of these outward beauties 
discover the norm by which they judge them from that higher 
beauty, but not the measure of their use.  Still, even if they do 
not see it, it is there nevertheless, to guard them from wandering 
astray, and to keep their strength for thee, and not dissipate it 
in delights that pass into boredom.  And for myself, though I can 
see and understand this, I am still entangled in my own course 
with such beauty, but thou wilt rescue me, O Lord, thou wilt 
rescue me, "for thy loving-kindness is before my eyes."[379]  For 
I am captivated in my weakness but thou in thy mercy dost rescue 
me: sometimes without my knowing it, because I had only lightly 
fallen; at other times, the rescue is painful because I was stuck 
fast.

                         CHAPTER XXXV

     54.  Besides this there is yet another form of temptation 
still more complex in its peril.  For in addition to the fleshly 
appetite which strives for the gratification of all senses and 
pleasures -- in which its slaves perish because they separate 
themselves from thee -- there is also a certain vain and curious 
longing in the soul, rooted in the same bodily senses, which is 
cloaked under the name of knowledge and learning; not having 
pleasure in the flesh, but striving for new experiences through 
the flesh.  This longing -- since its origin is our appetite for 
learning, and since the sight is the chief of our senses in the 
acquisition of knowledge -- is called in the divine language "the 
lust of the eyes."[380]  For seeing is a function of the eyes; yet 
we also use this word for the other senses as well, when we 
exercise them in the search for knowledge.  We do not say, "Listen 
how it glows," "Smell how it glistens," "Taste how it shines," or 
"Feel how it flashes," since all of these are said to be _seen_.  
And we do not simply say, "See how it shines," which only the eyes 
can perceive; but we also say, "See how it sounds, see how it 
smells, see how it tastes, see how hard it is." Thus, as we said 
before, the whole round of sensory experience is called "the lust 
of the eyes" because the function of seeing, in which the eyes 
have the principal role, is applied by analogy to the other senses 
when they are seeking after any kind of knowledge.

     55.  From this, then, one can the more clearly distinguish 
whether it is pleasure or curiosity that is being pursued by the 
senses.  For pleasure pursues objects that are beautiful, 
melodious, fragrant, savory, soft.  But curiosity, seeking new 
experiences, will even seek out the contrary of these, not with 
the purpose of experiencing the discomfort that often accompanies 
them, but out of a passion for experimenting and knowledge.

     For what pleasure is there in the sight of a lacerated 
corpse, which makes you shudder?  And yet if there is one lying 
close by we flock to it, as if to be made sad and pale.  People 
fear lest they should see such a thing even in sleep, just as they 
would if, when awake, someone compelled them to go and see it or 
if some rumor of its beauty had attracted them.

     This is also the case with the other senses; it would be 
tedious to pursue a complete analysis of it.  This malady of 
curiosity is the reason for all those strange sights exhibited in 
the theater.  It is also the reason why we proceed to search out 
the secret powers of nature -- those which have nothing to do with 
our destiny -- which do not profit us to know about, and 
concerning which men desire to know only for the sake of knowing.  
And it is with this same motive of perverted curiosity for 
knowledge that we consult the magical arts.  Even in religion 
itself, this prompting drives us to make trial of God when signs 
and wonders are eagerly asked of him -- not desired for any saving 
end, but only to make trial of him.

     56.  In such a wilderness so vast, crammed with snares and 
dangers, behold how many of them I have lopped off and cast from 
my heart, as thou, O God of my salvation, hast enabled me to do.  
And yet, when would I dare to say, since so many things of this 
sort still buzz around our daily lives -- when would I dare to say 
that no such motive prompts my seeing or creates a vain curiosity 
in me?  It is true that now the theaters never attract me, nor do 
I now care to inquire about the courses of the stars, and my soul 
has never sought answers from the departed spirits.  All 
sacrilegious oaths I abhor.  And yet, O Lord my God, to whom I owe 
all humble and singlehearted service, with what subtle suggestion 
the enemy still influences me to require some sign from thee!  But 
by our King, and by Jerusalem, our pure and chaste homeland, I 
beseech thee that where any consenting to such thoughts is now far 
from me, so may it always be farther and farther.  And when I 
entreat thee for the salvation of any man, the end I aim at is 
something more than the entreating: let it be that as thou dost 
what thou wilt, thou dost also give me the grace willingly to 
follow thy lead.

     57.  Now, really