Nor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou wouldest help me; but
my spirit was wholly intent on learning, and restless to dispute.
And Ambrose himself, as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy
man, whom personages so great held in such honour; only his celibacy
seemed to me a painful course. But what hope he bore within him,
what struggles he had against the temptations which beset his very
excellencies, or what comfort in adversities, and what sweet joys
Thy Bread had for the hidden mouth of his spirit, when chewing the cud
thereof, I neither could conjecture, nor had experienced. Nor did he
know the tides of my feelings, or the abyss of my danger. For I
could not ask of him, what I would as I would, being shut out both
from his ear and speech by multitudes of busy people, whose weaknesses
he served. With whom when he was not taken up (which was but a
little time), he was either refreshing his body with the sustenance
absolutely necessary, or his mind with reading. But when he was
reading, his eye glided over the pages, and his heart searched out the
sense, but his voice and tongue were at rest. Ofttimes when we had
come (for no man was forbidden to enter, nor was it his wont that
any who came should be announced to him), we saw him thus reading to
himself, and never otherwise; and having long sat silent (for who
durst intrude on one so intent?) we were fain to depart,
conjecturing that in the small interval which he obtained, free from
the din of others' business, for the recruiting of his mind, he was
loth to be taken off; and perchance he dreaded lest if the author he
read should deliver any thing obscurely, some attentive or perplexed
hearer should desire him to expound it, or to discuss some of the
harder questions; so that his time being thus spent, he could not turn
over so many volumes as he desired; although the preserving of his
voice (which a very little speaking would weaken) might be the truer
reason for his reading to himself. But with what intent soever he
did it, certainly in such a man it was good.
I however certainly had no opportunity of enquiring what I wished of
that so holy oracle of Thine, his breast, unless the thing might be
answered briefly. But those tides in me, to be poured out to him,
required his full leisure, and never found it. I heard him indeed
every Lord's day, rightly expounding the Word of truth among the
people; and I was more and more convinced that all the knots of
those crafty calumnies, which those our deceivers had knit against the
Divine Books, could be unravelled. But when I understood withal,
that "man created by Thee, after Thine own image," was not so
understood by Thy spiritual sons, whom of the Catholic Mother Thou
hast born again through grace, as though they believed and conceived
of Thee as bounded by human shape (although what a spiritual substance
should be I had not even a faint or shadowy notion); yet, with joy I
blushed at having so many years barked not against the Catholic faith,
but against the fictions of carnal imaginations. For so rash and
impious had I been, that what I ought by enquiring to have learned,
I had pronounced on, condemning. For Thou, Most High, and most near;
most secret, and most present; Who hast not limbs some larger, some
smaller, but art wholly every where, and no where in space, art not of
such corporeal shape, yet hast Thou made man after Thine own image;
and behold, from head to foot is he contained in space.
Ignorant then how this Thy image should subsist, I should have
knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was to be believed, not
insultingly opposed it, as if believed. Doubt, then, what to hold
for certain, the more sharply gnawed my heart, the more ashamed I was,
that so long deluded and deceived by the promise of certainties, I had
with childish error and vehemence, prated of so many uncertainties.
For that they were falsehoods became clear to me later. However I
was certain that they were uncertain, and that I had formerly
accounted them certain, when with a blind contentiousness, I accused
Thy Catholic Church, whom I now discovered, not indeed as yet to teach
truly, but at least not to teach that for which I had grievously
censured her. So I was confounded, and converted: and I joyed, O my
God, that the One Only Church, the body of Thine Only Son (wherein the
name of Christ had been put upon me as an infant), had no taste for
infantine conceits; nor in her sound doctrine maintained any tenet
which should confine Thee, the Creator of all, in space, however great
and large, yet bounded every where by the limits of a human form.
I joyed also that the old Scriptures of the law and the Prophets
were laid before me, not now to be perused with that eye to which
before they seemed absurd, when I reviled Thy holy ones for so
thinking, whereas indeed they thought not so: and with joy I heard
Ambrose in his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently
recommend this text for a rule, The letter killeth, but the Spirit
giveth life; whilst he drew aside the mystic veil, laying open
spiritually what, according to the letter, seemed to teach something
unsound; teaching herein nothing that offended me, though he taught
what I knew not as yet, whether it were true. For I kept my heart from
assenting to any thing, fearing to fall headlong; but by hanging in
suspense I was the worse killed. For I wished to be as assured of
the things I saw not, as I was that seven and three are ten. For I was
not so mad as to think that even this could not be comprehended; but I
desired to have other things as clear as this, whether things
corporeal, which were not present to my senses, or spiritual,
whereof I knew not how to conceive, except corporeally. And by
believing might I have been cured, that so the eyesight of my soul
being cleared, might in some way be directed to Thy truth, which
abideth always, and in no part faileth. But as it happens that one who
has tried a bad physician, fears to trust himself with a good one,
so was it with the health of my soul, which could not be healed but by
believing, and lest it should believe falsehoods, refused to be cured;
resisting Thy hands, Who hast prepared the medicines of faith, and
hast applied them to the diseases of the whole world, and given unto
them so great authority.
Being led, however, from this to prefer the Catholic doctrine, I
felt that her proceeding was more unassuming and honest, in that she
required to be believed things not demonstrated (whether it was that
they could in themselves be demonstrated but not to certain persons,
or could not at all be), whereas among the Manichees our credulity was
mocked by a promise of certain knowledge, and then so many most
fabulous and absurd things were imposed to be believed, because they
could not be demonstrated. Then Thou, O Lord, little by little with
most tender and most merciful hand, touching and composing my heart,
didst persuade me- considering what innumerable things I believed,
which I saw not, nor was present while they were done, as so many
things in secular history, so many reports of places and of cities,
which I had not seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so
many continually of other men, which unless we should believe, we
should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken an
assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which I could not
know, had I not believed upon hearsay -considering all this, Thou
didst persuade me, that not they who believed Thy Books (which Thou
hast established in so great authority among almost all nations),
but they who believed them not, were to be blamed; and that they
were not to be heard, who should say to me, "How knowest thou those
Scriptures to have been imparted unto mankind by the Spirit of the one
true and most true God?" For this very thing was of all most to be
believed, since no contentiousness of blasphemous questionings, of all
that multitude which I had read in the self-contradicting
philosophers, could wring this belief from me, "That Thou art"
whatsoever Thou wert (what I knew not), and "That the government of
human things belongs to Thee."
This I believed, sometimes more strongly, more weakly otherwhiles;
yet I ever believed both that Thou wert, and hadst a care of us;
though I was ignorant, both what was to be thought of Thy substance,
and what way led or led back to Thee. Since then we were too weak by
abstract reasonings to find out truth: and for this very cause
needed the authority of Holy Writ; I had now begun to believe that
Thou wouldest never have given such excellency of authority to that
Writ in all lands, hadst Thou not willed thereby to be believed in,
thereby sought. For now what things, sounding strangely in the
Scripture, were wont to offend me, having heard divers of them
expounded satisfactorily, I referred to the depth of the mysteries,
and its authority appeared to me the more venerable, and more worthy
of religious credence, in that, while it lay open to all to read, it
reserved the majesty of its mysteries within its profounder meaning,
stooping to all in the great plainness of its words and lowliness of
its style, yet calling forth the intensest application of such as
are not light of heart; that so it might receive all in its open
bosom, and through narrow passages waft over towards Thee some few,
yet many more than if it stood not aloft on such a height of
authority, nor drew multitudes within its bosom by its holy lowliness.
These things I thought on, and Thou wert with me; I sighed, and Thou
heardest me; I wavered, and Thou didst guide me; I wandered through
the broad way of the world, and Thou didst not forsake me.
I panted after honours, gains, marriage; and thou deridedst me. In
these desires I underwent most bitter crosses, Thou being the more
gracious, the less Thou sufferedst aught to grow sweet to me, which
was not Thou. Behold my heart, O Lord, who wouldest I should
remember all this, and confess to Thee. Let my soul cleave unto
Thee, now that Thou hast freed it from that fast-holding birdlime of
death. How wretched was it! and Thou didst irritate the feeling of its
wound, that forsaking all else, it might be converted unto Thee, who
art above all, and without whom all things would be nothing; be
converted, and be healed. How miserable was I then, and how didst Thou
deal with me, to make me feel my misery on that day, when I was
preparing to recite a panegyric of the Emperor, wherein I was to utter
many a lie, and lying, was to be applauded by those who knew I lied,
and my heart was panting with these anxieties, and boiling with the
feverishness of consuming thoughts. For, passing through one of the
streets of Milan, I observed a poor beggar, then, I suppose, with a
full belly, joking and joyous: and I sighed, and spoke to the
friends around me, of the many sorrows of our frenzies; for that by
all such efforts of ours, as those wherein I then toiled dragging
along, under the goading of desire, the burthen of my own
wretchedness, and, by dragging, augmenting it, we yet looked to arrive
only at that very joyousness whither that beggar-man had arrived
before us, who should never perchance attain it. For what he had
obtained by means of a few begged pence, the same was I plotting for
by many a toilsome turning and winding; the joy of a temporary
felicity. For he verily had not the true joy; but yet I with those
my ambitious designs was seeking one much less true. And certainly
he was joyous, I anxious; he void of care, I full of fears. But should
any ask me, had I rather be merry or fearful? I would answer merry.
Again, if he asked had I rather be such as he was, or what I then was?
I should choose to be myself, though worn with cares and fears; but
out of wrong judgment; for, was it the truth? For I ought not to
prefer myself to him, because more learned than he, seeing I had no
joy therein, but sought to please men by it; and that not to instruct,
but simply to please. Wherefore also Thou didst break my bones with
the staff of Thy correction.
Away with those then from my soul who say to her, "It makes a
difference whence a man's joy is. That beggar-man joyed in
drunkenness; Thou desiredst to joy in glory." What glory, Lord? That
which is not in Thee. For even as his was no true joy, so was that
no true glory: and it overthrew my soul more. He that very night
should digest his drunkenness; but I had slept and risen again with
mine, and was to sleep again, and again to rise with it, how many
days, Thou, God, knowest. But "it doth make a difference whence a
man's joy is." I know it, and the joy of a faithful hope lieth
incomparably beyond such vanity. Yea, and so was he then beyond me:
for he verily was the happier; not only for that he was thoroughly
drenched in mirth, I disembowelled with cares: but he, by fair wishes,
had gotten wine; I, by lying, was seeking for empty, swelling
praise. Much to this purpose said I then to my friends: and I often
marked in them how it fared with me; and I found it went ill with
me, and grieved, and doubled that very ill; and if any prosperity
smiled on me, I was loth to catch at it, for almost before I could
grasp it, it flew away.
These things we, who were living as friends together, bemoaned
together, but chiefly and most familiarly did I speak thereof with
Alypius and Nebridius, of whom Alypius was born in the same town
with me, of persons of chief rank there, but younger than I. For he
had studied under me, both when I first lectured in our town, and
afterwards at Carthage, and he loved me much, because I seemed to
him kind, and learned; and I him, for his great towardliness to
virtue, which was eminent enough in one of no greater years. Yet the
whirlpool of Carthaginian habits (amongst whom those idle spectacles
are hotly followed) had drawn him into the madness of the Circus.
But while he was miserably tossed therein, and I, professing
rhetoric there, had a public school, as yet he used not my teaching,
by reason of some unkindness risen betwixt his father and me. I had
found then how deadly he doted upon the Circus, and was deeply grieved
that he seemed likely, nay, or had thrown away so great promise: yet
had I no means of advising or with a sort of constraint reclaiming
him, either by the kindness of a friend, or the authority of a master.
For I supposed that he thought of me as did his father; but he was not
such; laying aside then his father's mind in that matter, he began
to greet me, come sometimes into my lecture room, hear a little, and
be gone.
I however had forgotten to deal with him, that he should not,
through a blind and headlong desire of vain pastimes, undo so good a
wit. But Thou, O Lord, who guidest the course of all Thou hast
created, hadst not forgotten him, who was one day to be among Thy
children, Priest and Dispenser of Thy Sacrament; and that his
amendment might plainly be attributed to Thyself, Thou effectedst it
through me, unknowingly. For as one day I sat in my accustomed
place, with my scholars before me, he entered, greeted me, sat down,
and applied his mind to what I then handled. I had by chance a passage
in hand, which while I was explaining, a likeness from the
Circensian races occurred to me, as likely to make what I would convey
pleasanter and plainer, seasoned with biting mockery of those whom
that madness had enthralled; God, Thou knowest that I then thought not
of curing Alypius of that infection. But he took it wholly to himself,
and thought that I said it simply for his sake. And whence another
would have taken occasion of offence with me, that right-minded
youth took as a ground of being offended at himself, and loving me
more fervently. For Thou hadst said it long ago, and put it into Thy
book, Rebuke a wise man and he will love Thee. But I had not rebuked
him, but Thou, who employest all, knowing or not knowing, in that
order which Thyself knowest (and that order is just), didst of my
heart and tongue make burning coals, by which to set on fire the
hopeful mind, thus languishing, and so cure it. Let him be silent in
Thy praises, who considers not Thy mercies, which confess unto Thee
out of my inmost soul. For he upon that speech burst out of that pit
so deep, wherein he was wilfully plunged, and was blinded with its
wretched pastimes; and he shook his mind with a strong self-command;
whereupon all the filths of the Circensian pastimes flew off from him,
nor came he again thither. Upon this, he prevailed with his
unwilling father that he might be my scholar. He gave way, and gave
in. And Alypius beginning to be my hearer again, was involved in the
same superstition with me, loving in the Manichees that show of
continency which he supposed true and unfeigned. Whereas it was a
senseless and seducing continency, ensnaring precious souls, unable as
yet to reach the depth of virtue, yet readily beguiled with the
surface of what was but a shadowy and counterfeit virtue.
He, not forsaking that secular course which his parents had
charmed him to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study law, and
there he was carried away incredibly with an incredible eagerness
after the shows of gladiators. For being utterly averse to and
detesting spectacles, he was one day by chance met by divers of his
acquaintance and fellow-students coming from dinner, and they with a
familiar violence haled him, vehemently refusing and resisting, into
the Amphitheatre, during these cruel and deadly shows, he thus
protesting: "Though you hale my body to that place, and there set
me, can you force me also to turn my mind or my eyes to those shows? I
shall then be absent while present, and so shall overcome both you and
them." They, hearing this, led him on nevertheless, desirous perchance
to try that very thing, whether he could do as he said. When they were
come thither, and had taken their places as they could, the whole
place kindled with that savage pastime. But he, closing the passage of
his eyes, forbade his mind to range abroad after such evil; and
would he had stopped his ears also! For in the fight, when one fell, a
mighty cry of the whole people striking him strongly, overcome by
curiosity, and as if prepared to despise and be superior to it
whatsoever it were, even when seen, he opened his eyes, and was
stricken with a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he
desired to behold, was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he
upon whose fall that mighty noise was raised, which entered through
his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and
beating down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker,
in that it had presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on Thee.
For so soon as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down
savageness; nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drinking in frenzy,
unawares, and was delighted with that guilty fight, and intoxicated
with the bloody pastime. Nor was he now the man he came, but one of
the throng he came unto, yea, a true associate of theirs that
brought him thither. Why say more? He beheld, shouted, kindled,
carried thence with him the madness which should goad him to return
not only with them who first drew him thither, but also before them,
yea and to draw in others. Yet thence didst Thou with a most strong
and most merciful hand pluck him, and taughtest him to have confidence
not in himself, but in Thee. But this was after.
But this was already being laid up in his memory to be a medicine
hereafter. So was that also, that when he was yet studying under me at
Carthage, and was thinking over at mid-day in the market-place what he
was to say by heart (as scholars use to practise), Thou sufferedst him
to be apprehended by the officers of the market-place for a thief. For
no other cause, I deem, didst Thou, our God, suffer it, but that he
who was hereafter to prove so great a man, should already begin to
learn that in judging of causes, man was not readily to be condemned
by man out of a rash credulity. For as he was walking up and down by
himself before the judgment-seat, with his note-book and pen, lo, a
young man, a lawyer, the real thief, privily bringing a hatchet, got
in, unperceived by Alypius, as far as the leaden gratings which
fence in the silversmiths' shops, and began to cut away the lead.
But the noise of the hatchet being heard, the silversmiths beneath
began to make a stir, and sent to apprehend whomever they should find.
But he, hearing their voices, ran away, leaving his hatchet, fearing
to be taken with it. Alypius now, who had not seen him enter, was
aware of his going, and saw with what speed he made away. And being
desirous to know the matter, entered the place; where finding the
hatchet, he was standing, wondering and considering it, when behold,
those that had been sent, find him alone with the hatchet in his hand,
the noise whereof had startled and brought them thither. They seize
him, hale him away, and gathering the dwellers in the market-place
together, boast of having taken a notorious thief, and so he was being
led away to be taken before the judge.
But thus far was Alypius to be instructed. For forthwith, O Lord,
Thou succouredst his innocency, whereof Thou alone wert witness. For
as he was being led either to prison or to punishment, a certain
architect met them, who had the chief charge of the public
buildings. Glad they were to meet him especially, by whom they were
wont to be suspected of stealing the goods lost out of the
marketplace, as though to show him at last by whom these thefts were
committed. He, however, had divers times seen Alypius at a certain
senator's house, to whom he often went to pay his respects; and
recognising him immediately, took him aside by the hand, and enquiring
the occasion of so great a calamity, heard the whole matter, and
bade all present, amid much uproar and threats, to go with him. So
they came to the house of the young man who had done the deed.
There, before the door, was a boy so young as to be likely, not
apprehending any harm to his master, to disclose the whole. For he had
attended his master to the market-place. Whom so soon as Alypius
remembered, he told the architect: and he showing the hatchet to the
boy, asked him "Whose that was?" "Ours," quoth he presently: and being
further questioned, he discovered every thing. Thus the crime being
transferred to that house, and the multitude ashamed, which had
begun to insult over Alypius, he who was to be a dispenser of Thy
Word, and an examiner of many causes in Thy Church, went away better
experienced and instructed.
Him then I had found at Rome, and he clave to me by a most strong
tie, and went with me to Milan, both that he might not leave me, and
might practise something of the law he had studied, more to please his
parents than himself. There he had thrice sat as Assessor, with an
uncorruptness much wondered at by others, he wondering at others
rather who could prefer gold to honesty. His character was tried
besides, not only with the bait of covetousness, but with the goad
of fear. At Rome he was Assessor to the count of the Italian Treasury.
There was at that time a very powerful senator, to whose favours
many stood indebted, many much feared. He would needs, by his usual
power, have a thing allowed him which by the laws was unallowed.
Alypius resisted it: a bribe was promised; with all his heart he
scorned it: threats were held out; he trampled upon them: all
wondering at so unwonted a spirit, which neither desired the
friendship, nor feared the enmity of one so great and so mightily
renowned for innumerable means of doing good or evil. And the very
judge, whose councillor Alypius was, although also unwilling it should
be, yet did not openly refuse, but put the matter off upon Alypius,
alleging that he would not allow him to do it: for in truth had the
judge done it, Alypius would have decided otherwise. With this one
thing in the way of learning was he well-nigh seduced, that he might
have books copied for him at Praetorian prices, but consulting
justice, he altered his deliberation for the better; esteeming
equity whereby he was hindered more gainful than the power whereby
he were allowed. These are slight things, but he that is faithful in
little, is faithful also in much. Nor can that any how be void,
which proceeded out of the mouth of Thy Truth: If ye have not been
faithful in the unrighteous Mammon, who will commit to your trust true
riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another
man's, who shall give you that which is your own? He being such, did
at that time cleave to me, and with me wavered in purpose, what course
of life was to be taken.
Nebridius also, who having left his native country near Carthage,
yea and Carthage itself, where he had much lived, leaving his
excellent family-estate and house, and a mother behind, who was not to
follow him, had come to Milan, for no other reason but that with me he
might live in a most ardent search after truth and wisdom. Like me
he sighed, like me he wavered, an ardent searcher after true life, and
a most acute examiner of the most difficult questions. Thus were there
the mouths of three indigent persons, sighing out their wants one to
another, and waiting upon Thee that Thou mightest give them their meat
in due season. And in all the bitterness which by Thy mercy followed
our worldly affairs, as we looked towards the end, why we should
suffer all this, darkness met us; and we turned away groaning, and
saying, How long shall these things be? This too we often said; and so
saying forsook them not, for as yet there dawned nothing certain,
which these forsaken, we might embrace.
And I, viewing and reviewing things, most wondered at the length
of time from that my nineteenth year, wherein I had begun to kindle
with the desire of wisdom, settling when I had found her, to abandon
all the empty hopes and lying frenzies of vain desires. And lo, I
was now in my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, greedy of
enjoying things present, which passed away and wasted my soul; while I
said to myself, "Tomorrow I shall find it; it will appear manifestly
and I shall grasp it; to, Faustus the Manichee will come, and clear
every thing! O you great men, ye Academicians, it is true then, that
no certainty can be attained for the ordering of life! Nay, let us
search the more diligently, and despair not. Lo, things in the
ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which sometimes
seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken, and in a good sense. I will
take my stand, where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the
clear truth be found out. But where shall it be sought or when?
Ambrose has no leisure; we have no leisure to read; where shall we
find even the books? Whence, or when procure them? from whom borrow
them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be ordered for the
health of our soul. Great hope has dawned; the Catholic Faith
teaches not what we thought, and vainly accused it of; her
instructed members hold it profane to believe God to be bounded by the
figure of a human body: and do we doubt to 'knock,' that the rest 'may
be opened'? The forenoons our scholars take up; what do we during
the rest? Why not this? But when then pay we court to our great
friends, whose favour we need? When compose what we may sell to
scholars? When refresh ourselves, unbending our minds from this
intenseness of care?
"Perish every thing, dismiss we these empty vanities, and betake
ourselves to the one search for truth! Life is vain, death
uncertain; if it steals upon us on a sudden, in what state shall we
depart hence? and where shall we learn what here we have neglected?
and shall we not rather suffer the punishment of this negligence?
What, if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling? Then
must this be ascertained. But God forbid this! It is no vain and empty
thing, that the excellent dignity of the authority of the Christian
Faith hath overspread the whole world. Never would such and so great
things be by God wrought for us, if with the death of the body the
life of the soul came to an end. Wherefore delay then to abandon
worldly hopes, and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the
blessed life? But wait! Even those things are pleasant; they have
some, and no small sweetness. We must not lightly abandon them, for it
were a shame to return again to them. See, it is no great matter now
to obtain some station, and then what should we more wish for? We have
store of powerful friends; if nothing else offer, and we be in much
haste, at least a presidentship may be given us: and a wife with
some money, that she increase not our charges: and this shall be the
bound of desire. Many great men, and most worthy of imitation, have
given themselves to the study of wisdom in the state of marriage.
While I went over these things, and these winds shifted and drove my
heart this way and that, time passed on, but I delayed to turn to
the Lord; and from day to day deferred to live in Thee, and deferred
not daily to die in myself. Loving a happy life, I feared it in its
own abode, and sought it, by fleeing from it. I thought I should be
too miserable, unless folded in female arms; and of the medicine of
Thy mercy to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it.
As for continency, I supposed it to be in our own power (though in
myself I did not find that power), being so foolish as not to know
what is written, None can be continent unless Thou give it; and that
Thou wouldest give it, if with inward groanings I did knock at Thine
ears, and with a settled faith did cast my care on Thee.
Alypius indeed kept me from marrying; alleging that so could we by
no means with undistracted leisure live together in the love of
wisdom, as we had long desired. For himself was even then most pure in
this point, so that it was wonderful; and that the more, since in
the outset of his youth he had entered into that course, but had not
stuck fast therein; rather had he felt remorse and revolting at it,
living thenceforth until now most continently. But I opposed him
with the examples of those who as married men had cherished wisdom,
and served God acceptably, and retained their friends, and loved
them faithfully. Of whose greatness of spirit I was far short; and
bound with the disease of the flesh, and its deadly sweetness, drew
along my chain, dreading to be loosed, and as if my wound had been
fretted, put back his good persuasions, as it were the hand of one
that would unchain me. Moreover, by me did the serpent speak unto
Alypius himself, by my tongue weaving and laying in his path
pleasurable snares, wherein his virtuous and free feet might be
entangled.
For when he wondered that I, whom he esteemed not slightly, should
stick so fast in the birdlime of that pleasure, as to protest (so
oft as we discussed it) that I could never lead a single life; and
urged in my defence when I saw him wonder, that there was great
difference between his momentary and scarce-remembered knowledge of
that life, which so he might easily despise, and my continued
acquaintance whereto if the honourable name of marriage were added, he
ought not to wonder why I could not contemn that course; he began also
to desire to be married; not as overcome with desire of such pleasure,
but out of curiosity. For he would fain know, he said, what that
should be, without which my life, to him so pleasing, would to me seem
not life but a punishment. For his mind, free from that chain, was
amazed at my thraldom; and through that amazement was going on to a
desire of trying it, thence to the trial itself, and thence perhaps to
sink into that bondage whereat he wondered, seeing he was willing to
make a covenant with death; and he that loves danger, shall fall
into it. For whatever honour there be in the office of well-ordering a
married life, and a family, moved us but slightly. But me for the most
part the habit of satisfying an insatiable appetite tormented, while
it held me captive; him, an admiring wonder was leading captive. So
were we, until Thou, O Most High, not forsaking our dust,
commiserating us miserable, didst come to our help, by wondrous and
secret ways.
Continual effort was made to have me married. I wooed, I was
promised, chiefly through my mother's pains, that so once married, the
health-giving baptism might cleanse me, towards which she rejoiced
that I was being daily fitted, and observed that her prayers, and
Thy promises, were being fulfilled in my faith. At which time
verily, both at my request and her own longing, with strong cries of
heart she daily begged of Thee, that Thou wouldest by a vision
discover unto her something concerning my future marriage; Thou
never wouldest. She saw indeed certain vain and fantastic things, such
as the energy of the human spirit, busied thereon, brought together;
and these she told me of, not with that confidence she was wont,
when Thou showedst her any thing, but slighting them. For she could,
she said, through a certain feeling, which in words she could not
express, discern betwixt Thy revelations, and the dreams of her own
soul. Yet the matter was pressed on, and a maiden asked in marriage,
two years under the fit age; and, as pleasing, was waited for.
And many of us friends conferring about, and detesting the turbulent
turmoils of human life, had debated and now almost resolved on
living apart from business and the bustle of men; and this was to be
thus obtained; we were to bring whatever we might severally procure,
and make one household of all; so that through the truth of our
friendship nothing should belong especially to any; but the whole thus
derived from all, should as a whole belong to each, and all to all. We
thought there might be some often persons in this society; some of
whom were very rich, especially Romanianus our townsman, from
childhood a very familiar friend of mine, whom the grievous
perplexities of his affairs had brought up to court; who was the
most earnest for this project; and therein was his voice of great
weight, because his ample estate far exceeded any of the rest. We
had settled also that two annual officers, as it were, should
provide all things necessary, the rest being undisturbed. But when
we began to consider whether the wives, which some of us already
had, others hoped to have, would allow this, all that plan, which
was being so well moulded, fell to pieces in our hands, was utterly
dashed and cast aside. Thence we betook us to sighs, and groans, and
our steps to follow the broad and beaten ways of the world; for many
thoughts were in our heart, but Thy counsel standeth for ever. Out
of which counsel Thou didst deride ours, and preparedst Thine own;
purposing to give us meat in due season, and to fill our souls with
blessing.
Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my concubine being torn
from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave
unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Afric,
vowing unto Thee never to know any other man, leaving with me my son
by her. But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, impatient
of delay, inasmuch as not till after two years was I to obtain her I
sought not being so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust,
procured another, though no wife, that so by the servitude of an
enduring custom, the disease of my soul might be kept up and carried
on in its vigour, or even augmented, into the dominion of marriage.
Nor was that my wound cured, which had been made by the cutting away
of the former, but after inflammation and most acute pain, it
mortified, and my pains became less acute, but more desperate.
To Thee be praise, glory to Thee, Fountain of mercies. I was
becoming more miserable, and Thou nearer. Thy right hand was
continually ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to wash me
thoroughly, and I knew it not; nor did anything call me back from a
yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death, and of Thy
judgment to come; which amid all my changes, never departed from my
breast. And in my disputes with my friends Alypius and Nebridius of
the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus had in my mind won
the palm, had I not believed that after death there remained a life
for the soul, and places of requital according to men's deserts, which
Epicurus would not believe. And I asked, "were we immortal, and to
live in perpetual bodily pleasure, without fear of losing it, why
should we not be happy, or what else should we seek?" not knowing that
great misery was involved in this very thing, that, being thus sunk
and blinded, I could not discern that light of excellence and
beauty, to be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of flesh cannot
see, and is seen by the inner man. Nor did I, unhappy, consider from
what source it sprung, that even on these things, foul as they were, I
with pleasure discoursed with my friends, nor could I, even
according to the notions I then had of happiness, be happy without
friends, amid what abundance soever of carnal pleasures. And yet these
friends I loved for themselves only, and I felt that I was beloved
of them again for myself only.
O crooked paths! Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped, by
forsaking Thee, to gain some better thing! Turned it hath, and
turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, yet all was painful; and
Thou alone rest. And behold, Thou art at hand, and deliverest us
from our wretched wanderings, and placest us in Thy way, and dost
comfort us, and say, "Run; I will carry you; yea I will bring you
through; there also will I carry you."
Here Ends Book VI of the Confessions of St. Augustine.
Continue to Book VII