ATTAINING
HIS THIRTIETH YEAR, HE, UNDER THE ADMONITION OF THE DISCOURSES OF
AMBROSE, DISCOVERED MORE AND MORE THE TRUTH OF THE CATHOLIC
DOCTRINE, AND DELIBERATES AS TO THE BETTER REGULATION OF HIS
LIFE.
CHAP. I. HIS MOTHER HAVING
FOLLOWED HIM' TO MILAN, DECLARES THAT SHE WILL NOT DIE BEFORE HER
SON SHALL HAVE EMBRACED THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
1. O THou, my hope from my youth,(1) where weft Thou to me,
and whither hadst Thou gone ? For in truth, hadst Thou not
created me, and made a difference between me and the beasts of
the field and fowls of the air ? Thou hadst made me wiser than
they, yet did I wander about in dark and slippery places, and
sought Thee abroad out of myself, and found not the God of my
heart ;' and had entered the depths of the sea, and distrusted
and despaired finding out the truth. By this time my mother,
made strong by her piety, had come to me, following me over sea
and land, in all perils feeling secure in Thee. For in the
dangers of the sea she comforted the very sailors (to whom the
inexperienced passengers, when alarmed, were wont rather to go
for comfort), assuring them of a safe arrival, because she had
been so assured by: Thee in a vision. She found me in grievous i
danger, through despair of ever finding truth. But when I had
disclosed to her that I was now no longer a Manichaean, though
not yet a Catholic Christian, she did not leap for joy as at what
was unexpected; although she was now reassured as to that part of
my misery for which she had mourned me as one dead, but who would
be raised to Thee, carrying me forth upon the bier of her
thoughts, that Thou mightest say unto the widow's son, "Young
man, I say unto Thee, arise," and he should revive, and begin to
speak, and Thou shouldest deliver him to his mother? Her heart,
then, was not agitated with any violent exultation, when she had
heard that to be already in so great a part accomplished which
she daily, with tears, entreated of Thee might be done, that
though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from
falsehood. Yea, rather, for that she was fully confident that
Thou, who hadst promised the whole, wouldst give the rest, most
calmly, and with a breast full of confidence, she replied to me,
"She believed in Christ, that before she departed this life, she
would see me a Catholic believer."(4) And thus much said she to
me; but to Thee, O Fountain of mercies, poured she out more
frequent prayers and tears, that Thou wouldest hasten Thy aid,
and enlighten my darkness; and she hurried all the more
assiduously to the church, and hung upon the words of Ambrose,
praying for the fountain of water that springeth up into
everlasting life.(5) For she loved that man as an angel of God,
because she knew that it was by him that I had been brought, for
the present, to that perplexing state of agitation' I was now in,
through which she was fully persuaded that I should pass from
sickness unto health, after an excess, as it were. of a sharper
fit, which doctors term the "crisis."
CHAP. II. SHE, ON THE
PROHIBITION OF AMBROSE, ABSTAINS FROM HONOURING THE MEMORY OF THE
MARTYRS.
2. When, therefore, my mother had at one time as was her
custom in Africa brought to the oratories built in the memory of
the saints(1) certain cakes, and bread, and wine, and was
forbidden by the door-keeper, so soon as she learnt that it was
the bishop who had forbidden it, she so piously and obediently
acceded to it, that I myself marvelled how readily she could
bring herself to accuse her own custom, rather than question his
prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not take possession of her
spirit, nor did the love of wine stimulate her to hatred of the
truth, as it doth too many, both male and female, who nauseate at
a song of sobriety, as men well drunk at a draught of water. But
she, when she had brought her basket with the festive meats, of
which she would taste herself first and give the rest away, would
never allow herself more than one little cup of wine, diluted
according to her own temperate palate, which, out of courtesy,
she would taste. And if there were many oratories of departed
saints that ought to be honoured in the same Way, she still
carried round with her the selfsame cup, to be used every' where;
and this, which was not only very much watered, but was also very
tepid with carrying about, she would distribute by small sips to
those around; for she sought their devotion, not pleasure. As
soon, therefore, as she found this custom to be forbidden by that
famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those who would
use it with moderation, lest thereby an occasion of excess (2)
might be given to such as were drunken, and because these, so to
say, festivals in honour of the dead were very. like unto the
superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly abstained from
it. And in lieu of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she
had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full
of more purified petitions, and to give all that she could to the
poor; (3) that so the communion of the Lord's body might be
rightly celebrated there, 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 thus my heart thinks of it in thy
sight, that my mother perhaps would not so easily have given way
to the relinquishment of this custom had it been forbidden by
another whom she loved not as Ambrose, (4) whom, out of regard
for my salvation, she loved most dearly; and he loved her truly,
on account of her most religious conversation, whereby, in good
works so "fervent m spirit," she frequented the church; so that
he would often, when he saw me, burst forth into her praises,
congratulating me that I had such a mother little knowing what a
son she had in me, who was in doubt as to all these things, and
did not imagine the way of life could be found out.
CHAP. III. AS AMBROSE WAS
OCCUPIED WITH BUSINESS AND STUDY, AUGUSTIN COULD SELDOM CONSULT
HIM CONCERNING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
3. Nor did I now groan in my prayers that Thou wouldest help
me; but my mind was wholly intent on knowledge, and eager to
dispute. And Ambrose himself I esteemed a happy man, as the
world' counted happiness, in that such great personages held him
in honour; only his celibacy appeared to me a painful thing. But
what hope he cherished, what struggles he had against the
temptations that beset his very excellences, what solace in
adversities, and what savoury joys Thy bread possessed for the
hidden mouth of his heart when ruminating(1) on it, I could
neither conjecture, nor had I experienced. Nor did he know my
embarrassments, nor the pit of my danger. For I could not
request of him what I wished as I wished, in that I was debarred
from hearing and speaking to him by crowds of busy people, whose
infirmities he devoted himself to. With whom when he was not
engaged (which was but a little time), he either was refreshing
his body with necessary sustenance, or his mind with reading.
But while reading, his eyes glanced over the pages, and his heart
searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent.
Ofttimes, when we had come (for no one was forbidden to enter,
nor was it his custom that the arrival of those who came should
be announced to him), we saw him thus reading to himself, and
never otherwise; and, having long sat in silence (for who durst
interrupt one so intent?), we were fain to depart, inferring that
in the little time he secured for the recruiting of his mind,
free from the clamour of other men's business, he was unwilling
to be taken off. And perchance he was fearful lest, if the
author he studied should express aught vaguely, some doubtful and
attentive hearer should ask him to expound it, or to discuss some
of the more abstruse questions, as that, his time. being thus
occupied, he could not turn over as many volumes as he wished; at
-though the preservation of his voice, which was very easily
weakened, might be the truer reason for his reading to himself.
But whatever was his motive in so doing, doubtless in such a man
was a good one.
4. But verily no opportunity could I find
of ascertaining what I desired from that Thy so holy oracle, his
breast, unless the thing might be entered into briefly. But
those surgings in me required to find him at full leisure, that I
might pour them out to him, but never were they able to find him
so; and I heard him, indeed, every Lord's day, "rightly dividing
the word of truth" (2) among the people; and I was all the more
convinced that all those knots of crafty calumnies, which those
deceivers of ours had knit against the divine books, could be
unravelled. But so soon as I understood, withal, that man made
"after the image of Him that created him"(3) was not so
understood by Thy spiritual sons (whom of the Catholic mother
Thou hadst begotten again through grace), as though they believed
and imagined Thee to be bounded by human form, although what was
the nature of a spiritual substance (4) I had not the faintest or
dimmest suspicion, yet rejoicing, I blushed that for so many
years I had barked, not against the Catholic faith, but against
the fables of carnal imaginations. For I had been both impious
and rash in this, that what I ought inquiring to have learnt, I
had pronounced on condemning. For Thou, O most high and most
near, most secret, yet most present, who hast not limbs some
larger some smaller, but art wholly everywhere, and nowhere in
space, nor art Thou of such corporeal form, yet hast Thou created
man after Thine own image, and, behold, from head to foot is he
confined by space.
CHAP. IV. HE RECOGNISES THE
FALSITY OF HIS OWN OPINIONS, AND COMMITS TO MEMORY THE SAYING OF
AMBROSE.
5. As, then, I knew not how this image of
Thine should subsist, I should have knocked and propounded the
doubt how it was to be believed, and not have insultingly opposed
it, as if it were believed. Anxiety, therefore, as to what to
retain as certain, did all the more sharply gnaw into my soul,
the more shame I felt that, having been so long deluded and
deceived by the promise of certainties, I had, with puerile error
and petulance, prated of so many uncertainties as if they were
certainties. For! that they were falsehoods became apparent to
me afterwards. However, I was certain that they were uncertain,
and that I had formerly held them as certain when with a blind
contentiousness I accused Thy Catholic Church, which · though I
had not yet discovered to teach truly, yet not to teach that of
which I had so vehemently accused her. In this manner was I
confounded and converted, and I rejoiced, O my God, that the one
Church, the body of Thine only Son (wherein the name of Christ
had been set upon me when an infant), did not appreciate these
infantile trifles, nor maintained, in her sound doctrine, any
tenet that would confine Thee, the Creator of all, in space
though ever so great and wide, yet bounded on all sides by the
restraints of a human form.
6. I rejoiced also that the old
Scriptures of the law and the prophets were laid before me, to be
perused, not now with that eye to which' they seemed most absurd
before, when I censured Thy holy ones for so thinking, whereas in
truth they thought not so; and with delight I heard Ambrose, in
his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently recommend
this text as a rule, " The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth
life;" t whilst, drawing aside the mystic veil, he spiritually
hid open that which, accepted according to the "letter," seemed
to teach perverse doctrines teaching herein nothing that
offended me, though he taught such things as I knew not as yet
whether they were true. For all this time I restrained my heart
from assenting to anything, fearing tot fall headlong; but by
hanging in suspense I was the worse killed. For my desire was to
be as well assured of those things that I saw not, as I was that
seven and three are ten. For I was not so insane as to believe
that this could not be comprehended; but I desired to have other
things as clear as this, whether corporeal things, which were not
present to my senses, or spiritual, whereof I knew not how to
conceive except corporeally. And by believing I might have been
cured, that so the sight of my soul being cleared? it might in
some way be directed towards Thy truth, which abideth always, and
faileth in naught. But as it happens that he 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 for us the medica-
merits of faith, and hast applied them to the maladies of the
whole world, and hast bestowed upon them so great authority.
CHAP. V. FAITH IS THE BASIS
OF HUMAN LIFE; MAN CANNOT DISCOVER THAT TRUTH WHICH HOLY
SCRIPTURE HAS DISCLOSED.
7. From this, however, being led to prefer the Catholic
doctrine, I felt that it was with more moderation and honesty
that it commanded things to be believed that were not
demonstrated (whether it was that they could be demonstrated, but
not to any one, or could not be demonstrated at all), than was
the method of the Manichaeans, where our credulity was mocked by
audacious promise of knowledge, and then so many most fabulous
and absurd things were forced upon belief because they were not
capable of demonstration. After that, O Lord, Thou, by little
and little, with most gentle and most merciful hand, drawing and
calming my heart, didst persuade taking into consideration what a
multiplicity of things which I had never seen, nor was present
when they were enacted, like so many of the! things in secular
history, and so many accounts of places and cities which I had
not seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so many now
of these men, now of those, which unless we should believe, we
should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how
unalterable an assurance I believed of what parents I was born,
which it would have been impossible for me to know otherwise than
by hearsay, taking into consideration all this, Thou persuadest
me that not they who believed Thy books (which, with so great
authority, Thou hast established among nearly all nations), but
those who believed them not were to be blamed; (2) and that those
men were not to be listened unto who should say to me, "How dost
thou know that those Scriptures were imparted unto mankind by the
Spirit of the one true and most true God ?" For it was the same
thing that was most of all to be believed, since no wranglings of
blasphemous questions, whereof I had read so many amongst the
self-contradicting philosophers, could once wring the belief from
me that Thou art, whatsoever Thou wert, though what I knew not, or that the government of human affairs belongs to Thee.
8.
Thus much I believed, at one time more strongly than another, yet
did I ever believe both that Thou weft, and hadst a care of us,
although I was ignorant both what was to be thought of Thy
substance, and what way led, or led back to Thee. Seeing, then,
that we were too weak by unaided reason to find out the truth,
and for this cause needed the authority of the holy writings, I
had now begun to believe that Thou wouldest by no means have
given such excellency of authority to those Scriptures throughout
all lands, had it not been Thy will thereby to be believed in,
and thereby sought. For now those things which heretofore
appeared incongruous to me in the Scripture, and used to offend
me, having heard divers of them expounded reasonably, I referred
to the depth of the mysteries, and its authority seemed to me all
the more venerable and worthy of religious belief, in that, while
it was visible for all to read it, it reserved the majesty of its
secrets within its profound significance, stooping to all in the
great plainness of its language and lowliness of its style, yet
exercising the application of such as are not light of heart ;'
that it might receive all into its common bosom, and through
narrow passages waft over some few towards Thee, yet many more
than if it did not stand upon such a height of authority, nor
allured multitudes within its bosom by its holy humility. These
things I meditated upon, and Thou wert with me; I sighed, and
Thou heardest me; I vacillated, and Thou didst guide me; I roamed
through the broad way (4) of the world, and Thou didst not desert
me.
CHAP. VI. ON THE SOURCE AND
CAUSE OF TRUE JOY, THE EXAMPLE OF THE JOYOUS BEGGAR BEING
ADDUCED.
9. I longed for honours, gains, wedlock; and Thou mockedst
me. In these desires I underwent most bitter hardships, Thou
being the more gracious the less Thou didst suffer anything which
was not Thou to grow sweet to me. Behold my heart, O Lord, who
wouldest that I should recall all this, and confess unto Thee.
Now let my soul cleave to Thee, which Thou hast freed from that
fast-holding bird-lime of death. How wretched was it t 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 naught, be converted and be
healed. How wretched was I at that time, and how didst Thou deal
with me, to make me sensible of my wretchedness on that day
wherein I was preparing to recite a panegyric on the Emperor,'
wherein I was to deliver many a lie, and lying was to be
applauded by those who knew I lied; and my heart panted with
these cares, and boiled over with the feverishness of consuming
thoughts. For, while walking along one of the streets of Milan,
I observed a poor mendicant, then, I imagine, with a full belly,
joking and joyous; and I sighed, and spake to the friends
around me of the many sorrows resulting from our madness, for
that by all such exertions of ours, as those wherein I then
laboured, dragging along, under the spur of desires, the burden
of my own, unhappiness, and by dragging increasing it,we yet
aimed only to attain that very joyousness which that mendicant
had reached before us, who, perchance, never would attain it!
For what he had obtained through a few begged pence, the same was
I scheming for by many a wretched and tortuous turning, the joy
of a temporary felicity. For he verily possessed not true joy,
but yet I, with these my ambitions, was seeking one much more
untrue. And in truth he was joyous, I anxious; he free from
care, I full of alarms. But should any one inquire of me whether
I would rather be merry or fearful, I would reply, Merry. Again,
were I asked whether I would rather be such as he was, or as I
myself then was, I should elect to be myself, though beset with
cares and alarms, but out of perversity; for was it so in truth ?
For I ought not to prefer myself to him because I happened to be
more learned than he, seeing that I took no delight therein, but
sought rather to please men by it; and that not to instruct, but
only to please. Wherefore also didst Thou break my bones with
the rod of Thy correction.2
10. Away with those, then, from
my soul, who say unto it, "It makes a difference from whence a
man's joy is derived. That mendicant rejoiced in drunkenness;
thou longedst to rejoice in glory." What glory, O Lord ? That
which is not in Thee. For even as his was no true joy, so was
mine no true glory;a and it subverted my soul more. He would
digest his drunkenness that same night, but many a night had I
slept with mine, and risen again with it, and was to sleep again
and again to rise With it, I know not how oft. It does indeed
"make a difference whence a man's joy is derived." I know it is
so, and that the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably beyond
such vanity. Yea, and rat that time was he beyond me, for he
truly was i the happier man; not only for that he was thoroughly
steeped in mirth, I torn to pieces with cares, but he, by giving
good wishes, had gotten wine, I, by lying, was following after
pride. Much to this effect said I then to my dear friends, and I
often marked in them how it fared with me; and I found that it
went ill with me, and 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 flew away.
CHAP. VII. HE LEADS TO
REFORMATION HIS FRIEND ALYPIUS, SEIZED WITH MADNESS FOR THE
CIRCENSIAN GAMES.
11. These things we, who lived like friends together,
jointly deplored, but chiefly and most familiarly did I discuss
them with Alypius and Nebridius, of whom Alypius was born in the
same town as myself, his parents being of the highest rank there,
but he being younger,than I. For he had studied under me, first,
when I taught in our own town, and afterwards at Carthage, and
esteemed me highly, because I appeared to him good and learned;
and I esteemed him for his innate love of virtue, which, in one
of no great age, was sufficiently eminent. But the vortex of
Carthaginian customs (amongst whom these frivolous spectacles are
hotly followed) had inveigled him into the madness of the
Circensian games. But while he was miserably tossed about
therein, I was professing rhetoric there, and had a public
school. As yet he did not give ear to my teaching, on account of
some ill-feeling that had arisen between me and his father. I
had then found how fatally he doted upon the circus, and was
deeply grieved that he seemed likely if, indeed, he had not
already done so to cast away his so great promise. Yet had I no
means of advising, or by a sort of restraint reclaiming him,
either by the kindness of a friend or by the authority of a
master. For I imagined that his sentiments towards me were the
same as his father's; but he was not such. Disregarding,
therefore, his father's will in that matter, he commenced to
salute me, and, coming into my lecture-room, to listen for a
little and depart.
12. But it slipped my memory to deal
with him, so that he should not, through a blind and headstrong
desire of empty pastimes, undo so [great a wit. But Thou, O
Lord, who governest the helm of all Thou hast created, hadst not
forgotten him, who was one day to be amongst Thy sons, the
President of Thy sacrament;and that his amendment might plainly
be attributed to Thyself, Thou broughtest it about through me,
but I knowing nothing of it. For one day, when I was sitting in
my accustomed place, with my scholars before me, he came in,
saluted me, sat himself down, and fixed his attention on the
subject I was then handling. It so happened that I had a passage
in hand, which while I was explaining, a simile borrowed from the
Circensian games occurred to me, as likely to make what I wished
to convey pleasanter and plainer, imbued with a biting jibe 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
made a ground of offence against me, this worthy young man took
as a reason for being offended at himself, and for loving me more
fervently. For Thou hast said it long ago, and written in Thy
book, "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee." But I had not
rebuked him, but Thou, who makest use of all consciously or
unconsciously, in that order which Thyself knowest (and that
order is right), wroughtest out of my heart and tongue burning
coals, by which Thou mightest set on fire and cure the hopeful
mind thus languishing. Let him be silent in Thy praises who
meditates not on Thy mercies, which from my inmost parts confess
unto Thee. For he upon that speech rushed out from that so deep
pit, wherein he was wilfully plunged, and was blinded by its
miserable pastimes; and he roused his mind with a resolute
moderation; whereupon all the filth of the Circensian pastimes
flew off from him, and he did not approach them further. Upon
this, he prevailed with his reluctant father to let him be my
pupil. He gave in and consented. And Alypius, beginning again
to hear me, was involved in the same superstition as I was,
loving in the Manichaeans that ostentation of continency (3)
which he believed to be true and unfeigned. It was, however, a
senseless and seducing continency, ensnaring precious souls, not
able as yet to reach the height of virtue, and easily beguiled
with the veneer of what was but a shadowy and feigned virtue.
CHAP. VIII. THE SAME
WHEN AT ROME, BEING LED BY OTHERS INTO THE AMPHITHEATRE, IS
DELIGHTED WITH THE GLADIATORIAL GAMES.
13. He, not relinquishing that worldly way which his parents
had bewitched him to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study
law, and there he was carried away in an extraordinary manner
with an incredible eagerness after the gladiatorial shows. For,
being utterly opposed to and detesting such spectacles, he was
one day met by chance by divers of his acquaintance and fellow-
students returning from dinner, and they with a friendly violence
drew him, vehemently objecting and resisting, into the
amphitheatre, on a day of these cruel and deadly shows, he thus
protesting: "Though you drag my body to that place, and there
place me, can you force me to give my mind and lend my eyes to
these shows? Thus shall I be absent while present, and so shall
overcome both you and them." They hearing this, dragged him on
nevertheless, desirous, perchance, to see whether he could do as
he said. When they had arrived thither, and had taken their
places as they could, the whole place became excited with the
inhuman sports. But he, shutting up the doors of his eyes,
forbade his mind to roam abroad after such naughtiness; and would
that he had shut his ears also! For, upon the fall of one in the
fight, a mighty cry from the whole audience stirring him
strongly, he, overcome by curiosity, and prepared as it were to
despise and rise superior to it, no matter what it were, opened
his eyes, and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the
other, whom he desired to see, was in his body; and he fell more
miserably than he on whose fall that mighty clamour was raised,
which entered through his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make
way for the striking and beating down of his soul, which was bold
rather than valiant hitherto; and so much the weaker in that it
presumed on itself, which ought to have depended on Thee. For,
directly he saw that blood, he therewith imbibed a sort of
savageness; nor did he turn away, but fixed his eye, drinking in
madness unconsciously, and was delighted with the guilty contest,
and drunken with the bloody pastime. Nor was he now the same he
came in, but was one of the throng he came unto, and a true
companion of those who had brought him thither. Why need I say
more? He looked, shouted, was excited, carried away with him the
madness which would stimulate him to return, not only with those
who first enticed him, but also before them, yea, and to draw in
others. And from all this didst Thou, with a most powerful and
most merciful hand, pluck him, and taughtest him not to repose
confidence in himself, but in Thee but not till long after.
CHAP. IX. INNOCENT
ALYPIUS, BEING APPREHENDED AS A THIEF, IS SET AT LIBERTY BY THE
CLEVERNESS OF AN ARCHITECT.
14. But this was all being stored up in his memory for a
medicine hereafter. As was that also, that when he was yet
studying under me at Carthage, and was meditating at noonday in
the market-place upon what he had to recite (as scholars are wont
to be exercised), Thou sufferedst him to be apprehended as a
thief by the officers of the market-place. For no other reason,
I apprehend, didst Thou, O our God, suffer it, but that he who
was in the future to prove so great a man should now begin to
learn that, in judging of causes, man should not with a reckless
credulity readily be condemned by man. For as he was walking up
and down alone before the judgment-seat with his tablets and pen,
lo, a young man, one of the scholars, the real thief, privily
bringing a hatchet, got in without Alypius' seeing him as far as
the leaden bars which protect the silversmiths' shops, and began
to cut away the lead. But the noise of the hatchet being heard,
the silversmiths below began to make a stir, and sent to take in
custody whomsoever they should find. But the thief, hearing
their voices, ran away, leaving his hatchet, fearing to be taken
with it. Now Alypius, who had not seen him come in, caught sight
of him as he went out, and noted with what speed he made off.
And, being curious to know the reasons, he entered the place,
where, finding the hatchet, he stood wondering and pondering,
when behold, those that were sent caught him alone, hatchet in
hand, the noise whereof had startled them and brought them
thither. They lay hold of him and drag him away, and, gathering
the tenants of the market-place about them, boast of having taken
a notorious thief, and thereupon he was being led away to apppear
before the judge.
15. But thus far was he to be instructed.
For immediately, O Lord, Thou camest to the succour of his
innocency, whereof Thou wert the sole witness. For, as he was
being led either to prison or to punishment, they were met by a
certain architect, who had the chief charge of the public
buildings. They were specially glad to come across him, by whom
they used to be suspected of stealing the goods lost out of the
market-place, as though at last to convince him by whom these
thefts were committed. He, however, had at divers times seen
Alypius at the house of a certain senator, whom he was wont to
visit to pay his respects; and, recognising him at once, he took
him aside by the hand, and inquiring of him the cause of so great
a misfortune, heard the whole affair, and commanded all the
rabble then present (who were very uproarious and full of
threatenings) to go with him. And they came to the house of the
young man who had committed the deed. There, before the door,
was a lad so young as not to refrain from disclosing the whole
through the fear of injuring his master. For he had followed his
master to the market-place. Whom, so soon as Alypius recognised,
he intimated it to the architect; and he, showing the hatchet to
the lad; asked him to whom it belonged. "To us," quoth he
immediately; and on being further interrogated, he disclosed
everything. Thus, the crime being transferred to that house, and
the rabble shamed, which had begun to triumph over Alypius, he,
the future dispenser of Thy word, and an examiner of numerous
causes in Thy Church, went away better experienced and
instructed.
CHAP. X. THE WONDERFUL
INTEGRITY OF ALYPIUS IN JUDGMENT. THE LASTING FRIENDSHIP OF
NEBRIDIUS WITH AUGUSTIN.
16. Him, therefore, had I lighted upon at Rome, and he clung
to me by a most strong tie, and accompanied me to Milan, both
that he might not leave me, and that he might practise something
of the law he had studied, more with a view of pleasing his
parents than himself. There had he thrice sat as assessor with
an uncorruptness wondered at by others, he rather wondering at
those who could prefer gold to integrity. His character was
tested, also, not only by the bait of covetousness, but by the
spur of fear. At Rome, he was assessor to the Count of the
Italian Treasury. There was at that time a most potent senator,
to whose favours many were indebted, of whom also many stood in
fear. He would fain, by his usual power, have a thing granted
him which was forbidden by the laws. This Alypius resisted; a
bribe was promised, he scorned it with all his heart; threats
were employed, he trampled them under foot, all men being
astonished at so rare a spirit, which neither coveted the
friendship nor feared the enmity of a man at once so powerful and
so greatly famed for his innumerable means of doing good or ill.
Even the judge whose councillor Alypius was, although also
unwilling that it should be done, yet did not openly refuse it,
but put the matter off upon Alypius, alleging that it was he who
would not permit him to do it; for verily, had the judge done it,
Alypius would have decided otherwise. With this one thing in the
way of learning was he very nearly led away, that he might
have books copied for him at praetorian prices. But, consulting
justice, he changed his mind for the better, esteeming equity,
whereby he was hindered, more gainful than the power whereby he
was permitted. These are little things, but "He that is faithful
in that which is least, is faithful also in much." Nor can that
possibly be void which proceedeth out of the mouth of Thy Truth.
"If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous
mammon, who will commit to your trust the 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 cling to me, and wavered in purpose, as I did, what course
of life was to be taken.
17. Nebridius also, who had left
his native country near Carthage, and Carthage itself, where he
had usually lived, leaving behind his fine paternal estate, his
house, and his mother, who intended not to follow him, had come
to Milan, for no other reason than that he might live with me in
a most ardent search after truth and wisdom. Like me he sighed,
like me he wavered, an ardent seeker after true life, and a most
acute examiner of the most abstruse questions. So were there
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. And in all the bitterness which by Thy mercy
followed our worldly pursuits, as we contemplated the end, why
this suffering should be ours, darkness came upon us; and we
turned away groaning and exclaiming, "How long shall these things
be?" And this we often said; and saying so, we did not
relinquish them, for as yet we had discovered nothing certain to
which, when relinquished, we might betake ourselves.
CHAP. XI. BEING TROUBLED
BY HIS GRIEVOUS ERRORS, HE MEDITATES ENTERING ON A NEW LIFE.
18. And I, puzzling over and reviewing these things, most
marvelled at the length of time from that my nineteenth year,
wherein I began to be inflamed with the desire of wisdom,
resolving, when I had found her, to forsake all the empty hopes
and lying insanities of vain desires. And behold, I was now
getting on to my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, eager
for the enjoyment of things present, which fly away and destroy
me, whilst I say, "Tomorrow I shall discover it; behold, it will
appear plainly, and I shall seize it; behold, Faustus will come
and explain everything! O ye great men, ye Academicians, it is
then true that nothing certain for the ordering of life can be
attained! Nay, let us search the more diligently, and let us not
despair. Lo, the things in the ecclesiastical books, which
appeared to us absurd aforetime, 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 be 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? Whence or when procure them? From whom
borrow them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be
set apart for the health of the soul. Great hope has risen upon
us, the Catholic faith doth not teach what we conceived, and
vainly accused it of. Her learned ones hold it as an abomination
to believe that God is limited by the form of a human body. And
do we doubt to 'knock,' in order that the rest may be 'opened'?
The mornings are taken up by our scholars; how do we employ the
rest of the day? Why do we not set about this? But when, then,
pay our respects to our great friends, of whose favours we stand
in need? When prepare what our scholars buy from us? When
recreate ourselves, relaxing our minds from the pressure of
care?"
19. "Perish everything, and let us dismiss these
empty vanities, and betake ourselves solely to the search after
truth! Life is miserable, death uncertain. If it creeps upon us
suddenly, in what state shall we depart hence, and where shall we
learn what we have neglected here? Or rather shall we not suffer
the punishment of this negligence? What if death itself should
cut off and put an end to all care and feeling? This also, then,
must be inquired into. But God forbid that it should be so. It
is not without reason, it is no empty thing, that the so eminent
height of the authority of the Christian faith is diffused
throughout the entire world. Never would such and so great
things be wrought for us, if, by the death of the body, the life
of the soul were destroyed. Why, therefore, do we delay to
abandon our hopes of this world, and give ourselves wholly to
seek after God and the blessed life? But stay! Even those
things are enjoyable; and they possess some and no little
sweetness. We must not abandon them lightly, for it would be a
shame to return to them again. Behold, now is it a great matter
to obtain some post of honour! And what more could we desire?
We have crowds of influential friends, though we have nothing
else, and if we make haste a presidentship may be offered us; and
a wife with some money, that she increase not our expenses; and
this shall be the height of desire. Many men, who are great and
worthy of imitation, have applied themselves to the study of
wisdom in the marriage state."
20. Whilst I talked of these
things, and these winds veered about and tossed my heart hither
and thither, the time passed on; but I was slow to turn to the
Lord, and from day to day deferred to live in Thee, and deferred
not daily to die in myself. Being enamoured of a happy life, I
yet feared it in its own abode, and, fleeing from it, sought
after it. I conceived that I should be too unhappy were I
deprived of the embracements of a woman ; and of Thy merciful
medicine to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried
it. As regards continency, I imagined it to be under the control
of our own strength (though in myself I found it not), being so
foolish as not to know what is written, that none can be
continent unless Thou give it ; and that Thou wouldst give it, if
with heartfelt groaning I should knock at Thine ears, and should
with firm faith cast my care upon Thee.
CHAP. XII. DISCUSSION
WITH ALYPIUS CONCERNING A LIFE OF CELIBACY
21. It was in truth Alypius who prevented me from marrying,
alleging that thus we could by no means live together, having so
much undistracted leisure in the love of wisdom, as we had long
desired. For he himself was so chaste in this matter that it was
wonderful all the more, too, that in his early youth he had
entered upon that path, but had not clung to it; rather had he,
feeling sorrow and disgust at it, lived from that time to the
present most continently. But I opposed him with the examples of
those who as married men had loved wisdom, found favour with God,
and walked faithfully and lovingly with their friends. From the
greatness of whose spirit I fell far short, and, enthralled with
the disease of the flesh and its deadly sweetness, dragged my
chain along, fearing to be loosed; and, as if it pressed my
wound, rejected his kind expostulations, as it were the hand of
one who would unchain me. Moreover, it was by me that the
serpent spake unto Alypius himself, weaving and laying in his
path, by my tongue, pleasant snares, wherein his honourable and
free feet might be entangled.
22. For when he wondered that
I, for whom he had no slight esteem, stuck so fast in the bird-
lime of that pleasure as to affirm whenever we discussed the
matter that it would be impossible for me to lead a single life,
and urged in my defence when I saw him wonder that there was a
vast difference between the life that he had tried by stealth and
snatches (of which he had now but a faint recollection, and might
therefore, without regret, easily despise), and my sustained
acquaintance with it, whereto if but the honourable name of
marriage were added, he would not then be astonished at my
inability to contemn that course, then began he also to wish
to be married, not as if overpowered by the lust of such
pleasure, but from curiosity. For, as he said, he was anxious to
know what that could be without which my life, which was so
pleasing to him, seemed to me not life but a penalty. For his
mind, free from that chain, was astounded at my slavery, and
through that astonishment was going on to a desire of trying it,
and from it to the trial itself, and thence, perchance, to fall
into that bondage whereat he was so astonished, seeing he was
ready to enter into "a covenant with death;" and he that loves
danger shall fall into it. For whatever the conjugal honour be
in the office of well-ordering a married life, and sustaining
children, influenced us but slightly. But that which did for the
most part afflict me, already made a slave to it, was the habit
of satisfying an insatiable lust; him about to be enslaved did an
admiring wonder draw on. In this state were we, until Thou, O
most High, not forsaking our lowliness, commiserating our misery,
didst come to our rescue by wonderful and secret ways.
CHAP. XIII. BEING URGED
BY HIS MOTHER TO TAKE A WIFE, HE SOUGHT A MAIDEN THAT WAS
PLEASING UNTO HIM.
23. Active efforts were made to get me a wife. I wooed, I
was engaged, my mother taking the greatest pains in the matter,
that when I was once married, the health-giving baptism might
cleanse me; for which she rejoiced that I was being daily fitted,
remarking that her desires and Thy promises were being fulfilled
in my faith. At which time, verily, both at my request and her
own desire, with strong heartfelt cries did we daily beg of Thee
that Thou wouldest by a vision disclose unto her something
concerning my future marriage; but Thou wouldest not. She saw
indeed certain vain and fantastic things, such as the earnestness
of a human spirit, bent thereon, conjured up; and these she told
me of, not with her usual confidence when Thou hadst shown her
anything, but slighting them. For she could, she declared,
through some feeling which she could not express in words,
discern the difference betwixt Thy revelations and the dreams of
her own spirit. Yet the affair was pressed on, and a maiden sued
who wanted two years of the marriageable age; and, as she was
pleasing, she was waited for.
CHAP. XIV. THE DESIGN OF
ESTABLISHING A COMMON HOUSEHOLD WITH HIS FRIENDS IS SPEEDILY
HINDERED.
24. And many of us friends, consulting on and abhorring the
turbulent vexations of human life, had considered and now almost
determined upon living at ease and separate from the turmoil of
men. And this was to be obtained in this way; we were to bring
whatever we could severally procure, and make a common household,
so that, through the sincerity of our friendship, nothing should
belong more to one than the other; but the whole, being derived
from all, should as a whole belong to each, and the whole unto
all. It seemed to us that this society might consist of ten
persons, some of whom were very rich, especially Romanianus,(1)
our townsman, an intimate friend of mine from his childhood, whom
grave business matters had then brought up to Court; who was the
most earnest of as all for this project, and whose voice was of
great weight in commending it, because his estate was far more
ample than that of the rest. We had arranged, too, that two
officers should be chosen yearly, for the providing of all
necessary things, whilst the rest were left undisturbed. But
when we began to reflect whether the wives which some of us had
already, and others hoped to have, would permit this, all that
plan, which was being so well framed, broke to pieces in our
hands, and was utterly wrecked and cast aside. Thence we fell
again to sighs and groans, and our steps to follow the broad and
beaten ways (2) of the world; for many thoughts were in our
heart, but Thy counsel standeth for ever. (3) Out of which
counsel Thou didst mock ours, and preparedst Thine own, purposing
to give us meat in due season, and to open Thy hand, and to fill
our souls with blessing.
CHAP. XV. HE DISMISSES ONE MISTRESS, AND CHOOSES ANOTHER.
25. Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my mistress being torn
from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to
her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding. And she went back to Africa,
making a vow unto Thee never to know another man, leaving with me my natural
son by her. But I, unhappy one, who could not imitate a woman, impatient
of delay, since it was not until two years' time I was to obtain her I
sought, being not so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust,
procured another (not a wife, though), that so by the bondage of
a lasting habit the disease of my soul might be nursed up, and kept up
in its vigour, or even increased, into the kingdom of marriage. Nor was
that wound of mine as yet cured which had been caused by the separation
from my former mistress, but after inflammation and most acute anguish
it mortified, and the pain became numbed, but more desperate.
CHAP. XVI. THE FEAR OF DEATH AND
JUDGMENT CALLED HIM, BELIEVING IN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, BACK FROM
HIS WICKEDNESS, HIM WHO AFORETIME BELIEVED IN THE OPINIONS OF EPICURUS.
26. Unto Thee be praise, unto Thee be glory, O Fountain of
mercies! I became more wretched, and Thou nearer. Thy right
hand was ever ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to cleanse
me, but I was ignorant of it. Nor did anything recall me from a
yet deeper abyss of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death and
of Thy future judgment, which, amid all my fluctuations of
opinion, never left my breast. And in disputing with my friends,
Alypius and Nebridius, concerning the nature of good and evil, I
held that Epicurus had, in my judgment, won the palm, had I not
believed that after death there remained a life for the soul, and
places of recompense, which Epicurus would not believe. And I
demanded, "Supposing us to be immortal, and to be living 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?" not knowing that even this very
thing was a part of my great misery, that, being thus sunk and
blinded, I could not discern that light of honour and beauty to
be embraced for its own sake, which cannot be seen by the eye of
the flesh, it being visible only to the inner man. Nor did I,
unhappy one, consider out of what vein it emanated, that even
these things, loathsome as they were, I with pleasure discussed
with my friends. Nor could I, even in accordance with my then
notions of happiness, make myself happy without friends, amid no
matter how great abundance of carnal pleasures. And these
friends assuredly I loved for their own sakes, and I knew myself
to be loved of them again for my own sake. O crooked ways! Woe
to the audacious soul which hoped that, if it forsook Thee, it
would find some better thing! It hath turned and returned, on
hack, sides, and belly, and all was hard, and Thou alone rest.
And behold, Thou art near, and deliverest us from our wretched
wanderings, and stablishest us in Thy way, and dost comfort us,
and say, "Run; I will carry you, yea, I will lead you, and there
also will I carry you."
Previous
Book Next
Book