(Augustine, Confessions. part 4)
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
(continued in part 5 ...)
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