Summa.
Confessions
Chapter 1. His Mother Having Followed Him to Milan, Declares that She Will Not Die Before Her Son Shall Have Embraced the Catholic Faith.
You were my hope from my youth. Where were you when I needed you? Where had you gone? Had you not made me? Had you not set me apart from the beasts and birds of the sky? You had made me wiser than they. Yet I walked through darkness and slippery places. I searched for you outside myself. I could not find the God of my heart. I had come into the depths of the sea. I lost faith and despaired of finding truth. Then my mother came to me. She was strong in devotion. She followed me by land and sea. In every danger she felt secure because of you. Even during the perils at sea she comforted the sailors themselves. Usually rough travelers of the deep comfort passengers when they are troubled. She promised them safe arrival. You had promised this to her in a vision. She found me in grave danger from despair over seeking truth. I told her I was no longer a Manichean. But I was not yet a Catholic Christian either. She did not leap up with joy as if hearing something unexpected. She was already secure about this part of my misery. She had wept over me to you as one dead but to be raised again. In her thoughts she carried me on a bier. She waited for you to say to the widow's son:"Young man, I say to you, arise."She waited for him to come back to life and begin to speak. She waited for you to give him back to his mother. Her heart did not tremble with turbulent celebration when she heard this. So much of what she daily begged you to accomplish had already happened. I had not yet attained truth. But I had already been snatched from falsehood. She was certain you would give what remained. You had promised everything. Most peacefully and with a heart full of confidence she answered me. She believed in Christ that before she departed this life she would see me a faithful Catholic. This she said to me. But to you, fountain of mercies, she offered denser prayers and tears. She begged you to speed your help and illuminate my darkness. More eagerly she ran to the church. She hung on Ambrose's words at the fountain of water springing up into eternal life. She loved that man like an angel of God. Through him she had learned I had been brought to that uncertain wavering state. She was certain I would pass through it from sickness to health. The more critical phase would come first. Doctors call this the crisis.
Chapter 2. She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains from Honouring the Memory of the Martyrs.
So when she brought porridge and bread and wine to the shrines of the saints, as she used to do in Africa, the doorkeeper stopped her. When she learned that the bishop had forbidden this, she embraced his decision with such piety and obedience that I was amazed. She became an accuser of her own custom rather than an opponent of his prohibition. Drunkenness did not possess her spirit. Love of wine did not drive her to hatred of the truth, as it does many men and women who feel sick at songs of sobriety like people nauseated by watered-down drink. When she brought her basket of ceremonial foods for tasting and sharing, she would set out no more than one small cup mixed for her quite sober taste. If there were many shrines of the dead to honor in this way, she carried around that same single cup to place everywhere. She shared it with those present in tiny sips. By then it was not only very watery but also quite warm. She sought piety there, not pleasure. So when she discovered that the distinguished preacher and bishop of piety had commanded these things not be done, she gladly abstained. He forbade even those who did it soberly, lest any opportunity for gorging be given to drunkards. These practices were very similar to the ancestral rites of pagan superstition. Instead of a basket full of earthly fruits, she learned to bring a heart full of purer prayers to the martyrs' shrines. She could give what she had to the needy. The communion of the Lord's body was celebrated there. The martyrs were sacrificed and crowned in imitation of His passion. Yet it seems to me, Lord my God, and so it is before You in this matter, that my mother perhaps would not have easily given up this custom if someone else had forbidden it. She would not have yielded to someone she did not love as she loved Ambrose. She loved him especially for my salvation. He loved her for her most religious way of life. She frequented the church with such fervent spirit in good works that he would often burst out in praise of her when he saw me. He congratulated me for having such a mother. He did not know what kind of son she had in me. I doubted all these things. I thought no way of life could possibly be found.
Chapter 3. As Ambrose Was Occupied with Business and Study, Augustine Could Seldom Consult Him Concerning the Holy Scriptures.
I no longer groaned in prayer for you to help me. My mind was focused on searching and restless for debate. I thought Ambrose was simply a fortunate man by worldly standards. The great powers of this world honored him so highly. Only his celibacy seemed burdensome to me. But I knew nothing of the hope he carried. I had no idea what struggles he faced against the temptations of his high position. I could not guess what comfort sustained him in difficulties. I did not know the hidden mouth of his heart or how he savored the sweet joys of your bread through meditation. I had never experienced such things myself. He knew nothing of my inner turmoil or the pit of danger I was in. I could not ask him what I wanted in the way I wanted. Crowds of busy people kept me from his ear and mouth. He served their weaknesses. When he was not with them, which was only briefly, he either restored his body with necessary food or his mind with reading. When he read, his eyes moved across the pages. His heart searched out the meaning. But his voice and tongue remained still. We often came to see him, for no one was forbidden to enter. It was not customary to announce visitors. We always found him reading silently, never any other way. We would sit in prolonged silence. Who would dare burden someone so intensely focused? Then we would leave. We guessed that in that small time he gained for renewing his mind, he wanted rest from the noise of other people's affairs. He did not want to be called away to something else. Perhaps he was being careful that if the author he was reading had expressed something obscurely, he would not need to explain it to a listening and attentive audience. He would not have to debate some difficult questions. If time were spent on this work, he would get through fewer volumes than he wished. Though protecting his voice could have been an even more legitimate reason for reading silently. His voice was very easily strained. Whatever his motive might have been, that good man certainly acted with good purpose.
I was given no opportunity to ask that holy man the questions I longed to pose about the sacred oracle of your word within his heart. I could only listen when he spoke briefly. My burning questions required someone with leisure to receive them. I never found such a person. Every Sunday I heard him addressing the congregation and correctly handling the word of truth. I became more and more convinced that all the cunning accusations our deceivers had woven against the divine books could be untangled. I also learned something else from your spiritual children. These were the ones you had brought to new birth from Mother Church through grace. They helped me understand that man was made in your image. This did not mean they believed or imagined that you were bounded by the form of a human body. I could not even faintly guess how spiritual substance might exist. I could not perceive it even as through a riddle. Yet I rejoiced and blushed with shame. For all those years I had not been barking against the Catholic faith. I had been barking against the fantasies of fleshly thoughts. I had been reckless and godless in this way. The things I should have sought out through questions I had spoken through accusations. You are the highest yet nearest. You are the most hidden yet most present. You do not have some parts greater and others smaller. You are wholly present everywhere. You are nowhere confined to places. You are certainly not this bodily form. Yet you made man in your image. And look—man himself exists in space from head to feet.
Chapter 4. He Recognises the Falsity of His Own Opinions, and Commits to Memory the Saying of Ambrose.
I didn't know how your image could exist in this way. So I would knock and ask how one should believe. I would not attack as if it were already believed. The sharper my concern grew, the more it gnawed at my innermost being about what certainty I could hold onto. I was increasingly ashamed that I had been deceived and misled for so long by the promise of certainties. In my childish error and pride, I had chattered about so many uncertain things as if they were certain. Later it became clear to me that these things were false. Yet it was certain that they were uncertain. At one time I had held them as certain when I accused your Catholic Church with blind disputes. I had not yet discovered that it taught the truth. But it did not teach what I so severely accused it of teaching. So I was confounded. I was converted. I rejoiced, my God, that the one Church, the body of your Only Son, in which the name of Christ was given to me as an infant, did not taste childish nonsense. It did not hold in its sound doctrine that you, the creator of all things, could be squeezed into any space of place. Even the highest and most expansive space would still be bounded everywhere by the shape of human limbs.
I was also rejoicing that the ancient writings of the Law and the Prophets no longer had to be read with the same eye that had made them seem absurd before. I had been criticizing your saints as if they thought in such ways. But truly they did not think in such ways. I was delighted to hear Ambrose often say in his popular sermons, as if he were most carefully recommending it as a rule:"The letter kills, but the spirit gives life."When passages seemed to teach perversity if taken literally, he would open them spiritually by removing the mystical veil. He said nothing that offended me. Yet he said things whose truth I still did not know. I was holding my heart back from all agreement. I feared the precipice. I was being killed more by the hanging in suspense. I wanted to be made as certain about things I could not see as I was certain that seven and three make ten. I was not so insane that I thought even this could not be understood. But just as I could understand this, so I desired to understand all other things. I wanted certainty about physical things that were not present to my senses. I wanted certainty about spiritual things, though I knew no way to think about them except in physical terms. I could have been healed by believing. Then the clearer vision of my mind could have been directed somehow toward your truth that always remains and never fails. But just as it usually happens that someone who has experienced a bad doctor is afraid to entrust himself even to a good one, so it was with the health of my soul. My soul certainly could not be healed except by believing. Yet it refused to be cured lest it believe false things. It was resisting your hands. You had prepared the medicines of faith. You had scattered them over the diseases of the whole world. You had given them such great authority.
Chapter 5. Faith is the Basis of Human Life; Man Cannot Discover that Truth Which Holy Scripture Has Disclosed.
Even then, as I began to favor Catholic teaching, I felt more humbly there that I was being asked to believe what could not be demonstrated. This was far better than having my credulity mocked by rash promises of knowledge. Later I was commanded to believe countless tales that were utterly fantastic and absurd simply because they could not be proven. Then gradually, Lord, with your most gentle and merciful hand, you worked upon my heart and set it in order. You made me consider how countless things I believed without having seen them. I had not been present when they happened. There were so many events in the history of nations. There were so many places and cities I had never seen. There were so many things told me by friends, by doctors, by various other people. Unless these were believed, we would accomplish absolutely nothing in this life. Finally, you showed me how unshakably I held by faith the knowledge of who my parents were. I could not have known this except by hearing and believing it. You convinced me that those who believed your Books should not be blamed. You established these Books with such great authority among nearly all nations. Those who did not believe were not to be heard. What if someone should say to me:"How do you know that those Books were given to the human race by the Spirit of the one true and most truthful God?"This very thing had to be believed above all. No aggressive attacks from contentious questions could wrest this from me. I had read so many conflicting philosophers arguing among themselves. Yet none of this could ever make me stop believing that you exist as whatever you are, though I did not know what that was. None of it could make me stop believing that the governance of human affairs belongs to you.
But I believed this sometimes more strongly, sometimes more weakly. Yet I always believed that you exist and that you care for us. Still, I did not know what to think about your substance or what path would lead to you or bring me back to you. We were too weak to discover truth through clear reasoning. Because of this we needed the authority of the Holy Scriptures. I had begun to believe that you would never have given those Scriptures such outstanding authority throughout all the world unless you wanted people to believe in you through them and to seek you through them. I used to be offended by the absurdities I found in those writings. But now when I heard many passages explained in reasonable ways, I understood them as referring to profound mysteries. The authority of Scripture appeared all the more venerable and worthy of sacred faith to me. It lay open for everyone to read, yet it preserved the dignity of its secrets in deeper understanding. It presented itself to all people in the plainest words and the humblest style of speaking. It exercised the attention of those who are not shallow of heart. It received all people in its welcoming embrace. Through narrow openings it led a few to you, though many more than if it had not stood out with such a height of authority and had not drawn crowds into the lap of its holy humility. I was thinking these things, and you were present with me. I sighed, and you heard me. I was tossed about, and you guided me. I walked along the broad way of this world, and you did not abandon me.
Chapter 6. On the Source and Cause of True Joy — The Example of the Joyous Beggar Being Adduced.
I thirsted for honors, profits, and marriage. You laughed at me. I endured the most bitter difficulties in these desires. You were more favorable to me the less you allowed me to find sweetness in what was not you. Look upon my heart, Lord, since you wanted me to remember this and confess it to you. Now let my soul cling to you. You stripped it from the sticky trap of death. How wretched it was! You pierced the wound so I would feel it. You wanted me to abandon everything and turn to you. You are above all things. Without you nothing would exist. You wanted me to turn and be healed. How miserable I was! How you made me feel my misery on that day when I prepared to recite praises to the Emperor! I would lie often in those praises. People who knew I was lying would still applaud me. My heart panted with these worries. It burned with fever from corrupting thoughts. I was passing through a street in Milan. I noticed a poor beggar. I believe he was already satisfied. He was joking and rejoicing. I groaned. I spoke to the friends who were with me about the many sorrows of our madness. I was laboring then under the goads of desires. I was dragging the burden of my misery. By dragging it I made it heavier. In all such efforts we wanted nothing else but to reach secure joy. That beggar had already reached it ahead of us. Perhaps we would never arrive there! He had obtained with a few begged coins what I was seeking through such troubled detours and circuits. I mean the joy of temporary happiness. He did not have true joy. But I was seeking something much more false through my ambitions. Certainly he was rejoicing. I was anxious. He was secure. I was fearful. If anyone asked me whether I would rather exult or fear, I would answer"Exult."Again, if he asked whether I would rather be like that beggar or like I was then, I would choose myself. I was worn out by cares and fears. But this choice came from perversity, not truth. I should not have preferred myself to him because I was more learned. I took no joy in my learning. Instead I sought to please people with it. I did not want to teach them but only to please them. Therefore you broke my bones with the rod of your discipline.
Let me banish from my soul those who tell it that the source of joy doesn't matter. That drunken beggar was happy in his wine. You wanted to be happy in glory. But what kind of glory, Lord? Glory that was not found in you. His joy was false, and so was that glory. It twisted my mind even more. That very night he would sleep off his drunkenness. But I had slept with my ambition and risen with it. I would sleep with it and rise with it again. Look how many days this would continue. I know the source of joy does matter. The joy of faithful hope is beyond comparison with such emptiness. Even then there was a vast difference between us. He was clearly happier than I was. He was flooded with cheerfulness while I was torn apart by worries. He had gotten his wine through honest begging. I was chasing after pride through lies. I said many things like this to my dear friends then. I often examined myself in these moments to see how I was doing. I found that I was doing badly. I grieved over this and doubled my misery. If anything good came my way, I was too weary to grasp it. It flew away almost before I could hold it.
Chapter 7. He Leads to Reformation His Friend Alypius, Seized with Madness for the Circensian Games.
We groaned together about these things as we lived in friendship. I discussed them most closely and intimately with Alypius and Nebridius. Alypius was from the same town where I was born. His parents were leading citizens of the town. He was younger than me. He had studied under me when I first began teaching in our town. Later he studied at Carthage. He loved me deeply because I seemed good and learned to him. I loved him for his great natural virtue. This virtue stood out remarkably even though he was not very old. But the whirlpool of Carthaginian customs had absorbed him. These customs boil over with frivolous entertainments. It dragged him into the madness of the circus games. While he was rolling miserably in this addiction, I was teaching rhetoric there in a public school. He did not yet listen to me as his teacher. This was because of a certain quarrel that had arisen between me and his father. I had discovered that he loved the circus destructively. I was deeply troubled. It seemed to me that he was going to waste such great promise. Or perhaps he had already wasted it. But I had no opportunity to warn him. I could not call him back through some kind of restraint. Neither friendship's goodwill nor a teacher's authority was available to me. I thought he shared his father's opinion of me. But he did not feel that way. So he set aside his father's wishes in this matter. He began to greet me. He came to my lecture hall. He would listen to something and then leave.
I had forgotten to discuss with him the need to avoid destroying such fine talent through blind and reckless devotion to meaningless games. But you, Lord, who guide all creation, had not forgotten that he would become a minister of your sacrament among your children. So that his correction would clearly be credited to you, you worked through me without my knowledge. One day I was sitting in my usual place with my students present. He came, greeted me, and sat down. He focused his attention on our lesson. I happened to be explaining a text. To make my point more enjoyable and clear, I used a comparison to the circus games. I mocked those enslaved by that madness. You know, our God, that I was not thinking about healing Alypius from that plague. But he took it personally. He believed I had said it only for his sake. What another might have received as cause for anger with me, this honorable young man received as cause for anger with himself and deeper love for me. You had long ago written in your Scriptures:"Rebuke a wise man and he will love you."I had not actually rebuked him. But you used everyone, knowing and unknowing, in the order you know. That order is just. From my heart and tongue you created burning coals to sear his mind. You healed what was wasting away with false hope. Let anyone who ignores your mercies be silent about your praises. These mercies confess to you from my very core. After those words he pulled himself from that deep pit. He had gladly sunk into it. He had been blinded by its wretched pleasure. He shook his soul with strong self-control. All the filth of the circus games fell away from him. He never went back there again. Then he overcame his reluctant father to have me as his teacher. His father yielded and agreed. When he began listening to me again, he became entangled with me in that superstition. He loved the Manicheans' display of self-restraint. He thought it was true and genuine. But it was mad and deceptive. It captured precious souls who did not yet know how to reach virtue's heights. They were easily deceived by its surface. Yet it was only the shadow and pretense of virtue.
Chapter 8. The Same When at Rome, Being Led by Others into the Amphitheatre, is Delighted with the Gladiatorial Games.
He had gone ahead to Rome to study law. He was not abandoning the earthly path his parents had enchanted for him. There he was swept away by the gladiatorial spectacles with incredible fascination. The pull was incredible. He hated and detested such things. But some of his friends and fellow students found him one day as he was returning from lunch. He refused violently and resisted. They dragged him to the amphitheater with the violence that comes from friendship. It was during the days of the cruel and deadly games. He said this:"You can drag my body to that place and station me there. But can you force my mind and eyes to focus on those spectacles? I will be present but absent. This way I will overcome both you and the games."They heard this but brought him along anyway. Perhaps they wanted to test whether he could do it. When they arrived and took the seats they could find, everything was boiling with the most savage pleasures. He closed the doors of his eyes. He forbade his mind to proceed into such evils. If only he had plugged his ears too! At some moment in the fight, a huge roar from the entire crowd struck him violently. Curiosity conquered him. He was prepared to despise and conquer whatever it was, even the sight itself. He opened his eyes. He was struck by a graver wound in his soul than the gladiator received in his body. This was the gladiator he desired to see. He fell more miserably than the gladiator whose fall created the roar. The roar entered through his ears and unlocked his eyes. Now there was a way to strike and cast down his spirit. His spirit was still bold rather than strong. It was weaker because it had presumed upon itself. It should have presumed upon you. When he saw the blood, he drank in the savagery at the same time. He did not turn away but fixed his gaze. He was drinking in furies without knowing it. He delighted in the crime of the contest. He became drunk on bloody pleasure. He was no longer the one who had come. He was one of the crowd he had joined. He was a true companion of those who had brought him. Why say more? He watched. He shouted. He burned with passion. He carried away madness that would goad him to return. He returned not only with those who had dragged him before. He went ahead of them and dragged others. Yet from there you rescued him with your most strong and merciful hand. You taught him to have confidence not in himself but in you. But this was much later.
Chapter 9. Innocent Alypius, Being Apprehended as a Thief, is Set at Liberty by the Cleverness of an Architect.
Nevertheless, this event was already being stored in his memory as medicine for the future. You allowed something else to happen when he was still a student already attending my lectures at Carthage. At midday he was thinking in the forum about what he would recite, as students usually practice. You permitted the forum guards to arrest him as a thief. I believe you allowed this for only one reason, our God. That man who would become so great was already beginning to learn how easily one person condemns another through rash belief when judging cases. He was walking alone before the tribunal with his tablets and stylus. Suddenly a young man from among the students appeared. This one was a real thief. He secretly brought an axe and entered without Alypius noticing. The thief went to the lead gratings that overhang the silversmiths' street. He began cutting the lead. The silversmiths below heard the sound of the axe. They muttered among themselves. They sent men to arrest whoever they might find. The thief heard their voices. He abandoned his tool and fled. He feared being caught with it. Alypius had not seen him enter. But he noticed him leaving. He saw him quickly departing. He wanted to know the reason. So he entered the place. He found the axe. He stood there examining it with wonder. Then those men who had been sent discovered him. He was alone. He was holding the iron tool whose sound had roused them. They seized him. They dragged him away. The forum merchants gathered. They boasted that they had caught an obvious thief. He was being led away to be brought before the judge.
But he had to learn this lesson first. You immediately came to help his innocence, Lord, since you alone were his witness. As he was being led either to jail or to punishment, a certain architect met them on the way. This man was in charge of all the public buildings. They were delighted that they had run into him above all others. Public officials usually suspected him when things went missing from the forum. Now they thought he would finally learn who was really doing these thefts. But this man had often seen Alypius in the house of a certain senator whom he used to visit for business. He recognized Alypius immediately. He took him by the hand and pulled him away from the crowd. He asked what the trouble was and heard what had happened. He ordered all the people who were there shouting and making angry threats to come with him. They all went to the house of the young man who had committed the crime. There was a slave boy at the door. He was so young that he felt no fear for his master. He could easily tell the whole truth. He had been the one who went with his master to the forum as his servant. Alypius remembered the boy and pointed him out to the architect. The architect showed his official axe to the boy and asked whose it was. The boy immediately said it was theirs. When questioned further he revealed everything else. This is how the case was transferred to that house. The crowds who had already begun to celebrate Alypius's downfall were put to shame. The future minister of your word departed from this experience. He was wiser and better prepared to examine many cases in your Church.
Chapter 10. The Wonderful Integrity of Alypius in Judgment. The Lasting Friendship of Nebridius with Augustine.
So I had found this man in Rome. He attached himself to me with the strongest bond. He traveled with me to Milan so that he would not abandon me and so that he could practice some of the law he had learned. This fulfilled his parents' wishes more than his own. He had already sat as assessor three times with remarkable self-control compared to others. He was more amazed at those who put gold before integrity. His character was tested not only by the lure of greed but also by the sting of fear. In Rome he sat as assessor to the count of Italian largesses. At that time there was a certain very powerful senator. Many were bound by his favors and subdued by his terror. This senator wanted permission for something that was illegal under the laws. It was the usual exercise of his power. Alypius resisted. A reward was promised. He laughed it off. Threats were made. He trampled them underfoot. Everyone marveled at this unusual soul. He neither desired such a great man as a friend nor feared him as an enemy. This man was celebrated with enormous reputation for countless ways of helping and harming. Now the judge himself served as Alypius's counselor. Although he too was unwilling to do this thing, he did not openly refuse. Instead he transferred the case to Alypius. He claimed that Alypius would not permit him to do it. Indeed if he himself had done it, Alypius would have resigned. By this time Alypius was almost seduced by one thing alone. It was his passion for literature. He wanted to have books copied for himself at praetorian prices. But after consulting justice he turned his deliberation toward the better course. He judged equity more useful than power. Equity prohibited him while power permitted him. This is a small thing. But whoever is faithful in little is also faithful in much. What proceeded from the mouth of your Truth will never be empty."If you have not been faithful with unrighteous mammon, who will believe you with what is true? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?"Such was the man who clung to me then. He wavered with me in deliberation about what manner of life should be maintained.
Nebridius had also come to Milan. He had left behind his homeland near Carthage. He had left behind Carthage itself where he was very well-known. He had left behind his father's excellent estate. He had left behind his home and his mother who would not follow him. He came for no other reason than to live with me in our burning passion for truth and wisdom. He sighed alongside us. He wavered alongside us. He was a fervent seeker of the blessed life and the keenest investigator of the most difficult questions. There were three mouths in need. We were poor and gasping our want to each other. We looked to you to give us food in due season. In all the bitterness that followed our worldly pursuits through your mercy, we looked for the purpose behind our suffering. Darkness met us. We turned away groaning. We said"How long will this last?"We said this repeatedly. Even as we spoke we did not abandon these pursuits. No clear alternative had dawned on us that we might grasp if we left them behind.
Chapter 11. Being Troubled by His Grievous Errors, He Meditates Entering on a New Life.
I was completely amazed as I struggled and reflected on how much time had passed since my nineteenth year when I first began to burn with desire for wisdom. I had planned that once I found it, I would abandon all empty hopes of vain desires and lying madness. And look—I was already thirty years old. I was still stuck in the same mud. I was still driven by greed to enjoy present things that fled from me and scattered me while I kept saying"Tomorrow I will find it. Look, it will appear clearly and I will grasp it. Look, Faustus will come and explain everything."Oh great men of the Academy! Nothing certain can be grasped for living life. Rather let us search more carefully and not despair. Look, the things in the church books that seemed absurd are no longer absurd. They can be understood differently and honorably. I will plant my feet on that level where I was placed as a child by my parents until clear truth is found. But where will it be sought? When will it be sought? Ambrose has no time. There is no time to read. Where do we look for the books themselves? From where or when do we obtain them? From whom do we get them? Let times be appointed. Let hours be distributed for the soul's salvation. A great hope has arisen. The Catholic faith does not teach what we thought. We accused it wrongly. Its learned men consider it wicked to believe God is bounded by the shape of a human body. Do we hesitate to knock so that the rest may be opened? Students occupy the morning hours. What do we do with the rest? Why do we not pursue this? But when do we greet our important friends whose support we need? When do we prepare what students will buy? When do we restore ourselves by relaxing our minds from the tension of our cares?
Let everything perish. Let us abandon these empty and worthless things. Let us devote ourselves to the search for truth alone. Life is wretched. Death is uncertain. If it creeps up suddenly, how will we depart from here? Where will we learn the things we have neglected here? Will we not rather pay the penalties for this neglect? What if death itself cuts off and ends all concern along with sensation? This too must be investigated. But may it not be so. It is not empty or meaningless that the towering summit of Christian faith's authority spreads throughout the entire world. Never would such great things be accomplished by divine power for our sake if the soul's life were also consumed by the body's death. Why then do we hesitate? Why not abandon hope in this world and devote ourselves entirely to seeking God and the blessed life? But wait. These worldly things are also pleasant. They have their own considerable sweetness. We cannot easily cut ourselves off from them because it would be shameful to return to them later. Look how great it is to obtain some honor. What more could be desired in these matters? There is an abundance of powerful friends available. If nothing else happens and we hurry greatly, a governorship can be given. A wife must be married with some money so she does not burden our expenses. That will be the limit of our desires. Many great men most worthy of imitation have been devoted to the study of wisdom alongside their wives.
While I spoke these things, these winds kept shifting and driving my heart back and forth. Time was passing. I kept delaying my turn to the Lord. I put off living in you from day to day. Yet I did not put off dying to myself daily. I loved the blessed life but feared to find it in its true home. Even as I fled from it, I searched for it. I thought I would be utterly wretched if deprived of a woman's embrace. I gave no thought to the medicine of your mercy that could heal this same weakness. I had no experience of it. I believed continence came from one's own strength. I was not aware that I possessed such strength. I was so foolish that I did not know what is written: no one can be continent unless you grant it. You would certainly have granted it if I had knocked at your ears with inward groaning. You would have granted it if I had cast my care upon you with solid faith.
Chapter 12. Discussion with Alypius Concerning a Life of Celibacy.
Alypius strongly urged me not to take a wife. He kept insisting that we could never live together in peaceful pursuit of wisdom as we had long desired if I went through with marriage. He himself was completely chaste in this matter. This was remarkable. He had experienced sexual intercourse at the beginning of his youth. But he had not become attached to it. Instead he had felt regret and contempt for it. From that point on he lived with perfect self-control. I resisted his advice by pointing to examples of married men who had cultivated wisdom and earned God's favor and maintained faithful friendships. But I fell far short of their greatness of soul. I was bound by the sickness of the flesh and its deadly sweetness. I dragged my chain behind me. I feared being set free. Like a man with a fresh wound I pushed away the words of good counsel. I rejected the hand that would have freed me. Moreover the serpent spoke through me to Alypius himself. Through my tongue he wove and scattered sweet snares in Alypius's path. These traps were meant to entangle his honest and unencumbered feet.
He was amazed to see me so trapped by the sticky snare of that pleasure. I was someone he didn't look down upon. Yet I kept insisting that whenever we discussed the matter between us, I could never live a celibate life. When I saw his amazement, I defended myself. I told him there was a huge difference between what he had experienced hastily and secretly. He could barely even remember it anymore. Because of this, he could easily dismiss it without any trouble. But my habitual pleasures were different. If they were joined with the honorable name of marriage, he shouldn't wonder why I couldn't reject that life. He too began to desire marriage. Lust for such pleasure hadn't conquered him at all. Curiosity had. He said he wanted to know what this thing was. Without it, my life that pleased him so much would seem to me not life but punishment. His mind was free from that chain, yet it marveled at my slavery. Through marveling, it moved toward a desire to experience it. He would come to the experience itself. From there he might fall into the very slavery that amazed him. He wanted to make a pact with death. The one who loves danger falls into it. Neither of us was drawn much by what makes marriage honorable. That would be the duty of managing a household and raising children. Instead, the habit of satisfying insatiable desire held me captive and tormented me greatly and violently. Amazement was drawing him toward capture. This is how we were until you, Most High, came to our aid. You never abandon our clay. You took pity on us wretched ones. You helped us in ways both wonderful and hidden.
Chapter 13. Being Urged by His Mother to Take a Wife, He Sought a Maiden that Was Pleasing Unto Him.
I was being pressured urgently to take a wife. I was already seeking one. A bride was already being promised to me. My mother was especially working toward this goal. She wanted the saving waters of baptism to wash over me once I was married. She rejoiced daily to see me being prepared for this. She noticed that her prayers and your promises were being fulfilled through my faith. Both at my request and from her own desire, she begged you daily with loud cries of her heart. She wanted you to show her something in a vision about my future marriage. You never chose to do this. She did see certain empty and fantastical things. These were driven by the force of human spirit that was anxiously working on this matter. She told me about these visions. She did not speak with the confidence she usually had when you revealed things to her. Instead she dismissed them. She said she could distinguish by some inner taste the difference between your revelations and her own dreaming soul. She could not put this taste into words. Nevertheless the pressure continued. A girl was being sought whose age was still about two years short of marriageable. Because she pleased me, we waited.
Chapter 14. The Design of Establishing a Common Household with His Friends is Speedily Hindered.
Many friends and I had been turning over in our minds a plan. We talked together and expressed our disgust with the turbulent troubles of human life. We had nearly made a firm decision to live peacefully away from the crowds. We planned this retirement so that whatever possessions we might have, we would pool them together. We would create one household fund from all our resources. Through the sincerity of our friendship, there would be no distinction between what belonged to this person or that person. What came from everyone would become one thing. The whole would belong to each individual. Everything would belong to everyone. It seemed we could have about ten men in this same community. Among us were very wealthy people, especially Romanianus our closest partner. At that time the heavy pressures of his business affairs had drawn him to the imperial court. He had been my dearest friend since early youth. He was the strongest advocate for this plan. He had great authority in persuading us because his vast wealth far exceeded that of the others. We had agreed that two men each year would serve like magistrates and handle all necessary affairs. The rest would remain at peace. But then we began to consider whether our wives would permit this. Some of our group already had wives. We wanted to have wives too. That whole plan which we were shaping so well fell apart in our hands. It was shattered and thrown away. From there came sighs and groans. We took steps to follow the broad and well-worn paths of the world. Many thoughts filled our hearts. But your plan endures forever. Through that plan you laughed at our schemes and prepared your own. You were going to give us food at the proper time. You were going to open your hand and fill our souls with blessing.
Chapter 15. He Dismisses One Mistress, and Chooses Another.
Meanwhile my sins were multiplying. The woman with whom I used to sleep was torn away from my side as an impediment to marriage. My heart was cut and wounded where it had clung to her. It bled. She returned to Africa. She vowed to you that she would know no other man. She left with me our natural son. But I was wretched and could not imitate a woman's virtue. I was impatient with delay. I was going to receive the one I sought after two years. But I was not a lover of marriage but a slave of lust. So I procured another woman. She was not a wife. Through her I sustained and nourished the disease of my soul. I fed it through the companionship of continuing habit into the realm of marriage. The wound made by cutting away the first woman did not heal. After burning and most bitter pain it festered. It hurt with a colder but more hopeless ache.
Chapter 16. 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.
To you praise, to you glory, fountain of mercies. I was becoming more wretched. You were drawing nearer. Your right hand was already present and ready to snatch me from the mire and wash me clean. I did not know this. Nothing called me back from the deeper whirlpool of fleshly pleasures except fear of death and of your future judgment. This fear passed through various forms of belief but never left my heart. I debated with my friends Alypius and Nebridius about the ultimate goals of good and evil. Epicurus would have won the prize in my mind if I had not believed that after death the soul's life remains along with the consequences of our deeds. Epicurus refused to believe this. I asked this question: if we were immortal and lived in perpetual bodily pleasure without any fear of loss, why would we not be happy? What else would we seek? I did not know that this very thinking belonged to great misery. I was so submerged and blind that I could not think about the light of honor and beauty that should be embraced freely. The eye of flesh does not see this beauty. It is seen from within. Wretched as I was, I did not consider the source from which it flowed that I could discuss even these foul things sweetly with friends. I could not be happy without friends even by the standard I held then, no matter how great an abundance of fleshly pleasures I had. I loved these friends freely. I felt that they loved me freely in return. O twisted paths! Woe to the reckless soul that hoped it would possess something better if it departed from you! It tosses and turns onto its back, onto its sides, onto its stomach. All positions are hard. You alone are rest. Look, you are present. You free us from wretched errors. You establish us in your way. You console us and say: Run. I will carry you. I will lead you through. There I will carry you.