BOOK V

Accept the sacrifice of my confessions from the ministry of my tongue,

which Thou hast formed and stirred up to confess unto Thy name. Heal

Thou all my bones, and let them say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee? For

he who confesses to Thee doth not teach Thee what takes place within

him; seeing a closed heart closes not out Thy eye, nor can man's

hard-heartedness thrust back Thy hand: for Thou dissolvest it at Thy

will in pity or in vengeance, and nothing can hide itself from Thy heat.

But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess

Thy own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee. Thy whole creation

ceaseth not, nor is silent in Thy praises; neither the spirit of man

with voice directed unto Thee, nor creation animate or inanimate, by the

voice of those who meditate thereon: that so our souls may from their

weariness arise towards Thee, leaning on those things which Thou hast

created, and passing on to Thyself, who madest them wonderfully; and

there is refreshment and true strength.

Let the restless, the godless, depart and flee from Thee; yet Thou seest

them, and dividest the darkness. And behold, the universe with them is

fair, though they are foul. And how have they injured Thee? or how have

they disgraced Thy government, which, from the heaven to this lowest

earth, is just and perfect? For whither fled they, when they fled from

Thy presence? or where dost not Thou find them? But they fled, that they

might not see Thee seeing them, and, blinded, might stumble against Thee

(because Thou forsakest nothing Thou hast made); that the unjust, I say,

might stumble upon Thee, and justly be hurt; withdrawing themselves from

thy gentleness, and stumbling at Thy uprightness, and falling upon their

own ruggedness. Ignorant, in truth, that Thou art every where, Whom no

place encompasseth! and Thou alone art near, even to those that remove

far from Thee. Let them then be turned, and seek Thee; because not as

they have forsaken their Creator, hast Thou forsaken Thy creation. Let

them be turned and seek Thee; and behold, Thou art there in their heart,

in the heart of those that confess to Thee, and cast themselves upon

Thee, and weep in Thy bosom, after all their rugged ways. Then dost

Thou gently wipe away their tears, and they weep the more, and joy

in weeping; even for that Thou, Lord,--not man of flesh and blood,

but--Thou, Lord, who madest them, re-makest and comfortest them. But

where was I, when I was seeking Thee? And Thou wert before me, but I had

gone away from Thee; nor did I find myself, how much less Thee!

I would lay open before my God that nine-and-twentieth year of mine

age. There had then come to Carthage a certain Bishop of the Manichees,

Faustus by name, a great snare of the Devil, and many were entangled

by him through that lure of his smooth language: which though I did

commend, yet could I separate from the truth of the things which I was

earnest to learn: nor did I so much regard the service of oratory as the

science which this Faustus, so praised among them, set before me to

feed upon. Fame had before bespoken him most knowing in all valuable

learning, and exquisitely skilled in the liberal sciences. And since I

had read and well remembered much of the philosophers, I compared some

things of theirs with those long fables of the Manichees, and found the

former the more probable; even although they could only prevail so far

as to make judgment of this lower world, the Lord of it they could by

no means find out. For Thou art great, O Lord, and hast respect unto the

humble, but the proud Thou beholdest afar off. Nor dost Thou draw near,

but to the contrite in heart, nor art found by the proud, no, not though

by curious skill they could number the stars and the sand, and measure

the starry heavens, and track the courses of the planets.

For with their understanding and wit, which Thou bestowedst on them,

they search out these things; and much have they found out; and

foretold, many years before, eclipses of those luminaries, the sun

and moon,--what day and hour, and how many digits,--nor did their

calculation fail; and it came to pass as they foretold; and they wrote

down the rules they had found out, and these are read at this day, and

out of them do others foretell in what year and month of the year, and

what day of the month, and what hour of the day, and what part of its

light, moon or sun is to be eclipsed, and so it shall be, as it is

foreshowed. At these things men, that know not this art, marvel and are

astonished, and they that know it, exult, and are puffed up; and by

an ungodly pride departing from Thee, and failing of Thy light, they

foresee a failure of the sun's light, which shall be, so long before,

but see not their own, which is. For they search not religiously whence

they have the wit, wherewith they search out this. And finding that Thou

madest them, they give not themselves up to Thee, to preserve what Thou

madest, nor sacrifice to Thee what they have made themselves; nor slay

their own soaring imaginations, as fowls of the air, nor their own

diving curiosities (wherewith, like the fishes of the sea, they wander

over the unknown paths of the abyss), nor their own luxuriousness, as

beasts of the field, that Thou, Lord, a consuming fire, mayest burn up

those dead cares of theirs, and re-create themselves immortally.

But they knew not the way, Thy Word, by Whom Thou madest these things

which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense whereby

they perceive what they number, and the understanding, out of which they

number; or that of Thy wisdom there is no number. But the Only Begotten

is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,

and was numbered among us, and paid tribute unto Caesar. They knew not

this way whereby to descend to Him from themselves, and by Him ascend

unto Him. They knew not this way, and deemed themselves exalted amongst

the stars and shining; and behold, they fell upon the earth, and their

foolish heart was darkened. They discourse many things truly concerning

the creature; but Truth, Artificer of the creature, they seek not

piously, and therefore find Him not; or if they find Him, knowing Him

to be God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful, but

become vain in their imaginations, and profess themselves to be wise,

attributing to themselves what is Thine; and thereby with most perverse

blindness, study to impute to Thee what is their own, forging lies of

Thee who art the Truth, and changing the glory of uncorruptible God

into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed

beasts, and creeping things, changing Thy truth into a lie, and

worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.

Yet many truths concerning the creature retained I from these men, and

saw the reason thereof from calculations, the succession of times, and

the visible testimonies of the stars; and compared them with the saying

of Manichaeus, which in his frenzy he had written most largely on these

subjects; but discovered not any account of the solstices, or equinoxes,

or the eclipses of the greater lights, nor whatever of this sort I

had learned in the books of secular philosophy. But I was commanded to

believe; and yet it corresponded not with what had been established by

calculations and my own sight, but was quite contrary.

Doth then, O Lord God of truth, whoso knoweth these things, therefore

please Thee? Surely unhappy is he who knoweth all these, and knoweth not

Thee: but happy whoso knoweth Thee, though he know not these. And whoso

knoweth both Thee and them is not the happier for them, but for Thee

only, if, knowing Thee, he glorifies Thee as God, and is thankful, and

becomes not vain in his imaginations. For as he is better off who knows

how to possess a tree, and return thanks to Thee for the use thereof,

although he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads,

than he that can measure it, and count all its boughs, and neither owns

it, nor knows or loves its Creator: so a believer, whose all this world

of wealth is, and who having nothing, yet possesseth all things, by

cleaving unto Thee, whom all things serve, though he know not even

the circles of the Great Bear, yet is it folly to doubt but he is in a

better state than one who can measure the heavens, and number the stars,

and poise the elements, yet neglecteth Thee who hast made all things in

number, weight, and measure.

But yet who bade that Manichaeus write on these things also, skill in

which was no element of piety? For Thou hast said to man, Behold

piety and wisdom; of which he might be ignorant, though he had perfect

knowledge of these things; but these things, since, knowing not, he most

impudently dared to teach, he plainly could have no knowledge of piety.

For it is vanity to make profession of these worldly things even when

known; but confession to Thee is piety. Wherefore this wanderer to this

end spake much of these things, that convicted by those who had truly

learned them, it might be manifest what understanding he had in the

other abstruser things. For he would not have himself meanly thought of,

but went about to persuade men, "That the Holy Ghost, the Comforter and

Enricher of Thy faithful ones, was with plenary authority personally

within him." When then he was found out to have taught falsely of the

heaven and stars, and of the motions of the sun and moon (although these

things pertain not to the doctrine of religion), yet his sacrilegious

presumption would become evident enough, seeing he delivered things

which not only he knew not, but which were falsified, with so mad a

vanity of pride, that he sought to ascribe them to himself, as to a

divine person.

For when I hear any Christian brother ignorant of these things, and

mistaken on them, I can patiently behold such a man holding his opinion;

nor do I see that any ignorance as to the position or character of the

corporeal creation can injure him, so long as he doth not believe any

thing unworthy of Thee, O Lord, the Creator of all. But it doth injure

him, if he imagine it to pertain to the form of the doctrine of piety,

and will yet affirm that too stiffly whereof he is ignorant. And yet

is even such an infirmity, in the infancy of faith, borne by our mother

Charity, till the new-born may grow up unto a perfect man, so as not

to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. But in him who in such

wise presumed to be the teacher, source, guide, chief of all whom he

could so persuade, that whoso followed him thought that he followed,

not a mere man, but Thy Holy Spirit; who would not judge that so great

madness, when once convicted of having taught any thing false, were

to be detested and utterly rejected? But I had not as yet clearly

ascertained whether the vicissitudes of longer and shorter days and

nights, and of day and night itself, with the eclipses of the greater

lights, and whatever else of the kind I had read of in other books,

might be explained consistently with his sayings; so that, if they by

any means might, it should still remain a question to me whether it

were so or no; but I might, on account of his reputed sanctity, rest my

credence upon his authority.

And for almost all those nine years, wherein with unsettled mind I had

been their disciple, I had longed but too intensely for the coming of

this Faustus. For the rest of the sect, whom by chance I had lighted

upon, when unable to solve my objections about these things, still held

out to me the coming of this Faustus, by conference with whom these

and greater difficulties, if I had them, were to be most readily and

abundantly cleared. When then he came, I found him a man of pleasing

discourse, and who could speak fluently and in better terms, yet still

but the self-same things which they were wont to say. But what availed

the utmost neatness of the cup-bearer to my thirst for a more precious

draught? Mine ears were already cloyed with the like, nor did they seem

to me therefore better, because better said; nor therefore true, because

eloquent; nor the soul therefore wise, because the face was comely,

and the language graceful. But they who held him out to me were no good

judges of things; and therefore to them he appeared understanding and

wise, because in words pleasing. I felt however that another sort of

people were suspicious even of truth, and refused to assent to it, if

delivered in a smooth and copious discourse. But Thou, O my God, hadst

already taught me by wonderful and secret ways, and therefore I believe

that Thou taughtest me, because it is truth, nor is there besides Thee

any teacher of truth, where or whencesoever it may shine upon us. Of

Thyself therefore had I now learned, that neither ought any thing to

seem to be spoken truly, because eloquently; nor therefore falsely,

because the utterance of the lips is inharmonious; nor, again, therefore

true, because rudely delivered; nor therefore false, because the

language is rich; but that wisdom and folly are as wholesome and

unwholesome food; and adorned or unadorned phrases as courtly or country

vessels; either kind of meats may be served up in either kind of dishes.

That greediness then, wherewith I had of so long time expected that man,

was delighted verily with his action and feeling when disputing, and his

choice and readiness of words to clothe his ideas. I was then delighted,

and, with many others and more than they, did I praise and extol him.

It troubled me, however, that in the assembly of his auditors, I was not

allowed to put in and communicate those questions that troubled me,

in familiar converse with him. Which when I might, and with my friends

began to engage his ears at such times as it was not unbecoming for him

to discuss with me, and had brought forward such things as moved me; I

found him first utterly ignorant of liberal sciences, save grammar, and

that but in an ordinary way. But because he had read some of Tully's

Orations, a very few books of Seneca, some things of the poets, and such

few volumes of his own sect as were written in Latin and neatly, and

was daily practised in speaking, he acquired a certain eloquence, which

proved the more pleasing and seductive because under the guidance of a

good wit, and with a kind of natural gracefulness. Is it not thus, as I

recall it, O Lord my God, Thou judge of my conscience? before Thee is

my heart, and my remembrance, Who didst at that time direct me by the

hidden mystery of Thy providence, and didst set those shameful errors of

mine before my face, that I might see and hate them.

For after it was clear that he was ignorant of those arts in which I

thought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the

difficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he

might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For

their books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars,

sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to

decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with

the calculations I had elsewhere read, the account given in the books of

Manichaeus were preferable, or at least as good. Which when I proposed

to be considered and discussed, he, so far modestly, shrunk from the

burthen. For he knew that he knew not these things, and was not ashamed

to confess it. For he was not one of those talking persons, many of whom

I had endured, who undertook to teach me these things, and said nothing.

But this man had a heart, though not right towards Thee, yet neither

altogether treacherous to himself. For he was not altogether ignorant of

his own ignorance, nor would he rashly be entangled in a dispute, whence

he could neither retreat nor extricate himself fairly. Even for this I

liked him the better. For fairer is the modesty of a candid mind, than

the knowledge of those things which I desired; and such I found him, in

all the more difficult and subtile questions.

My zeal for the writings of Manichaeus being thus blunted, and

despairing yet more of their other teachers, seeing that in divers

things which perplexed me, he, so renowned among them, had so turned

out; I began to engage with him in the study of that literature, on

which he also was much set (and which as rhetoric-reader I was at that

time teaching young students at Carthage), and to read with him, either

what himself desired to hear, or such as I judged fit for his genius.

But all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that sect,

upon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I detached

myself from them altogether, but as one finding nothing better, I had

settled to be content meanwhile with what I had in whatever way fallen

upon, unless by chance something more eligible should dawn upon me.

Thus, that Faustus, to so many a snare of death, had now neither willing

nor witting it, begun to loosen that wherein I was taken. For Thy hands,

O my God, in the secret purpose of Thy providence, did not forsake my

soul; and out of my mother's heart's blood, through her tears night and

day poured out, was a sacrifice offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst

deal with me by wondrous ways. Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps

of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how

shall we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re-making what it made?

Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome, and

to teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage. And how I was

persuaded to this, I will not neglect to confess to Thee; because herein

also the deepest recesses of Thy wisdom, and Thy most present mercy to

us, must be considered and confessed. I did not wish therefore to go to

Rome, because higher gains and higher dignities were warranted me by my

friends who persuaded me to this (though even these things had at that

time an influence over my mind), but my chief and almost only reason

was, that I heard that young men studied there more peacefully, and were

kept quiet under a restraint of more regular discipline; so that they

did not, at their pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of

one whose pupils they were not, nor were even admitted without his

permission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among the scholars a most

disgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in audaciously, and

with gestures almost frantic, disturb all order which any one hath

established for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit,

with a wonderful stolidity, punishable by law, did not custom uphold

them; that custom evincing them to be the more miserable, in that they

now do as lawful what by Thy eternal law shall never be lawful; and they

think they do it unpunished, whereas they are punished with the very

blindness whereby they do it, and suffer incomparably worse than what

they do. The manners then which, when a student, I would not make my

own, I was fain as a teacher to endure in others: and so I was well

pleased to go where, all that knew it, assured me that the like was not

done. But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of the living;

that I might change my earthly dwelling for the salvation of my soul,

at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn from it; and at

Rome didst proffer me allurements, whereby I might be drawn thither,

by men in love with a dying life, the one doing frantic, the other

promising vain, things; and, to correct my steps, didst secretly use

their and my own perverseness. For both they who disturbed my quiet were

blinded with a disgraceful frenzy, and they who invited me elsewhere

savoured of earth. And I, who here detested real misery, was there

seeking unreal happiness.

But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet

showedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, who grievously bewailed my

journey, and followed me as far as the sea. But I deceived her, holding

me by force, that either she might keep me back or go with me, and I

feigned that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he had a fair

wind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped:

for this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me, preserving me, thus full

of execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, for the water of

Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother's eyes

should be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under

her face. And yet refusing to return without me, I scarcely persuaded

her to stay that night in a place hard by our ship, where was an Oratory

in memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I privily departed, but she

was not behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so

many tears asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldest not suffer me to sail?

But Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her

desire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me

what she ever asked. The wind blew and swelled our sails, and withdrew

the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there, frantic with

sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears, Who didst then

disregard them; whilst through my desires, Thou wert hurrying me to end

all desire, and the earthly part of her affection to me was chastened

by the allotted scourge of sorrows. For she loved my being with her, as

mothers do, but much more than many; and she knew not how great joy Thou

wert about to work for her out of my absence. She knew not; therefore

did she weep and wail, and by this agony there appeared in her the

inheritance of Eve, with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she had brought

forth. And yet, after accusing my treachery and hardheartedness, she

betook herself again to intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted

place, and I to Rome.

And lo, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I

was going down to hell, carrying all the sins which I had committed,

both against Thee, and myself, and others, many and grievous, over and

above that bond of original sin, whereby we all die in Adam. For

Thou hadst not forgiven me any of these things in Christ, nor had He

abolished by His Cross the enmity which by my sins I had incurred with

Thee. For how should He, by the crucifixion of a phantasm, which I

believed Him to be? So true, then, was the death of my soul, as that

of His flesh seemed to me false; and how true the death of His body,

so false was the life of my soul, which did not believe it. And now the

fever heightening, I was parting and departing for ever. For had I then

parted hence, whither had I departed, but into fire and torments, such

as my misdeeds deserved in the truth of Thy appointment? And this she

knew not, yet in absence prayed for me. But Thou, everywhere present,

heardest her where she was, and, where I was, hadst compassion upon me;

that I should recover the health of my body, though frenzied as yet

in my sacrilegious heart. For I did not in all that danger desire Thy

baptism; and I was better as a boy, when I begged it of my mother's

piety, as I have before recited and confessed. But I had grown up to my

own shame, and I madly scoffed at the prescripts of Thy medicine, who

wouldest not suffer me, being such, to die a double death. With which

wound had my mother's heart been pierced, it could never be healed. For

I cannot express the affection she bore to me, and with how much more

vehement anguish she was now in labour of me in the spirit, than at her

childbearing in the flesh.

I see not then how she should have been healed, had such a death of mine

stricken through the bowels of her love. And where would have been those

her so strong and unceasing prayers, unintermitting to Thee alone? But

wouldest Thou, God of mercies, despise the contrite and humbled heart of

that chaste and sober widow, so frequent in almsdeeds, so full of duty

and service to Thy saints, no day intermitting the oblation at Thine

altar, twice a day, morning and evening, without any intermission,

coming to Thy church, not for idle tattlings and old wives' fables; but

that she might hear Thee in Thy discourses, and Thou her in her prayers.

Couldest Thou despise and reject from Thy aid the tears of such an one,

wherewith she begged of Thee not gold or silver, nor any mutable or

passing good, but the salvation of her son's soul? Thou, by whose gift

she was such? Never, Lord. Yea, Thou wert at hand, and wert hearing and

doing, in that order wherein Thou hadst determined before that it should

be done. Far be it that Thou shouldest deceive her in Thy visions and

answers, some whereof I have, some I have not mentioned, which she laid

up in her faithful heart, and ever praying, urged upon Thee, as

Thine own handwriting. For Thou, because Thy mercy endureth for ever,

vouchsafest to those to whom Thou forgivest all of their debts, to

become also a debtor by Thy promises.

Thou recoveredst me then of that sickness, and healedst the son of Thy

handmaid, for the time in body, that he might live, for Thee to bestow

upon him a better and more abiding health. And even then, at Rome, I

joined myself to those deceiving and deceived "holy ones"; not with

their disciples only (of which number was he, in whose house I had

fallen sick and recovered); but also with those whom they call "The

Elect." For I still thought "that it was not we that sin, but that I

know not what other nature sinned in us"; and it delighted my pride, to

be free from blame; and when I had done any evil, not to confess I had

done any, that Thou mightest heal my soul because it had sinned against

Thee: but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse I know not what other

thing, which was with me, but which I was not. But in truth it was

wholly I, and mine impiety had divided me against myself: and that sin

was the more incurable, whereby I did not judge myself a sinner; and

execrable iniquity it was, that I had rather have Thee, Thee, O God

Almighty, to be overcome in me to my destruction, than myself of Thee to

salvation. Not as yet then hadst Thou set a watch before my mouth, and a

door of safe keeping around my lips, that my heart might not turn

aside to wicked speeches, to make excuses of sins, with men that work

iniquity; and, therefore, was I still united with their Elect.

But now despairing to make proficiency in that false doctrine, even

those things (with which if I should find no better, I had resolved to

rest contented) I now held more laxly and carelessly. For there half

arose a thought in me that those philosophers, whom they call Academics,

were wiser than the rest, for that they held men ought to doubt

everything, and laid down that no truth can be comprehended by man:

for so, not then understanding even their meaning, I also was clearly

convinced that they thought, as they are commonly reported. Yet did I

freely and openly discourage that host of mine from that over-confidence

which I perceived him to have in those fables, which the books of

Manichaeus are full of. Yet I lived in more familiar friendship with

them, than with others who were not of this heresy. Nor did I maintain

it with my ancient eagerness; still my intimacy with that sect (Rome

secretly harbouring many of them) made me slower to seek any other way:

especially since I despaired of finding the truth, from which they had

turned me aside, in Thy Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of

all things visible and invisible: and it seemed to me very unseemly to

believe Thee to have the shape of human flesh, and to be bounded by the

bodily lineaments of our members. And because, when I wished to think on

my God, I knew not what to think of, but a mass of bodies (for what was

not such did not seem to me to be anything), this was the greatest, and

almost only cause of my inevitable error.

For hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of substance, and

to have its own foul and hideous bulk; whether gross, which they called

earth, or thin and subtile (like the body of the air), which they

imagine to be some malignant mind, creeping through that earth. And

because a piety, such as it was, constrained me to believe that the good

God never created any evil nature, I conceived two masses, contrary

to one another, both unbounded, but the evil narrower, the good more

expansive. And from this pestilent beginning, the other sacrilegious

conceits followed on me. For when my mind endeavoured to recur to the

Catholic faith, I was driven back, since that was not the Catholic faith

which I thought to be so. And I seemed to myself more reverential, if I

believed of Thee, my God (to whom Thy mercies confess out of my mouth),

as unbounded, at least on other sides, although on that one where the

mass of evil was opposed to Thee, I was constrained to confess Thee

bounded; than if on all sides I should imagine Thee to be bounded by the

form of a human body. And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have

created no evil (which to me ignorant seemed not some only, but a bodily

substance, because I could not conceive of mind unless as a subtile

body, and that diffused in definite spaces), than to believe the nature

of evil, such as I conceived it, could come from Thee. Yea, and our

Saviour Himself, Thy Only Begotten, I believed to have been reached

forth (as it were) for our salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid

substance, so as to believe nothing of Him, but what I could imagine in

my vanity. His Nature then, being such, I thought could not be born

of the Virgin Mary, without being mingled with the flesh: and how that

which I had so figured to myself could be mingled, and not defiled, I

saw not. I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest

I should be forced to believe Him defiled by the flesh. Now will Thy

spiritual ones mildly and lovingly smile upon me, if they shall read

these my confessions. Yet such was I.

Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I

thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to

confer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in

those books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the words

of one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face against the

said Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he

had produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily withstood, the

Manichees' answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this answer they

liked not to give publicly, but only to us in private. It was, that the

Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by I know not whom,

who wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith: yet

themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies. But I, conceiving of

things corporeal only, was mainly held down, vehemently oppressed and

in a manner suffocated by those "masses"; panting under which after the

breath of Thy truth, I could not breathe it pure and untainted.

I began then diligently to practise that for which I came to Rome, to

teach rhetoric; and first, to gather some to my house, to whom, and

through whom, I had begun to be known; when lo, I found other offences

committed in Rome, to which I was not exposed in Africa. True, those

"subvertings" by profligate young men were not here practised, as was

told me: but on a sudden, said they, to avoid paying their

master's stipend, a number of youths plot together, and remove to

another;--breakers of faith, who for love of money hold justice cheap.

These also my heart hated, though not with a perfect hatred: for

perchance I hated them more because I was to suffer by them, than

because they did things utterly unlawful. Of a truth such are base

persons, and they go a whoring from Thee, loving these fleeting

mockeries of things temporal, and filthy lucre, which fouls the hand

that grasps it; hugging the fleeting world, and despising Thee, Who

abidest, and recallest, and forgivest the adulteress soul of man, when

she returns to Thee. And now I hate such depraved and crooked persons,

though I love them if corrigible, so as to prefer to money the learning

which they acquire, and to learning, Thee, O God, the truth and fulness

of assured good, and most pure peace. But then I rather for my own sake

misliked them evil, than liked and wished them good for Thine.

When therefore they of Milan had sent to Rome to the prefect of the

city, to furnish them with a rhetoric reader for their city, and sent

him at the public expense, I made application (through those very

persons, intoxicated with Manichaean vanities, to be freed wherefrom

I was to go, neither of us however knowing it) that Symmachus, then

prefect of the city, would try me by setting me some subject, and so

send me. To Milan I came, to Ambrose the Bishop, known to the whole

world as among the best of men, Thy devout servant; whose eloquent

discourse did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the flour of Thy

wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy wine.

To him was I unknowing led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be

led to Thee. That man of God received me as a father, and showed me an

Episcopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at

first indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which I utterly despaired

of in Thy Church), but as a person kind towards myself. And I listened

diligently to him preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought,

but, as it were, trying his eloquence, whether it answered the fame

thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his

words attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful

looker-on; and I was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse,

more recondite, yet in manner less winning and harmonious, than that of

Faustus. Of the matter, however, there was no comparison; for the one

was wandering amid Manichaean delusions, the other teaching salvation

most soundly. But salvation is far from sinners, such as I then stood

before him; and yet was I drawing nearer by little and little, and

unconsciously.

For though I took no pains to learn what he spake, but only to hear how

he spake (for that empty care alone was left me, despairing of a way,

open for man, to Thee), yet together with the words which I would

choose, came also into my mind the things which I would refuse; for

I could not separate them. And while I opened my heart to admit "how

eloquently he spake," there also entered "how truly he spake"; but this

by degrees. For first, these things also had now begun to appear to

me capable of defence; and the Catholic faith, for which I had thought

nothing could be said against the Manichees' objections, I now thought

might be maintained without shamelessness; especially after I had heard

one or two places of the Old Testament resolved, and ofttimes "in a

figure," which when I understood literally, I was slain spiritually.

Very many places then of those books having been explained, I now blamed

my despair, in believing that no answer could be given to such as hated

and scoffed at the Law and the Prophets. Yet did I not therefore then

see that the Catholic way was to be held, because it also could find

learned maintainers, who could at large and with some show of reason

answer objections; nor that what I held was therefore to be condemned,

because both sides could be maintained. For the Catholic cause seemed to

me in such sort not vanquished, as still not as yet to be victorious.

Hereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by any

certain proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once have

conceived a spiritual substance, all their strongholds had been beaten

down, and cast utterly out of my mind; but I could not. Notwithstanding,

concerning the frame of this world, and the whole of nature, which the

senses of the flesh can reach to, as I more and more considered and

compared things, I judged the tenets of most of the philosophers to have

been much more probable. So then after the manner of the Academics (as

they are supposed) doubting of every thing, and wavering between all, I

settled so far, that the Manichees were to be abandoned; judging that,

even while doubting, I might not continue in that sect, to which I

already preferred some of the philosophers; to which philosophers

notwithstanding, for that they were without the saving Name of Christ,

I utterly refused to commit the cure of my sick soul. I determined

therefore so long to be a Catechumen in the Catholic Church, to which

I had been commended by my parents, till something certain should dawn

upon me, whither I might steer my course.