CHAPTER XIII

　　19.  To thee there is no such thing as evil, and even in thy whole creation taken as a whole, there is not; because there is nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order which thou hast appointed for it.  But in the parts of creation, some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are considered evil.  Yet those same things harmonize with others and are good, and in themselves are good.  And all these things which do not harmonize with each other still harmonize with the inferior part of creation which we call the earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky of like nature with itself.  Far be it from me, then, to say, "These things should not be." For if I could see nothing but these, I should indeed desire something better -- but still I ought to praise thee, if only for these created things.

　　For that thou art to be praised is shown from the fact that "earth, dragons, and all deeps; fire, and hail, snow and vapors, stormy winds fulfilling thy word; mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl; things of the earth, and all people;

　　princes, and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens, old men and children,"[208] praise thy name!  But seeing also that in heaven all thy angels praise thee, O God, praise thee in the heights, "and all thy hosts, sun and moon, all stars and light, the heavens of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens,"[209] praise thy name -- seeing this, I say, I no longer desire a better world, because my thought ranged over all, and with a sounder judgment I reflected that the things above were better than those below, yet that all creation together was better than the higher things alone.

　　CHAPTER XIV

　　20.  There is no health in those who find fault with any part of thy creation; as there was no health in me when I found fault with so many of thy works.  And, because my soul dared not be displeased with my God, it would not allow that the things which displeased me were from thee.  Hence it had wandered into the notion of two substances, and could find no rest, but talked foolishly, And turning from that error, it had then made for itself a god extended through infinite space; and it thought this was thou and set it up in its heart, and it became once more the temple of its own idol, an abomination to thee.  But thou didst soothe my brain, though I was unaware of it, and closed my eyes lest they should behold vanity; and thus I ceased from preoccupation with self by a little and my madness was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in thee, and beheld thee as the Infinite, but not in the way I had thought -- and this vision was not derived from the flesh.

　　CHAPTER XV

　　21.  And I looked around at other things, and I saw that it was to thee that all of them owed their being, and that they were all finite in thee; yet they are in thee not as in a space, but because thou holdest all things in the hand of thy truth, and because all things are true in so far as they are; and because falsehood is nothing except the existence in thought of what does not exist in fact.  And I saw that all things harmonize, not only in their places but also in their seasons.  And I saw that thou, who alone art eternal, didst not _begin_ to work after unnumbered periods of time -- because all ages, both those which are past and those which shall pass, neither go nor come except through thy working and abiding.

　　CHAPTER XVI

　　22.  And I saw and found it no marvel that bread which is distasteful to an unhealthy palate is pleasant to a healthy one;

　　or that the light, which is painful to sore eyes, is a delight to sound ones.  Thy righteousness displeases the wicked, and they find even more fault with the viper and the little worm, which thou hast created good, fitting in as they do with the inferior parts of creation.  The wicked themselves also fit in here, and proportionately more so as they become unlike thee -- but they harmonize with the higher creation proportionately as they become like thee.  And I asked what wickedness was, and I found that it was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from thee, O God, the supreme substance, toward these lower things, casting away its inmost treasure and becoming bloated with external good.[210]

　　CHAPTER XVII

　　23.  And I marveled that I now loved thee, and no fantasm in thy stead, and yet I was not stable enough to enjoy my God steadily.  Instead I was transported to thee by thy beauty, and then presently torn away from thee by my own weight, sinking with grief into these lower things.  This weight was carnal habit.  But thy memory dwelt with me, and I never doubted in the least that there was One for me to cleave to; but I was not yet ready to cleave to thee firmly.  For the body which is corrupted presses down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind, which muses upon many things.[211]  My greatest certainty was that "the invisible things of thine from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even thy eternal power and Godhead."[212]  For when I inquired how it was that I could appreciate the beauty of bodies, both celestial and terrestrial; and what it was that supported me in making correct judgments about things mutable; and when I concluded, "This ought to be thus; this ought not" -- _then_ when I inquired how it was that I could make such judgments (since I did, in fact, make them), I realized that I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of truth above my changeable mind.

　　And thus by degrees I was led upward from bodies to the soul which perceives them by means of the bodily senses, and from there on to the soul's inward faculty, to which the bodily senses report outward things -- and this belongs even to the capacities of the beasts -- and thence on up to the reasoning power, to whose judgment is referred the experience received from the bodily sense.  And when this power of reason within me also found that it was changeable, it raised itself up to its own intellectual principle,[213] and withdrew its thoughts from experience, abstracting itself from the contradictory throng of fantasms in order to seek for that light in which it was bathed.  Then, without any doubting, it cried out that the unchangeable was better than the changeable.  From this it follows that the mind somehow knew the unchangeable, for, unless it had known it in some fashion, it could have had no sure ground for preferring it to the changeable.  And thus with the flash of a trembling glance, it arrived at _that which is_.[214]  And I saw thy invisibility [invisibilia tua] understood by means of the things that are made.

　　But I was not able to sustain my gaze.  My weakness was dashed back, and I lapsed again into my accustomed ways, carrying along with me nothing but a loving memory of my vision, and an appetite for what I had, as it were, smelled the odor of, but was not yet able to eat.

　　CHAPTER XVIII

　　24.  I sought, therefore, some way to acquire the strength sufficient to enjoy thee; but I did not find it until I embraced that "Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,"[215]

　　"who is over all, God blessed forever,"[216] who came calling and saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life,"[217] and mingling with our fleshly humanity the heavenly food I was unable to receive.  For "the Word was made flesh" in order that thy wisdom, by which thou didst create all things, might become milk for our infancy.  And, as yet, I was not humble enough to hold the humble Jesus; nor did I understand what lesson his weakness was meant to teach us.  For thy Word, the eternal Truth, far exalted above even the higher parts of thy creation, lifts his subjects up toward himself.  But in this lower world, he built for himself a humble habitation of our own clay, so that he might pull down from themselves and win over to himself those whom he is to bring subject to him; lowering their pride and heightening their love, to the end that they might go on no farther in self-confidence --

　　but rather should become weak, seeing at their feet the Deity made weak by sharing our coats of skin -- so that they might cast themselves, exhausted, upon him and be uplifted by his rising.

　　CHAPTER XIX

　　25.  But I thought otherwise.  I saw in our Lord Christ only a man of eminent wisdom to whom no other man could be compared --

　　especially because he was miraculously born of a virgin -- sent to set us an example of despising worldly things for the attainment of immortality, and thus exhibiting his divine care for us.

　　Because of this, I held that he had merited his great authority as leader.  But concerning the mystery contained in "the Word was made flesh," I could not even form a notion.  From what I learned from what has been handed down to us in the books about him --

　　that he ate, drank, slept, walked, rejoiced in spirit, was sad, and discoursed with his fellows -- I realized that his flesh alone was not bound unto thy Word, but also that there was a bond with the human soul and body.  Everyone knows this who knows the unchangeableness of thy Word, and this I knew by now, as far as I

　　was able, and I had no doubts at all about it.  For at one time to move the limbs by an act of will, at another time not; at one time to feel some emotion, at another time not; at one time to speak intelligibly through verbal signs, at another, not -- these are all properties of a soul and mind subject to change.  And if these things were falsely written about him, all the rest would risk the imputation of falsehood, and there would remain in those books no saving faith for the human race.

　　Therefore, because they were written truthfully, I

　　acknowledged a perfect man to be in Christ -- not the body of a man only, nor, in the body, an animal soul without a rational one as well, but a true man.  And this man I held to be superior to all others, not only because he was a form of the Truth, but also because of the great excellence and perfection of his human nature, due to his participation in wisdom.

　　Alypius, on the other hand, supposed the Catholics to believe that God was so clothed with flesh that besides God and the flesh there was no soul in Christ, and he did not think that a human mind was ascribed to him.[218]  And because he was fully persuaded that the actions recorded of him could not have been performed except by a living rational creature, he moved the more slowly toward Christian faith.[219]  But when he later learned that this was the error of the Apollinarian heretics, he rejoiced in the Catholic faith and accepted it.  For myself, I must confess that it was even later that I learned how in the sentence, "The Word was made flesh," the Catholic truth can be distinguished from the falsehood of Photinus.  For the refutation of heretics[220] makes the tenets of thy Church and sound doctrine to stand out boldly.

　　"For there must also be heresies [factions] that those who are approved may be made manifest among the weak."[221]

　　CHAPTER XX

　　26.  By having thus read the books of the Platonists, and having been taught by them to search for the incorporeal Truth, I

　　saw how thy invisible things are understood through the things that are made.  And, even when I was thrown back, I still sensed what it was that the dullness of my soul would not allow me to contemplate.  I was assured that thou wast, and wast infinite, though not diffused in finite space or infinity; that thou truly art, who art ever the same, varying neither in part nor motion;

　　and that all things are from thee, as is proved by this sure cause alone: that they exist.

　　Of all this I was convinced, yet I was too weak to enjoy thee.  I chattered away as if I were an expert; but if I had not sought thy Way in Christ our Saviour, my knowledge would have turned out to be not instruction but destruction.[222]  For now full of what was in fact my punishment, I had begun to desire to seem wise.  I did not mourn my ignorance, but rather was puffed up with knowledge.  For where was that love which builds upon the foundation of humility, which is Jesus Christ?[223]  Or, when would these books teach me this?  I now believe that it was thy pleasure that I should fall upon these books before I studied thy Scriptures, that it might be impressed on my memory how I was affected by them; and then afterward, when I was subdued by thy Scriptures and when my wounds were touched by thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish what a difference there is between presumption and confession -- between those who saw where they were to go even if they did not see the way, and the Way which leads, not only to the observing, but also the inhabiting of the blessed country.  For had I first been molded in thy Holy Scriptures, and if thou hadst grown sweet to me through my familiar use of them, and if then I had afterward fallen on those volumes, they might have pushed me off the solid ground of godliness -- or if I had stood firm in that wholesome disposition which I had there acquired, I might have thought that wisdom could be attained by the study of those [Platonist] books alone.

　　CHAPTER XXI

　　27.  With great eagerness, then, I fastened upon the venerable writings of thy Spirit and principally upon the apostle Paul.  I had thought that he sometimes contradicted himself and that the text of his teaching did not agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets; but now all these doubts vanished away.  And I saw that those pure words had but one face, and I

　　learned to rejoice with trembling.  So I began, and I found that whatever truth I had read [in the Platonists] was here combined with the exaltation of thy grace.  Thus, he who sees must not glory as if he had not received, not only the things that he sees, but the very power of sight -- for what does he have that he has not received as a gift?  By this he is not only exhorted to see, but also to be cleansed, that he may grasp thee, who art ever the same; and thus he who cannot see thee afar off may yet enter upon the road that leads to reaching, seeing, and possessing thee.  For although a man may "delight in the law of God after the inward man," what shall he do with that other "law in his members which wars against the law of his mind, and brings him into captivity under the law of sin, which is in his members"?[224]  Thou art righteous, O Lord; but we have sinned and committed iniquities, and have done wickedly.  Thy hand has grown heavy upon us, and we are justly delivered over to that ancient sinner, the lord of death.  For he persuaded our wills to become like his will, by which he remained not in thy truth.  What shall "wretched man" do?

　　"Who shall deliver him from the body of this death,"[225] except thy grace through Jesus Christ our Lord; whom thou hast begotten, coeternal with thyself, and didst create in the beginning of thy ways[226] -- in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet he killed him -- and so the handwriting which was all against us was blotted out?

　　The books of the Platonists tell nothing of this.  Their pages do not contain the expression of this kind of godliness --

　　the tears of confession, thy sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, the salvation of thy people, the espoused City, the earnest of the Holy Spirit, the cup of our redemption.  In them, no man sings: "Shall not my soul be subject unto God, for from him comes my salvation?  He is my God and my salvation, my defender; I shall no more be moved."[227]  In them, no one hears him calling, "Come unto me all you who labor." They scorn to learn of him because he is "meek and lowly of heart"; for "thou hast hidden those things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." For it is one thing to see the land of peace from a wooded mountaintop: and fail to find the way thither -- to attempt impassable ways in vain, opposed and waylaid by fugitives and deserters under their captain, the "lion" and "dragon"[228]; but it is quite another thing to keep to the highway that leads thither, guarded by the hosts of the heavenly Emperor, on which there are no deserters from the heavenly army to rob the passers-by, for they shun it as a torment.[229]  These thoughts sank wondrously into my heart, when I read that "least of thy apostles"[230] and when I had considered all thy works and trembled.

　　BOOK EIGHT

　　Conversion to Christ.  Augustine is deeply impressed by Simplicianus' story of the conversion to Christ of the famous orator and philosopher, Marius Victorinus.  He is stirred to emulate him, but finds himself still enchained by his incontinence and preoccupation with worldly affairs.  He is then visited by a court official, Ponticianus, who tells him and Alypius the stories of the conversion of Anthony and also of two imperial "secret service agents." These stories throw him into a violent turmoil, in which his divided will struggles against himself.  He almost succeeds in making the decision for continence, but is still held back.  Finally, a child's song, overheard by chance, sends him to the Bible; a text from Paul resolves the crisis; the conversion is a fact.  Alypius also makes his decision, and the two inform the rejoicing Monica.

　　CHAPTER I

　　1.  O my God, let me remember with gratitude and confess to thee thy mercies toward me.  Let my bones be bathed in thy love, and let them say: "Lord, who is like unto thee?[231]  Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving."[232]  And how thou didst break them I will declare, and all who worship thee shall say, when they hear these things:

　　"Blessed be the Lord in heaven and earth, great and wonderful is his name."[233]

　　Thy words had stuck fast in my breast, and I was hedged round about by thee on every side.  Of thy eternal life I was now certain, although I had seen it "through a glass darkly."[234]

　　And I had been relieved of all doubt that there is an incorruptible substance and that it is the source of every other substance.  Nor did I any longer crave greater certainty about thee, but rather greater steadfastness in thee.

　　But as for my temporal life, everything was uncertain, and my heart had to be purged of the old leaven.  "The Way" -- the Saviour himself -- pleased me well, but as yet I was reluctant to pass through the strait gate.

　　And thou didst put it into my mind, and it seemed good in my own sight, to go to Simplicianus, who appeared to me a faithful servant of thine, and thy grace shone forth in him.  I had also been told that from his youth up he had lived in entire devotion to thee.  He was already an old man, and because of his great age, which he had passed in such a zealous discipleship in thy way, he appeared to me likely to have gained much wisdom -- and, indeed, he had.  From all his experience, I desired him to tell me --

　　setting before him all my agitations -- which would be the most fitting way for one who felt as I did to walk in thy way.

　　2.  For I saw the Church full; and one man was going this way and another that.  Still, I could not be satisfied with the life I

　　was living in the world.  Now, indeed, my passions had ceased to excite me as of old with hopes of honor and wealth, and it was a grievous burden to go on in such servitude.  For, compared with thy sweetness and the beauty of thy house -- which I loved --

　　those things delighted me no longer.  But I was still tightly bound by the love of women; nor did the apostle forbid me to marry, although he exhorted me to something better, wishing earnestly that all men were as he himself was.

　　But I was weak and chose the easier way, and for this single reason my whole life was one of inner turbulence and listless indecision, because from so many influences I was compelled --

　　even though unwilling -- to agree to a married life which bound me hand and foot.  I had heard from the mouth of Truth that "there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake"[235] but, said he, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Of a certainty, all men are vain who do not have the knowledge of God, or have not been able, from the good things that are seen, to find him who is good.  But I was no longer fettered in that vanity.  I had surmounted it, and from the united testimony of thy whole creation had found thee, our Creator, and thy Word -- God with thee, and together with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God -- by whom thou hast created all things.

　　There is still another sort of wicked men, who "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful."[236]

　　Into this also I had fallen, but thy right hand held me up and bore me away, and thou didst place me where I might recover.  For thou hast said to men, "Behold the fear of the Lord, this is wisdom,"[237] and, "Be not wise in your own eyes,"[238] because "they that profess themselves to be wise become fools."[239]  But I had now found the goodly pearl; and I ought to have sold all that I had and bought it -- yet I hesitated.

　　CHAPTER II

　　3.  I went, therefore, to Simplicianus, the spiritual father of Ambrose (then a bishop), whom Ambrose truly loved as a father.

　　I recounted to him all the mazes of my wanderings, but when I

　　mentioned to him that I had read certain books of the Platonists which Victorinus -- formerly professor of rhetoric at Rome, who died a Christian, as I had been told -- had translated into Latin, Simplicianus congratulated me that I had not fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, which were full of fallacies and deceit, "after the beggarly elements of this world,"[240] whereas in the Platonists, at every turn, the pathway led to belief in God and his Word.

　　Then, to encourage me to copy the humility of Christ, which is hidden from the wise and revealed to babes, he told me about Victorinus himself, whom he had known intimately at Rome.  And I

　　cannot refrain from repeating what he told me about him.  For it contains a glorious proof of thy grace, which ought to be confessed to thee: how that old man, most learned, most skilled in all the liberal arts; who had read, criticized, and explained so many of the writings of the philosophers; the teacher of so many noble senators; one who, as a mark of his distinguished service in office had both merited and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum -- which men of this world esteem a great honor -- this man who, up to an advanced age, had been a worshiper of idols, a communicant in the sacrilegious rites to which almost all the nobility of Rome were wedded; and who had inspired the people with the love of Osiris and "The dog Anubis, and a medley crew Of monster gods who 'gainst Neptune stand in arms 'Gainst Venus and Minerva, steel-clad Mars,"[241]

　　whom Rome once conquered, and now worshiped; all of which old Victorinus had with thundering eloquence defended for so many years -- despite all this, he did not blush to become a child of thy Christ, a babe at thy font, bowing his neck to the yoke of humility and submitting his forehead to the ignominy of the cross.

　　4.  O Lord, Lord, "who didst bow the heavens and didst descend, who didst touch the mountains and they smoked,"[242] by what means didst thou find thy way into that breast?  He used to read the Holy Scriptures, as Simplicianus said, and thought out and studied all the Christian writings most studiously.  He said to Simplicianus -- not openly but secretly as a friend -- "You must know that I am a Christian." To which Simplicianus replied, "I shall not believe it, nor shall I count you among the Christians, until I see you in the Church of Christ." Victorinus then asked, with mild mockery, "Is it then the walls that make Christians?"  Thus he often would affirm that he was already a Christian, and as often Simplicianus made the same answer; and just as often his jest about the walls was repeated.  He was fearful of offending his friends, proud demon worshipers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from the tops of the cedars of Lebanon which the Lord had not yet broken down, he feared that a storm of enmity would descend upon him.

　　But he steadily gained strength from reading and inquiry, and came to fear lest he should be denied by Christ before the holy angels if he now was afraid to confess him before men.  Thus he came to appear to himself guilty of a great fault, in being ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of thy Word, when he was not ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons, whose pride he had imitated and whose rites he had shared.  From this he became bold-faced against vanity and shamefaced toward the truth.

　　Thus, suddenly and unexpectedly, he said to Simplicianus -- as he himself told me -- "Let us go to the church; I wish to become a Christian." Simplicianus went with him, scarcely able to contain himself for joy.  He was admitted to the first sacraments of instruction, and not long afterward gave in his name that he might receive the baptism of regeneration.  At this Rome marveled and the Church rejoiced.  The proud saw and were enraged; they gnashed their teeth and melted away!  But the Lord God was thy servant's hope and he paid no attention to their vanity and lying madness.

　　5.  Finally, when the hour arrived for him to make a public profession of his faith -- which at Rome those who are about to enter into thy grace make from a platform in the full sight of the faithful people, in a set form of words learned by heart -- the presbyters offered Victorinus the chance to make his profession more privately, for this was the custom for some who were likely to be afraid through bashfulness.  But Victorinus chose rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy congregation.

　　For there was no salvation in the rhetoric which he taught: yet he had professed that openly.  Why, then, should he shrink from naming thy Word before the sheep of thy flock, when he had not shrunk from uttering his own words before the mad multitude?

　　So, then, when he ascended the platform to make his profession, everyone, as they recognized him, whispered his name one to the other, in tones of jubilation.  Who was there among them that did not know him?  And a low murmur ran through the mouths of all the rejoicing multitude: "Victorinus!  Victorinus!"

　　There was a sudden burst of exaltation at the sight of him, and suddenly they were hushed that they might hear him.  He pronounced the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all desired to take him to their very heart -- indeed, by their love and joy they did take him to their heart.  And they received him with loving and joyful hands.

　　CHAPTER III

　　6.  O good God, what happens in a man to make him rejoice more at the salvation of a soul that has been despaired of and then delivered from greater danger than over one who has never lost hope, or never been in such imminent danger?  For thou also, O most merciful Father, "dost rejoice more over one that repents than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."[243]  And we listen with much delight whenever we hear how the lost sheep is brought home again on the shepherd's shoulders while the angels rejoice; or when the piece of money is restored to its place in the treasury and the neighbors rejoice with the woman who found it.[244]  And the joy of the solemn festival of thy house constrains us to tears when it is read in thy house: about the younger son who "was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." For it is thou who rejoicest both in us and in thy angels, who are holy through holy love.  For thou art ever the same because thou knowest unchangeably all things which remain neither the same nor forever.

　　7.  What, then, happens in the soul when it takes more delight at finding or having restored to it the things it loves than if it had always possessed them?  Indeed, many other things bear witness that this is so -- all things are full of witnesses, crying out, "So it is." The commander triumphs in victory; yet he could not have conquered if he had not fought; and the greater the peril of the battle, the more the joy of the triumph.  The storm tosses the voyagers, threatens shipwreck, and everyone turns pale in the presence of death.  Then the sky and sea grow calm, and they rejoice as much as they had feared.  A loved one is sick and his pulse indicates danger; all who desire his safety are themselves sick at heart; he recovers, though not able as yet to walk with his former strength; and there is more joy now than there was before when he walked sound and strong.  Indeed, the very pleasures of human life -- not only those which rush upon us unexpectedly and involuntarily, but also those which are voluntary and planned -- men obtain by difficulties.  There is no pleasure in caring and drinking unless the pains of hunger and thirst have preceded.  Drunkards even eat certain salt meats in order to create a painful thirst -- and when the drink allays this, it causes pleasure.  It is also the custom that the affianced bride should not be immediately given in marriage so that the husband may not esteem her any less, whom as his betrothed he longed for.

　　8.  This can be seen in the case of base and dishonorable pleasure.  But it is also apparent in pleasures that are permitted and lawful: in the sincerity of honest friendship; and in him who was dead and lived again, who had been lost and was found.  The greater joy is everywhere preceded by the greater pain.  What does this mean, O Lord my God, when thou art an everlasting joy to thyself, and some creatures about thee are ever rejoicing in thee?

　　What does it mean that this portion of creation thus ebbs and flows, alternately in want and satiety?  Is this their mode of being and is this all thou hast allotted to them: that, from the highest heaven to the lowest earth, from the beginning of the world to the end, from the angels to the worm, from the first movement to the last, thou wast assigning to all their proper places and their proper seasons -- to all the kinds of good things and to all thy just works?  Alas, how high thou art in the highest and how deep in the deepest!  Thou never departest from us, and yet only with difficulty do we return to thee.

　　CHAPTER IV

　　9.  Go on, O Lord, and act: stir us up and call us back;

　　inflame us and draw us to thee; stir us up and grow sweet to us;

　　let us now love thee, let us run to thee.  Are there not many men who, out of a deeper pit of darkness than that of Victorinus, return to thee -- who draw near to thee and are illuminated by that light which gives those who receive it power from thee to become thy sons?  But if they are less well-known, even those who know them rejoice less for them.  For when many rejoice together the joy of each one is fuller, in that they warm one another, catch fire from each other; moreover, those who are well-known influence many toward salvation and take the lead with many to follow them.  Therefore, even those who took the way before them rejoice over them greatly, because they do not rejoice over them alone.  But it ought never to be that in thy tabernacle the persons of the rich should be welcome before the poor, or the nobly born before the rest -- since "thou hast rather chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong; and hast chosen the base things of the world and things that are despised, and the things that are not, in order to bring to nought the things that are."[245]  It was even "the least of the apostles" by whose tongue thou didst sound forth these words.  And when Paulus the proconsul had his pride overcome by the onslaught of the apostle and he was made to pass under the easy yoke of thy Christ and became an officer of the great King, he also desired to be called Paul instead of Saul, his former name, in testimony to such a great victory.[246]  For the enemy is more overcome in one on whom he has a greater hold, and whom he has hold of more completely.

　　But the proud he controls more readily through their concern about their rank and, through them, he controls more by means of their influence.  The more, therefore, the world prized the heart of Victorinus (which the devil had held in an impregnable stronghold)

　　and the tongue of Victorinus (that sharp, strong weapon with which the devil had slain so many), all the more exultingly should Thy sons rejoice because our King hath bound the strong man, and they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and made fit for thy honor and "profitable to the Lord for every good work."[247]

　　CHAPTER V

　　10.  Now when this man of thine, Simplicianus, told me the story of Victorinus, I was eager to imitate him.  Indeed, this was Simplicianus' purpose in telling it to me.  But when he went on to tell how, in the reign of the Emperor Julian, there was a law passed by which Christians were forbidden to teach literature and rhetoric; and how Victorinus, in ready obedience to the law, chose to abandon his "school of words" rather than thy Word, by which thou makest eloquent the tongues of the dumb -- he appeared to me not so much brave as happy, because he had found a reason for giving his time wholly to thee.  For this was what I was longing to do; but as yet I was bound by the iron chain of my own will.

　　The enemy held fast my will, and had made of it a chain, and had bound me tight with it.  For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity.  By these links, as it were, forged together --

　　which is why I called it "a chain" -- a hard bondage held me in slavery.  But that new will which had begun to spring up in me freely to worship thee and to enjoy thee, O my God, the only certain Joy, was not able as yet to overcome my former willfulness, made strong by long indulgence.  Thus my two wills --

　　the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual -- were in conflict within me; and by their discord they tore my soul apart.

　　11.  Thus I came to understand from my own experience what I

　　had read, how "the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh."[248]  I truly lusted both ways, yet more in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved in myself.  For in the latter it was not now really I that was involved, because here I was rather an unwilling sufferer than a willing actor.  And yet it was through me that habit had become an armed enemy against me, because I had willingly come to be what I

　　unwillingly found myself to be.

　　Who, then, can with any justice speak against it, when just punishment follows the sinner?  I had now no longer my accustomed excuse that, as yet, I hesitated to forsake the world and serve thee because my perception of the truth was uncertain.  For now it was certain.  But, still bound to the earth, I refused to be thy soldier; and was as much afraid of being freed from all entanglements as we ought to fear to be entangled.

　　12.  Thus with the baggage of the world I was sweetly burdened, as one in slumber, and my musings on thee were like the efforts of those who desire to awake, but who are still overpowered with drowsiness and fall back into deep slumber.  And as no one wishes to sleep forever (for all men rightly count waking better) -- yet a man will usually defer shaking off his drowsiness when there is a heavy lethargy in his limbs; and he is glad to sleep on even when his reason disapproves, and the hour for rising has struck -- so was I assured that it was much better for me to give myself up to thy love than to go on yielding myself to my own lust.  Thy love satisfied and vanquished me; my lust pleased and fettered me.[249]  I had no answer to thy calling to me, "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light."[250]  On all sides, thou didst show me that thy words are true, and I, convicted by the truth, had nothing at all to reply but the drawling and drowsy words: "Presently; see, presently.  Leave me alone a little while." But "presently, presently," had no present; and my "leave me alone a little while"

　　went on for a long while.  In vain did I "delight in thy law in the inner man" while "another law in my members warred against the law of my mind and brought me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." For the law of sin is the tyranny of habit, by which the mind is drawn and held, even against its will.

　　Yet it deserves to be so held because it so willingly falls into the habit.  "O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death" but thy grace alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord?[251]

　　CHAPTER VI

　　13.  And now I will tell and confess unto thy name, O Lord, my helper and my redeemer, how thou didst deliver me from the chain of sexual desire by which I was so tightly held, and from the slavery of worldly business.[252]  With increasing anxiety I

　　was going about my usual affairs, and daily sighing to thee.  I

　　attended thy church as frequently as my business, under the burden of which I groaned, left me free to do so.  Alypius was with me, disengaged at last from his legal post, after a third term as assessor, and now waiting for private clients to whom he might sell his legal advice as I sold the power of speaking (as if it could be supplied by teaching).  But Nebridius had consented, for the sake of our friendship, to teach under Verecundus -- a citizen of Milan and professor of grammar, and a very intimate friend of us all -- who ardently desired, and by right of friendship demanded from us, the faithful aid he greatly needed.  Nebridius was not drawn to this by any desire of gain -- for he could have made much more out of his learning had he been so inclined -- but as he was a most sweet and kindly friend, he was unwilling, out of respect for the duties of friendship, to slight our request.  But in this he acted very discreetly, taking care not to become known to those persons who had great reputations in the world.  Thus he avoided all distractions of mind, and reserved as many hours as possible to pursue or read or listen to discussions about wisdom.

　　14.  On a certain day, then, when Nebridius was away -- for some reason I cannot remember -- there came to visit Alypius and me at our house one Ponticianus, a fellow countryman of ours from Africa, who held high office in the emperor's court.  What he wanted with us I do not know; but we sat down to talk together, and it chanced that he noticed a book on a game table before us.

　　He took it up, opened it, and, contrary to his expectation, found it to be the apostle Paul, for he imagined that it was one of my wearisome rhetoric textbooks.  At this, he looked up at me with a smile and expressed his delight and wonder that he had so unexpectedly found this book and only this one, lying before my eyes; for he was indeed a Christian and a faithful one at that, and often he prostrated himself before thee, our God, in the church in constant daily prayer.  When I had told him that I had given much attention to these writings, a conversation followed in which he spoke of Anthony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was in high repute among thy servants, although up to that time not familiar to me.  When he learned this, he lingered on the topic, giving us an account of this eminent man, and marveling at our ignorance.  We in turn were amazed to hear of thy wonderful works so fully manifested in recent times -- almost in our own --

　　occurring in the true faith and the Catholic Church. We all wondered -- we, that these things were so great, and he, that we had never heard of them.

　　15.  From this, his conversation turned to the multitudes in the monasteries and their manners so fragrant to thee, and to the teeming solitudes of the wilderness, of which we knew nothing at all.  There was even a monastery at Milan, outside the city's walls, full of good brothers under the fostering care of Ambrose -- and we were ignorant of it.  He went on with his story, and we listened intently and in silence.  He then told us how, on a certain afternoon, at Trier,[253] when the emperor was occupied watching the gladiatorial games, he and three comrades went out for a walk in the gardens close to the city walls.  There, as they chanced to walk two by two, one strolled away with him, while the other two went on by themselves.  As they rambled, these first two came upon a certain cottage where lived some of thy servants, some of the "poor in spirit" ("of such is the Kingdom of Heaven"), where they found the book in which was written the life of Anthony!  One of them began to read it, to marvel and to be inflamed by it.  While reading, he meditated on embracing just such a life, giving up his worldly employment to seek thee alone.

　　These two belonged to the group of officials called "secret service agents."[254]  Then, suddenly being overwhelmed with a holy love and a sober shame and as if in anger with himself, he fixed his eyes on his friend, exclaiming: "Tell me, I beg you, what goal are we seeking in all these toils of ours?  What is it that we desire?  What is our motive in public service?  Can our hopes in the court rise higher than to be 'friends of the emperor'[255]?  But how frail, how beset with peril, is that pride!  Through what dangers must we climb to a greater danger?

　　And when shall we succeed?  But if I chose to become a friend of God, see, I can become one now." Thus he spoke, and in the pangs of the travail of the new life he turned his eyes again onto the page and continued reading; he was inwardly changed, as thou didst see, and the world dropped away from his mind, as soon became plain to others.  For as he read with a heart like a stormy sea, more than once he groaned.  Finally he saw the better course, and resolved on it.  Then, having become thy servant, he said to his friend: "Now I have broken loose from those hopes we had, and I am determined to serve God; and I enter into that service from this hour in this place.  If you are reluctant to imitate me, do not oppose me." The other replied that he would continue bound in his friendship, to share in so great a service for so great a prize.

　　So both became thine, and began to "build a tower", counting the cost -- namely, of forsaking all that they had and following thee.[256]  Shortly after, Ponticianus and his companion, who had walked with him in the other part of the garden, came in search of them to the same place, and having found them reminded them to return, as the day was declining.  But the first two, making known to Ponticianus their resolution and purpose, and how a resolve had sprung up and become confirmed in them, entreated them not to take it ill if they refused to join themselves with them.  But Ponticianus and his friend, although not changed from their former course, did nevertheless (as he told us) bewail themselves and congratulated their friends on their godliness, recommending themselves to their prayers.  And with hearts inclining again toward earthly things, they returned to the palace.  But the other two, setting their affections on heavenly things, remained in the cottage.  Both of them had affianced brides who, when they heard of this, likewise dedicated their virginity to thee.

　　CHAPTER VII

　　16.  Such was the story Ponticianus told.  But while he was speaking, thou, O Lord, turned me toward myself, taking me from behind my back, where I had put myself while unwilling to exercise self-scrutiny.  And now thou didst set me face to face with myself, that I might see how ugly I was, and how crooked and sordid, bespotted and ulcerous.  And I looked and I loathed myself; but whither to fly from myself I could not discover.  And if I sought to turn my gaze away from myself, he would continue his narrative, and thou wouldst oppose me to myself and thrust me before my own eyes that I might discover my iniquity and hate it.

　　I had known it, but acted as though I knew it not -- I winked at it and forgot it.

　　17.  But now, the more ardently I loved those whose wholesome affections I heard reported -- that they had given themselves up wholly to thee to be cured -- the more did I abhor myself when compared with them.  For many of my years -- perhaps twelve -- had passed away since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading of Cicero's Hortensius, I was roused to a desire for wisdom.  And here I was, still postponing the abandonment of this world's happiness to devote myself to the search. For not just the finding alone, but also the bare search for it, ought to have been preferred above the treasures and kingdoms of this world; better than all bodily pleasures, though they were to be had for the taking.  But, wretched youth that I was -- supremely wretched even in the very outset of my youth -- I had entreated chastity of thee and had prayed, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

　　For I was afraid lest thou shouldst hear me too soon, and too soon cure me of my disease of lust which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished.  And I had wandered through perverse ways of godless superstition -- not really sure of it, either, but preferring it to the other, which I did not seek in piety, but opposed in malice.

　　18.  And I had thought that I delayed from day to day in rejecting those worldly hopes and following thee alone because there did not appear anything certain by which I could direct my course.  And now the day had arrived in which I was laid bare to myself and my conscience was to chide me: "Where are you, O my tongue?  You said indeed that you were not willing to cast off the baggage of vanity for uncertain truth.  But behold now it is certain, and still that burden oppresses you.  At the same time those who have not worn themselves out with searching for it as you have, nor spent ten years and more in thinking about it, have had their shoulders unburdened and have received wings to fly away." Thus was I inwardly confused, and mightily confounded with a horrible shame, while Ponticianus went ahead speaking such things.  And when he had finished his story and the business he came for, he went his way.  And then what did I not say to myself, within myself?  With what scourges of rebuke did I not lash my soul to make it follow me, as I was struggling to go after thee?

　　Yet it drew back.  It refused.  It would not make an effort.  All its arguments were exhausted and confuted.  Yet it resisted in sullen disquiet, fearing the cutting off of that habit by which it was being wasted to death, as if that were death itself.

　　CHAPTER VIII

　　19.  Then, as this vehement quarrel, which I waged with my soul in the chamber of my heart, was raging inside my inner dwelling, agitated both in mind and countenance, I seized upon Alypius and exclaimed: "What is the matter with us?  What is this?

　　What did you hear?  The uninstructed start up and take heaven, and we -- with all our learning but so little heart -- see where we wallow in flesh and blood!  Because others have gone before us, are we ashamed to follow, and not rather ashamed at our not following?"  I scarcely knew what I said, and in my excitement I

　　flung away from him, while he gazed at me in silent astonishment.

　　For I did not sound like myself: my face, eyes, color, tone expressed my meaning more clearly than my words.

　　There was a little garden belonging to our lodging, of which we had the use -- as of the whole house -- for the master, our landlord, did not live there.  The tempest in my breast hurried me out into this garden, where no one might interrupt the fiery struggle in which I was engaged with myself, until it came to the outcome that thou knewest though I did not.  But I was mad for health, and dying for life; knowing what evil thing I was, but not knowing what good thing I was so shortly to become.

　　I fled into the garden, with Alypius following step by step;

　　for I had no secret in which he did not share, and how could he leave me in such distress?  We sat down, as far from the house as possible.  I was greatly disturbed in spirit, angry at myself with a turbulent indignation because I had not entered thy will and covenant, O my God, while all my bones cried out to me to enter, extolling it to the skies.  The way therein is not by ships or chariots or feet -- indeed it was not as far as I had come from the house to the place where we were seated.  For to go along that road and indeed to reach the goal is nothing else but the will to go.  But it must be a strong and single will, not staggering and swaying about this way and that -- a changeable, twisting, fluctuating will, wrestling with itself while one part falls as another rises.

　　20.  Finally, in the very fever of my indecision, I made many motions with my body; like men do when they will to act but cannot, either because they do not have the limbs or because their limbs are bound or weakened by disease, or incapacitated in some other way.  Thus if I tore my hair, struck my forehead, or, entwining my fingers, clasped my knee, these I did because I

　　willed it.  But I might have willed it and still not have done it, if the nerves had not obeyed my will.  Many things then I did, in which the will and power to do were not the same.  Yet I did not do that one thing which seemed to me infinitely more desirable, which before long I should have power to will because shortly when I willed, I would will with a single will.  For in this, the power of willing is the power of doing; and as yet I could not do it.

　　Thus my body more readily obeyed the slightest wish of the soul in moving its limbs at the order of my mind than my soul obeyed itself to accomplish in the will alone its great resolve.

　　CHAPTER IX

　　21.  How can there be such a strange anomaly?  And why is it?

　　Let thy mercy shine on me, that I may inquire and find an answer, amid the dark labyrinth of human punishment and in the darkest contritions of the sons of Adam.  Whence such an anomaly?  And why should it be?  The mind commands the body, and the body obeys.

　　The mind commands itself and is resisted.  The mind commands the hand to be moved and there is such readiness that the command is scarcely distinguished from the obedience in act.  Yet the mind is mind, and the hand is body.  The mind commands the mind to will, and yet though it be itself it does not obey itself.  Whence this strange anomaly and why should it be?  I repeat: The will commands itself to will, and could not give the command unless it wills;

　　yet what is commanded is not done.  But actually the will does not will entirely; therefore it does not command entirely.  For as far as it wills, it commands.  And as far as it does not will, the thing commanded is not done.  For the will commands that there be an act of will -- not another, but itself.  But it does not command entirely.  Therefore, what is commanded does not happen;

　　for if the will were whole and entire, it would not even command it to be, because it would already be.  It is, therefore, no strange anomaly partly to will and partly to be unwilling.  This is actually an infirmity of mind, which cannot wholly rise, while pressed down by habit, even though it is supported by the truth.

　　And so there are two wills, because one of them is not whole, and what is present in this one is lacking in the other.

　　CHAPTER X

　　22.  Let them perish from thy presence, O God, as vain talkers, and deceivers of the soul perish, who, when they observe that there are two wills in the act of deliberation, go on to affirm that there are two kinds of minds in us: one good, the other evil.  They are indeed themselves evil when they hold these evil opinions -- and they shall become good only when they come to hold the truth and consent to the truth that thy apostle may say to them: "You were formerly in darkness, but now are you in the light in the Lord."[257]  But they desired to be light, not "in the Lord," but in themselves.  They conceived the nature of the soul to be the same as what God is, and thus have become a thicker darkness than they were; for in their dread arrogance they have gone farther away from thee, from thee "the true Light, that lights every man that comes into the world." Mark what you say and blush for shame; draw near to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.[258]

　　While I was deliberating whether I would serve the Lord my God now, as I had long purposed to do, it was I who willed and it was also I who was unwilling.  In either case, it was I.  I

　　neither willed with my whole will nor was I wholly unwilling.  And so I was at war with myself and torn apart by myself.  And this strife was against my will; yet it did not show the presence of another mind, but the punishment of my own.  Thus it was no more I

　　who did it, but the sin that dwelt in me -- the punishment of a sin freely committed by Adam, and I was a son of Adam.

　　23.  For if there are as many opposing natures as there are opposing wills, there will not be two but many more.  If any man is trying to decide whether he should go to their conventicle or to the theater, the Manicheans at once cry out, "See, here are two natures -- one good, drawing this way, another bad, drawing back that way; for how else can you explain this indecision between conflicting wills?"  But I reply that both impulses are bad --

　　that which draws to them and that which draws back to the theater.

　　But they do not believe that the will which draws to them can be anything but good.  Suppose, then, that one of us should try to decide, and through the conflict of his two wills should waver whether he should go to the theater or to our Church. Would not those also waver about the answer here?  For either they must confess, which they are unwilling to do, that the will that leads to our church is as good as that which carries their own adherents and those captivated by their mysteries; or else they must imagine that there are two evil natures and two evil minds in one man, both at war with each other, and then it will not be true what they say, that there is one good and another bad.  Else they must be converted to the truth, and no longer deny that when anyone deliberates there is one soul fluctuating between conflicting wills.

　　24.  Let them no longer maintain that when they perceive two wills to be contending with each other in the same man the contest is between two opposing minds, of two opposing substances, from two opposing principles, the one good and the other bad.  Thus, O

　　true God, thou dost reprove and confute and convict them.  For both wills may be bad: as when a man tries to decide whether he should kill a man by poison or by the sword; whether he should take possession of this field or that one belonging to someone else, when he cannot get both; whether he should squander his money to buy pleasure or hold onto his money through the motive of covetousness; whether he should go to the circus or to the theater, if both are open on the same day; or, whether he should take a third course, open at the same time, and rob another man's house; or, a fourth option, whether he should commit adultery, if he has the opportunity -- all these things concurring in the same space of time and all being equally longed for, although impossible to do at one time.  For the mind is pulled four ways by four antagonistic wills -- or even more, in view of the vast range of human desires -- but even the Manicheans do not affirm that there are these many different substances.  The same principle applies as in the action of good wills.  For I ask them, "Is it a good thing to have delight in reading the apostle, or is it a good thing to delight in a sober psalm, or is it a good thing to discourse on the gospel?"  To each of these, they will answer, "It is good." But what, then, if all delight us equally and all at the same time?  Do not different wills distract the mind when a man is trying to decide what he should choose?  Yet they are all good, and are at variance with each other until one is chosen.  When this is done the whole united will may go forward on a single track instead of remaining as it was before, divided in many ways.

　　So also, when eternity attracts us from above, and the pleasure of earthly delight pulls us down from below, the soul does not will either the one or the other with all its force, but still it is the same soul that does not will this or that with a united will, and is therefore pulled apart with grievous perplexities, because for truth's sake it prefers this, but for custom's sake it does not lay that aside.

　　CHAPTER XI

　　25.  Thus I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it should be utterly broken.  By now I was held but slightly, but still was held.  And thou, O Lord, didst press upon me in my inmost heart with a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame; lest I should again give way and that same slender remaining tie not be broken off, but recover strength and enchain me yet more securely.

　　I kept saying to myself, "See, let it be done now; let it be done now." And as I said this I all but came to a firm decision.

　　I all but did it -- yet I did not quite.  Still I did not fall back to my old condition, but stood aside for a moment and drew breath.  And I tried again, and lacked only a very little of reaching the resolve -- and then somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it.  Yet I still did not quite reach or touch or grasp the goal, because I hesitated to die to death and to live to life.  And the worse way, to which I was habituated, was stronger in me than the better, which I had not tried.  And up to the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer the moment approached, the greater horror did it strike in me.

　　But it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but held me in suspense.

　　26.  It was, in fact, my old mistresses, trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, who still enthralled me.  They tugged at my fleshly garments and softly whispered: "Are you going to part with us?  And from that moment will we never be with you any more?

　　And from that moment will not this and that be forbidden you forever?"  What were they suggesting to me in those words "this or that"?  What is it they suggested, O my God? Let thy mercy guard the soul of thy servant from the vileness and the shame they did suggest!  And now I scarcely heard them, for they were not openly showing themselves and opposing me face to face; but muttering, as it were, behind my back; and furtively plucking at me as I was leaving, trying to make me look back at them.  Still they delayed me, so that I hesitated to break loose and shake myself free of them and leap over to the place to which I was being called -- for unruly habit kept saying to me, "Do you think you can live without them?"

　　27.  But now it said this very faintly; for in the direction I had set my face, and yet toward which I still trembled to go, the chaste dignity of continence appeared to me -- cheerful but not wanton, modestly alluring me to come and doubt nothing, extending her holy hands, full of a multitude of good examples --

　　to receive and embrace me.  There were there so many young men and maidens, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and ancient virgins; and continence herself in their midst: not barren, but a fruitful mother of children -- her joys -- by thee, O Lord, her husband.  And she smiled on me with a challenging smile as if to say: "Can you not do what these young men and maidens can?  Or can any of them do it of themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God?  The Lord their God gave me to them.

　　Why do you stand in your own strength, and so stand not?  Cast yourself on him; fear not.  He will not flinch and you will not fall.  Cast yourself on him without fear, for he will receive and heal you." And I blushed violently, for I still heard the muttering of those "trifles" and hung suspended.  Again she seemed to speak: "Stop your ears against those unclean members of yours, that they may be mortified.  They tell you of delights, but not according to the law of the Lord thy God." This struggle raging in my heart was nothing but the contest of self against self.  And Alypius kept close beside me, and awaited in silence the outcome of my extraordinary agitation.

　　CHAPTER XII

　　28.  Now when deep reflection had drawn up out of the secret depths of my soul all my misery and had heaped it up before the sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm, accompanied by a mighty rain of tears.  That I might give way fully to my tears and lamentations, I stole away from Alypius, for it seemed to me that solitude was more appropriate for the business of weeping.  I went far enough away that I could feel that even his presence was no restraint upon me.  This was the way I felt at the time, and he realized it.  I suppose I had said something before I started up and he noticed that the sound of my voice was choked with weeping.

　　And so he stayed alone, where we had been sitting together, greatly astonished.  I flung myself down under a fig tree -- how I

　　know not -- and gave free course to my tears.  The streams of my eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee.  And, not indeed in these words, but to this effect, I cried to thee: "And thou, O

　　Lord, how long?  How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou be angry forever?

　　Oh, remember not against us our former iniquities."[259]  For I

　　felt that I was still enthralled by them.  I sent up these sorrowful cries: "How long, how long?  Tomorrow and tomorrow?  Why not now?  Why not this very hour make an end to my uncleanness?"

　　29.  I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or a girl I know not which -- coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over again, "Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it."[260]  Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the like.  So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon.

　　For I had heard[261] how Anthony, accidentally coming into church while the gospel was being read, received the admonition as if what was read had been addressed to him: "Go and sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me."[262]  By such an oracle he was forthwith converted to thee.

　　So I quickly returned to the bench where Alypius was sitting, for there I had put down the apostle's book when I had left there.

　　I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof."[263]  I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to.  For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.[264]

　　30.  Closing the book, then, and putting my finger or something else for a mark I began -- now with a tranquil countenance -- to tell it all to Alypius.  And he in turn disclosed to me what had been going on in himself, of which I knew nothing.  He asked to see what I had read.  I showed him, and he looked on even further than I had read.  I had not known what followed.  But indeed it was this, "Him that is weak in the faith, receive."[265]  This he applied to himself, and told me so.  By these words of warning he was strengthened, and by exercising his good resolution and purpose -- all very much in keeping with his character, in which, in these respects, he was always far different from and better than I -- he joined me in full commitment without any restless hesitation.

　　Then we went in to my mother, and told her what happened, to her great joy.  We explained to her how it had occurred -- and she leaped for joy triumphant; and she blessed thee, who art "able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think."[266]

　　For she saw that thou hadst granted her far more than she had ever asked for in all her pitiful and doleful lamentations.  For thou didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any other of this world's hopes, but set my feet on that rule of faith which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream about me.  And so thou didst turn her grief into gladness more plentiful than she had ventured to desire, and dearer and purer than the desire she used to cherish of having grandchildren of my flesh.

　　BOOK NINE

　　The end of the autobiography.  Augustine tells of his resigning from his professorship and of the days at Cassiciacum in preparation for baptism.  He is baptized together with Adeodatus and Alypius.  Shortly thereafter, they start back for Africa.

　　Augustine recalls the ecstasy he and his mother shared in Ostia and then reports her death and burial and his grief.  The book closes with a moving prayer for the souls of Monica, Patricius, and all his fellow citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.

　　CHAPTER I

　　1.  "O Lord, I am thy servant; I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid.  Thou hast loosed my bonds.  I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving."[267]  Let my heart and my tongue praise thee, and let all my bones say, "Lord, who is like unto thee?"  Let them say so, and answer thou me and say unto my soul, "I am your salvation."

　　Who am I, and what is my nature?  What evil is there not in me and my deeds; or if not in my deeds, my words; or if not in my words, my will?  But thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and thy right hand didst reach into the depth of my death and didst empty out the abyss of corruption from the bottom of my heart.  And this was the result: now I did not will to do what I willed, and began to will to do what thou didst will.

　　But where was my free will during all those years and from what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single moment, whereby I gave my neck to thy "easy yoke" and my shoulders to thy "light burden," O Christ Jesus, "my Strength and my Redeemer"?  How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetness of trifles!  And it was now a joy to put away what I

　　formerly feared to lose.  For thou didst cast them away from me, O

　　true and highest Sweetness.  Thou didst cast them away, and in their place thou didst enter in thyself -- sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to them that are exalted in their own eyes.  Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust.  And I

　　prattled like a child to thee, O Lord my God -- my light, my riches, and my salvation.

　　CHAPTER II

　　2.  And it seemed right to me, in thy sight, not to snatch my tongue's service abruptly out of the speech market, but to withdraw quietly, so that the young men who were not concerned about thy law or thy peace, but with mendacious follies and forensic strifes, might no longer purchase from my mouth weapons for their frenzy.  Fortunately, there were only a few days before the "vintage vacation"[268]; and I determined to endure them, so that I might resign in due form and, now bought by thee, return for sale no more.

　　My plan was known to thee, but, save for my own friends, it was not known to other men.  For we had agreed that it should not be made public; although, in our ascent from the "valley of tears"

　　and our singing of "the song of degrees," thou hadst given us sharp arrows and hot burning coals to stop that deceitful tongue which opposes under the guise of good counsel, and devours what it loves as though it were food.

　　3.  Thou hadst pierced our heart with thy love, and we carried thy words, as it were, thrust through our vitals.  The examples of thy servants whom thou hadst changed from black to shining white, and from death to life, crowded into the bosom of our thoughts and burned and consumed our sluggish temper, that we might not topple back into the abyss.  And they fired us exceedingly, so that every breath of the deceitful tongue of our detractors might fan the flame and not blow it out.

　　Though this vow and purpose of ours should find those who would loudly praise it -- for the sake of thy name, which thou hast sanctified throughout the earth -- it nevertheless looked like a self-vaunting not to wait until the vacation time now so near.  For if I had left such a public office ahead of time, and had made the break in the eye of the general public, all who took notice of this act of mine and observed how near was the vintage time that I wished to anticipate would have talked about me a great deal, as if I were trying to appear a great person.  And what purpose would it serve that people should consider and dispute about my conversion so that my good should be evil spoken of?

　　4.  Furthermore, this same summer my lungs had begun to be weak from too much literary labor.  Breathing was difficult; the pains in my chest showed that the lungs were affected and were soon fatigued by too loud or prolonged speaking.  This had at first been a trial to me, for it would have compelled me almost of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching; or, if I was to be cured and become strong again, at least to take a leave for a while.  But as soon as the full desire to be still that I might know that thou art the Lord[269] arose and was confirmed in me, thou knowest, my God, that I began to rejoice that I had this excuse ready -- and not a feigned one, either -- which might somewhat temper the displeasure of those who for their sons'

　　freedom wished me never to have any freedom of my own.

　　Full of joy, then, I bore it until my time ran out -- it was perhaps some twenty days -- yet it was some strain to go through with it, for the greediness which helped to support the drudgery had gone, and I would have been overwhelmed had not its place been taken by patience.  Some of thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, since having once fully and from my heart enlisted in thy service, I permitted myself to sit a single hour in the chair of falsehood.  I will not dispute it.  But hast thou not, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and forgiven this sin in the holy water[270] also, along with all the others, horrible and deadly as they were?

　　CHAPTER III

　　5.  Verecundus was severely disturbed by this new happiness of mine, since he was still firmly held by his bonds and saw that he would lose my companionship.  For he was not yet a Christian, though his wife was; and, indeed, he was more firmly enchained by her than by anything else, and held back from that journey on which we had set out.  Furthermore, he declared he did not wish to be a Christian on any terms except those that were impossible.

　　However, he invited us most courteously to make use of his country house so long as we would stay there.  O Lord, thou wilt recompense him for this "in the resurrection of the just,"[271]

　　seeing that thou hast already given him "the lot of the righteous."[272]  For while we were absent at Rome, he was overtaken with bodily sickness, and during it he was made a Christian and departed this life as one of the faithful.  Thus thou hadst mercy on him, and not on him only, but on us as well;

　　lest, remembering the exceeding kindness of our friend to us and not able to count him in thy flock, we should be tortured with intolerable grief.  Thanks be unto thee, our God; we are thine.

　　Thy exhortations, consolations, and faithful promises assure us that thou wilt repay Verecundus for that country house at Cassiciacum -- where we found rest in thee from the fever of the world -- with the perpetual freshness of thy paradise in which thou hast forgiven him his earthly sins, in that mountain flowing with milk, that fruitful mountain -- thy own.

　　6.  Thus Verecundus was full of grief; but Nebridius was joyous.  For he was not yet a Christian, and had fallen into the pit of deadly error, believing that the flesh of thy Son, the Truth, was a phantom.[273]  Yet he had come up out of that pit and now held the same belief that we did.  And though he was not as yet initiated in any of the sacraments of thy Church, he was a most earnest inquirer after truth.  Not long after our conversion and regeneration by thy baptism, he also became a faithful member of the Catholic Church, serving thee in perfect chastity and continence among his own people in Africa, and bringing his whole household with him to Christianity.  Then thou didst release him from the flesh, and now he lives in Abraham's bosom.  Whatever is signified by that term "bosom," there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, thy son by adoption, O Lord, and not a freedman any longer.  There he lives; for what other place could there be for such a soul?  There he lives in that abode about which he used to ask me so many questions -- poor ignorant one that I was.  Now he does not put his ear up to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth to thy fountain, and drinks wisdom as he desires and as he is able --

　　happy without end.  But I do not believe that he is so inebriated by that draught as to forget me; since thou, O Lord, who art the draught, art mindful of us.

　　Thus, then, we were comforting the unhappy Verecundus -- our friendship untouched -- reconciling him to our conversion and exhorting him to a faith fit for his condition (that is, to his being married).  We tarried for Nebridius to follow us, since he was so close, and this he was just about to do when at last the interim ended.  The days had seemed long and many because of my eagerness for leisure and liberty in which I might sing to thee from my inmost part, "My heart has said to thee, I have sought thy face; thy face, O Lord, will I seek."[274]

　　CHAPTER IV

　　7.  Finally the day came on which I was actually to be relieved from the professorship of rhetoric, from which I had already been released in intention.  And it was done.  And thou didst deliver my tongue as thou hadst already delivered my heart;

　　and I blessed thee for it with great joy, and retired with my friends to the villa.[275]  My books testify to what I got done there in writing, which was now hopefully devoted to thy service;

　　though in this pause it was still as if I were panting from my exertions in the school of pride.[276]  These were the books in which I engaged in dialogue with my friends, and also those in soliloquy before thee alone.[277]  And there are my letters to Nebridius, who was still absent.[278]

　　When would there be enough time to recount all thy great blessings which thou didst bestow on us in that time, especially as I am hastening on to still greater mercies?  For my memory recalls them to me and it is pleasant to confess them to thee, O

　　Lord: the inward goads by which thou didst subdue me and how thou broughtest me low, leveling the mountains and hills of my thoughts, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways.  And I remember by what means thou also didst subdue Alypius, my heart's brother, to the name of thy only Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ -- which he at first refused to have inserted in our writings.  For at first he preferred that they should smell of the cedars of the schools[279] which the Lord hath now broken down, rather than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, hostile to serpents.[280]

　　8.  O my God, how did I cry to thee when I read the psalms of David, those hymns of faith, those paeans of devotion which leave no room for swelling pride!  I was still a novice in thy true love, a catechumen keeping holiday at the villa, with Alypius, a catechumen like myself.  My mother was also with us -- in woman's garb, but with a man's faith, with the peacefulness of age and the fullness of motherly love and Christian piety.  What cries I used to send up to thee in those songs, and how I was enkindled toward thee by them!  I burned to sing them if possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race.  And yet, indeed, they are sung throughout the whole world, and none can hide himself from thy heat.  With what strong and bitter regret was I indignant at the Manicheans!  Yet I also pitied them; for they were ignorant of those sacraments, those medicines[281] --

　　and raved insanely against the cure that might have made them sane!  I wished they could have been somewhere close by, and --

　　without my knowledge -- could have seen my face and heard my words when, in that time of leisure, I pored over the Fourth Psalm.  And I wish they could have seen how that psalm affected me.[282]

　　"When I called upon thee, O God of my righteousness, thou didst hear me; thou didst enlarge me when I was in distress.  Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer." I wish they might have heard what I

　　said in comment on those words -- without my knowing that they heard, lest they should think that I was speaking it just on their account.  For, indeed, I should not have said quite the same things, nor quite in the same way, if I had known that I was heard and seen by them.  And if I had so spoken, they would not have meant the same things to them as they did to me when I spoke by and for myself before thee, out of the private affections of my soul.

　　9.  By turns I trembled with fear and warmed with hope and rejoiced in thy mercy, O Father.  And all these feelings showed forth in my eyes and voice when thy good Spirit turned to us and said, "O sons of men, how long will you be slow of heart, how long will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood?"  For I had loved vanity and sought after falsehood.  And thou, O Lord, had already magnified thy Holy One, raising him from the dead and setting him at thy right hand, that thence he should send forth from on high his promised "Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth." Already he had sent him, and I knew it not.  He had sent him because he was now magnified, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven.  For till then "the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."[283]  And the prophet cried out: "How long will you be slow of heart?  How long will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood?  Know this, that the Lord hath magnified his Holy One." He cries, "How long?"  He cries, "Know this," and I --

　　so long "loving vanity, and seeking after falsehood" -- heard and trembled, because these words were spoken to such a one as I

　　remembered that I myself had been.  For in those phantoms which I

　　once held for truth there was vanity and falsehood.  And I spoke many things loudly and earnestly -- in the contrition of my memory -- which I wish they had heard, who still "love vanity and seek after falsehood." Perhaps they would have been troubled, and have vomited up their error, and thou wouldst have heard them when they cried to thee; for by a real death in the flesh He died for us who now maketh intercession for us with thee.

　　10.  I read on further, "Be angry, and sin not." And how deeply was I touched, O my God; for I had now learned to be angry with myself for the things past, so that in the future I might not sin.  Yes, to be angry with good cause, for it was not another nature out of the race of darkness that had sinned for me -- as they affirm who are not angry with themselves, and who store up for themselves dire wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of thy righteous judgment.  Nor were the good things I

　　saw now outside me, nor were they to be seen with the eyes of flesh in the light of the earthly sun.  For they that have their joys from without sink easily into emptiness and are spilled out on those things that are visible and temporal, and in their starving thoughts they lick their very shadows.  If only they would grow weary with their hunger and would say, "Who will show us any good?"  And we would answer, and they would hear, "O Lord, the light of thy countenance shines bright upon us." For we are not that Light that enlightens every man, but we are enlightened by thee, so that we who were formerly in darkness may now be alight in thee.  If only they could behold the inner Light Eternal which, now that I had tasted it, I gnashed my teeth because I

　　could not show it to them unless they brought me their heart in their eyes -- their roving eyes -- and said, "Who will show us any good?"  But even there, in the inner chamber of my soul -- where I

　　was angry with myself; where I was inwardly pricked, where I had offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and hoping in thee with the new resolve of a new life with my trust laid in thee -- even there thou hadst begun to grow sweet to me and to "put gladness in my heart." And thus as I read all this, I cried aloud and felt its inward meaning.  Nor did I wish to be increased in worldly goods which are wasted by time, for now I possessed, in thy eternal simplicity, other corn and wine and oil.

　　11.  And with a loud cry from my heart, I read the following verse: "Oh, in peace!  Oh, in the Selfsame!"[284]  See how he says it: "I will lay me down and take my rest."[285]  For who shall withstand us when the truth of this saying that is written is made manifest: "Death is swallowed up in victory"[286]?  For surely thou, who dost not change, art the Selfsame, and in thee is rest and oblivion to all distress.  There is none other beside thee, nor are we to toil for those many things which are not thee, for only thou, O Lord, makest me to dwell in hope."

　　These things I read and was enkindled -- but still I could not discover what to do with those deaf and dead Manicheans to whom I myself had belonged; for I had been a bitter and blind reviler against these writings, honeyed with the honey of heaven and luminous with thy light.  And I was sorely grieved at these enemies of this Scripture.

　　12.  When shall I call to mind all that happened during those holidays?  I have not forgotten them; nor will I be silent about the severity of thy scourge, and the amazing quickness of thy mercy.  During that time thou didst torture me with a toothache;

　　and when it had become so acute that I was not able to speak, it came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray for me to thee, the God of all health.  And I wrote it down on the tablet and gave it to them to read.  Presently, as we bowed our knees in supplication, the pain was gone.  But what pain?  How did it go?  I confess that I was terrified, O Lord my God, because from my earliest years I had never experienced such pain.  And thy purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and rejoicing in faith, I praised thy name.  But that faith allowed me no rest in respect of my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me through thy baptism.

　　CHAPTER V

　　13.  Now that the vintage vacation was ended, I gave notice to the citizens of Milan that they might provide their scholars with another word-merchant.  I gave as my reasons my determination to serve thee and also my insufficiency for the task, because of the difficulty in breathing and the pain in my chest.

　　And by letters I notified thy bishop, the holy man Ambrose, of my former errors and my present resolution.  And I asked his advice as to which of thy books it was best for me to read so that I might be the more ready and fit for the reception of so great a grace.  He recommended Isaiah the prophet; and I believe it was because Isaiah foreshows more clearly than others the gospel, and the calling of the Gentiles.  But because I could not understand the first part and because I imagined the rest to be like it, I

　　laid it aside with the intention of taking it up again later, when better practiced in our Lord's words.

　　CHAPTER VI

　　14.  When the time arrived for me to give in my name, we left the country and returned to Milan.  Alypius also resolved to be born again in thee at the same time.  He was already clothed with the humility that befits thy sacraments, and was so brave a tamer of his body that he would walk the frozen Italian soil with his naked feet, which called for unusual fortitude.  We took with us the boy Adeodatus, my son after the flesh, the offspring of my sin.  Thou hadst made of him a noble lad.  He was barely fifteen years old, but his intelligence excelled that of many grave and learned men.  I confess to thee thy gifts, O Lord my God, creator of all, who hast power to reform our deformities -- for there was nothing of me in that boy but the sin.  For it was thou who didst inspire us to foster him in thy discipline, and none other -- thy gifts I confess to thee.  There is a book of mine, entitled De Magistro.[287]  It is a dialogue between Adeodatus and me, and thou knowest that all things there put into the mouth of my interlocutor are his, though he was then only in his sixteenth year.  Many other gifts even more wonderful I found in him.  His talent was a source of awe to me.  And who but thou couldst be the worker of such marvels?  And thou didst quickly remove his life from the earth, and even now I recall him to mind with a sense of security, because I fear nothing for his childhood or youth, nor for his whole career.  We took him for our companion, as if he were the same age in grace with ourselves, to be trained with ourselves in thy discipline.  And so we were baptized and the anxiety about our past life left us.

　　Nor did I ever have enough in those days of the wondrous sweetness of meditating on the depth of thy counsels concerning the salvation of the human race.  How freely did I weep in thy hymns and canticles; how deeply was I moved by the voices of thy sweet-speaking Church!  The voices flowed into my ears; and the truth was poured forth into my heart, where the tide of my devotion overflowed, and my tears ran down, and I was happy in all these things.

　　CHAPTER VII

　　15.  The church of Milan had only recently begun to employ this mode of consolation and exaltation with all the brethren singing together with great earnestness of voice and heart.  For it was only about a year -- not much more -- since Justina, the mother of the boy-emperor Valentinian, had persecuted thy servant Ambrose on behalf of her heresy, in which she had been seduced by the Arians.  The devoted people kept guard in the church, prepared to die with their bishop, thy servant.  Among them my mother, thy handmaid, taking a leading part in those anxieties and vigils, lived there in prayer.  And even though we were still not wholly melted by the heat of thy Spirit, we were nevertheless excited by the alarmed and disturbed city.

　　This was the time that the custom began, after the manner of the Eastern Church, that hymns and psalms should be sung, so that the people would not be worn out with the tedium of lamentation.

　　This custom, retained from then till now, has been imitated by many, indeed, by almost all thy congregations throughout the rest of the world.[288]

　　16.  Then by a vision thou madest known to thy renowned bishop the spot where lay the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius, the martyrs, whom thou hadst preserved uncorrupted for so many years in thy secret storehouse, so that thou mightest produce them at a fit time to check a woman's fury -- a woman indeed, but also a queen!  When they were discovered and dug up and brought with due honor to the basilica of Ambrose, as they were borne along the road many who were troubled by unclean spirits -- the devils confessing themselves -- were healed.  And there was also a certain man, a well-known citizen of the city, blind many years, who, when he had asked and learned the reason for the people's tumultuous joy, rushed out and begged his guide to lead him to the place.  When he arrived there, he begged to be permitted to touch with his handkerchief the bier of thy saints, whose death is precious in thy sight.  When he had done this, and put it to his eyes, they were immediately opened.  The fame of all this spread abroad; from this thy glory shone more brightly.  And also from this the mind of that angry woman, though not enlarged to the sanity of a full faith, was nevertheless restrained from the fury of persecution.

　　Thanks to thee, O my God.  Whence and whither hast thou led my memory, that I should confess such things as these to thee --

　　for great as they were, I had forgetfully passed them over?  And yet at that time, when the sweet savor of thy ointment was so fragrant, I did not run after thee.[289]  Therefore, I wept more bitterly as I listened to thy hymns, having so long panted after thee.  And now at length I could breathe as much as the space allows in this our straw house.[290]

　　CHAPTER VIII

　　17.  Thou, O Lord, who makest men of one mind to dwell in a single house, also broughtest Evodius to join our company.  He was a young man of our city, who, while serving as a secret service agent, was converted to thee and baptized before us.  He had relinquished his secular service, and prepared himself for thine.

　　We were together, and we were resolved to live together in our devout purpose.

　　We cast about for some place where we might be most useful in our service to thee, and had planned on going back together to Africa.  And when we had got as far as Ostia on the Tiber, my mother died.

　　I am passing over many things, for I must hasten.  Receive, O

　　my God, my confessions and thanksgiving for the unnumbered things about which I am silent.  But I will not omit anything my mind has brought back concerning thy handmaid who brought me forth -- in her flesh, that I might be born into this world's light, and in her heart, that I might be born to life eternal.  I will not speak of her gifts, but of thy gift in her; for she neither made herself nor trained herself.  Thou didst create her, and neither her father nor her mother knew what kind of being was to come forth from them.  And it was the rod of thy Christ, the discipline of thy only Son, that trained her in thy fear, in the house of one of thy faithful ones who was a sound member of thy Church. Yet my mother did not attribute this good training of hers as much to the diligence of her own mother as to that of a certain elderly maidservant who had nursed her father, carrying him around on her back, as big girls carried babies.  Because of her long-time service and also because of her extreme age and excellent character, she was much respected by the heads of that Christian household.  The care of her master's daughters was also committed to her, and she performed her task with diligence.  She was quite earnest in restraining them with a holy severity when necessary and instructing them with a sober sagacity.  Thus, except at mealtimes at their parents' table -- when they were fed very temperately -- she would not allow them to drink even water, however parched they were with thirst.  In this way she took precautions against an evil custom and added the wholesome advice:

　　"You drink water now only because you don't control the wine; but when you are married and mistresses of pantry and cellar, you may not care for water, but the habit of drinking will be fixed." By such a method of instruction, and her authority, she restrained the longing of their tender age, and regulated even the thirst of the girls to such a decorous control that they no longer wanted what they ought not to have.

　　18.  And yet, as thy handmaid related to me, her son, there had stolen upon her a love of wine.  For, in the ordinary course of things, when her parents sent her as a sober maiden to draw wine from the cask, she would hold a cup under the tap; and then, before she poured the wine into the bottle, she would wet the tips of her lips with a little of it, for more than this her taste refused.  She did not do this out of any craving for drink, but out of the overflowing buoyancy of her time of life, which bubbles up with sportiveness and youthful spirits, but is usually borne down by the gravity of the old folks.  And so, adding daily a little to that little -- for "he that contemns small things shall fall by a little here and a little there"[291] -- she slipped into such a habit as to drink off eagerly her little cup nearly full of wine.

　　Where now was that wise old woman and her strict prohibition?

　　Could anything prevail against our secret disease if thy medicine, O Lord, did not watch over us?  Though father and mother and nurturers are absent, thou art present, who dost create, who callest, and who also workest some good for our salvation, through those who are set over us.  What didst thou do at that time, O my God?  How didst thou heal her?  How didst thou make her whole?

　　Didst thou not bring forth from another woman's soul a hard and bitter insult, like a surgeon's knife from thy secret store, and with one thrust drain off all that putrefaction?  For the slave girl who used to accompany her to the cellar fell to quarreling with her little mistress, as it sometimes happened when she was alone with her, and cast in her teeth this vice of hers, along with a very bitter insult: calling her "a drunkard." Stung by this taunt, my mother saw her own vileness and immediately condemned and renounced it.

　　As the flattery of friends corrupts, so often do the taunts of enemies instruct.  Yet thou repayest them, not for the good thou workest through their means, but for the malice they intended.  That angry slave girl wanted to infuriate her young mistress, not to cure her; and that is why she spoke up when they were alone.  Or perhaps it was because their quarrel just happened to break out at that time and place; or perhaps she was afraid of punishment for having told of it so late.

　　But thou, O Lord, ruler of heaven and earth, who changest to thy purposes the deepest floods and controls the turbulent tide of the ages, thou healest one soul by the unsoundness of another; so that no man, when he hears of such a happening, should attribute it to his own power if another person whom he wishes to reform is reformed through a word of his.

　　CHAPTER IX

　　19.  Thus modestly and soberly brought up, she was made subject to her parents by thee, rather more than by her parents to thee.  She arrived at a marriageable age, and she was given to a husband whom she served as her lord.  And she busied herself to gain him to thee, preaching thee to him by her behavior, in which thou madest her fair and reverently amiable, and admirable to her husband.  For she endured with patience his infidelity and never had any dissension with her husband on this account.  For she waited for thy mercy upon him until, by believing in thee, he might become chaste.

　　Moreover, even though he was earnest in friendship, he was also violent in anger; but she had learned that an angry husband should not be resisted, either in deed or in word.  But as soon as he had grown calm and was tranquil, and she saw a fitting moment, she would give him a reason for her conduct, if he had been excited unreasonably.  As a result, while many matrons whose husbands were more gentle than hers bore the marks of blows on their disfigured faces, and would in private talk blame the behavior of their husbands, she would blame their tongues, admonishing them seriously -- though in a jesting manner -- that from the hour they heard what are called the matrimonial tablets read to them, they should think of them as instruments by which they were made servants.  So, always being mindful of their condition, they ought not to set themselves up in opposition to their lords.  And, knowing what a furious, bad-tempered husband she endured, they marveled that it had never been rumored, nor was there any mark to show, that Patricius had ever beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic strife between them, even for a day.  And when they asked her confidentially the reason for this, she taught them the rule I have mentioned.  Those who observed it confirmed the wisdom of it and rejoiced; those who did not observe it were bullied and vexed.

　　20.  Even her mother-in-law, who was at first prejudiced against her by the whisperings of malicious servants, she conquered by submission, persevering in it with patience and meekness; with the result that the mother-in-law told her son of the tales of the meddling servants which had disturbed the domestic peace between herself and her daughter-in-law and begged him to punish them for it.  In conformity with his mother's wish, and in the interest of family discipline to insure the future harmony of its members, he had those servants beaten who were pointed out by her who had discovered them; and she promised a similar reward to anyone else who, thinking to please her, should say anything evil of her daughter-in-law.  After this no one dared to do so, and they lived together with a wonderful sweetness of mutual good will.

　　21.  This other great gift thou also didst bestow, O my God, my Mercy, upon that good handmaid of thine, in whose womb thou didst create me.  It was that whenever she could she acted as a peacemaker between any differing and discordant spirits, and when she heard very bitter things on either side of a controversy --

　　the kind of bloated and undigested discord which often belches forth bitter words, when crude malice is breathed out by sharp tongues to a present friend against an absent enemy -- she would disclose nothing about the one to the other except what might serve toward their reconciliation.  This might seem a small good to me if I did not know to my sorrow countless persons who, through the horrid and far-spreading infection of sin, not only repeat to enemies mutually enraged things said in passion against each other, but also add some things that were never said at all.

　　It ought not to be enough in a truly humane man merely not to incite or increase the enmities of men by evil-speaking; he ought likewise to endeavor by kind words to extinguish them.  Such a one was she -- and thou, her most intimate instructor, didst teach her in the school of her heart.

　　22.  Finally, her own husband, now toward the end of his earthly existence, she won over to thee.  Henceforth, she had no cause to complain of unfaithfulness in him, which she had endured before he became one of the faithful.  She was also the servant of thy servants.  All those who knew her greatly praised, honored, and loved thee in her because, through the witness of the fruits of a holy life, they recognized thee present in her heart.  For she had "been the wife of one man,"[292] had honored her parents, had guided her house in piety, was highly reputed for good works, and brought up her children, travailing in labor with them as often as she saw them swerving from thee.  Lastly, to all of us, O

　　Lord -- since of thy favor thou allowest thy servants to speak --

　　to all of us who lived together in that association before her death in thee she devoted such care as she might have if she had been mother of us all; she served us as if she had been the daughter of us all.

　　CHAPTER X

　　23.  As the day now approached on which she was to depart this life -- a day which thou knewest, but which we did not -- it happened (though I believe it was by thy secret ways arranged)

　　that she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window from which the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen.  Here in this place, removed from the crowd, we were resting ourselves for the voyage after the fatigues of a long journey.

　　We were conversing alone very pleasantly and "forgetting those things which are past, and reaching forward toward those things which are future."[293]  We were in the present -- and in the presence of Truth (which thou art) -- discussing together what is the nature of the eternal life of the saints: which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man.[294]  We opened wide the mouth of our heart, thirsting for those supernal streams of thy fountain, "the fountain of life"

　　which is with thee,[295] that we might be sprinkled with its waters according to our capacity and might in some measure weigh the truth of so profound a mystery.

　　24.  And when our conversation had brought us to the point where the very highest of physical sense and the most intense illumination of physical light seemed, in comparison with the sweetness of that life to come, not worthy of comparison, nor even of mention, we lifted ourselves with a more ardent love toward the Selfsame,[296] and we gradually passed through all the levels of bodily objects, and even through the heaven itself, where the sun and moon and stars shine on the earth.  Indeed, we soared higher yet by an inner musing, speaking and marveling at thy works.

　　And we came at last to our own minds and went beyond them, that we might climb as high as that region of unfailing plenty where thou feedest Israel forever with the food of truth, where life is that Wisdom by whom all things are made, both which have been and which are to be.  Wisdom is not made, but is as she has been and forever shall be; for "to have been" and "to be hereafter" do not apply to her, but only "to be," because she is eternal and "to have been" and "to be hereafter" are not eternal.

　　And while we were thus speaking and straining after her, we just barely touched her with the whole effort of our hearts.  Then with a sigh, leaving the first fruits of the Spirit bound to that ecstasy, we returned to the sounds of our own tongue, where the spoken word had both beginning and end.[297]  But what is like to thy Word, our Lord, who remaineth in himself without becoming old, and "makes all things new"[298]?

　　25.  What we said went something like this: "If to any man the tumult of the flesh were silenced; and the phantoms of earth and waters and air were silenced; and the poles were silent as well; indeed, if the very soul grew silent to herself, and went beyond herself by not thinking of herself; if fancies and imaginary revelations were silenced; if every tongue and every sign and every transient thing -- for actually if any man could hear them, all these would say, 'We did not create ourselves, but were created by Him who abides forever' -- and if, having uttered this, they too should be silent, having stirred our ears to hear him who created them; and if then he alone spoke, not through them but by himself, that we might hear his word, not in fleshly tongue or angelic voice, nor sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a parable, but might hear him -- him for whose sake we love these things -- if we could hear him without these, as we two now strained ourselves to do, we then with rapid thought might touch on that Eternal Wisdom which abides over all.  And if this could be sustained, and other visions of a far different kind be taken away, and this one should so ravish and absorb and envelop its beholder in these inward joys that his life might be eternally like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after --

　　would not _this_ be the reality of the saying, 'Enter into the joy of thy Lord'[299]?  But when shall such a thing be?  Shall it not be 'when we all shall rise again,' and shall it not be that 'all things will be changed'[300]?"

　　26.  Such a thought I was expressing, and if not in this manner and in these words, still, O Lord, thou knowest that on that day we were talking thus and that this world, with all its joys, seemed cheap to us even as we spoke.  Then my mother said:

　　"Son, for myself I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this life.  Now that my hopes in this world are satisfied, I do not know what more I want here or why I am here.  There was indeed one thing for which I wished to tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died.  My God hath answered this more than abundantly, so that I see you now made his servant and spurning all earthly happiness.  What more am I to do here?"

　　CHAPTER XI

　　27.  I do not well remember what reply I made to her about this.  However, it was scarcely five days later -- certainly not much more -- that she was prostrated by fever.  While she was sick, she fainted one day and was for a short time quite unconscious.  We hurried to her, and when she soon regained her senses, she looked at me and my brother[301] as we stood by her, and said, in inquiry, "Where was I?"  Then looking intently at us, dumb in our grief, she said, "Here in this place shall you bury your mother." I was silent and held back my tears; but my brother said something, wishing her the happier lot of dying in her own country and not abroad.  When she heard this, she fixed him with her eye and an anxious countenance, because he savored of such earthly concerns, and then gazing at me she said, "See how he speaks." Soon after, she said to us both: "Lay this body anywhere, and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all.  Only this I ask: that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you are." And when she had expressed her wish in such words as she could, she fell silent, in heavy pain with her increasing sickness.

　　28.  But as I thought about thy gifts, O invisible God, which thou plantest in the heart of thy faithful ones, from which such marvelous fruits spring up, I rejoiced and gave thanks to thee, remembering what I had known of how she had always been much concerned about her burial place, which she had provided and prepared for herself by the body of her husband.  For as they had lived very peacefully together, her desire had always been -- so little is the human mind capable of grasping things divine -- that this last should be added to all that happiness, and commented on by others: that, after her pilgrimage beyond the sea, it would be granted her that the two of them, so united on earth, should lie in the same grave.

　　When this vanity, through the bounty of thy goodness, had begun to be no longer in her heart, I do not know; but I joyfully marveled at what she had thus disclosed to me -- though indeed in our conversation in the window, when she said, "What is there here for me to do any more?"  she appeared not to desire to die in her own country.  I heard later on that, during our stay in Ostia, she had been talking in maternal confidence to some of my friends about her contempt of this life and the blessing of death.  When they were amazed at the courage which was given her, a woman, and had asked her whether she did not dread having her body buried so far from her own city, she replied: "Nothing is far from God.  I

　　do not fear that, at the end of time, he should not know the place whence he is to resurrect me." And so on the ninth day of her sickness, in the fifty-sixth year of her life and the thirty-third of mine,[302] that religious and devout soul was set loose from the body.

　　CHAPTER XII

　　29.  I closed her eyes; and there flowed in a great sadness on my heart and it was passing into tears, when at the strong behest of my mind my eyes sucked back the fountain dry, and sorrow was in me like a convulsion.  As soon as she breathed her last, the boy Adeodatus burst out wailing; but he was checked by us all, and became quiet.  Likewise, my own childish feeling which was, through the youthful voice of my heart, seeking escape in tears, was held back and silenced.  For we did not consider it fitting to celebrate that death with tearful wails and groanings.  This is the way those who die unhappy or are altogether dead are usually mourned.  But she neither died unhappy nor did she altogether die.[303]  For of this we were assured by the witness of her good life, her "faith unfeigned,"[304] and other manifest evidence.

　　30.  What was it, then, that hurt me so grievously in my heart except the newly made wound, caused from having the sweet and dear habit of living together with her suddenly broken?  I was full of joy because of her testimony in her last illness, when she praised my dutiful attention and called me kind, and recalled with great affection of love that she had never heard any harsh or reproachful sound from my mouth against her.  But yet, O my God who made us, how can that honor I paid her be compared with her service to me?  I was then left destitute of a great comfort in her, and my soul was stricken; and that life was torn apart, as it were, which had been made but one out of hers and mine together.[305]

　　31.  When the boy was restrained from weeping, Evodius took up the Psalter and began to sing, with the whole household responding, the psalm, "I will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee, O Lord."[306]  And when they heard what we were doing, many of the brethren and religious women came together.  And while those whose office it was to prepare for the funeral went about their task according to custom, I discoursed in another part of the house, with those who thought I should not be left alone, on what was appropriate to the occasion.  By this balm of truth, I

　　softened the anguish known to thee.  They were unconscious of it and listened intently and thought me free of any sense of sorrow.

　　But in thy ears, where none of them heard, I reproached myself for the mildness of my feelings, and restrained the flow of my grief which bowed a little to my will.  The paroxysm returned again, and I knew what I repressed in my heart, even though it did not make me burst forth into tears or even change my countenance; and I was greatly annoyed that these human things had such power over me, which in the due order and destiny of our natural condition must of necessity happen.  And so with a new sorrow I sorrowed for my sorrow and was wasted with a twofold sadness.

　　32.  So, when the body was carried forth, we both went and returned without tears.  For neither in those prayers which we poured forth to thee, when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered up to thee for her -- with the body placed by the side of the grave as the custom is there, before it is lowered down into it -- neither in those prayers did I weep.  But I was most grievously sad in secret all the day, and with a troubled mind entreated thee, as I could, to heal my sorrow; but thou didst not.

　　I now believe that thou wast fixing in my memory, by this one lesson, the power of the bonds of all habit, even on a mind which now no longer feeds upon deception.  It then occurred to me that it would be a good thing to go and bathe, for I had heard that the word for bath [balneum] took its name from the Greek balaneion, because it washes anxiety from the mind.  Now see, this also I

　　confess to thy mercy, "O Father of the fatherless"[307]: I bathed and felt the same as I had done before.  For the bitterness of my grief was not sweated from my heart.

　　Then I slept, and when I awoke I found my grief not a little assuaged.  And as I lay there on my bed, those true verses of Ambrose came to my mind, for thou art truly,  "Deus, creator omnium, Polique rector, vestiens Diem decoro lumine, Noctem sopora gratia;

　　Artus solutos ut quies Reddat laboris usui Mentesque fessas allevet, Luctusque solvat anxios."

　　"O God, Creator of us all, Guiding the orbs celestial, Clothing the day with lovely light, Appointing gracious sleep by night:

　　Thy grace our wearied limbs restore  To strengthened labor, as before, And ease the grief of tired minds From that deep torment which it finds."[308]

　　33.  And then, little by little, there came back to me my former memories of thy handmaid: her devout life toward thee, her holy tenderness and attentiveness toward us, which had suddenly been taken away from me -- and it was a solace for me to weep in thy sight, for her and for myself, about her and about myself.

　　Thus I set free the tears which before I repressed, that they might flow at will, spreading them out as a pillow beneath my heart.  And it rested on them, for thy ears were near me -- not those of a man, who would have made a scornful comment about my weeping.  But now in writing I confess it to thee, O Lord!  Read it who will, and comment how he will, and if he finds me to have sinned in weeping for my mother for part of an hour -- that mother who was for a while dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept for me that I might live in thy eyes -- let him not laugh at me;

　　but if he be a man of generous love, let him weep for my sins against thee, the Father of all the brethren of thy Christ.

　　CHAPTER XIII

　　34.  Now that my heart is healed of that wound -- so far as it can be charged against me as a carnal affection -- I pour out to thee, O our God, on behalf of thy handmaid, tears of a very different sort: those which flow from a spirit broken by the thoughts of the dangers of every soul that dies in Adam.  And while she had been "made alive" in Christ[309] even before she was freed from the flesh, and had so lived as to praise thy name both by her faith and by her life, yet I would not dare say that from the time thou didst regenerate her by baptism no word came out of her mouth against thy precepts.  But it has been declared by thy Son, the Truth, that "whosoever shall say to his brother, You fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire."[310]  And there would be doom even for the life of a praiseworthy man if thou judgedst it with thy mercy set aside.  But since thou dost not so stringently inquire after our sins, we hope with confidence to find some place in thy presence.  But whoever recounts his actual and true merits to thee, what is he doing but recounting to thee thy own gifts?

　　Oh, if only men would know themselves as men, then "he that glories" would "glory in the Lord"[311]!

　　35.  Thus now, O my Praise and my Life, O God of my heart, forgetting for a little her good deeds for which I give joyful thanks to thee, I now beseech thee for the sins of my mother.

　　Hearken unto me, through that Medicine of our wounds, who didst hang upon the tree and who sittest at thy right hand "making intercession for us."[312]  I know that she acted in mercy, and from the heart forgave her debtors their debts.[313]  I beseech thee also to forgive her debts, whatever she contracted during so many years since the water of salvation.  Forgive her, O Lord, forgive her, I beseech thee; "enter not into judgment" with her.[314]  Let thy mercy be exalted above thy justice, for thy words are true and thou hast promised mercy to the merciful, that the merciful shall obtain mercy.[315]  This is thy gift, who hast mercy on whom thou wilt and who wilt have compassion on whom thou dost have compassion on.[316]

　　36.  Indeed, I believe thou hast already done what I ask of thee, but "accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, O

　　Lord."[317]  For when the day of her dissolution was so close, she took no thought to have her body sumptuously wrapped or embalmed with spices.  Nor did she covet a handsome monument, or even care to be buried in her own country.  About these things she gave no commands at all, but only desired to have her name remembered at thy altar, where she had served without the omission of a single day, and where she knew that the holy sacrifice was dispensed by which that handwriting that was against us is blotted out; and that enemy vanquished who, when he summed up our offenses and searched for something to bring against us, could find nothing in Him, in whom we conquer.

　　Who will restore to him the innocent blood?  Who will repay him the price with which he bought us, so as to take us from him?

　　Thus to the sacrament of our redemption did thy hand maid bind her soul by the bond of faith.  Let none separate her from thy protection.  Let not the "lion" and "dragon" bar her way by force or fraud.  For she will not reply that she owes nothing, lest she be convicted and duped by that cunning deceiver.  Rather, she will answer that her sins are forgiven by Him to whom no one is able to repay the price which he, who owed us nothing, laid down for us all.

　　37.  Therefore, let her rest in peace with her husband, before and after whom she was married to no other man; whom she obeyed with patience, bringing fruit to thee that she might also win him for thee.  And inspire, O my Lord my God, inspire thy servants, my brothers; thy sons, my masters, who with voice and heart and writings I serve, that as many of them as shall read these confessions may also at thy altar remember Monica, thy handmaid, together with Patricius, once her husband; by whose flesh thou didst bring me into this life, in a manner I know not.

　　May they with pious affection remember my parents in this transitory life, and remember my brothers under thee our Father in our Catholic mother; and remember my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which thy people sigh in their pilgrimage from birth until their return.  So be fulfilled what my mother desired of me -- more richly in the prayers of so many gained for her through these confessions of mine than by my prayers alone.

　　BOOK TEN

　　From autobiography to self-analysis.  Augustine turns from his memories of the past to the inner mysteries of memory itself.

　　In doing so, he reviews his motives for these written "confessions," and seeks to chart the path by which men come to God.  But this brings him into the intricate analysis of memory and its relation to the self and its powers.  This done, he explores the meaning and mode of true prayer.  In conclusion, he undertakes a detailed analysis of appetite and the temptations to which the flesh and the soul are heirs, and comes finally to see how necessary and right it was for the Mediator between God and man to have been the God-Man.

　　CHAPTER I

　　1.  Let me know thee, O my Knower; let me know thee even as I

　　am known.[318]  O Strength of my soul, enter it and prepare it for thyself that thou mayest have and hold it, without "spot or blemish."[319]  This is my hope, therefore have I spoken; and in this hope I rejoice whenever I rejoice aright.  But as for the other things of this life, they deserve our lamentations less, the more we lament them; and some should be lamented all the more, the less men care for them.  For see, "Thou desirest truth"[320] and "he who does the truth comes to the light."[321]  This is what I

　　wish to do through confession in my heart before thee, and in my writings before many witnesses.

　　CHAPTER II

　　2.  And what is there in me that could be hidden from thee, Lord, to whose eyes the abysses of man's conscience are naked, even if I were unwilling to confess it to thee?  In doing so I

　　would only hide thee from myself, not myself from thee.  But now that my groaning is witness to the fact that I am dissatisfied with myself, thou shinest forth and satisfiest.  Thou art beloved and desired; so that I blush for myself, and renounce myself and choose thee, for I can neither please thee nor myself except in thee.  To thee, then, O Lord, I am laid bare, whatever I am, and I

　　have already said with what profit I may confess to thee.  I do not do it with words and sounds of the flesh but with the words of the soul, and with the sound of my thoughts, which thy ear knows.

　　For when I am wicked, to confess to thee means nothing less than to be dissatisfied with myself; but when I am truly devout, it means nothing less than not to attribute my virtue to myself;

　　because thou, O Lord, blessest the righteous, but first thou justifiest him while he is yet ungodly.  My confession therefore, O my God, is made unto thee silently in thy sight -- and yet not silently.  As far as sound is concerned, it is silent.  But in strong affection it cries aloud.  For neither do I give voice to something that sounds right to men, which thou hast not heard from me before, nor dost thou hear anything of the kind from me which thou didst not first say to me.

　　CHAPTER III

　　3.  What is it to me that men should hear my confessions as if it were they who were going to cure all my infirmities?  People are curious to know the lives of others, but slow to correct their own.  Why are they anxious to hear from me what I am, when they are unwilling to hear from thee what they are?  And how can they tell when they hear what I say about myself whether I speak the truth, since no man knows what is in a man "save the spirit of man which is in him"[322]?  But if they were to hear from thee something concerning themselves, they would not be able to say, "The Lord is lying." For what does it mean to hear from thee about themselves but to know themselves?  And who is he that knows himself and says, "This is false," unless he himself is lying?

　　But, because "love believes all things"[323] -- at least among those who are bound together in love by its bonds -- I confess to thee, O Lord, so that men may also hear; for if I cannot prove to them that I confess the truth, yet those whose ears love opens to me will believe me.

　　4.  But wilt thou, O my inner Physician, make clear to me what profit I am to gain in doing this?  For the confessions of my past sins (which thou hast "forgiven and covered"[324] that thou mightest make me blessed in thee, transforming my soul by faith and thy sacrament), when _they_ are read and heard, may stir up the heart so that it will stop dozing along in despair, saying, "I

　　cannot"; but will instead awake in the love of thy mercy and the sweetness of thy grace, by which he that is weak is strong, provided he is made conscious of his own weakness.  And it will please those who are good to hear about the past errors of those who are now freed from them.  And they will take delight, not because they are errors, but because they were and are so no longer.  What profit, then, O Lord my God -- to whom my conscience makes her daily confession, far more confident in the hope of thy mercy than in her own innocence -- what profit is there, I ask thee, in confessing to men in thy presence, through this book, both what I am now as well as what I have been?  For I have seen and spoken of my harvest of things past.  But what am I _now_, at this very moment of making my confessions?  Many different people desire to know, both those who know me and those who do not know me.  Some have heard about me or from me, but their ear is not close to my heart, where I am whatever it is that I am.  They have the desire to hear me confess what I am within, where they can neither extend eye nor ear nor mind.  They desire as those willing to believe -- but will they understand?  For the love by which they are good tells them that I am not lying in my confessions, and the love in them believes me.

　　CHAPTER IV

　　5.  But for what profit do they desire this?  Will they wish me happiness when they learn how near I have approached thee, by thy gifts?  And will they pray for me when they learn how much I

　　am still kept back by my own weight?  To such as these I will declare myself.  For it is no small profit, O Lord my God, that many people should give thanks to thee on my account and that many should entreat thee for my sake.  Let the brotherly soul love in me what thou teachest him should be loved, and let him lament in me what thou teachest him should be lamented.  Let it be the soul of a brother that does this, and not a stranger -- not one of those "strange children, whose mouth speaks vanity, and whose right hand is the right hand of falsehood."[325]  But let my brother do it who, when he approves of me, rejoices for me, but when he disapproves of me is sorry for me; because whether he approves or disapproves, he loves me.  To such I will declare myself.  Let them be refreshed by my good deeds and sigh over my evil ones.  My good deeds are thy acts and thy gifts; my evil ones are my own faults and thy judgment.  Let them breathe expansively at the one and sigh over the other.  And let hymns and tears ascend in thy sight out of their brotherly hearts -- which are thy censers.[326]  And, O Lord, who takest delight in the incense of thy holy temple, have mercy upon me according to thy great mercy, for thy name's sake.  And do not, on any account whatever, abandon what thou hast begun in me.  Go on, rather, to complete what is yet imperfect in me.

　　6.  This, then, is the fruit of my confessions (not of what I

　　was, but of what I am), that I may not confess this before thee alone, in a secret exultation with trembling and a secret sorrow with hope, but also in the ears of the believing sons of men --

　　who are the companions of my joy and sharers of my mortality, my fellow citizens and fellow pilgrims -- those who have gone before and those who are to follow after, as well as the comrades of my present way.  These are thy servants, my brothers, whom thou desirest to be thy sons.  They are my masters, whom thou hast commanded me to serve if I desire to live with and in thee.  But this thy Word would mean little to me if it commanded in words alone, without thy prevenient action.  I do this, then, both in act and word.  I do this under thy wings, in a danger too great to risk if it were not that under thy wings my soul is subject to thee, and my weakness known to thee.  I am insufficient, but my Father liveth forever, and my Defender is sufficient for me.  For he is the Selfsame who didst beget me and who watcheth over me;

　　thou art the Selfsame who art all my good.  Thou art the Omnipotent, who art with me, even before I am with thee.  To those, therefore, whom thou commandest me to serve, I will declare, not what I was, but what I now am and what I will continue to be.  But I do not judge myself.  Thus, therefore, let me be heard.

　　CHAPTER V

　　7.  For it is thou, O Lord, who judgest me.  For although no man "knows the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him,"[327] yet there is something of man which "the spirit of the man which is in him" does not know itself.  But thou, O

　　Lord, who madest him, knowest him completely.  And even I --

　　though in thy sight I despise myself and count myself but dust and ashes -- even I know something about thee which I do not know about myself.  And it is certain that "now we see through a glass darkly," not yet "face to face."[328]  Therefore, as long as I

　　journey away from thee, I am more present with myself than with thee.  I know that thou canst not suffer violence, but I myself do not know what temptations I can resist, and what I cannot.  But there is hope, because thou art faithful and thou wilt not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to resist, but wilt with the temptation also make a way of escape that we may be able to bear it.  I would therefore confess what I know about myself; I will also confess what I do not know about myself.  What I do know of myself, I know from thy enlightening of me; and what I do not know of myself, I will continue not to know until the time when my "darkness is as the noonday"[329] in thy sight.

　　CHAPTER VI

　　8.  It is not with a doubtful consciousness, but one fully certain that I love thee, O Lord.  Thou hast smitten my heart with thy Word, and I have loved thee.  And see also the heaven, and earth, and all that is in them -- on every side they tell me to love thee, and they do not cease to tell this to all men, "so that they are without excuse."[330]  Wherefore, still more deeply wilt thou have mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy, and compassion on whom thou wilt have compassion.[331]  For otherwise, both heaven and earth would tell abroad thy praises to deaf ears.

　　But what is it that I love in loving thee?  Not physical beauty, nor the splendor of time, nor the radiance of the light --

　　so pleasant to our eyes -- nor the sweet melodies of the various kinds of songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices; not manna and honey, not the limbs embraced in physical love -- it is not these I love when I love my God.  Yet it is true that I love a certain kind of light and sound and fragrance and food and embrace in loving my God, who is the light and sound and fragrance and food and embracement of my inner man -- where that light shines into my soul which no place can contain, where time does not snatch away the lovely sound, where no breeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where no eating diminishes the food there provided, and where there is an embrace that no satiety comes to sunder.  This is what I love when I love my God.

　　9.  And what is this God?  I asked the earth, and it answered, "I am not he"; and everything in the earth made the same confession.  I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things, and they replied, "We are not your God; seek above us." I

　　asked the fleeting winds, and the whole air with its inhabitants answered, "Anaximenes[332] was deceived; I am not God." I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars; and they answered, "Neither are we the God whom you seek." And I replied to all these things which stand around the door of my flesh: "You have told me about my God, that you are not he.  Tell me something about him." And with a loud voice they all cried out, "He made us." My question had come from my observation of them, and their reply came from their beauty of order.  And I turned my thoughts into myself and said, "Who are you?"  And I answered, "A man." For see, there is in me both a body and a soul; the one without, the other within.

　　In which of these should I have sought my God, whom I had already sought with my body from earth to heaven, as far as I was able to send those messengers -- the beams of my eyes?  But the inner part is the better part; for to it, as both ruler and judge, all these messengers of the senses report the answers of heaven and earth and all the things therein, who said, "We are not God, but he made us." My inner man knew these things through the ministry of the outer man, and I, the inner man, knew all this -- I, the soul, through the senses of my body.[333]  I asked the whole frame of earth about my God, and it answered, "I am not he, but he made me."

　　10.  Is not this beauty of form visible to all whose senses are unimpaired?  Why, then, does it not say the same things to all?  Animals, both small and great, see it but they are unable to interrogate its meaning, because their senses are not endowed with the reason that would enable them to judge the evidence which the senses report.  But man can interrogate it, so that "the invisible things of him . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."[334]  But men love these created things too much; they are brought into subjection to them -- and, as subjects, are not able to judge.  None of these created things reply to their questioners unless they can make rational judgments.  The creatures will not alter their voice -- that is, their beauty of form -- if one man simply sees what another both sees and questions, so that the world appears one way to this man and another to that.  It appears the same way to both; but it is mute to this one and it speaks to that one.  Indeed, it actually speaks to all, but only they understand it who compare the voice received from without with the truth within.  For the truth says to me, "Neither heaven nor earth nor anybody is your God." Their very nature tells this to the one who beholds[335] them.  "They are a mass, less in part than the whole." Now, O my soul, you are my better part, and to you I speak; since you animate the whole mass of your body, giving it life, whereas no body furnishes life to a body.  But your God is the life of your life.

　　CHAPTER VII

　　11.  What is it, then, that I love when I love my God?  Who is he that is beyond the topmost point of my soul?  Yet by this very soul will I mount up to him.  I will soar beyond that power of mine by which I am united to the body, and by which the whole structure of it is filled with life.  Yet it is not by that vital power that I find my God.  For then "the horse and the mule, that have no understanding,"[336] also might find him, since they have the same vital power, by which their bodies also live.  But there is, besides the power by which I animate my body, another by which I endow my flesh with sense -- a power that the Lord hath provided for me; commanding that the eye is not to hear and the ear is not to see, but that I am to see by the eye and to hear by the ear;

　　and giving to each of the other senses its own proper place and function, through the diversity of which I, the single mind, act.

　　I will soar also beyond this power of mine, for the horse and mule have this too, for they also perceive through their bodily senses.

　　CHAPTER VIII

　　12.  I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, still rising by degrees toward him who made me.  And I enter the fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures the countless images that have been brought into them from all manner of things by the senses.  There, in the memory, is likewise stored what we cogitate, either by enlarging or reducing our perceptions, or by altering one way or another those things which the senses have made contact with; and everything else that has been entrusted to it and stored up in it, which oblivion has not yet swallowed up and buried.

　　When I go into this storehouse, I ask that what I want should be brought forth.  Some things appear immediately, but others require to be searched for longer, and then dragged out, as it were, from some hidden recess.  Other things hurry forth in crowds, on the other hand, and while something else is sought and inquired for, they leap into view as if to say, "Is it not we, perhaps?"  These I brush away with the hand of my heart from the face of my memory, until finally the thing I want makes its appearance out of its secret cell.  Some things suggest themselves without effort, and in continuous order, just as they are called for -- the things that come first give place to those that follow, and in so doing are treasured up again to be forthcoming when I

　　want them.  All of this happens when I repeat a thing from memory.

　　13.  All these things, each one of which came into memory in its own particular way, are stored up separately and under the general categories of understanding.  For example, light and all colors and forms of bodies came in through the eyes; sounds of all kinds by the ears; all smells by the passages of the nostrils; all flavors by the gate of the mouth; by the sensation of the whole body, there is brought in what is hard or soft, hot or cold, smooth or rough, heavy or light, whether external or internal to the body.  The vast cave of memory, with its numerous and mysterious recesses, receives all these things and stores them up, to be recalled and brought forth when required.  Each experience enters by its own door, and is stored up in the memory.  And yet the things themselves do not enter it, but only the images of the things perceived are there for thought to remember.  And who can tell how these images are formed, even if it is evident which of the senses brought which perception in and stored it up?  For even when I am in darkness and silence I can bring out colors in my memory if I wish, and discern between black and white and the other shades as I wish; and at the same time, sounds do not break in and disturb what is drawn in by my eyes, and which I am considering, because the sounds which are also there are stored up, as it were, apart.  And these too I can summon if I please and they are immediately present in memory.  And though my tongue is at rest and my throat silent, yet I can sing as I will; and those images of color, which are as truly present as before, do not interpose themselves or interrupt while another treasure which had flowed in through the ears is being thought about.  Similarly all the other things that were brought in and heaped up by all the other senses, I can recall at my pleasure.  And I distinguish the scent of lilies from that of violets while actually smelling nothing; and I prefer honey to mead, a smooth thing to a rough, even though I am neither tasting nor handling them, but only remembering them.

　　14.  All this I do within myself, in that huge hall of my memory.  For in it, heaven, earth, and sea are present to me, and whatever I can cogitate about them -- except what I have forgotten.  There also I meet myself and recall myself[337] --

　　what, when, or where I did a thing, and how I felt when I did it.

　　There are all the things that I remember, either having experienced them myself or been told about them by others.  Out of the same storehouse, with these past impressions, I can construct now this, now that, image of things that I either have experienced or have believed on the basis of experience -- and from these I

　　can further construct future actions, events, and hopes; and I can meditate on all these things as if they were present.  "I will do this or that" -- I say to myself in that vast recess of my mind, with its full store of so many and such great images -- "and this or that will follow upon it." "O that this or that could happen!"

　　"God prevent this or that." I speak to myself in this way; and when I speak, the images of what I am speaking about are present out of the same store of memory; and if the images were absent I

　　could say nothing at all about them.

　　15.  Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my God -- a large and boundless inner hall!  Who has plumbed the depths of it?  Yet it is a power of my mind, and it belongs to my nature.  But I do not myself grasp all that I am.  Thus the mind is far too narrow to contain itself.  But where can that part of it be which it does not contain?  Is it outside and not in itself?

　　How can it be, then, that the mind cannot grasp itself?  A great marvel rises in me; astonishment seizes me.  Men go forth to marvel at the heights of mountains and the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves.

　　Nor do they wonder how it is that, when I spoke of all these things, I was not looking at them with my eyes -- and yet I could not have spoken about them had it not been that I was actually seeing within, in my memory, those mountains and waves and rivers and stars which I have seen, and that ocean which I believe in --

　　and with the same vast spaces between them as when I saw them outside me.  But when I saw them outside me, I did not take them into me by seeing them; and the things themselves are not inside me, but only their images.  And yet I knew through which physical sense each experience had made an impression on me.

　　CHAPTER IX

　　16.  And yet this is not all that the unlimited capacity of my memory stores up.  In memory, there are also all that one has learned of the liberal sciences, and has not forgotten -- removed still further, so to say, into an inner place which is not a place.  Of these things it is not the images that are retained, but the things themselves.  For what literature and logic are, and what I know about how many different kinds of questions there are -- all these are stored in my memory as they are, so that I have not taken in the image and left the thing outside.  It is not as though a sound had sounded and passed away like a voice heard by the ear which leaves a trace by which it can be called into memory again, as if it were still sounding in mind while it did so no longer outside.  Nor is it the same as an odor which, even after it has passed and vanished into the wind, affects the sense of smell -- which then conveys into the memory the _image_ of the smell which is what we recall and re-create; or like food which, once in the belly, surely now has no taste and yet does have a kind of taste in the memory; or like anything that is felt by the body through the sense of touch, which still remains as an image in the memory after the external object is removed.  For these things themselves are not put into the memory.  Only the images of them are gathered with a marvelous quickness and stored, as it were, in the most wonderful filing system, and are thence produced in a marvelous way by the act of remembering.

　　CHAPTER X

　　17.  But now when I hear that there are three kinds of questions -- "Whether a thing is?  What it is?  Of what kind it is?" -- I do indeed retain the images of the sounds of which these words are composed and I know that those sounds pass through the air with a noise and now no longer exist.  But the things themselves which were signified by those sounds I never could reach by any sense of the body nor see them at all except by my mind.  And what I have stored in my memory was not their signs, but the things signified.

　　How they got into me, let them tell who can.  For I examine all the gates of my flesh, but I cannot find the door by which any of them entered.  For the eyes say, "If they were colored, we reported that." The ears say, "If they gave any sound, we gave notice of that." The nostrils say, "If they smell, they passed in by us." The sense of taste says, "If they have no flavor, don't ask me about them." The sense of touch says, "If it had no bodily mass, I did not touch it, and if I never touched it, I gave no report about it."

　　Whence and how did these things enter into my memory?  I do not know.  For when I first learned them, it was not that I

　　believed them on the credit of another man's mind, but I

　　recognized them in my own; and I saw them as true, took them into my mind and laid them up, so to say, where I could get at them again whenever I willed.  There they were, then, even before I

　　learned them, but they were not in my memory.  Where were they, then?  How does it come about that when they were spoken of, I

　　could acknowledge them and say, "So it is, it is true," unless they were already in the memory, though far back and hidden, as it were, in the more secret caves, so that unless they had been drawn out by the teaching of another person, I should perhaps never have been able to think of them at all?

　　CHAPTER XI

　　18.  Thus we find that learning those things whose images we do not take in by our senses, but which we intuit within ourselves without images and as they actually are, is nothing else except the gathering together of those same things which the memory already contains -- but in an indiscriminate and confused manner -- and putting them together by careful observation as they are at hand in the memory; so that whereas they formerly lay hidden, scattered, or neglected, they now come easily to present themselves to the mind which is now familiar with them.  And how many things of this sort my memory has stored up, which have already been discovered and, as I said, laid up for ready reference.  These are the things we may be said to have learned and to know.  Yet, if I cease to recall them even for short intervals of time, they are again so submerged -- and slide back, as it were, into the further reaches of the memory -- that they must be drawn out again as if new from the same place (for there is nowhere else for them to have gone) and must be collected [cogenda] so that they can become known.  In other words, they must be gathered up [colligenda] from their dispersion.  This is where we get the word cogitate [cogitare].  For cogo [collect] and cogito [to go on collecting] have the same relation to each other as ago [do] and agito [do frequently], and facio [make] and factito [make frequently].  But the mind has properly laid claim to this word [cogitate] so that not everything that is gathered together anywhere, but only what is collected and gathered together in the mind, is properly said to be "cogitated."

　　CHAPTER XII

　　19.  The memory also contains the principles and the unnumbered laws of numbers and dimensions.  None of these has been impressed on the memory by a physical sense, because they have neither color nor sound, nor taste, nor sense of touch. I have heard the sound of the words by which these things are signified when they are discussed: but the sounds are one thing, the things another.  For the sounds are one thing in Greek, another in Latin;

　　but the things themselves are neither Greek nor Latin nor any other language.  I have seen the lines of the craftsmen, the finest of which are like a spider's web, but mathematical lines are different.  They are not the images of such things as the eye of my body has showed me.  The man who knows them does so without any cogitation of physical objects whatever, but intuits them within himself.  I have perceived with all the senses of my body the numbers we use in counting; but the numbers by which we count are far different from these.  They are not the images of these;

　　they simply are.  Let the man who does not see these things mock me for saying them; and I will pity him while he laughs at me.

　　CHAPTER XIII

　　20.  All these things I hold in my memory, and I remember how I learned them.  I also remember many things that I have heard quite falsely urged against them, which, even if they are false, yet it is not false that I have remembered them.  And I also remember that I have distinguished between the truths and the false objections, and now I see that it is one thing to distinguish these things and another to remember that I did distinguish them when I have cogitated on them.  I remember, then, both that I have often understood these things and also that I am now storing away in my memory what I distinguish and comprehend of them so that later on I may remember just as I understand them now.  Therefore, I remember that I remembered, so that if afterward I call to mind that I once was able to remember these things it will be through the power of memory that I recall it.

　　CHAPTER XIV

　　21.  This same memory also contains the feelings of my mind;

　　not in the manner in which the mind itself experienced them, but very differently according to a power peculiar to memory.  For without being joyous now, I can remember that I once was joyous, and without being sad, I can recall my past sadness.  I can remember past fears without fear, and former desires without desire.  Again, the contrary happens.  Sometimes when I am joyous I remember my past sadness, and when sad, remember past joy.

　　This is not to be marveled at as far as the body is concerned; for the mind is one thing and the body another.[338]

　　If, therefore, when I am happy, I recall some past bodily pain, it is not so strange.  But even as this memory is experienced, it is identical with the mind -- as when we tell someone to remember something we say, "See that you bear this in mind"; and when we forget a thing, we say, "It did not enter my mind" or "It slipped my mind." Thus we call memory itself mind.

　　Since this is so, how does it happen that when I am joyful I

　　can still remember past sorrow?  Thus the mind has joy, and the memory has sorrow; and the mind is joyful from the joy that is in it, yet the memory is not sad from the sadness that is in it.  Is it possible that the memory does not belong to the mind?  Who will say so?  The memory doubtless is, so to say, the belly of the mind: and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food, which when they are committed to the memory are, so to say, passed into the belly where they can be stored but no longer tasted.  It is ridiculous to consider this an analogy; yet they are not utterly unlike.

　　22.  But look, it is from my memory that I produce it when I

　　say that there are four basic emotions of the mind: desire, joy, fear, sadness.  Whatever kind of analysis I may be able to make of these, by dividing each into its particular species, and by defining it, I still find what to say in my memory and it is from my memory that I draw it out.  Yet I am not moved by any of these emotions when I call them to mind by remembering them.  Moreover, before I recalled them and thought about them, they were there in the memory; and this is how they could be brought forth in remembrance.  Perhaps, therefore, just as food is brought up out of the belly by rumination, so also these things are drawn up out of the memory by recall.  But why, then, does not the man who is thinking about the emotions, and is thus recalling them, feel in the mouth of his reflection the sweetness of joy or the bitterness of sadness?  Is the comparison unlike in this because it is not complete at every point?  For who would willingly speak on these subjects, if as often as we used the term sadness or fear, we should thereby be compelled to be sad or fearful?  And yet we could never speak of them if we did not find them in our memories, not merely as the sounds of the names, as their images are impressed on it by the physical senses, but also the notions of the things themselves -- which we did not receive by any gate of the flesh, but which the mind itself recognizes by the experience of its own passions, and has entrusted to the memory; or else which the memory itself has retained without their being entrusted to it.

　　CHAPTER XV

　　23.  Now whether all this is by means of images or not, who can rightly affirm?  For I name a stone, I name the sun, and those things themselves are not present to my senses, but their images are present in my memory.  I name some pain of the body, yet it is not present when there is no pain; yet if there were not some such image of it in my memory, I could not even speak of it, nor should I be able to distinguish it from pleasure.  I name bodily health when I am sound in body, and the thing itself is indeed present in me.  At the same time, unless there were some image of it in my memory, I could not possibly call to mind what the sound of this name signified.  Nor would sick people know what was meant when health was named, unless the same image were preserved by the power of memory, even though the thing itself is absent from the body.  I can name the numbers we use in counting, and it is not their images but themselves that are in my memory.  I name the image of the sun, and this too is in my memory.  For I do not recall the image of that image, but that image itself, for the image itself is present when I remember it.  I name memory and I

　　know what I name.  But where do I know it, except in the memory itself?  Is it also present to itself by its image, and not by itself?

　　CHAPTER XVI

　　24.  When I name forgetfulness, and understand what I mean by the name, how could I understand it if I did not remember it?  And if I refer not to the sound of the name, but to the thing which the term signifies, how could I know what that sound signified if I had forgotten what the name means?  When, therefore, I remember memory, then memory is present to itself by itself, but when I

　　remember forgetfulness then both memory and forgetfulness are present together -- the memory by which I remember the forgetfulness which I remember.  But what is forgetfulness except the privation of memory?  How, then, is that present to my memory which, when it controls my mind, I cannot remember?  But if what we remember we store up in our memory; and if, unless we remembered forgetfulness, we could never know the thing signified by the term when we heard it -- then, forgetfulness is contained in the memory.  It is present so that we do not forget it, but since it is present, we do forget.

　　From this it is to be inferred that when we remember forgetfulness, it is not present to the memory through itself, but through its image; because if forgetfulness were present through itself, it would not lead us to remember, but only to forget.  Now who will someday work this out?  Who can understand how it is?

　　25.  Truly, O Lord, I toil with this and labor in myself.  I

　　have become a troublesome field that requires hard labor and heavy sweat.  For we are not now searching out the tracts of heaven, or measuring the distances of the stars or inquiring about the weight of the earth.  It is I myself -- I, the mind -- who remember.

　　This is not much to marvel at, if what I myself am is not far from me.  And what is nearer to me than myself?  For see, I am not able to comprehend the force of my own memory, though I could not even call my own name without it.  But what shall I say, when it is clear to me that I remember forgetfulness?  Should I affirm that what I remember is not in my memory?  Or should I say that forgetfulness is in my memory to the end that I should not forget?

　　Both of these views are most absurd.  But what third view is there?  How can I say that the image of forgetfulness is retained by my memory, and not forgetfulness itself, when I remember it?

　　How can I say this, since for the image of anything to be imprinted on the memory the thing itself must necessarily have been present first by which the image could have been imprinted?

　　Thus I remember Carthage; thus, also, I remember all the other places where I have been.  And I remember the faces of men whom I

　　have seen and things reported by the other senses.  I remember the health or sickness of the body.  And when these objects were present, my memory received images from them so that they remain present in order for me to see them and reflect upon them in my mind, if I choose to remember them in their absence.  If, therefore, forgetfulness is retained in the memory through its image and not through itself, then this means that it itself was once present, so that its image might have been imprinted.  But when it was present, how did it write its image on the memory, since forgetfulness, by its presence, blots out even what it finds already written there?  And yet in some way or other, even though it is incomprehensible and inexplicable, I am still quite certain that I also remember forgetfulness, by which we remember that something is blotted out.

　　CHAPTER XVII

　　26.  Great is the power of memory.  It is a true marvel, O my God, a profound and infinite multiplicity!  And this is the mind, and this I myself am.  What, then, am I, O my God?  Of what nature am I?  A life various, and manifold, and exceedingly vast.  Behold in the numberless halls and caves, in the innumerable fields and dens and caverns of my memory, full without measure of numberless kinds of things -- present there either through images as all bodies are; or present in the things themselves as are our thoughts; or by some notion or observation as our emotions are, which the memory retains even though the mind feels them no longer, as long as whatever is in the memory is also in the mind -- through all these I run and fly to and fro.  I penetrate into them on this side and that as far as I can and yet there is nowhere any end.

　　So great is the power of memory, so great the power of life in man whose life is mortal!  What, then, shall I do, O thou my true life, my God?  I will pass even beyond this power of mine that is called memory -- I will pass beyond it, that I may come to thee, O lovely Light.  And what art thou saying to me?  See, I

　　soar by my mind toward thee, who remainest above me.  I will also pass beyond this power of mine that is called memory, desiring to reach thee where thou canst be reached, and wishing to cleave to thee where it is possible to cleave to thee.  For even beasts and birds possess memory, or else they could never find their lairs and nests again, nor display many other things they know and do by habit.  Indeed, they could not even form their habits except by their memories.  I will therefore pass even beyond memory that I

　　may reach Him who has differentiated me from the four-footed beasts and the fowls of the air by making me a wiser creature.

　　Thus I will pass beyond memory; but where shall I find thee, who art the true Good and the steadfast Sweetness?  But where shall I

　　find thee?  If I find thee without memory, then I shall have no memory of thee; and how could I find thee at all, if I do not remember thee?

　　CHAPTER XVIII

　　27.  For the woman who lost her small coin[339] and searched for it with a light would never have found it unless she had remembered it.  For when it was found, how could she have known whether it was the same coin, if she had not remembered it?  I

　　remember having lost and found many things, and I have learned this from that experience: that when I was searching for any of them and was asked: "Is this it? Is that it?"  I answered, "No,"

　　until finally what I was seeking was shown to me.  But if I had not remembered it -- whatever it was -- even though it was shown to me, I still would not have found it because I could not have recognized it.  And this is the way it always is when we search for and find anything that is lost.  Still, if anything is accidentally lost from sight -- not from memory, as a visible body might be -- its image is retained within, and the thing is searched for until it is restored to sight.  And when the thing is found, it is recognized by the image of it which is within.  And we do not say that we have found what we have lost unless we can recognize it, and we cannot recognize it unless we remember it.

　　But all the while the thing lost to the sight was retained in the memory.

　　CHAPTER XIX

　　28.  But what happens when the memory itself loses something, as when we forget anything and try to recall it?  Where, finally, do we search, but in the memory itself?  And there, if by chance one thing is offered for another, we refuse it until we meet with what we are looking for; and when we do, we recognize that this is it.  But we could not do this unless we recognized it, nor could we have recognized it unless we remembered it.  Yet we had indeed forgotten it.

　　Perhaps the whole of it had not slipped out of our memory;

　　but a part was retained by which the other lost part was sought for, because the memory realized that it was not operating as smoothly as usual and was being held up by the crippling of its habitual working; hence, it demanded the restoration of what was lacking.

　　For example, if we see or think of some man we know, and, having forgotten his name, try to recall it -- if some other thing presents itself, we cannot tie it into the effort to remember, because it was not habitually thought of in association with him.

　　It is consequently rejected, until something comes into the mind on which our knowledge can rightly rest as the familiar and sought-for object.  And where does this name come back from, save from the memory itself?  For even when we recognize it by another's reminding us of it, still it is from the memory that this comes, for we do not believe it as something new; but when we recall it, we admit that what was said was correct.  But if the name had been entirely blotted out of the mind, we should not be able to recollect it even when reminded of it.  For we have not entirely forgotten anything if we can remember that we have forgotten it.  For a lost notion, one that we have entirely forgotten, we cannot even search for.

　　CHAPTER XX

　　29.  How, then, do I seek thee, O Lord?  For when I seek thee, my God, I seek a happy life.  I will seek thee that my soul may live.[340]  For my body lives by my soul, and my soul lives by thee.  How, then, do I seek a happy life, since happiness is not mine till I can rightly say: "It is enough.  This is it." How do I

　　seek it?  Is it by remembering, as though I had forgotten it and still knew that I had forgotten it?  Do I seek it in longing to learn of it as though it were something unknown, which either I

　　had never known or had so completely forgotten as not even to remember that I had forgotten it?  Is not the happy life the thing that all desire, and is there anyone who does not desire it at all?[341]  But where would they have gotten the knowledge of it, that they should so desire it?  Where have they seen it that they should so love it?  It is somehow true that we have it, but how I

　　do not know.

　　There is, indeed, a sense in which when anyone has his desire he is happy.  And then there are some who are happy in hope.

　　These are happy in an inferior degree to those that are actually happy; yet they are better off than those who are happy neither in actuality nor in hope.  But even these, if they had not known happiness in some degree, would not then desire to be happy.  And yet it is most certain that they do so desire.  How they come to know happiness, I cannot tell, but they have it by some kind of knowledge unknown to me, for I am very much in doubt as to whether it is in the memory.  For if it is in there, then we have been happy once on a time -- either each of us individually or all of us in that man who first sinned and in whom also we all died and from whom we are all born in misery.  How this is, I do not now ask; but I do ask whether the happy life is in the memory.  For if we did not know it, we should not love it.  We hear the name of it, and we all acknowledge that we desire the thing, for we are not delighted with the name only.  For when a Greek hears it spoken in Latin, he does not feel delighted, for he does not know what has been spoken.  But we are as delighted as he would be in turn if he heard it in Greek, because the thing itself is neither Greek nor Latin, this happiness which Greeks and Latins and men of all the other tongues long so earnestly to obtain.  It is, then, known to all; and if all could with one voice be asked whether they wished to be happy, there is no doubt they would all answer that they would.  And this would not be possible unless the thing itself, which we name "happiness," were held in the memory.

　　CHAPTER XXI

　　30.  But is it the same kind of memory as one who having seen Carthage remembers it?  No, for the happy life is not visible to the eye, since it is not a physical object.  Is it the sort of memory we have for numbers?  No, for the man who has these in his understanding does not keep striving to attain more.  Now we know something about the happy life and therefore we love it, but still we wish to go on striving for it that we may be happy.  Is the memory of happiness, then, something like the memory of eloquence?

　　No, for although some, when they hear the term eloquence, call the thing to mind, even if they are not themselves eloquent -- and further, there are many people who would like to be eloquent, from which it follows that they must know something about it --

　　nevertheless, these people have noticed through their senses that others are eloquent and have been delighted to observe this and long to be this way themselves.  But they would not be delighted if it were not some interior knowledge; and they would not desire to be delighted unless they had been delighted.  But as for a happy life, there is no physical perception by which we experience it in others.

　　Do we remember happiness, then, as we remember joy?  It may be so, for I remember my joy even when I am sad, just as I

　　remember a happy life when I am miserable.  And I have never, through physical perception, either seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched my joy.  But I have experienced it in my mind when I

　　rejoiced; and the knowledge of it clung to my memory so that I can call it to mind, sometimes with disdain and at other times with longing, depending on the different kinds of things I now remember that I rejoiced in.  For I have been bathed with a certain joy even by unclean things, which I now detest and execrate as I call them to mind.  At other times, I call to mind with longing good and honest things, which are not any longer near at hand, and I am therefore saddened when I recall my former joy.

　　31.  Where and when did I ever experience my happy life that I can call it to mind and love it and long for it?  It is not I

　　alone or even a few others who wish to be happy, but absolutely everybody.  Unless we knew happiness by a knowledge that is certain, we should not wish for it with a will which is so certain.  Take this example: If two men were asked whether they wished to serve as soldiers, one of them might reply that he would, and the other that he would not; but if they were asked whether they wished to be happy, both of them would unhesitatingly say that they would.  But the first one would wish to serve as a soldier and the other would not wish to serve, both from no other motive than to be happy.  Is it, perhaps, that one finds his joy in this and another in that?  Thus they agree in their wish for happiness just as they would also agree, if asked, in wishing for joy.  Is this joy what they call a happy life?  Although one could choose his joy in this way and another in that, all have one goal which they strive to attain, namely, to have joy.  This joy, then, being something that no one can say he has not experienced, is therefore found in the memory and it is recognized whenever the phrase "a happy life" is heard.

　　CHAPTER XXII

　　32.  Forbid it, O Lord, put it far from the heart of thy servant, who confesses to thee -- far be it from me to think I am happy because of any and all the joy I have.  For there is a joy not granted to the wicked but only to those who worship thee thankfully -- and this joy thou thyself art.  The happy life is this -- to rejoice to thee, in thee, and for thee.  This it is and there is no other.  But those who think there is another follow after other joys, and not the true one.  But their will is still not moved except by some image or shadow of joy.

　　CHAPTER XXIII

　　33.  Is it, then, uncertain that all men wish to be happy, since those who do not wish to find their joy in thee -- which is alone the happy life -- do not actually desire the happy life?

　　Or, is it rather that all desire this, but because "the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh," so that they "prevent you from doing what you would,"[342] you fall to doing what you are able to do and are content with that.  For you do not want to do what you cannot do urgently enough to make you able to do it.

　　Now I ask all men whether they would rather rejoice in truth or in falsehood.  They will no more hesitate to answer, "In truth," than to say that they wish to be happy.  For a happy life is joy in the truth.  Yet this is joy in thee, who art the Truth, O God my Light, "the health of my countenance and my God."[343]

　　All wish for this happy life; all wish for this life which is the only happy one: joy in the truth is what all men wish.

　　I have had experience with many who wished to deceive, but not one who wished to be deceived.[344]  Where, then, did they ever know about this happy life, except where they knew also what the truth is?  For they love it, too, since they are not willing to be deceived.  And when they love the happy life, which is nothing else but joy in the truth, then certainly they also love the truth.  And yet they would not love it if there were not some knowledge of it in the memory.

　　Why, then, do they not rejoice in it?  Why are they not happy?  Because they are so fully preoccupied with other things which do more to make them miserable than those which would make them happy, which they remember so little about.  Yet there is a little light in men.  Let them walk -- let them walk in it, lest the darkness overtake them.

　　34.  Why, then, does truth generate hatred, and why does thy servant who preaches the truth come to be an enemy to them who also love the happy life, which is nothing else than joy in the truth -- unless it be that truth is loved in such a way that those who love something else besides her wish that to be the truth which they do love.  Since they are unwilling to be deceived, they are unwilling to be convinced that they have been deceived.

　　Therefore, they hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is that they love in place of the truth.  They love truth when she shines on them; and hate her when she rebukes them.  And since they are not willing to be deceived, but do wish to deceive, they love truth when she reveals herself and hate her when she reveals them.

　　On this account, she will so repay them that those who are unwilling to be exposed by her she will indeed expose against their will, and yet will not disclose herself to them.

　　Thus, thus, truly thus: the human mind so blind and sick, so base and ill-mannered, desires to lie hidden, but does not wish that anything should be hidden from it.  And yet the opposite is what happens -- the mind itself is not hidden from the truth, but the truth is hidden from it.  Yet even so, for all its wretchedness, it still prefers to rejoice in truth rather than in known falsehoods.  It will, then, be happy only when without other distractions it comes to rejoice in that single Truth through which all things else are true.

　　CHAPTER XXIV

　　35.  Behold how great a territory I have explored in my memory seeking thee, O Lord!  And in it all I have still not found thee.  Nor have I found anything about thee, except what I had already retained in my memory from the time I learned of thee.

　　For where I found Truth, there found I my God, who is the Truth.

　　From the time I learned this I have not forgotten.  And thus since the time I learned of thee, thou hast dwelt in my memory, and it is there that I find thee whenever I call thee to remembrance, and delight in thee.  These are my holy delights, which thou hast bestowed on me in thy mercy, mindful of my poverty.

　　CHAPTER XXV

　　36.  But where in my memory dost thou abide, O Lord?  Where dost thou dwell there?  What sort of lodging hast thou made for thyself there?  What kind of sanctuary hast thou built for thyself?  Thou hast done this honor to my memory to take up thy abode in it, but I must consider further in what part of it thou dost abide.  For in calling thee to mind, I soared beyond those parts of memory which the beasts also possess, because I did not find thee there among the images of corporeal things.  From there I went on to those parts where I had stored the remembered affections of my mind, and I did not find thee there.  And I

　　entered into the inmost seat of my mind, which is in my memory, since the mind remembers itself also -- and thou wast not there.

　　For just as thou art not a bodily image, nor the emotion of a living creature (such as we feel when we rejoice or are grief-

　　stricken, when we desire, or fear, or remember, or forget, or anything of that kind), so neither art thou the mind itself.  For thou art the Lord God of the mind and of all these things that are mutable; but thou abidest immutable over all.  Yet thou hast elected to dwell in my memory from the time I learned of thee.

　　But why do I now inquire about the part of my memory thou dost dwell in, as if indeed there were separate parts in it?

　　Assuredly, thou dwellest in it, since I have remembered thee from the time I learned of thee, and I find thee in my memory when I

　　call thee to mind.

　　CHAPTER XXVI

　　37.  Where, then, did I find thee so as to be able to learn of thee?  For thou wast not in my memory before I learned of thee.

　　Where, then, did I find thee so as to be able to learn of thee --

　　save in thyself beyond me.[345]  Place there is none.  We go "backward" and "forward" and there is no place.  Everywhere and at once, O Truth, thou guidest all who consult thee, and simultaneously answerest all even though they consult thee on quite different things.  Thou answerest clearly, though all do not hear in clarity.  All take counsel of thee on whatever point they wish, though they do not always hear what they wish.  He is thy best servant who does not look to hear from thee what he himself wills, but who wills rather to will what he hears from thee.

　　CHAPTER XXVII

　　38.  Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee.  For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there.  Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made.  Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee.  These things kept me far from thee;

　　even though they were not at all unless they were in thee.  Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness.  Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness.  Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I

　　pant for thee.  I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst.  Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.

　　CHAPTER XXVIII

　　39.  When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then there will be no more pain and toil for me, and my life shall be a real life, being wholly filled by thee.  But since he whom thou fillest is the one thou liftest up, I am still a burden to myself because I am not yet filled by thee.  Joys of sorrow contend with sorrows of joy, and on which side the victory lies I do not know.

　　Woe is me!  Lord, have pity on me; my evil sorrows contend with my good joys, and on which side the victory lies I do not know.  Woe is me!  Lord, have pity on me.  Woe is me!  Behold, I

　　do not hide my wounds.  Thou art the Physician, I am the sick man;

　　thou art merciful, I need mercy.  Is not the life of man on earth an ordeal?  Who is he that wishes for vexations and difficulties?

　　Thou commandest them to be endured, not to be loved.  For no man loves what he endures, though he may love to endure.  Yet even if he rejoices to endure, he would prefer that there were nothing for him to endure.  In adversity, I desire prosperity; in prosperity, I fear adversity.  What middle place is there, then, between these two, where human life is not an ordeal?  There is woe in the prosperity of this world; there is woe in the fear of misfortune;

　　there is woe in the distortion of joy.  There is woe in the adversities of this world -- a second woe, and a third, from the desire of prosperity -- because adversity itself is a hard thing to bear and makes shipwreck of endurance.  Is not the life of man upon the earth an ordeal, and that without surcease?

　　CHAPTER XXIX

　　40.  My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy and that alone.  Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt.

　　Thou commandest continence from us, and when I knew, as it is said, that no one could be continent unless God gave it to him, even this was a point of wisdom to know whose gift it was.[346]

　　For by continence we are bound up and brought back together in the One, whereas before we were scattered abroad among the many.[347]

　　For he loves thee too little who loves along with thee anything else that he does not love for thy sake, O Love, who dost burn forever and art never quenched.  O Love, O my God, enkindle me!

　　Thou commandest continence; give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.

　　CHAPTER XXX

　　41.  Obviously thou commandest that I should be continent from "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life."[348]  Thou commandest me to abstain from fornication, and as for marriage itself, thou hast counseled something better than what thou dost allow.  And since thou gavest it, it was done -- even before I became a minister of thy sacrament.  But there still exist in my memory -- of which I have spoken so much -- the images of such things as my habits had fixed there.  These things rush into my thoughts with no power when I am awake; but in sleep they rush in not only so as to give pleasure, but even to obtain consent and what very closely resembles the deed itself.  Indeed, the illusion of the image prevails to such an extent, in both my soul and my flesh, that the illusion persuades me when sleeping to what the reality cannot do when I am awake.  Am I not myself at such a time, O Lord my God?  And is there so much of a difference between myself awake and myself in the moment when I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking?

　　Where, then, is the power of reason which resists such suggestions when I am awake -- for even if the things themselves be forced upon it I remain unmoved?  Does reason cease when the eyes close?  Is it put to sleep with the bodily senses?  But in that case how does it come to pass that even in slumber we often resist, and with our conscious purposes in mind, continue most chastely in them, and yield no assent to such allurements?  Yet there is at least this much difference: that when it happens otherwise in dreams, when we wake up, we return to peace of conscience.  And it is by this difference between sleeping and waking that we discover that it was not we who did it, while we still feel sorry that in some way it was done in us.

　　42.  Is not thy hand, O Almighty God, able to heal all the diseases of my soul and, by thy more and more abundant grace, to quench even the lascivious motions of my sleep?  Thou wilt increase thy gifts in me more and more, O Lord, that my soul may follow me to thee, wrenched free from the sticky glue of lust so that it is no longer in rebellion against itself, even in dreams;

　　that it neither commits nor consents to these debasing corruptions which come through sensual images and which result in the pollution of the flesh.  For it is no great thing for the Almighty, who is "able to do . . . more than we can ask or think,"[349] to bring it about that no such influence -- not even one so slight that a nod might restrain it -- should afford gratification to the feelings of a chaste person even when sleeping.  This could come to pass not only in this life but even at my present age.  But what I am still in this way of wickedness I have confessed unto my good Lord, rejoicing with trembling in what thou hast given me and grieving in myself for that in which I

　　am still imperfect.  I am trusting that thou wilt perfect thy mercies in me, to the fullness of that peace which both my inner and outward being shall have with thee when death is swallowed up in victory.[350]

　　CHAPTER XXXI

　　43.  There is yet another "evil of the day"[351] to which I

　　wish I were sufficient.  By eating and drinking we restore the daily losses of the body until that day when thou destroyest both food and stomach, when thou wilt destroy this emptiness with an amazing fullness and wilt clothe this corruptible with an eternal incorruption.  But now the necessity of habit is sweet to me, and against this sweetness must I fight, lest I be enthralled by it.

　　Thus I carry on a daily war by fasting, constantly "bringing my body into subjection,"[352] after which my pains are banished by pleasure.  For hunger and thirst are actual pain.  They consume and destroy like fever does, unless the medicine of food is at hand to relieve us.  And since this medicine at hand comes from the comfort we receive in thy gifts (by means of which land and water and air serve our infirmity), even our calamity is called pleasure.

　　44.  This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to take food as medicine.  But during that time when I pass from the pinch of emptiness to the contentment of fullness, it is in that very moment that the snare of appetite lies baited for me.  For the passage itself is pleasant; there is no other way of passing thither, and necessity compels us to pass.  And while health is the reason for our eating and drinking, yet a perilous delight joins itself to them as a handmaid; and indeed, she tries to take precedence in order that I may want to do for her sake what I say I want to do for health's sake.  They do not both have the same limit either.  What is sufficient for health is not enough for pleasure.  And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the needful care of the body that still calls for food or whether it is the sensual snare of desire still wanting to be served.  In this uncertainty my unhappy soul rejoices, and uses it to prepare an excuse as a defense.  It is glad that it is not clear as to what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure.

　　These temptations I daily endeavor to resist and I summon thy right hand to my help and cast my perplexities onto thee, for I

　　have not yet reached a firm conclusion in this matter.

　　45.  I hear the voice of my God commanding: "Let not your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness."[353]

　　Drunkenness is far from me.  Thou wilt have mercy that it does not come near me.  But "surfeiting" sometimes creeps upon thy servant.

　　Thou wilt have mercy that it may be put far from me.  For no man can be continent unless thou give it.[354]  Many things that we pray for thou givest us, and whatever good we receive before we prayed for it, we receive it from thee, so that we might afterward know that we did receive it from thee.  I never was a drunkard, but I have known drunkards made into sober men by thee.  It was also thy doing that those who never were drunkards have not been -- and likewise, it was from thee that those who have been might not remain so always.  And it was likewise from thee that both might know from whom all this came.

　　I heard another voice of thine: "Do not follow your lusts and refrain yourself from your pleasures."[355]  And by thy favor I

　　have also heard this saying in which I have taken much delight:

　　"Neither if we eat are we the better; nor if we eat not are we the worse."[356]  This is to say that neither shall the one make me to abound, nor the other to be wretched.  I heard still another voice: "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.  I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. . .

　　.  I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."[357]

　　See here a soldier of the heavenly army; not the sort of dust we are.  But remember, O Lord, "that we are dust"[358] and that thou didst create man out of the dust,[359] and that he "was lost, and is found."[360]  Of course, he [the apostle Paul] could not do all this by his own power.  He was of the same dust -- he whom I loved so much and who spoke of these things through the afflatus of thy inspiration: "I can," he said, "do all things through him who strengtheneth me." Strengthen me, that I too may be able.  Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.  This man [Paul]

　　confesses that he received the gift of grace and that, when he glories, he glories in the Lord.  I have heard yet another voice praying that he might receive.  "Take from me," he said, "the greediness of the belly."[361]  And from this it appears, O my holy God, that thou dost give it, when what thou commandest to be done is done.

　　46.  Thou hast taught me, good Father, that "to the pure all things are pure"[362]; but "it is evil for that man who gives offense in eating"[363]; and that "every creature of thine is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving"[364]; and that "meat does not commend us to God"[365]; and that "no man should judge us in meat or in drink."[366]  "Let not him who eats despise him who eats not, and let him that does not eat judge not him who does eat."[367]  These things I have learned, thanks and praise be to thee, O my God and Master, who knockest at my ears and enlightenest my heart.

　　Deliver me from all temptation!

　　It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the uncleanness of an incontinent appetite.  I know that permission was granted Noah to eat every kind of flesh that was good for food; that Elijah was fed with flesh; that John, blessed with a wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by the living creatures (that is, the locusts) on which he fed.  And I also know that Esau was deceived by his hungering after lentils and that David blamed himself for desiring water, and that our King was tempted not by flesh but by bread.  And, thus, the people in the wilderness truly deserved their reproof, not because they desired meat, but because in their desire for food they murmured against the Lord.

　　47.  Set down, then, in the midst of these temptations, I

　　strive daily against my appetite for food and drink.  For it is not the kind of appetite I am able to deal with by cutting it off once for all, and thereafter not touching it, as I was able to do with fornication.  The bridle of the throat, therefore, must be held in the mean between slackness and tightness.  And who, O

　　Lord, is he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the bounds of necessity?  Whoever he is, he is great; let him magnify thy name.  But I am not such a one, "for I am a sinful man."[368]

　　Yet I too magnify thy name, for he who hath "overcome the world"[369] intercedeth with thee for my sins, numbering me among the weak members of his body; for thy eyes did see what was imperfect in him, and in thy book all shall be written down.[370]

　　CHAPTER XXXII

　　48.  I am not much troubled by the allurement of odors.  When they are absent, I do not seek them; when they are present, I do not refuse them; and I am always prepared to go without them.  At any rate, I appear thus to myself; it is quite possible that I am deceived.  For there is a lamentable darkness in which my capabilities are concealed, so that when my mind inquires into itself concerning its own powers, it does not readily venture to believe itself, because what already is in it is largely concealed unless experience brings it to light.  Thus no man ought to feel secure in this life, the whole of which is called an ordeal, ordered so that the man who could be made better from having been worse may not also from having been better become worse.  Our sole hope, our sole confidence, our only assured promise, is thy mercy.