up, and kept up in its vigour, or even increased, into the kingdom of marriage. Nor was that wound of mine as yet cured which had been caused by the separation from my former mistress, but after inflammation and most acute anguish it mortified, and the pain became numbed, but more desperate. CALLED HIM, BELIEVING IN THE IMMORTALITY society might consist of ten persons, some of habit the disease of my soul might be nursed whom were very rich, especially Romanianus,' our townsman, an intimate friend of mine from his childhood, whom grave business matters had then brought up to Court; who was the most earnest of us all for this project, and whose voice was of great weight in commending it, because his estate was far more ample than that of the rest. We had arranged, too, that two officers should be chosen yearly, for the providing of CHAP. XVI.-THE FEAR OF DEATH AND JUDGMENT all necessary things, whilst the rest were left undisturbed. But when we began to reflect whether the wives which some of us had already, and others hoped to have, would permit this, all that plan, which was being so well framed, broke to 26. Unto Thee be praise, unto Thee be glory, pieces in our hands, and was utterly wrecked O Fountain of mercies! I became more wretched, and cast aside. Thence we fell again to sighs and Thou nearer. Thy right hand was ever and groans, and our steps to follow the broad ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to and beaten ways of the world; for many cleanse me, but I was ignorant of it. Nor did thoughts were in our heart, but Thy counsel standeth for ever. Out of which counsel Thou didst mock ours, and preparedst Thine own, purposing to give us meat in due season, and to open Thy hand, and to fill our souls with blessing." CHAP. XV.-HE DISMISSES ONE MISTRESS, AND 25. Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding. And she went back to Africa, making a vow unto Thee never to know another man, leaving with me my natural son by her. But I, unhappy one, who could not imitate a woman, impatient of delay, since it was not until two years' time I was to obtain her I sought, being not so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust,-procured another (not a wife, though), that so by the bondage of a lasting 1 Romanianus was a relation of Alypius (Aug. Ep. 27, ad Paulin.), of talent which astonished Augustin himself (C. Acad. i. 1, ii. 1), | "surrounded by affluence from early youth, and snatched by what are thought adverse circumstances from the absorbing whirlpools of life" (ibid.). Augustin frequently mentions his great wealth, as also this vexatious suit, whereby he was harassed (C. Acad. i. 1, ii. 1, 2), and which so clouded his mind that his talents were almost unknown (C. Acad. ii. 2); as also his very great kindness to himself, when," as a poor lad, setting out to foreign study, he had received him in his house, supported and (yet more) encouraged him; when deprived of his father, comforted, animated, aided him; when returning to Carthage, in pursuit of a higher employment, supplied him with all necessaries." "Lastly," says Augustin, "whatever ease I now enjoy, that I have escaped the bonds of useless desires, that, laying aside the weight of dead cares, I breathe, recover, return to myself, that with all earnestness I am seeking the truth [Augustin wrote this the year before his baptism], that I am attaining it, that I trust wholly to arrive at it, you encouraged, impelled, effected" (C. Acad. ii. 2). Augustin had "cast him headlong with himself" (as so many other of his friends) into the Manichæan heresy (ibid. i. sec. 3), and it is to be hoped that he extricated him with himself; but we only learn positively that he continued to be fond of the works of Augustin (Ep. 27), whereas in that which he dedicated to him (C. Acad.), Augustin writes very doubtingly to him, and afterwards recommends him to Paulinus, "to be cured wholly or in part by his conversation" (Ep. 27).—E. B. P. Matt. vii. 13. 3 Ps. xxxiii. 11. 4 Ps. cxlv. 15, 16. anything recall me from a yet deeper abyss of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death and of Thy future judgment, which, amid all my fluctuations of opinion, never left my breast. And in disputing with my friends, Alypius and Nebridius, concerning the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus had, in my judgment, won the palm, had I not believed that after death there remained a life for the soul, and places of recompense, which Epicurus would not believe. And I demanded, "Supposing us to be immortal, and to be living in the enjoyment of perpetual bodily pleasure, and that without any fear of losing it, why, then, should we not be happy, or why should we search for anything else?"-not knowing that even this very thing was a part of my great misery, that, being thus sunk and blinded, I could not discern that light 5 In his De Natura Con. Manich, he has the same idea. He is speaking of the evil that has no pain, and remarks: "Likewise in the body, better is a wound with pain than putrefaction without pain, bodied in the extract from Caird's Sermons, on p. 5, note 7. which is specially styled corruption;" and the same idea is em 6 The ethics of Epicurus were a modified Hedonism (Diog. Laërt. De Vitis, etc., x. 123). With him the earth was a congeries of atoms (ibid. 38, 40), which atoms existed from eternity, and formed themselves, uninfluenced by the gods. The soul he held to be material. It was diffused through the body, and was in its nature somewhat like air. At death it was resolved into its original atoms, when the being ceased to exist (ibid. 63, 64). Hence death was a matter of indifference to man [o bavaros ouder пpòs quâs, ibid. 124, etc.]. In that great upheaval after the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the various ancient philosophies were revived. This of Epicurus was disentombed and, as it were, vitalized by Gassendi, in the beginning of the seventeenth century; and it has a special importance from its bearing on the physical theories and investigations of modern times. Archer Butler, adverting to the inadequacy of the chief philosophical schools to satisfy the wants of the age in the early days of the planting of Christianity (Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, ii. 333), says of the Epicurean: "Its popularity was unquestioned; its adaptation to a luxurious age could not be doubted. But it was not formed to satisfy the wants of the time, however it might minister to its pleasures. It was, indeed, as it still continues to be, the tacit philosophy of the careless, and might thus number a larger army of disciples than any contemporary system. But its supremacy existed only when it estimated numbers, it ceased when tried by weight. The eminent men of Rome were often its avowed favourers; but they were for the most part men eminent in arms and statesmanship, rather than the influential directors of the world of speculation. Nor could the admirable poetic art of Lucretius, or the still more attractive ease of Horace, confer such strength or dignity upon the system as to enable it to compete with the new and mysterious elements now upon all sides gathering into conflict." of honour and beauty to be embraced for its and I knew myself to be loved of them again own sake,' which cannot be seen by the eye of for my own sake. O crooked ways! Woe to the flesh, it being visible only to the inner man. the audacious soul which hoped that, if it forNor did I, unhappy one, consider out of what sook Thee, it would find some better thing! vein it emanated, that even these things, loath- It hath turned and re-turned, on back, sides, some as they were, I with pleasure discussed with and belly, and all was hard,' and Thou alone my friends. Nor could I, even in accordance rest. And behold, Thou art near, and deliverwith my then notions of happiness, make myself est us from our wretched wanderings, and stabhappy without friends, amid no matter how lishest us in Thy way, and dost comfort us, and great abundance of carnal pleasures. And these say, "Run; I will carry you, yea, I will lead friends assuredly I loved for their own sakes, you, and there also will I carry you." 1 See viii. sec. 17, note, below. 3 See above, iv. cc. 1, 10, and 12. BOOK VII. HE RECALLS THE BEGINNING OF HIS YOUTH, i. e. THE THIRTY-FIRST YEAR OF HIS AGE, IN WHICH VERY GRAVE ERRORS AS TO THE NATURE OF GOD AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL BEING DISTINGUISHED, AND THE SACRED BOOKS MORE ACCURATELY KNOWN, HE AT LENGTH ARRIVES AT A CLEAR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, NOT YET RIGHTLY APPREHENDING JESUS CHRIST. CHAP. I.—HE REGARDED NOT GOD INDEED UNDER | removed from its place and the place should THE FORM OF A HUMAN BODY, BUT AS A COR- remain empty of any body at all, whether POREAL SUBSTANCE DIFFUSED THROUGH SPACE. earthy, terrestrial, watery, aerial, or celestial, but should remain a void I. DEAD now was that evil and abominable place—a spacious nothing, as it were. youth of mine, and I was passing into early manhood: as I increased in years, the fouler 2. I therefore being thus gross-hearted, nor became I in vanity, who could not conceive of clear even to myself, whatsoever was not stretched over certain spaces, nor diffused, nor any substance but such as I saw with my Own eyes. I thought not of Thee, O God, under crowded together, nor swelled out, or which the form of a human body. Since the time I did not or could not receive some of these dibegan to hear something of wisdom, I always mensions, I judged to be altogether nothing." avoided this; and I rejoiced to have found the For over such forms as my eyes are wont to same in the faith of our spiritual mother, Thy range did my heart then range; nor did I see Catholic Church. But what else to imagine those same images, was not of this kind, and that this same observation, by which I formed Thee I knew not. And I, a man, and such a man, sought to conceive of Thee, the sovereign yet it could not have formed them had not itand only true God; and I did in my inmost self been something great. In like manner did heart believe that Thou wert incorruptible, and conceive of Thee, Life of my life, as vast inviolable, and unchangeable; because, not through infinite spaces, on every side penetratknowing whence or how, yet most plainly did I ing the whole mass of the world, and beyond see and feel sure that that which may be cor-. it, all ways, through immeasurable and boundless rupted must be worse than that which cannot, spaces; so that the earth should have Thee, and what cannot be violated did I without hesi- the heaven have Thee, all things have Thee, tation prefer before that which can, and deemed and they bounded in Thee, but Thou nowhere. that which suffers no change to be better than For as the body of this air which is above the that which is changeable. Violently did my earth preventeth not the light of the sun from heart cry out against all my phantasms, and passing through it, penetrating it, not by burstwith this one blow I endeavoured to beat awaying or by cutting, but by filling it entirely, so from the eye of my mind all that unclean crowd which fluttered around it.' And lo, being scarce put off, they, in the twinkling of an eye, pressed in multitudes around me, dashed against my face, and beclouded it; so that, though I thought not of Thee under the form of a human body, yet was I constrained to image Thee to be something corporeal in space, either infused into the world, or infinitely diffused beyond it, -even that incorruptible, inviolable, and unchangeable, which I preferred to the corruptible, and violable, and changeable; since whatsoever I conceived, deprived of this space, appeared as nothing to me, yea, altogether nothing, not even a void, as if a body were 1 See iii. sec. 12, iv. secs. 3 and 12, and v. sec. 19, above. I imagined the body, not of heaven, air, and sea only, but of the earth also, to be pervious 2" For with what understanding can man apprehend God, who does not yet apprehend that very understanding itself of his own by which he desires to apprehend Him? And if he does already appre hend this, let him carefully consider that there is nothing in his own nature better than it; and let him see whether he can there see any outlines of forms, or brightness of colours, or greatness of space, or distance of parts, or extension of size, or any movements through intervals of place, or any such thing at all. Certainly we find nothing of all this in that, than which we find nothing better in our own nature, that is, in our own intellect, by which we apprehend wisdom according to our capacity. What, therefore, we do not find in that, which is our own best, we ought not to seek in Him, who is far better than that best of ours; that so we may understand God, if we are able, and as much as we are able, as good without quality, great without quantity, a Creator though He lack nothing, ruling but from no position, sustaining all things without having them, in His wholeness everywhere yet without place, eternal without time, making things that are changeable without change of Himself, and without passion. Whoso thus thinks of God, although he cannot yet find out in all ways what He is, yet piously takes heed, as much as he is able, to think nothing of Him that He is not."-De Trin. v. 2. to Thee, and in all its greatest parts as well as smallest penetrable to receive Thy presence, by a secret inspiration, both inwardly and outwardly governing all things which Thou hast created. So I conjectured, because I was unable to think of anything else; for it was untrue. For in this way would a greater part of the earth contain a greater portion of Thee, and the less a lesser; and all things should so be full of Thee, as that the body of an elephant should contain more of Thee than that of a sparrow by how much larger it is, and occupies more room; and so shouldest Thou make the portions of Thyself present unto the several portions of the world, in pieces, great to the great, little to the little. But Thou art not such a one; nor hadst Thou as yet enlightened my darkness. CHAP. II. THE DISPUTATION OF NEBRIDIUS enough against those who wholly merited to be vomited forth from the surfeited stomach, since they had no means of escape without horrible sacrilege, both of heart and tongue, thinking and speaking such things of Thee. CHAP. III.-THAT THE CAUSE OF EVIL IS THE firmly persuaded, that Thou our Lord, the true him to the true faith. Again, in his De Moribus (sec. 25), where he examines the answers which had been given, he commences: "For this gives rise to the question, which used to throw us into great perplexity, even when we were your zealous disciples, nor could we find any answer,-what the race of darkness would have done to God, supposing He had refused to fight with it at the cost of such calamity to part of Himself. For if God would not have suffered any loss by remaining quiet, we thought it hard that we had been sent to endure so much. Again, if He would have suffered, His nature cannot have been incorruptible, as it behooves the nature of God to be." We have already, in the note to book iv. sec. 26, call for further elucidation. The following passage, quoted by referred to some of the matters touched on in this section; but they Augustin from Manichæus himself (Con. Ep. Manich. 19), discloses to us (1) their ideas as to the nature and position of the two kingdoms: "In one direction, on the border of this bright and holy region, there was a land of darkness, deep and vast in extent, where abode fiery bodies, destructive races. Here was boundless darkness flowing from the same source in immeasurable abundance, with the productions properly belonging to it. Beyond this were muddy, turbid waters, with their inhabitants; and inside of them winds terrible and violent, with their prince and their progenitors. " where abode the dreadful prince and chief of all, having around him innumerable princes, himself the mind and source of them all. Such are the five natures of the region of corruption. Augustin also designates them (ibid. sec. 20) "the five dens of the race of darkness."" The nation of darkness desires to possess the kingdom of light, and prepares to make war upon it; and in the controversy with Faustus we have (2) the beginning and issue of the war (Con. Faust. ii. 3; see also De Hares, 46). Augustin says: "You dress the race of light, to war with the race of darkness, armed with his up for our benefit some wonderful First Man, who came down from waters against the waters of the enemy, and with his fire against their fire, and with his winds against their winds." And again (ibid. sec. 5): "You say that he mingled with the principles of these principles the world might be made out of the mixture. So darkness in his conflict with the race of darkness, that by capturing that, by your profane fancies, Christ is not only mingled with heaven and all the stars, but conjoined and compounded with the 3. It was sufficient for me, O Lord, to oppose to those deceived deceivers and dumb praters (dumb, since Thy word sounded not forth from them) that which a long while ago, while we were at Carthage, Nebridius used to propound, at which all we who heard it were disturbed: "What could that reputed nation of darkness, which the Manichæans are in the habit of setting up as a mass opposed to Thee, have done unto Thee hadst Thou objected to fight with it? For had it been answered, 'It would have done Then, again, a fiery region of destruction, with its chiefs and peoThee some injury,' then shouldest Thou be sub-ples. And similarly inside of this, a race full of smoke and gloom, ject to violence and corruption; but if the reply were: 'It could do Thee no injury,' then was no cause assigned for Thy fighting with it; and so fighting as that a certain portion and member of Thee, or offspring of Thy very substance, should be blended with adverse powers and natures not of Thy creation, and be by them corrupted and deteriorated to such an extent as to be turned from happiness into misery, and need help whereby it might be delivered and purged; and that this offspring of Thy sub-earth and all its productions,-a Saviour no more, but needing to stance was the soul, to which, being enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted, Thy word, free, pure, and entire, might bring succour; but yet also the word itself being corruptible, because it was from one and the same substance. So that should they affirm Thee, whatsoever Thou art, that is, Thy substance whereby Thou art, to be incorruptible, then were all these assertions false and execrable; but if corruptible, then that were false, and at the first utterance to be abhorred." This argument, then, was 1 Similar arguments are made use of in his controversy with Fortunatus (Dis. fi. 5), where he says, that as Fortunatus could find no answer, so neither could he when a Manichæan, and that this led be saved by you, by your eating and disgorging Him. This foolish custom of making your disciples bring you food, that your teeth and stomach may be the means of relieving Christ, who is bound that Christ is liberated in this way,-not, however, entirely; for up in it, is a consequence of your profane fancies. You declare you hold that some tiny particles of no value still remain in the excrement, to be mixed up and compounded again and again in various material forms, and to be released and purified at any rate by the fire in which the world will be burned up, if not before. Nay, even then, you say, Christ is not entirely liberated, but some extreme particles of His good and divine nature, which have been so defiled that they cannot be cleansed, are condemned to stay for ever in the mass of darkness." The result of this commingling of the light with the darkness was, that a certain portion and member of God was turned "from happiness into misery," and placed in bondage in the world, and was in need of help whereby it might be delivered and purged." (See also Con. Fortunat. i. 1.) Reference may be made (3), for information as to the method by which the divine substance was released in the eating of the elect, to the notes on book iii. sec. 18, above; and for the influence of the sun and moon in accomplishing that release, to the note on book v. sec. 12, above. should become the thing that I was seeking out. I sought, therefore, for it free from care, certain of the untruthfulness of what these asserted, whom I shunned with my whole heart; for I perceived that through seeking after the origin of evil, they were filled with malice, in that they liked better to think that Thy Substance did suffer evil than that their own did commit it.' 5. And I directed my attention to discern what I now heard, that free will' was the cause of our doing evil, and Thy righteous judgment of our suffering it. But I was unable clearly to discern it. So, then, trying to draw the eye of my mind from that pit, I was plunged again therein, and trying often, was as often plunged back again. But this raised me towards Thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will as that I had life: when, therefore, I was willing or unwilling to do anything, I was most certain that it was none but myself that was willing and unwilling; and immediately I perceived that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will I saw that I suffered rather than did, and that judged I not to be my fault, but my punishment; whereby, believing Thee to be most just, I quickly confessed myself to be not unjustly punished. But again I said: "Who made me? Was it not my God, who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence came I then to will to do evil, and to be unwilling to do good, that there might be cause for my just punishment? Who was it that put this in me, and implanted in me the root of bitterness, seeing I was altogether made by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, whence is that devil? And if he also, by his own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence also was the evil will in him whereby he became a devil, seeing that the angel was made altogether good by that most good Creator?" By these reflections was I again cast down and stifled; yet not plunged into that hell of error (where no man confesseth unto Thee), to think that Thou dost suffer evil, rather than that man doth it. is to be preferred to the corruptible (like as I CHAP. V.-QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF EVIL IN REGARD TO GOD, WHO, SINCE HE IS 7. And I sought "whence is evil?" And sought in an evil way; nor saw I the evil in my very search. And I set in order before the view of my spirit the whole creation, and whatever we can discern in it, such as earth, sea, air, stars, trees, living creatures; yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, all the angels, too, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof. But these very beings, as though they were bodies, did my fancy dispose in such and such places, and I made one huge mass of all Thy creatures, distinguished according to the kinds of bodies,-some of them being real bodies, some what I myself had feigned for spirits. And this mass I made huge,—not as it was, which I could not know, but as large as I thought well, yet every way finite. But Thee, O Lord, I imagined on every part environing 6. For I was so struggling to find out the and penetrating it, though every way infinite; rest, as having already found that what was as if there were a sea everywhere, and on every incorruptible must be better than the corrupti- side through immensity nothing but an infinite ble; and Thee, therefore, whatsoever Thou sea; and it contained within itself some sponge, wert, did I acknowledge to be incorruptible. For huge, though finite, so that the sponge would never yet was, nor will be, a soul able to con- in all its parts be filled from the immeasurable ceive of anything better than Thou, who art the highest and best good. But whereas most truly and certainly that which is incorruptible CHAP. IV.—THAT GOD IS NOT CORRUPTIBLE, WHO, IF HE WERE, WOULD NOT BE GOD AT ALL. 1 See iv. sec. 26, note, above. See iii. sec. 12, note, and iv. sec. 26, note, above. sea. So conceived I Thy creation to be itself finite, and filled by Thee, the Infinite. And I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created; and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better than all these; but yet He, who is good, hath created them good, and |