1 BOOK III. OF THE SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINETEENTH YEARS OF HIS AGE, PASSED AT CARTHAGE, WHEN, HAVING COMPLETED HIS COURSE OF STUDIES, HE IS CAUGHT IN THE SNARES OF A LICENTIOUS PASSION, AND FALLS INTO THE ERRORS OF THE MANICHEANS. CHAP. I.-DELUDED BY AN INSANE LOVE, HE, THOUGH FOUL AND DISHONOURABLE, DESIRES TO BE THOUGHT ELEGANT AND URBANE. 1. To Carthage I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me. I loved not as yet, yet I loved to love; and, with 'a hidden want, I abhorred myself that I wanted not. I searched about for something to love, in love with loving, and hating security, and a way not beset with snares. For within me I had a dearth of that inward food, Thyself, my God, though that dearth caused me no hunger; but I remained without all desire for incorruptible food, not because I was already filled thereby, but the more empty I was the more I loathed it. For this reason my soul was far from well, and, full of ulcers, it miserably cast itself forth, craving to be excited by contact with objects Yet, had these no soul, they would not surely inspire love. To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved. I befouled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I dimmed its lustre with the hell of lustfulness; and yet, foul and dishonourable as I was, I craved, through an excess of vanity, to be thought elegant and urbane. I fell precipitately, then, into the love in which I longed to be ensnared. My God, my mercy, with how much bitterness didst Thou, out of Thy infinite goodness, besprinkle of sense. for me that sweetness! For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was joyfully bound with troublesome ties, that I might be scourged with the burning iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and strife. CHAP. II.—IN PUBLIC SPECTACLES HE IS MOVED BY AN EMPTY COMPASSION. HE IS ATTACKED BY A TROUBLESOME SPIRITUAL DISEASE. 2. Stage-plays also drew me away, full of representations of my miseries and of fuel to my fire. Why does man like to be made sad 1 The early Fathers strongly reprobated stage-plays, and those who went to them were excluded from baptism. This is not to be wondered at, when we learn that "even the laws of Rome prohibited actors from being enrolled as citizens" (De Civ_Dei, ii. 14), and that they were accounted infamous (Tertullian, De Spectac. sec. xxii.). See also Tertullian, De Pudicitia, c. vii. when viewing doleful and tragical scenes, which yet he himself would by no means suffer? And yet he wishes, as a spectator, to experience from them a sense of grief, and in this very grief his pleasure consists. What is this but wretched insanity? For a man is more affected with these actions, the less free he is from such affections. Howsoever, when he suffers in his own person, it is the custom to style it "misery;" but when he compassionates others, then is it that arises from fictitious and scenic pasit is styled "mercy. But what kind of mercy sions? The hearer is not expected to relieve, but merely invited to grieve; and the more he grieves, the more he applauds the actor of these fictions. And if the misfortunes of the charac ters (whether of olden times or merely imaginary) be so represented as not to touch the feelings of the spectator, he goes away disgusted and censorious; but if his feelings be touched, he sits it out attentively, and sheds tears of joy. 3. Are sorrows, then, also loved? Surely all men desire to rejoice? Or, as man wishes to be miserable, is he, nevertheless, glad to be merciful, which, because it cannot exist without passion, for this cause alone are passions loved? This also is from that vein of friendship. But Wherefore runs it into that torrent of pitch,3 whither does it go? Whither does it flow? lusts into which it is changed and transformed, seething forth those huge tides of loathsome being of its own will cast away and corrupted from its celestial clearness? Shall, then, mercy be repudiated? By no means. Let us, therefore, love sorrows sometimes. But beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the protection of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased to have compassion; but then in the theatres I sympathized with lovers when they sinfully enjoyed one another, although this was son with my fault, O Thou my greatest mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible hurts, among which I wandered with presumptuous neck, receding farther from Thee, loving my own ways, and not Thine-loving a vagrant liberty. done fictitiously in the play. And when they lost one another, I grieved with them, as if pitying them, and yet had delight in both. But now-a-days I feel much more pity for him that delighteth in his wickedness, than for him who is counted as enduring hardships by failing to obtain some pernicious pleasure, and the loss 6. Those studies, also, which were accounted of some miserable felicity. This, surely, is the honourable, were directed towards the courts truer mercy, but grief hath no delight in it. of law; to excel in which, the more crafty. For though he that condoles with the unhappy I was, the more I should be praised. Such be approved for his office of charity, yet would is the blindness of men, that they even glory he who had real compassion rather there were in their blindness. And now I was head in nothing for him to grieve about. For if good- the School of Rhetoric, whereat I rejoiced will be ill-willed (which it cannot), then can he proudly, and became inflated with arrogance, who is truly and sincerely commiserating wish though more sedate, O Lord, as Thou knowest, that there should be some unhappy ones, that and altogether removed from the subvertings of he might commiserate them. Some grief may those "subverters" (for this stupid and diathen be justified, none loved. For thus dost bolical name was held to be the very brand of Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more gallantry) amongst whom I lived, with an impupurely than do we, and art more incorruptibly dent shamefacedness that I was not even as they compassionate, although Thou art wounded by were. And with them I was, and at times I no sorrow. "And who is sufficient for these was delighted with their friendship whose acts things? I ever abhorred, that is, their "subverting," 4. But I, wretched one, then loved to grieve, wherewith they insolently attacked the modesty and sought out what to grieve at, as when, of strangers, which they disturbed by uncalled in another man's misery, though feigned and for jeers, gratifying thereby their mischievous counterfeited, that delivery of the actor best mirth. Nothing can more nearly resemble the pleased me, and attracted me the most power-actions of devils than these. By what name, fully, which moved me to tears. What mar- therefore, could they be more truly called than vel was it that an unhappy sheep, straying from "subverters"?-being themselves subverted Thy flock, and impatient of Thy care, I be- first, and altogether perverted-being secretly came infected with a foul disease? And hence mocked at and seduced by the deceiving spirits, came my love of griefs-not such as should in what they themselves delight to jeer at and probe me too deeply, for I loved not to deceive others. suffer such things as I loved to look upon, but such as, when hearing their fictions, should lightly affect the surface; upon which, like as with empoisoned nails, followed burning, swelling, putrefaction, and horrible corruption. Such was my life! But was it life, O my God? CHAP. IV.-IN THE NINETEENTH 66 YEAR OF HIS AGE (HIS FATHER HAVING DIED TWO YEARS BETTER MODE OF THINKING. 7. Among such as these, at that unstable ✦ CHAP. III.—NOT EVEN WHEN AT CHURCH DOES period of my life, I studied books of eloquence, HE SUPPRESS HIS DESIRES. IN THE SCHOOL OF wherein I was eager to be eminent from a damRHETORIC HE ABHORS THE ACTS OF THE SUB-nable and inflated purpose, even a delight in VERTERS. human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I lighted upon a certain book of Cicero, whose language, though not his heart, almost all admire. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius. This book, in truth, changed my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord, and made me have other hopes and desires. Worthless suddenly became every vain hope to me; and, with an incredible warmth of heart, Í 5. And Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon what unseemly iniquities did I wear myself out, following a sacrilegious curiosity, that, having deserted Thee, it might drag me into the treacherous abyss, and to the beguiling obedience of devils, unto whom I immolated my wicked deeds, and in all which Thou didst scourge me! I dared, even while Thy solemn rites were being celebrated within the walls of Thy church, to desire, and to plan a business sufficient to procure me the fruits of death; for which Thou chastisedst me with grievous punishments, but nothing in compari-tious alike in speech and action. Augustin names them again, De 12 Cor. ii. 16. 2 Eversores. "These for their boldness were like our Roarers,' and for their jeering like the worser sort of those that would be called 'The Wits.""-W. W. "This appears to have been a name which a pestilent and savage set of persons gave themselves, licen Vera Relig. c. 40; Ep. 185 ad Bonifac. c. 4; and below, v. c. 12; whence they seemed to have consisted mainly of Carthaginian students, whose savage life is mentioned again, ib. c. 8."-E. B. P. yearned for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise that I might return to Thee. Not, then, to improve my language-which I appeared to be purchasing with my mother's means, in that my nineteenth year, my father having died two years before-not to improve my language did I have recourse to that book; nor did it persuade me by its style, but its matter. 5 into it, or bend my neck to follow its steps. For not as when now I speak did I feel when I turned towards those Scriptures, but they appeared to me to be unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully; for my inflated pride shunned their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit pierce their inner meaning. Yet, truly, were they such as would develope in little ones; but I scorned to be a little one, and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as a great one. FALLS INTO THE ERRORS OF THE MANICHEANS, OF 8. How ardent was I then, my God, how ardent to fly from earthly things to Thee! Nor did I know how Thou wouldst deal with me. For with Thee is wisdom. In Greek the love of wisdom is called "philosophy," with which CHAP. VI.-DECEIVED BY HIS OWN FAULT, HE that book inflamed me. There be some who seduce through philosophy, under a great, and alluring, and honourable name colouring and adorning their own errors. And almost all who in that and former times were such, are in that book censured and pointed out. There is also disclosed that most salutary admonition of Thy Spirit, by Thy good and pious servant: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."4 And since at that time (as Thou, O Light of my heart, knowest) the words of the apostle were unknown to me, I was delighted with that exhortation, in so far only as I was thereby stimulated, and enkindled, and inflamed to love, seek, obtain, hold, and embrace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, whatever it were; and this alone checked me thus ardent, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according to Thy mercy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Thy Son, had my tender heart piously drunk in, deeply treasured even with my mother's milk; and whatsoever was without that name, though never so erudite, polished, and truthful, took not complete hold of me. 10. Therefore I fell among men proudly raving, very carnal, and voluble, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil-the birdlime being composed of a mixture of the syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter." These names departed not out of their mouths, but so far forth as the sound only and the clatter of the tongue, for the heart was empty of truth. Still they cried, "Truth, Truth," and spoke much about it to me, “yet was it not in them;" but they spake falsely not of Thee only-who, verily, art the Truth but also of these elements of this world, Thy Psaumes. Ja tures before and after his conversion, it is interesting to recall 6 That is probably the "spiritual" meaning on which Ambrose (vi. 6, below) laid so much emphasis. How different is the attitude of mind indicated in xi. 3 from the spiritual pride which beset him at this period of his life! When converted he became as a little child, and ever looked to God as a Father, from whom he must receive both light and strength. He speaks, on Ps. cxlvi., of the Scriptures, which were plain to " the little ones," being obscured to the mocking spirit of the Manichæans. See also below, iii. 14, note. 7 So, in Book xxii. sec. 13 of his reply to Faustus, he charges them with " professing to believe the New Testament in order to entrap the unwary; " and again, in sec. 15, he says: "They claim the impious liberty of holding and teaching, that whatever they deem favourable to their heresy was said by Christ and the apostles; while they have the profane boldness to say, that whatever in the same writings is unfavourable to them is a spurious interpolation "* They professed to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, but affirmed (ibid. xx. 6) “that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air." It was this employment of the phraseology of Scripture to convey doctrines utterly unscriptural that rendered their teaching such a snare to the unwary. See also below, v. 12, note. 81 John ii. 4. 11. Where, then, wert Thou then to me, and how far from me? Far, indeed, was I wandering away from Thee, being even shut out from the very husks of the swine, whom with husks fables of the grammarians and poets than these snares! For verses, and poems, and Medea flying, are more profitable truly than these men's five elements, variously painted, to answer to the five caves of darkness, none of which exist, and which slay the believer. For verses and poems I can turn into true food, but the creatures. And I, in truth, should have passed amongst Thy greatest works. How far, then, by philosophers, even when speaking truth con- art Thou from those phantasies of mine, phancerning them, for love of Thee, my Father, tasies of bodies which are not at all, than which supremely good, beauty of all things beautiful! the images of those bodies which are, are more O Truth, Truth! how inwardly even then did certain, and still more certain the bodies themthe marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when selves, which yet Thou art not; nay, nor yet they frequently, and in a multiplicity of ways, the soul, which is the life of the bodies. Better, and in numerous and huge books, sounded out then, and more certain is the life of bodies than Thy name to me, though it was but a voice! the bodies themselves. But Thou art the life And these were the dishes in which to me, hun- of souls, the life of lives, having life in Thygering for Thee, they, instead of Thee, served self; and Thou changest not, O Life of my soul. up the sun and moon, Thy beauteous works— but yet Thy works, not Thyself, nay, nor Thy first works. For before these corporeal works are Thy spiritual ones, celestial and shining though they be. But I hungered and thirsted I fed. For how much better, then, are the not even after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the Truth, "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" yet they still served up to me in those dishes glowing phantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun (which, at least, is true to our sight), than those illusions which deceive the mind through the eye. And yet, because I supposed them to be Thee, I fed upon them; not with avidity, for Thou didst not taste to my mouth as Thou art, for Thou wast not these empty fictions; neither was I nourished by them, but the rather exhausted. Food in our sleep appears like our food awake; yet the sleepers are not nourished by it, for they are asleep. But those things were not in any way like unto Thee as Thou hast now spoken unto me, in that those were corporeal phantasies, false bodies, than which these true bodies, whether celestial or terrestrial, which we perceive with our fleshly sight, are much more certain. These things the very beasts and birds perceive as well as we, and they are more certain than when we imagine them. And again, we do with more certainty imagine them, than by them conceive of other greater and infinite bodies which have no existence. With such empty husks was I then fed, and was not fed. But Thou, my Love, in looking for whom I fail that I may be strong, art neither those bodies that we see, although in heaven, nor art Thou those which we see not there; for Thou hast created them, nor dost Thou reckon them 1There was something peculiarly enthralling to an ardent mind like Augustin's in the Manichæan system. That system was kindred in many ways to modern Rationalism. Reason was exalted at the expense of faith. Nothing was received on mere authority, and the disciple's inner consciousness was the touchstone of truth. The result of this is well pointed out by Augustin (Con. Faust, xxxii. sec. 19); "Your design, clearly, is to deprive Scripture of all authority, and to make every man's mind the judge what passage of Scripture he is to approve of, and what to disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture in matters of faith, but to make Scripture subject to you. Instead of making the high authority of Scripture the reason of approval, every man makes his approval the reason for thinking a passage correct." Compare also Con. Faust, xi. sec. 2, and xxxii. sec. 16. Jas. i. 17. Medea flying," though I sang, I maintained it not; though I heard it sung, I believed it not; but those things I did believe. Woe, woe, by what steps was I dragged down "to the depths of hell!"-toiling and turmoiling through want of Truth, when I sought after Thee, my God,-to Thee I confess it, who hadst mercy on me when I had not yet confessed,-sought after Thee not according to the understanding of the mind, in which Thou desiredst that I should excel the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh! Thou wert more inward to me than my most inward part; and higher than my highest. I came upon that bold woman, who "is simple, and knoweth nothing," the enigma of Solomon, sitting "at the door of the house on a seat,' and saying, "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' This woman seduced me, because she found my soul beyond its portals, dwelling in the eye of my flesh, and thinking on such food as through it I had devoured. CHAP. VII.-HE ATTACKS THE DOCTRINE OF THE 12. For I was ignorant as to that which really is, and was, as it were, violently moved to give 4 Luke xv. 16; and see below, vi. sec. 3, note. 6" Of this passage St. Augustin is probably speaking when he to Prov. ix. 14, 17. Such my support to foolish deceivers, when they servant take something in his hand which the asked me, "Whence is evil?" and, "Is butler is not permitted to touch, or something God limited by a bodily shape, and has He done behind a stable which would be prohibited hairs and nails?"-and, "Are they to be es- in the dining-room, and should be indignant teemed righteous who had many wives at once, that in one house, and one family, the same and did kill men, and sacrificed living crea- thing is not distributed everywhere to all. tures?" At which things I, in my ignorance, are they who cannot endure to hear something was much disturbed, and, retreating from the to have been lawful for righteous men in former truth, I appeared to myself to be going towards times which is not so now; or that God, for it; because as yet I knew not that evil was certain temporal reasons, commanded them one naught but a privation of good, until in the thing, and these another, but both obeying the end it ceases altogether to be; which how same righteousness; though they see, in one should I see, the sight of whose eyes saw no man, one day, and one house, different things further than bodies, and of my mind no further to be fit for different members, and a thing than a phantasm? And I knew not God to be which was formerly lawful after a time unlawful a Spirit, not one who hath parts extended in length and breadth, nor whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the whole, and, if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is limited by a certain space than in its infinity; and cannot be wholly everywhere, as Spirit, as God is. And what that should be in us, by which we were like unto God, and might rightly in Scripture be said to be after "the image of God," I was entirely ignorant. that permitted or commanded in one corner, which done in another is justly prohibited and punished. Is justice, then, various and changeable? Nay, but the times over which she presides are not all alike, because they are times." But men, whose days upon the earth are few, because by their own perception they cannot harmonize the causes of former ages and other nations, of which they had no experience, with these of which they have experience, though in one and the same body, day, or family, they can readily see what is suitable for each member, season, part, and person-to the one they take exception, to the other they submit. 13. Nor had I knowledge of that true inner righteousness, which doth not judge according to custom, but out of the most perfect law of God Almighty, by which the manners of places and times were adapted to those places and 14. These things I then knew not, nor obtimes-being itself the while the same always served. They met my eyes on every side, and and everywhere, not one thing in one place, I saw them not. I composed poems, in which and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and all those commended by the mouth of God were righteous, but were judged unrighteous by foolish men, judging out of man's judgment, and gauging by the petty standard of their own manners the manners of the whole human race. Like as if in an armoury, one knowing not what were adapted to the several members should put greaves on his head, or boot himself with a helmet, and then complain because they would not fit. Or as if, on some day when in the afternoon business was forbidden, one were to fume at not being allowed to sell as it was lawful to him in the forenoon. Or when in some house he sees a 1 The strange mixture of the pensive philosophy of Persia with Gnosticism and Christianity, propounded by Manichæus, attempted to solve this question, which was "the great object of heretical inquiry" (Mansel's Gnostics, lec. i.). It was Augustin's desire for knowledge concerning it that united him to this sect, and which also led him to forsake it, when he found therein nothing but empty fables (De Lib. Arb. i. sec. 4). Manichæus taught that evil and good were primeval, and had independent existences. Augustin, on the other hand, maintains that it was not possible for evil so to exist (De Civ. Dei, xi. sec. 22), but, as he here states, evil is "a privation of good.' The evil will has a causa deficiens, but not a causa efficiens (ibid. xii. 6), as is exemplified in the fall of the angels. 1 Kings xviii. 40. 3 John iv. 24. 4 Gen. i. 27; see vi. sec. 4, note. 5 Heb. xi. 8-40. 61 Cor. iv. 3. it was not permitted me to place every foot everywhere, but in one metre one way, and in another another, nor even in any one verse the same foot in all places. Yet the art itself by which I composed had not different principles for these different cases, but comprised all in one. Still I saw not how that righteousness, which good and holy men submitted to, far more excellently and sublimely comprehended in one all those things which God commanded, The law of the development of revelation implied in the above passage is one to which Augustin frequently resorts in confutation of objections such as those to which he refers in the previous and following sections. It may likewise be effectively used when similar objections are raised by modern sceptics. In the Rabbinical books there is a tradition of the wanderings of the children of Israel, that not only did their clothes not wax old (Deut. xxix. 5) during those forty years, but that they grew with their growth. The written word is as it were the swaddling-clothes of the holy child Jesus; and as the revelation concerning Him-the Word Incarnate-grew, did the written word grow. God spoke in sundry parts [novéμpws] and in divers manners unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. i. 1); but when the "fulness of the time was come" (Gal. iv. 4), He completed the revelation in His Son. Our Lord indicates this principle when He speaks of divorce in Matt. xix. 8. Moses," he says, "because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so." (See Con. Faust. xix. 26, 29.) When objections, then, as to obsolete ritual usages, or the sins committed by Old Testament worthies are urged, the answer is plain: the ritual has become obsolete, because only intended for the infancy of revelation, and the sins, while recorded in, are not approved by Scripture, and those who committed them will be judged according to the measure of revelation they received. See also De Ver. Relig. xvii.; in Ps. lxxiii. 1, liv. 22; Čon. Faust. xxii. 25; Trench, Hulsean Lecs. iv., v. (1845); and Candlish's Reason and Revelation, pp. 58-75. * Job xiv. 1. |