This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mark Barnes, www.414.org.uk Confessions by St. Augustine Translated by Albert C. Outler Book 6 Chapter 1 O hope from my youth, where was thou to me, and where hath thou gone away? For hath thou not created me, and differentiated me from the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, making me wiser than they? And yet I was wandering about in a dark and slippery way, seeking thee outside myself, and thus not finding the God of my heart. I had gone down into the depths of the sea, and had lost faith, and had despaired of ever finding the truth. By this time my mother had come to me, having mustered the courage of piety, following over sea and land, secure in thee through all the perils of the journey. For in the dangers of the voyage she comforted the sailors, to whom the inexperienced voyages, when alarmed, were accustomed to go in for comfort, and assured them of a safe arrival, because she had been so assured by thee in a vision. She found me in deadly peril, through my despair of ever finding the truth. But when I told her that I was no longer a Manachean, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she did not leap for joy as if this were unexpected, for she had already been reassured about that part of my misery, for which she had mourned me as one dead, but also as one who would be raised to thee. She had carried me out on the byer of her thoughts, that thou mightest say to the widow's son, young man, I say to you, arise, and then he would revive, and begin to speak, and thou wouldst deliver him to his mother. Therefore her heart was not agitated with any violent exaltation, when she heard that so great a part of what she daily entreated thee to do had actually already been done. That, though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from falsehood. Instead she was fully confident that thou who had promised the whole would give her the rest, and thus most calmly, and with a fully confident heart, she replied to me that she believed in Christ that before she died she would see me a faithful Catholic, and she said no more than this to me. But to thee, O founten of mercy, she poured out still more frequent prayers and tears, that thou wouldst hasten thy aid, and enlighten my darkness, and she hurried all the more zealously to the church, and hung upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the founten of water that springs up into everlasting life. For she loved that man as an angel of God, since she knew that it was by him that I had been brought thus far to that wavering state of agitation I was now in, through which she was fully persuaded I should pass from sickness to health, even though it would be after a still sharper convulsion which physicians call the crisis. Chapter 2 So also my mother brought to certain oratories, erected in the memory of the saints, offerings of porridge, bread and wine, as had been her custom in Africa, and she was forbidden to do so by the doorkeeper, and as soon as she learned that it was the bishop who had forbidden it, she acquiesced so devoutly and obediently that I myself marvelled how readily she could bring herself to turn critic of her own customs, rather than question his prohibition. For wine Bibbin had not taken possession of her spirit, nor did the love of wine stimulate her to hate the truth, as it does too many, both male and female, who turn as sick at a hymn to sobriety, as drunkards do, at a draught of water. When she had brought her basket with the festive gifts, which she would first taste herself and give the rest away, she would never allow herself more than one little cup of wine diluted according to her own temperate palette, which she would taste out of courtesy, and, if there were many oratories of departed saints that ought to be honoured in the same way, she still carried around with her the same little cup to be used everywhere. This became not only very much watered, but also quite tepid with carrying it about. She would distribute it by small sips to those around, for she sought to stimulate their devotion, not pleasure. But as soon as she found that this custom was forbidden by that famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those who would use it in moderation, lest thereby it might be an occasion of gluttony for those who were already drunken, and also because these funeral memorials were very much like some of the superstitious practices of the Pagans, she most willingly abstained from it. And, in place of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full of pure repetitions, and to give all that she could to the poor, so that the communion of the Lord's body might be rightly celebrated in those places where, after the example of his passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord, my God, and my heart thinks of it this way in thy sight, that my mother would probably not have given way so easily to the rejection of this custom if it had been forbidden by another whom she did not love as she did Ambrose. For out of her concern for my salvation she loved him most dearly, and he loved her truly on account of her faithful religious life in which she frequented the church with good works fervent in spirit. Thus he would, when he saw me, often burst forth into praise of her, congratulating me that I had such a mother, little knowing what a son she had in me, who was still a skeptic in all these matters, and who could not conceive that the way of life could be found out. Chapter 3 Nor had I come yet to groan in my prayers that thou wouldst help me. My mind was wholly intent on knowledge and eager for disputation. Ambrose himself I esteemed a happy man as the world counted happiness, because great personages held him in honour. Only his celibacy appeared to me a painful burden. But what hope he cherished, what struggles he had against the temptations that beset his high station, what solace in adversity, and what savoury joys thy bread possessed for the hidden mouth of his heart when feeding on it, I could neither conjecture nor experience. Nor did he know my own frustrations, nor the pit of my danger, for I could not request of him what I wanted as I wanted it, because I was debarred from hearing and speaking to him by crowds of busy people to whose infirmities he devoted himself, and when he was not engaged with them, which was never for long at a time, he was either refreshing his body with necessary food or his mind with reading. Now, as he read, his eyes glanced over the pages and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent. Often when we came to his room, for no one was forbidden to enter, nor was it his custom that the arrival of visitors should be announced to him. We would see him thus reading to himself. After we had sat for a long time in silence, for who would dare interrupt one so intent, we would then depart, realizing that he was unwilling to be distracted in the little time he could gain for the recruiting of his mind, free from the clamour of other men's business. Perhaps he was fearful, lest if the author he was studying should express himself vaguely, some doubtful and attentive hearer would ask him to expound it or discuss some of the more abstruse questions so that he could not get over as much material as he wished, if his time was occupied with others. And even if a truer reason for his reading to himself might have been the care for preserving his voice which was very easily weakened. Whatever his motive was in so doing, it was doubtless in such a man a good one, but actually I could find no opportunity for putting the questions I desired to that holy oracle of thine in his heart, unless it was a matter which could be dealt with briefly. However, those surgeons in me required that he should give me his full leisure so that I might pour them out to him, but I never found him so. I heard him, indeed, every Lord's day, rightly dividing the word of truth among the people. And I became all the more convinced that all those knots of crafty columnaries which those deceivers of ours had knit together against the divine books could be unraveled. I soon understood that the statement that man was made after the image of him that created him was not understood by thy spiritual sons whom thou hadst regenerated through the Catholic mother through grace as if they believed and imagined that thou wert bonded by a human form, although what was the nature of a spiritual substance I had not the faintest nor vaguest notion. Still rejoicing, I blushed that for so many years I had bade not against the Catholic faith, but against the fables of fleshly imagination. For I had been both impious and rash in this, that I had condemned by pronouncement what I ought to have learned by inquiry. For thou, O most high and most near, most secret yet most present, who does not have limbs, some of which are larger and some smaller, but who art wholly everywhere and nowhere in space and art not shaped by some corporeal form. Thou dost create man after thy own image and see he dwells in space both head and feet. Chapter 4 Since I could not then understand how this image of thine could subsist, I should have knocked on the door and propounded the doubt as to how it was to be believed and not have insultantly opposed it as if it were actually believed. Therefore my anxiety as to what I could retain as certain gnawed all the more sharply into my soul, and I felt quite ashamed because during the long time I had been deluded and deceived by the promises of certainties, I had, with childish petulance, prated of so many uncertainties as if they were certain. That they were falsehoods became apparent to me only afterward. However, I was certain that they were uncertain, and since I held them as certainly uncertain, I had accused thy Catholic Church with a blind contentiousness. I had not yet discovered that it taught the truth, but now knew that it did not teach what I had so vehemently accused it of. In this respect, at least, I was confounded and converted, and I rejoiced, oh my God, that the one Church, the body of thy only Son, in which the name of Christ had been sealed upon me as an infant, did not relish these childish trifles, and did not maintain in its sound doctrine any tenant that would involve pressing thee the Creator of all into space, which, however extended an immense, would still be bounded on all sides like the shape of a human body. I was also glad that the old scriptures of the law and the prophets were laid before me to be read, not now with an eye to what had seemed absurd in them when formerly I censored the holy ones for thinking thus, when they actually did not think in that way. And I listened with delight to Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, often recommending this text most diligently as a rule, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life, while at the same time he drew aside the mystic veil and opened to view the spiritual meaning of what seemed to teach perverse doctrine if it were taken according to the letter. I found nothing in his teachings that offended me, though I could not yet know for certain whether what he taught was true. For all this time I restrained my heart from ascent into anything, fear into fall headlong into error. Instead by this hanging in suspense I was being strangled, for my desire was to be as certain of invisible things as I was that seven and three attend. I was not so deranged as to believe that this could not be comprehended, but my desire was to have other things as clear as this, whether they were physical objects which were not present to my senses or spiritual objects which I did not know how to conceive of except in physical terms. If I could have believed I might have been cured and with a sight of my soul cleared up it might in some way have been directed toward thy truth which always abides and fails in nothing. But just as it happens that a man who has tried a bad physician fears to trust himself with a good one, so it was with a health of my soul which could not be healed except by believing. But lest it should believe falsehoods it refused to be cured, resist in thy hand who has prepared for us the medicines of faith and applied them to the maladies of the whole world and endowed them with great efficacy. Chapter 5 Still, from this time forward I began to prefer the Catholic doctrine. I felt that it was with moderation and honesty that it commanded things to be believed that were not demonstrated whether they could be demonstrated but not to everyone or whether they could not be demonstrated at all. This was far better than the method of the Manacheans in which our credulity was mocked by an audacious promise of knowledge and then many fabulous and absurd things were forced upon believers because they were incapable of demonstration. After that, O Lord, little by little with a gentle and most merciful hand drawing and calm in my heart, thou didst persuade me that if I took into account the multitude of things I had never seen nor been present when they were enacted such as many of the events of secular history and the numerous reports of places and cities which I had not seen or such as my relations with many friends or physicians or with these men and those that unless we should believe we should do nothing at all in this life. Finally, I was impressed with what an unalterable assurance I believed which two people were my parents though this was impossible for me to know otherwise than by hearsay. By bringing all this into my consideration thou didst persuade me that it was not the ones who believed thy books which with so great authority thou hast established among nearly all nations but those who did not believe them who were to be blamed. Moreover, those men were not to be listened to who would not say to me how do you know that those scriptures were imparted to mankind the spirit of the one and most true God. For this was the point that was most of all to be believed since no wranglins of blasphemous questions such as I had read in the books of the self-contradicting philosophers could once snatch me from the belief that thou dost exist although what thou art I did not know and that to thee belongs the governance of human affairs. This much I believed sometimes more strongly than other times but I always believed both that thou art and that thou hast to care for us although I was ignorant both as to what should be thought about thy substance and as to which way led or led back to thee. Thus, since we are too weak by unaided reason to find out truth and since because of this we need the authority of the holy writings I had now begun to believe that thou would not under any circumstances have given such eminent authority to those scriptures throughout all lands if it had not been that through them thy will may be believed in and that thou mightest be sought. For as to those passages in the scripture which adhere to for appearing congruous and offensive to me now that I had heard several of them expounded reasonably I would see that they were to be resolved by the mysteries of spiritual interpretation. The authority of scripture seemed to me all the more revered and worthy of devout belief because although it was visible for all to read it reserved the full majesty of its secret wisdom within its spiritual profundity. While it stooped to all in the great plainness of its language and simplicity of style it yet required the closest attention of the most serious minded so that it might receive all into its common bosom and direct some few through its narrow passages toward thee yet many more than would have been the case had there not been in it such a lofty authority which nevertheless allured multitudes to its bosom by its holy humility. I continued to reflect upon these things and thou wasst with me I sighed and thou didst hear me I vacillated and thou guide us me I roamed the broad way of the world and thou didst not desert me. Chapter 6 I was still eagerly aspiring to honors, money and matrimony and thou didst mock me in pursuit of these ambitions I endured the most bitter hardships in which thou was being the more gracious the less thou wasst allow anything that was not thee to grow sweet to me. Look into my heart, O Lord whose prompting it is that I should recall all this and confess it to thee. Now let my soul cleave to thee now that thou hast freed her from that fast-sticking glue of death. How wretched she was and thou didst irritate her sore wounds so that she might forsake all else and turn to thee who art above all and without whom all things would be nothing at all so that she would be converted and healed. How wretched I was at that time and how thou didst deal with me so as to make me aware of my wretchedness I recall from the incident of the day on which I was preparing to recite a penetric on the emperor In it I was to deliver and many a lie and the lion was to be applauded by those who knew I was lion. My heart was agitated with this sense of guilt and its seeds with the fever of my uneasiness. For while walking along one of the streets of Milan I saw a poor beggar with what I believe was a full belly joking and hilarious and I sighed and spoke to the friends around me of the many sorrows that flowed in my sadness because in spite of all our exersions such as those I was then labouring in dragging the burden of my unhappiness under the spur of ambition and by dragging it increasing it at the same time still and all we aimed only to attain that very happiness which this beggar had reached before us and there was a grim chance that we should never attain it for what he had obtained got by his begging I was still scheming for by many a wretched and tortuous turning namely the joy of a passing felicity he had not indeed gained true joy but at the same time with all my ambitions I was seeking one still more untrue anyhow he was now joyous and I was anxious he was free from care and alarms now if anyone should inquire of me whether I should prefer to be merry or anxious I would reply merry again if I had been asked whether I should prefer to be as he was or as I myself was I would have chosen to be myself though I was beset with cares and alarms but would not this have been a false choice was the contrast valid actually I ought not to prefer myself to him because I happen to be more learned than he was for I got no great pleasure from my learning but sought rather to please men by its exhibition and this not to instruct but only to please thus thou didst break my bones with a rod of thy correction let my soul take its leave of those who say it makes a difference what glory, O Lord the kind that is not in thee for just as his was no true joy so was mine no true glory but it turned my head all the more he would get over his drunkenness that same night but I had slept with mine many a night and risen again with it and was to sleep again and I was to sleep again and I was to sleep again and I was to sleep again and was to sleep again and rise again with it I know not how many times it does indeed make a difference as to the object from which a man's joy is gained I know this is so and I know that the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably beyond such vanity yet at the same time this beggar was beyond me for he truly was the happier man not only because he was thoroughly steeped in his mirth while I was torn to pieces with my cares but because he had gotten his wine by giving good wishes to the passers-by while I was following after the ambition of my pride by lying much to this effect I said to my good companions when I saw how readily they reacted pretty much as I did thus I found that it went ill with me I started and doubled that very ill and if any prosperity smiled upon me I loathed to seize it for almost before I could grasp it it would fly away Chapter 7 those of us who were living like friends together used to bemoan our lot in our common talk but I discussed it with Alapias and Nebredeus more especially and in very familiar terms Alapias had been born in the same town as I his parents were of the highest rank there but he was a bit younger than I he had studied under me when I first taught in our town and then afterwards at Carthage he esteemed me highly because I appeared to him good and learned and I esteemed him for his inborn love of virtue which was uncommonly marked in a man so young but in the whirlpool of Carthaginian fashion where frivolous spectacles are hotly followed he had been invagled into the madness of the gladiatorial games while he was miserably tossed about in this fad I was teaching rhetoric there in a public school at that time he was not attending my classes because of some ill feeling that had arisen between me and his father I then came to discover how fatally he doted upon the circus and I was deeply grieved for he seemed likely to cast away his very great promise if indeed he had not already done so yet I had no means of advising him or any way of reclaiming him through restraint either by the kindness of a friend or by the authority of a teacher for I imagined that his feeling toward me were the same as his father's but this turned out not to be the case indeed with regard in his father's will in the matter he began to be friendly and to visit my lecture room to listen for a while and then depart but it slipped my memory to try to deal with his problem to prevent him from ruining his excellent mind in his blind and headstrong passion for frivolous sport but thou, O Lord who holdest the helm of all that thou hast created thou hast not forgotten him thou hast been numbered among thy sons a chief minister of thy sacrament and in order that his amendment might plainly be attributed to thee thou broadest it about through me while I knew nothing of it one day when I was sitting in my accustomed place with my scholars before me he came in, greeted me sat himself down and fixed his attention on the subject I was discussing it so happened I had a passage in hand and while I was interpreting it a similarly occurred to me taken from the gladiatorial games it struck me as relevant to make more pleasant and plain the point I wanted to convey by adding a biting jibe at those whom that madness had enthralled thou knowest, O our God that I had no thought at that time if curing alipayas of that plague but he took it to himself and thought that I would not have said it but for his sake and what any other man would have taken as an occasion of offence against me this worthy young man took as a reason for being offended at himself and for loving me the more fervently thou hast said it long ago and written in thy book rebuke a wise man and he will love you now I had not rebuke him but thou who canst make use of everything both wit'n and unwit'n and in the order which thou thyself knowest to be best and that order is right thou madeest my heart and tongue into burning coals with which thou mightest characterise and cure the hopeful mind thus languishing let him be silent in thy praise who does not meditate on thy mercy which rises up in my inmost parts to confess to thee for after that speech ala Pius rushed up out of that deep pit into which he had willfully plunged and in which he had been blinded by its miserable pleasures and he roused his mind with a resolve to moderation when he had done this all the filth of the gladiatorial pleasures dropped away from him and he went to them no more then he also prevailed upon his reluctant father to let him be my pupil and at the son and at the son's urging the father at last consented thus ala Pius began again to hear my lectures and became involved with me in the same superstition loving in the Manicheans that outward display of ascetic discipline which he believed was true and unfaigned it was however a senseless and seducing continence which ensnared precious souls who were not able as yet to reach the height of true virtue and who were easily beguiled with the veneer of what was only a shadowy and feigned virtue this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how you can volunteer visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mark Barnes www.414.org.uk Confessions by St Augustine Book 6 Chapter 8 He had gone on to Rome before me to study law which was the worldly way which his parents were forever urging him to pursue and there he was carried away again with an incredible passion for the gladiatorial shows for although he had been utterly opposed as such spectacles and detested them one day he met by chance a company of his acquaintances and fellow students returning from dinner and with a friendly violence they drew him resisting and objecting vehemently into the amphitheater on a day of those cruel and murderous shows he protested to them though you drag my body to that place and set me down there you cannot force me to give my mind or lend my eyes to these shows thus I will be absent while present and so overcome both you and them when they heard this they dragged him on in probably interested to see whether he could do as he said when they got to the arena and had taken what seats they could get the whole place become a tumult frenzy but Alipius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such wickedness would that he had shut his ears also for when one of the combatants fell in the fight a mighty cry from the whole audience stirred him so strongly that overcome by curiosity and still prepared as he thought to despise and rise superior to it no matter what it was he could not resist and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to see had been in his body thus he fell more miserably than the one whose fall had raised that mighty clamour which had entered through his ears and unlocked his eyes to make way for the wounding and beating down of his soul which was more audacious than truly valiant also it was weaker because it presumed on his own strength on thee for as soon as he saw the blood he drank in with it a savage temper and he did not turn away but fixed his eyes on the bloody pastime unwittingly drinking in the madness delighted with a wicked contest and drunk with bloodlust he was now no longer the same man who came in but was one of the mob he came into a true companion of those who had brought him thither why need I say more? he looked he shouted he was excited and he took away with him the madness that would stimulate him to come again not only with those who had first enticed him but even without them indeed dragging in others besides and yet from all this with the most powerful and most merciful hand thou did pluck him and taught him not to arrest his confidence in himself but in thee but not till long after Chapter 9 but this was all being stored up in his memory as medicine for the future so also was that other incident when he was still studying under me at Cartage and was meditating at Noonday in the marketplace on what he had to recite as scholars usually have to do for practice and thou didst allow him to be arrested by the police officers in the marketplace as a thief I believe oh my God that thou didst allow this for no other reason than that this man who was in the future to prove so great should now begin to learn that in making just decisions a man should not readily be condemned by other men with reckless credulity for as he was walking up and down alone before the judgment seat with his tablets and pen and lower young man another one of the scholars who was the real thief secretly brought a hatchet and without Alipius seeing him got in as far as the leaden bars which protected the silversmith shop and began to hack away at the lead gratings but when the noise of the hatchet was heard the silversmith below began to call to each other in whispers and sent men to arrest whomesoever they should find the thief heard their voices and ran away leaving his hatchet because he was afraid to be caught with it now Alipius who had not seen him come in got a glimpse of him as he went out and noticed that he had went off in great haste being curious to know the reasons he went up to the place where he found the hatchet and stood wondering and pondering when behold those that were sent caught him alone holding the hatchet which had made the noise which had startled them and brought them there they seized him and dragged him away gathering the tenants of the marketplace about them and boasting that they had caught a notorious thief thereupon he was led away to appear before the judge but this is as far as his lesson was to go for immediately oh Lord thou didst come to the rescue of his innocence of which thou was the sole witness as he was being led off to prison or punishment they were met by the master builder who were charged with the public buildings the captors were especially glad to meet him because he had more than once suspected them of stealing the goods that had been lost out of the marketplace now at last they thought they could convince him who it was who had committed the thefts but the custodian had often met Alipius at the house of a certain senator whose receptions he used to attend he recognized him at once and taken his hand led him apart from the throng inquired the cause of all the trouble and learned what had occurred he then commanded all the rabble still around him and very uproarious and full of threatens they were to come along with him and they came to the house of the young man who had committed the deed there before the door was a slave boy so young that he was not restrained from telling the whole story by fear of harm in his master and he had followed his master to the marketplace Alipius recognized him and whispered to the architect who showed the boy the hatchet and asked whose it was ours he answered directly and being further questioned he disclosed the whole affair thus the guilt was shifted to that household and the rabble who had begun to triumph over Alipius was shamed and so he went away home this man who was to be the future steward of thy word and judge of so many causes in thy church a wiser and more experienced man Chapter 10 I found him at Rome and he was bound to me with the strongest possible ties and he went with me to Milan in order that he might not be separated from me and also that he might obtain some law practice for which he had qualified with a view to pleasing his parents more than himself he had already sat three times as assessor showing an integrity that seemed strange to many others though he thought them strange who could prefer gold to integrity his character had also been tested not only by the bait of covetousness but by the spur of fear at Rome he was assessor to the secretary of the Italian treasury there was at that time a very powerful senator to whose favors were many indebted and of whom many stood in fear in his usual high-handed way he demanded to have a favor granted him that was forbidden by the laws this alipius resisted a bribe was promised but he scorned it with all his heart threats were employed but he trampled them under foot so that all men marveled at so rare a spirit which neither coveted the friendship nor feared the enmity of a man at once so powerful and so widely known for his great resources of helping his friends and doing harm to his enemies even the official whose counselor alipius was although he was unwilling that the favor should be granted would not openly refuse the request but passed the responsibility on to alipius alleging that he would not permit him to give his assent and the truth was that even if the judge had agreed alipius would have simply left the court there was one matter however which appealed to his love of learning in which he was very nearly led astray he found out that he might have books copied for himself at praetorian rates i.e. at public expense but his sense of justice prevailed and he changed his mind for the better thinking that the rule that forbade him was still more profitable than the privilege that his office would have allowed him these are little things but he that is faithful in a little matter is faithful also in a great one nor can that possibly be void which was uttered by the mouth of thy truth if therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous manom who will commit to your trust and true riches and if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's who shall give you that which is your own such a man was alipius who clung to me at that time and who wavered in his purpose just as i did as to what course of life to follow nebridius also had come to melanne for no other reason than that he might live with me in a most ardent search after truth and wisdom he had left his native place near cathage and cathage itself where he usually lived leaving behind his fine family estate his house and his mother who would not follow him like me he sighed like me he wavered an ardent seeker after the true life and a most acute analyst of the most abstruse questions so there were three begging mouths sighing out of their once one to the other and waiting upon thee that thou mightest give them meat in due season and in all the vexations with which thy mercy followed our worldly pursuits we sought for the reason why we suffered so and all was darkness we turned away groaning and exclaiming this we often asked yet for all our asking we did not relinquish them for as yet we had not discovered anything certain which when we gave those others up we might grasp in their stead CHAPTER 11 and I especially puzzled and wondered when I remembered how long a time had passed since my 19th year in which I had first fallen and determined as soon as I could find her to abandon the empty hopes and mad delusions of vain desires behold I was now getting close to 30 still stuck fast in the same mire still greedy of enjoying present goods which fly away and distract me and I was still saying tomorrow I shall discover it behold it will become plain and I shall see it and thus will come and explain everything or I would say oh you mighty academics is there no certainty that man can grasp for the guidance of his life no let us search them more diligently and let us not despair see the things in the church's books that appeared so absurd to us before do not appear so now and may be otherwise and honestly interpreted I will set my feet upon that step where as a child my parents placed me until the clear truth is discovered but where and when shall it be sought Ambrose has no leisure we have no leisure to read where are we to find the books how or where could I get hold of them from whom could I borrow them let me set a schedule for my days and set apart certain hours of the soul a great hope has risen up in us because the Catholic faith does not teach what we thought it did and vainly accused it of its teachers hold it as an abomination to believe that God is limited by the form of a human body and do I doubt that I should knock in order for the rest also to be opened unto me my pupils take up the morning hours what am I doing with the rest of the day why not do this why not do this but then when am I to visit my influential friends whose favours I need when am I to prepare the orations that I sell to the class when would I get some recreation and relax my mind from the strain of work perish everything and let us dismiss these idle triflings let me devote myself solely to the search for truth this life is unhappy death uncertain if it comes upon me suddenly in what state shall I go hence and where shall I learn what here I have neglected should I not indeed suffer the punishments of my negligence here but suppose death cuts off and finishes all care and feeling this too is a question that calls for inquiry God forbid that it should be so it is not without reason not in vain that the stately authority of the Christian faith has spread over the entire world and God would never have done such great things for us if the life of the soul perished with the death of the body why therefore do I delay in abandoning my hopes of this world and giving myself wholly to seek after God and the blessed life but wait a moment this life also is pleasant and it has a sweetness of its own not at all negligible we must not abandon it lightly for it would be shameful to lapse back into it again see now it is important to gain some post of honour and what more should I desire I have crowds of influential friends if nothing else and if I push my claims a governorship may be offered me and a wife with some money so that she would not be an added expense this would be the height of my desire many men who were great and worthy of imitation have combined the pursuit of wisdom with a marriage life while I talked about these things and the winds of opinions veered about and tossed my heart hither and thither time was slipping away I delayed my conversion to the Lord I postponed from day to day the life in thee but I could not postpone the daily death in myself I was enamoured of a happy life but I still feared to seek it in its own abode and so I fled from it while I sought it I thought I should be miserable if I were deprived of the embraces of a woman and I never gave a thought to the medicine that thy mercy has provided for the healing of that infirmity for I had never tried it as for continents I imagined that it depended on one's own strength though I found no such strength in myself for in my folly I knew not what is written none can be continent unless thou didst grant it certainly thou wouldst have given it if I had beseeched thy ears and felt groaning and if I had cast my care upon thee with firm faith CHAPTER XII actually it was a lipeous who prevented me from Marion urging that if I did so it would not be possible for us to live together and to have as much undistracted leisure in the love of wisdom as we had long desired for he himself was so chaste that it was wonderful all the more because in his early youth he had entered upon the path of promiscuity but had not continued in it instead feeling sorrow and disgust at it he had lived from that time down to the present most continently I quoted against him the examples of men who had been married and still lovers of wisdom who had pleased God and had been loyal and affectionate to women I fell far short of them in greatness of soul and enthralled with the disease of my carnality and its deadly sweetness I dragged my chain along fearing to be loosed of it thus I rejected the words of him who cancelled me wisely as if the hand that would have loosed the chain only hurt my wound moreover the serpent spoke to a lipeous himself by me lying and lying in his path by my tongue to catch him with pleasant snares in which his honourable and free feet may be entangled for he wondered that I the whom he had such a great esteem should be stuck so fast in the glooport of pleasure as to maintain whenever we discuss the subject that I could not possibly live a celibate life and when I urged in my defence against his accusing questions that the hasty and stolen delight which he had tasted and now hardly remembered and therefore too easily disparaged was not to be compared with a settled acquaintance with it and that if to this stable acquaintance were added the honourable name of marriage he would not then be astonished at my inability to give it up when I spoke thus then he also began to wish to be married as he was overcome by the lust for such pleasures but out of curiosity for he said he longed to know what that could be without which my life which he thought so happy seemed to me to be no life at all but a punishment for he who wore no chain was amazed at my slavery and his amazement awoke the desire for experience and from that he would have gone on to the experiment itself and then perhaps he would have fallen into the very slavery that amazed him in me since he was ready to enter into a covenant with death for he that loves danger shall fall into it now the question of conjugal honour in the ordering of a good married life and the bringing up of children interested us but slightly what afflicted me most and what had made me already a slave to it was the habit of satisfying and insatiable lust but Ellipius was about to be enslaved by a mere curious wonder this is the state we were in until thou almost high who never forsakest our loneliness did take pity on our misery and it's come to our rescue in wonderful and secret ways Chapter 13 Active efforts were made to get me a wife I wooed I was engaged and my mother took the greatest pains in the matter for her hope was that when I was once married I might be washed clean in health-giving baptism for which I was being daily prepared as she joyfully saw taking note that her desires and promises were being fulfilled in my faith yet when at my request and her own impulse daily with strong heartfelt cries that thou wouldst by a vision disclose unto her a leading about my future marriage thou wouldst not she did indeed see certain vain and fantastic things such a conjured up by the strong preoccupation of the human spirit and these she supposed had some reference to me and she told me about them but not with the confidence she usually had when thou had shown her anything for she always said that she could distinguish by a certain feeling impossible to describe between thy revelations and the dreams of her own soul yet the matter was pressed forward and proposals were made for a girl who was as yet some two years too young to marry and because she pleased me I agreed to wait for her Chapter 14 Many in my band of friends consulting about and abhorring the termulate vexations of human life had often considered and were now almost determined to undertake a peaceful life away from the turmoil of men this we thought could be obtained by bringing together what we severally owned and thus making of it a common household so that in the sincerity of our friendship nothing should belong more to one but all were to have one purse and the whole was to belong to each and to all we thought that this group might consist of ten persons some of whom were very rich especially Romanianus my fellow townsmen an intimate friend from childhood days he had been brought up to the court on grave business matters and he was the most earnest of us all about the project and his voice was of great weight because his estate was far more ample than that of the others we had resolved also that each year two of us should be managers and provide all that was needful while the rest were left undisturbed but when we began to reflect whether this would be permitted by our wives which some of us had already and others hoped to have the whole plan so excellently framed collapsed in our hands and was utterly wrecked and cast aside from this we fell again into sighs and groans and our steps followed the broad and beaten ways of the world for many thoughts were in our hearts but thy counsel standeth fast forever in thy counsel thou did's mock ours and did's prepare thy own plan for it was thy purpose to give us meat in due season to open thy hand and to fill our souls with blessing chapter 15 meanwhile my sins were being multiplied my mistress was torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage and my heart which clung to her was torn and wounded till it bled and she went back to Africa vowing to thee never to know any other man and leave in with me my natural son by her but I unhappy as I was and weaker than a woman could not bear the delay of the two years that should elapse before I could obtain the bride I sought and so since I was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust I procured another mistress not a wife of course thus in bondage to a lasting habit the disease of my soul might be nursed up and kept in its vigor or even increased until it reached the realm of matrimony nor indeed was the wound healed that had been caused by cutting away my former mistress only it ceased to burn and throb and began to fester and was more dangerous because it was less painful chapter 16 thine be the praise and to thee be the glory of fountain of mercies I became more wretched and thou didst become nearer thy right hand was ever ready to pluck me out of the mire and to cleanse me but I did not know it nor did anything call me back from a still deeper plunge into carnal pleasure except the fear of death and of thy future judgment all the waverings of my opinions never faded from my breast and I discussed with my friends Alipius and Nebredeus the nature of good and evil maintaining that in my judgment Epicurus would have carried off the palm if I had not believed what Epicurus would not believed and that after death there remains a life for the soul and places of recompense and I demanded of them they are immortal and live 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 I did not know that this was in fact the root of my misery that I was so fallen and blinded that I could not discern the light of virtue and of beauty which must be embraced for its own sake which the eye of flesh cannot see in a vision can see nor did I alas consider the reason why I found delight in discussing these very perplexities shameful as they were with my friends for I could not be happy without friends even according to the notions of happiness I had then and no matter how rich the store of my carnal pleasures might be yet of a truth I loved my friends for their own sakes and felt that they in turn loved me for my own sake oh crooked ways woe to the audacious soul which hoped that by forsaking thee it would become some better thing it tossed and turned upon back and side and belly but the bed is hard and thou alone givest it rest and lo thou art near and thou will liberist us from our wretched wanderings and established us in thy way and thou comfortest us and sayest run and I will carry you yea I will lead you home and then I will set you free this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how you can get involved please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Mark Barnes www.4-14.org.uk Confessions by Saint Augustine translated by Albert C. Outler Book 7 Chapter 1 Dead Now was that evil and shameful youth of mine and I was passing into full manhood as I increased in years the worse was my vanity for I could not conceive of any substance but the sort I could see with my own eyes I no longer thought of thee O God by the analogy of a human body ever since I inclined my ear to philosophy I had avoided this error and the truth on this point I rejoiced to find in the faith of our spiritual mother yet I could not see how else to conceive thee and I, a man and such a man sought to conceive thee the sovereign and only true God in my inmost heart I believe that thou art incorruptible and inviolable and unchangeable because though I knew not how or why I could still see plainly and without doubt that the corruptible is inferior the incorruptible the inviolable obviously superior to its opposite and the unchangeable better than the changeable my heart cried out violently against all phantasms and with this one clear certainty I endeavored to brush away the swarm of unclean flies that swarmed around the eyes of my mind but behold they were scarcely scattered buzzed against my face and beclouded my vision I no longer thought of God in the analogy of a human body yet I was constrained to conceive thee to be some kind of body in space either infused into the world or infinitely diffused beyond the world and this was the incorruptible, inviolable and unchangeable substance which I thought was better than the corruptible, the viable and the changeable for whatever I conceived to be deprived of the dimensions of space appeared to me to be nothing absolutely nothing not even a void for if a body is taken out of space or if space is emptied of all its contents of earth, water, air or heaven yet it remains an empty space a space as nothing as it were being thus gross hearted and not clear even to myself I then held that whatever had neither length nor breadth nor density nor solidity and did not or could not receive such dimensions was absolutely nothing for at that time my mind dwelt only with the ideas which resembled the forms with which my eyes are still familiar nor could I see that the act of thought by which I formed those ideas was itself immaterial and yet it could not have formed them if it were not itself a measurable entity so also I thought about thee, O life of my life as stretched out through infinite space interpenetrating the whole mass of the world reaching out beyond in all directions to immensity without end so that the earth should have thee the heaven have thee and all of them be limited in thee while thou art placed nowhere at all as the body of the air above the earth does not bear the passage of the light of the sun so that the light penetrates it not by bursting nor dividing but filling it entirely so I imagined that the body of heaven and air and sea and even of the earth was all open to thee and in all its greatest parts the smallest was ready to receive thy presence by a secret inspiration which from within or without all orders all things thou hast created this was my conjecture because I was unable to think of anything else yet it was untrue for in this way a greater part of the earth would contain a greater part of thee a smaller part a smaller fraction of thee all things would be full of thee in such a sense that there would be more of thee in an elephant than in a sparrow because one is larger than the other and fills a larger space and this would make the portions of thy self presence in the several portions of the world in fragments great to the great small to the small but thou art not such a one but as yet thou hadst not enlightened my darkness chapter 2 but it was not sufficient for me oh Lord to be able to oppose those deceived deceivers and those dumb orators dumb because thy word did not sound forth from them to oppose them with the answer which in the old Carthaginian days Nebrideus used to propound shaking all of us who heard it what could this imaginary people of darkness which the Manacheans usually set up and the army opposed to thee have done to thee if thou had declined the combat if they replied that it could have hurt thee they would have then made thee viable and corruptible if on the other hand the dark could have done thee no harm then there was no cause for any battle at all there was less cause for a battle in which a part of thee one of thy members should be mixed up with opposing powers not of thy creation and should be corrupted and deteriorated and change by them from happiness into misery so that it could not be delivered and cleansed without thy help this offspring of thy substance was supposed to be the human soul to which thy word free, pure and entire could bring help when it was being enslaved, contaminated and corrupted but on their hypothesis that word was itself corruptible because it is one and the same substance as the soul and therefore if they admitted that thy nature whatsoever thou art is incorruptible then all these assertions of theirs are false and should be rejected with horror but if thy substance is corruptible then this is self evidently false and should be abhorred at first utterance this line of argument then was enough against those deceivers who ought to be cast forth from a surfeited stomach for out of this dilemma they could find no way of escape without dreadful sacrilege of mind and tongue when they think and speak such things about thee chapter 3 but as yet although I said and was firmly persuaded that our Lord, the true God who made us not only our souls but our bodies as well and not only our souls and bodies but all creatures and all things was free from stain and alteration and in no way mutable yet I could not readily and clearly understand what was the cause of evil whatever it was I realised that the question must be so analysed as not to train me by any answer to believe that the immutable God was mutable lest I should myself become the thing that I was seeking out and so I pursued the search with a quiet mind now in a confident feeling that what had been said by the Manicheans and I shrank from them with my whole heart could not be true I now realised that when they asked what was the origin of evil their answer was dictated by a wicked pride which would rather affirm that thy nature is capable of suffering evil than that their own nature is capable of doing it and I directed my attention to understand what I now was told that free will is the cause of our doing evil and that thy just judgment is the cause of our having to suffer from its consequences but I could not see this clearly so then trying to draw the eye of my mind up out of that pit I was plunged back into it again and trying often was just as often plunged back down for one thing lifted me up toward thy light it was that I had come to know that I had a will as certainly as I knew that I had life when therefore I willed or was unwilling to do something I was utterly certain that it was none but myself who willed or was unwilling and immediately I realised that there was the cause of my sin I could see that what I did against my will I suffered rather than did and I did not regard such actions as false but rather as punishments in which I might quickly confess that I was not unjustly punished to be most just who was it that put this in me and implanted in me the root of bitterness in spite of the fact that I was altogether the handy work of my most sweet God if the devil is to blame who made the devil himself and if he was a good angel who by his own wicked will became the devil how did there happen to be in him that wicked will by which he became a devil since a good creator made him wholly a good angel by these reflections was I again cast down and stultified yet I was not plunged into that hell of error where no man confesses to thee where I thought that thou did suffer evil rather than that men do it Chapter 4 for in my struggle to solve the rest of my difficulties I now assumed henceforth as settled truth that the incorruptible must be superior to the corruptible and I did acknowledge that thou whatever thou art art incorruptible for there never yet was nor will be a soul able to conceive of anything better than thee who art the highest and best good and since most truly and certainly the incorruptible is to be placed above the corruptible I now admitted it followed that I could rise in my thoughts to something better than my God if there were not incorruptible when therefore I saw that the incorruptible was to be preferred to the corruptible I saw then where I ought to seek thee and where I should look for the source of evil that is the corruption by which thy substance can in no way be profaned unless that corruption in no way injures our God by no inclination by no necessity by no unforeseen chance because he is our God and what he wills is good and he himself is that good but to be corrupted is not good nor art thou compel to do anything against thy will since thy will is not greater than thy power but it would have to be greater if thou thyself were greater than thyself for the will and power of God are God himself and what can take thee by surprise since thou knowest all and there is no sort of nature but thou knowest it and what more should we say about why that substance which God is cannot be corrupted because if this were so it could not be God and I kept seeking for an answer to the question whence is evil and I sought it in an evil way and I did not see the evil in my very search I marshaled before the sight of my spirit all creation all that we see of earth and sea and air the stars and trees and animals and all that we do not see the firmament of the sky above and all the angels and all the spiritual things for my imagination arranged these also were bodies in this place or that and I pictured to myself thy creation as one vast mass composed of various kinds of bodies some of which were actually bodies some of those which I imagined spirits were like I pictured this mass as vast of course not in its full dimensions for these I could not know but as large as I could possibly think still only finite on every side but thou, O Lord I imagined as enviring in the mass on every side and penetrating it still infinite in every direction as if there were a sea everywhere and everywhere through measureless space nothing but an infinite sea and it contained within itself some sort of sponge huge but still finite so that the sponge would in all its parts be filled from the immeasurable sea thus I conceived thy creation itself to be finite and filled by thee the infinite and I said behold God and behold what God hath created God is good, yea most mightily and incomparably better than all his works but yet he who is good has created them good behold how he encircles and fills them where then is evil and whence does it come what is its root and what its seed has it no being at all why then do we fear and shun what has no being or if we fear it needlessly then surely that fear is evil by which the heart is unnecessarily stabbed and tortured and indeed a greater evil since we have nothing real to fear yet do fear therefore either that is evil which we fear or the act of fearing is in itself evil but then whence does it come since God who is good has made all these things good indeed he is the greatest and chief is good and hath created these lesser goods but both creator and created are all good whence then is evil or again was there some evil matter out of which he made and formed and ordered it did not convert into good but why should this be was he powerless to change the whole lump so that no evil would remain in it if he is the omnipotent finally why would he make anything at all out of such stuff why did he not rather annihilate it by his same almighty power could evil exist contrary to his will and if it were from eternity why did he permit it to be non-existent for unmeasured intervals of time in the past and why then was he pleased to make something out of it after so long a time or if he wish now all of a sudden to create something would not an almighty being have chosen to annihilate this evil matter and live by himself the perfect, true, sovereign and infinite good or if it were not good that he who was good should not also be the framer and creator of what was good then why was that evil matter not removed and brought to nothing so that he might form good matter out of which he might then create all things for he would not be omnipotent if he were not able to create something good without being assisted by that matter which had not been created by himself such perplexities I revolved in my wretched breast overwhelmed with gnawing cares lest I die before I discover the truth and still the faith of Thy Christ our Lord and Saviour as it was taught me by the Catholic Church stuck fast in my heart as yet it was unformed on many points and diverged from the rule of right doctrine but my mind did not utterly lose it and every day drank in more and more of it Chapter 6 By now I had also repudiated the lion divinations and impious absurdities of the astrologers let Thy mercies out of the depth of my soul confess this to Thee also oh my God for Thou, Thou only for who else is it who causes back from the death of all errors except the life which does not know how to die the wisdom which gives light the minds that need it although it itself has no need of light by which the whole universe is governed even to the fluttering leaves of the trees Thou alone provide is also for my obstinacy with which I struggled against Vindicainus a sagacious old man and Nebredeus that remarkably talented young man the former declared vehemently and the latter frequently though with some reservation yet no art existed by which we foresee future things but men surmises of often times the help of chance and out of many things which they foretold some came to pass unawares to the predictors who lighted on the truth by making so many guesses and Thou also provided the friend for me who was not a negligent consulter of the astrologers even though he was not thoroughly skilled in the art either as I said one who consulted them out of curiosity he knew a good deal about it which he said he had heard from his father and he never realised how far his ideas would help to overthrow my estimation of that art his name was Firminus and he had had received a liberal education and was a cultivated rhetorician it so happened that he consulted me and had gone very dear to him as to what I thought about some affairs of his in which his worldly hopes had risen viewed in the light of his so-called horoscope although I had now begun to learn in this matter towards Nebra deus' opinion I did not quite decline to speculate about the matter or to tell him what thought still came into my irresolute mind although I did add that I was almost persuaded now about empty and ridiculous follies he then told me that his father had been very much interested in such books and that he had a friend who was as much interested in them as he was himself they, in combined study and consultation, fanned the flame of their affection for this folly going so far as to observe the moment when the dumb animals which belonged to their household gave birth to young and he observed the position of the heavens with regard to them so as to gather fresh evidence for this so-called art Moreover he reported that his father had told him that at the same time his mother was about to give birth to him a female slave of a friend of his father was also pregnant this could not be hidden from her master who kept records with the most diligent exactness of the birth dates even of his dogs and so it happened to pass that under the most careful observations one for his wife and the other for his servant with exact calculations of the days hours and minutes both women were delivered at the same moment so that both were compelled to cast the self-same horoscope down to the minute the one for his son the other for his young slave for as soon as the women began to be in labour they each sent word to the other as to what was happening in their respective houses and had messengers ready to dispatch to one another as soon as they had information of the actual birth and each of course knew instantly the exact time it turned out, for Minna said that the messengers from the respective houses met one another at a point equidistant from either house so that neither of them could discern any difference from the position of the stars nor any other of the most minute points yet Firminus born in a higher state in his parents house ran his course through the prosperous paths of this world was increased in wealth and elevated to honours at the same time the slave the yoke of his condition being still un-relaxed continued to serve his masters as Firminus who knew him and was able to report upon hearing and believing these things related by so reliable a person all my resistance melted away first I endeavoured to reclaim Firminus himself from his superstition by telling him that after inspecting his horoscope I ought, if I could foretell truly to have seen in it parents eminent among their neighbours a noble family and city a good birth a proper education and liberal learning but if that servant had consulted me with the same horoscope since he had the same one I ought again to tell him likewise truly that I saw in it the lowliness of his origin the abjectness of his condition and everything else different and contrary to the former prediction if then I should, in order to speak the truth make contrary analyses or else speak falsely if I made identical readings then surely it followed that whatever was truly foretold by the analysis of the horoscopes was not by art but by chance and whatever was said falsely was not from incompetence in the art but from the error of chance an opening being thus made in my darkness I began to consider other implications involved here suppose that one of the fools who followed such an occupation and whom I longed to assail and to reduce to confusion should urge against me that Firminus had given me false information or that his father had informed him falsely I then turned my thoughts to those that are born twins who generally come out of the womb so near the one to the other but the short interval between them whatever importance they may ascribe to it in the nature of things cannot be noted by human observation or expressed in those tables which the astrology uses to examine when he undertakes to pronounce the truth but such pronouncements cannot be true for looking into the same horoscopes he must have foretold the same future for Esau and Jacob whereas the same future did not turn out for them he must therefore speak falsely if he is to speak truly then he must read contrary predictions into the same horoscopes for this would mean that it was not by art but by chance that he would speak truly for thou, O Lord most righteous ruler of the universe dost work by a secret impulse whether those who inquire or those inquired of know it not so that the inquirer may hear what according to the secret merit of his soul he ought to hear from the depths of righteous judgment therefore let no man say to thee what is this or why is that let him not speak thus for he is only a man Chapter 7 By now, O my helper thou hadst freed me from those fetters but still I inquired whence is evil and found no answer but thou didst not allow me to be carried away from the faith by these fluctuations of thought I still believed both that thou dost exist and that thy substance is immutable and that thou dost care for and wilt judge all men and that in Christ thy Son our Lord and the holy scriptures which the authority of thy Catholic Church pressed on me thou hadst planned the way of man's salvation to that life which is to come after this death with these convictions safe and immovably settled in my mind I eagerly inquired whence is evil what torments did my travail in heart then endure the size, O my God yet even then thy ears were open and I knew it not and when in stillness I sought earnestly those silent contritions of my soul were loud cries to thy mercy no man knew but thou newest what I endured how little of it could I express in words to the ears of my dearest friends how could the whole tumult of my soul for a time nor speech was sufficient come to them yet the whole of it went into thy ears all of which I bellowed out in the anguish of my heart my desire was before thee and the light of my eyes was not with me for it was within and I was without nor was that light in any place but I still kept thinking only of things that are contained in a place and could find among them no place to rest in they did not receive me in such a way that I could say it is sufficient, it is well nor did they allow me to turn back to where it might be well enough with me for I was higher than they though lower than thou thou art my true joy if I depend upon thee and thou has subjected to me what thou didst create lower than I and this was the true mean and middle way of salvation for me to continue in thy image and by serving thee have dominion over the body but when I lifted myself proudly against thee and ran against the Lord even against his neck with the thick bosses of my buckler even the lower things were placed above me and pressed down on me so that there was no respite they thrust on my sight on every side in crowds and masses and when I tried to think the images of bodies obtruded themselves into my way back to thee as if they would say to me where are you going unworthy and unclean one and all these had sprung out of my wound for thou hadst humbled the haughty as one that is wounded by my swelling pride I was separated from thee and my bloated cheeks blinded my eyes Chapter 8 but thou, O Lord, art forever the same yet thou art not forever angry with us for thou hast compassion on our dust and ashes it was pleasing in thy sight to reform my deformity and by inward stings thou didst disturb me for that I was impatient until thou art made clear to my inward sight by thy secret hand of thy healing my swelling was lessened the disordered and darkened eyesight of my mind was from day to day made whole by the stinging salve of wholesome grief Chapter 9 and first of all will in to show me how thou dost resist the proud but give grace to the humble and how mercifully thou made known to men the way of humility in that thy word was made flesh and dwelt among men thou didst procure for me through one inflated with the most monstrous pride certain books of the Platonists translated from Greek into Latin and therein I found not indeed in the same words but to the self-same effect enforced by many and various reasons that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made that which was made by him is life and the life was the light of men and the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not furthermore I read that the soul of man though it bears witness to the light yet itself is not the light but the word of God be in God is that true light that lights every man who comes into the world and further that he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not but that he came unto his own and his own received him not and as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believed on his name this I did not find there similarly I read there that God the Word was born not a flesh nor of blood nor of the will of man nor the will of the flesh but of God but that the word was made and dwelt among us I found this nowhere there and I discovered in those books expressed in many and various ways that the son was in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal in God that he was naturally of the same substance but that he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion of a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross wherefore God also hath highly exalted him from the dead and given him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father this those books have not I read further in them that before all times and beyond all times thy only son remaineth unchangeably co-eternal with thee and that of his fullness all souls receive that they may be blessed and that by participation in that wisdom which abides in them they are renewed that they may be wise but that in due time Christ died for the ungodly and that thou spares not thy only son but delivereth him up for us all this is not there for thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes that they that labour and are heavy laden might come unto him and he might refresh them because he is meek and lowly in heart the meek will he guide in judgment and the meek will he teach his way behold in our lowliness and our trouble and forgiving all our sins but those who strut in the high boots of what they deem to be superior knowledge will not hear him who says learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls thus though they know God yet they do not glorify him as God nor are they thankful therefore they become vain in their imaginations their foolish heart is darkened and professing themselves to be wise they become fools and moreover I also read there how they change the glory of thy incorruptible nature into idols and various images into an image made like corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things namely into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright so that thy first born people worship the head of a four-footed beast instead of thee turn him back in their hearts towards Egypt and prostrate in thy image their own soul before the image of an ox that eats grass these things I found there but I fed not on them for it pleads thee, O Lord to take away the reproach of his minority from Jacob that the elder should serve the younger and thou mightest call the Gentiles and I had sought strenuously after that goal which thou disallow thy people to take from Egypt since wherever it was it was thine and thou saidst unto the Athenians by the mouth of thy apostle that in thee we live and move and have our being as one of their own poets had said and truly these books came from there but I did not set my mind on the idols of Egypt which they fashioned of gold changing the truth of God into a lie and worshipping and serving the creature more than the creator