11. CHAPTERS XII–21 OF CONFESSIONS How then shall I respond to him who asks, What was God doing before he made heaven and earth? I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously, shrugging off the force of the question. He was preparing hell, he said, for those who pry too deep. It is one thing to see the answer, it is another to laugh at the questioner, and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, I do not know, what I do not know, then cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed, and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer. Rather I say that thou, our God, art the creator of every creature, and if in the term heaven and earth every creature is included, I make bold to say further, before God made heaven and earth he did not make anything at all, or if he did, what did he make unless it were a creature? I do indeed wish that I knew all that I desired to know to my prophet as surely as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made. CHAPTER XIII But if the roving thought of someone should wander over the images of past time, and wonder that thou, the Almighty God, the all-creating and all-sustaining, the architect of heaven and earth, didst for ages unnumbered abstain from so great a work before thou didst actually do it, let him awake and consider that he wonders at illusions. For in what temporal medium could the unnumbered ages that thou didst not make pass by, since thou art the author and creator of all the ages? Or what periods of time would those be that were not made by thee? Or how could they have already passed away if they had not already been? Since therefore thou art the creator of all times, if there was any time before thou madest heaven and earth, why is it said that thou wasst abstaining from working? For thou madest that very time itself, and periods could not pass by before thou madest the whole temporal procession. But if there was no time before heaven and earth, how then can it be asked what was thou doing then? For there was no then when there was no time. Nor does thou precede any given period of time by another period of time. Else thou wouldst not precede all periods of time. In the eminence of thy ever-present eternity, thou precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times, for they are still to come, and when they have come they will be past. But thou art always the self-same, and thy years shall have no end. Thy years neither go nor come, but ours both go and come in order that all separate moments may come to pass. All thy years stand together as one, since they are abiding. Nor do thy years past exclude the years to come, because thy years do not pass away. All these years of ours shall be with thee, when all of them shall have ceased to be. Thy years are but a day, and thy day is not recurrent, but always today. Thy today yields not to tomorrow, and does not follow yesterday. Thy today is eternity. Therefore thou didst generate the co-eternal, to whom thou didst say, This day I have begotten thee. Thou madest all time, and before all times thou art, and there was never a time when there was no time. Chapter 14 There was no time, therefore, when thou hadst not made anything, because thou hadst made time itself, and there are no times that are co-eternal with thee because thou dost abide forever. But if times should abide, they would not be times. For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who can even comprehend it in thought or put the answer into words? Yet is it not true that in conversation we refer to nothing more familiarly or knowingly than time? And surely we understand it when we speak of it. We understand it also when we hear another speak of it. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know. Yet I say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away there would be no past time, and if nothing were still coming there would be no future time, and if there were nothing at all there would be no present time. But then how is it that there are the two times, past and future, when even the past is now no longer and the future is now not yet? But if the present were always present and did not pass into past time, it obviously would not be time but eternity. If then time present, if it be time, comes into existence only because it passes into time past, how can we say that even this is, since the cause of its being is that it will cease to be? Thus can we not truly say that time is only as it tends toward non-being? Chapter 15 And yet we speak of a long time and a short time, but never speak this way except of time past and future. We call a hundred years ago, for example, a long time past. In like manner we should call a hundred years hence a long time to come, but we call ten days ago a short time past, and ten days hence a short time to come. But in what sense is something long or short that is non-existent? For the past is not now, and the future is not yet. Therefore let us not say it is long, instead let us say of the past a long time past. It was long, and of the future it will be long. And yet, O Lord, my light, shall not thy truth make mockery of man even here? For that long time past was it long when it was already past, or when it was still present? For it might have been long when there was a period that could be long, but when it was past it no longer was. In that case that which was not at all could not be long. Let us not therefore say time past was long, for we shall not discover what it was that was long, because since it is past it no longer exists. Rather let us say that time present was long, because when it was present it was long. For then it had not yet past on, so as not to be, and therefore it still was in a state that could be called long. But after it past it ceased to be long simply because it ceased to be. Let us therefore, O human soul, see whether present time can be long, for it has been given you to feel and measure the periods of time. How then will you answer me? Is a hundred years when present a long time? But first see whether a hundred years can be present at once, for if the first year in the century is current then it is present time, and the other ninety and nine are still future. Therefore they are not yet. But then, if the second year is current, one year is already past the second present, and all the rest are future. And thus if we fix on any middle year of this century as present, those before it are past, those after it are future. Therefore a hundred years cannot be present all at once. Let us see then whether the year that is now current can be present, for if its first month is current then the rest are future. If the second, the first, is already past and the remainder are not yet. Therefore the current year is not present all at once, and if it is not present as a whole then the year is not present, for it takes twelve months to make the year from which each individual month, which is current, is itself present one at a time, but the rest are either past or future. Thus it comes out that the time present, which we found was the only time that could be called long, has been cut down to the space of scarcely a single day. But let us examine even that, for one day is never present as a whole, for it is made up of twenty-four hours divided between night and day. The first of these hours has the rest of them as future, and the last of them has the rest as past. But any of those between has those that preceded it as past, and those that succeeded as future, and that one hour itself passes away in fleeting fractions. The part of it that has fled is past, what remains is still future. If any fraction of time be conceived that cannot now be divided even into the most minute momentary point, this alone is what we may call time present. But this flies so rapidly from future to past that it cannot be extended by any delay, for if it is extended it is then divided into past and future, but the present has no extension whatever. Where, therefore, is that time which we may call long? Is it future? Actually we do not say of the future it is long, for it has not yet come to be, so as to be long. Instead we say it will be long, when will it be? For since it is future it will not be long, for what may be long is not yet. It will be long only when it passes from the future which is not as yet, and will have begun to be present so that there can be something that may be long. But in that case time present cries aloud in the words we have already heard that it cannot be long. Chapter 16. And yet, O Lord, we do perceive intervals of time, and we compare them with each other, and we say that some are longer and others are shorter. We even measure how much longer or shorter this time may be than that time, and we say that this time is twice as long, or three times as long, while this other time is only just as long as that other. But we measure the passage of time when we measure the intervals of perception. But who can measure times past which now are no longer, or times future which are not yet, unless perhaps someone will dare to say that what does not exist can be measured? Therefore, while time is passing it can be perceived and measured, but when it is past it cannot, since it is not. Chapter 17. I am seeking the truth, O Father. I am not affirming it. O my God, direct and rule me. Who is there who will tell me that there are not three times as we learned when boys, and as we have also taught boys, time past, time present, and time future? Who can say that there is only time present because the other two do not exist, or do they also exist, but when from the future time becomes present it proceeds from some secret place, and when from times present it becomes past it recedes into some secret place? For where have those men who have foretold the future seen the things foretold if then they were not yet existing? For what does not exist cannot be seen, and those who tell of things past could not speak of them as if they were true if they did not see them in their minds. These things could in no way be discerned if they did not exist. There are therefore times present and times past. Chapter 18. Give me leave, O Lord, to seek still further. O my hope, let not my purpose be confounded. For if there are times past and future I wish to know where they are. But if I have not yet succeeded in this I still know that wherever they are they are not there as future or past but as present. For if they are there as future they are there as not yet. If they are there as past they are there as no longer. Wherever they are and whatever they are they exist therefore only as present. Although we tell of past things as true they are drawn out of the memory, not the things themselves which have already passed but words constructed from the images of the perceptions which were formed in the mind like footprints in their passage through the senses. My childhood for instance which is no longer still exists in time past which does not now exist. But when I call to mind its image and speak of it I see it in the present because it is still in my memory. Whether there is a similar explanation for the foretelling of future events that is of the images of things which are not yet seen as if they were already existing. I confess oh my God I do not know. But this I certainly do know that we generally think ahead about our future actions and this premeditation is in time present. But that the action which we premeditate is not yet because it is still future. When we shall have started the action and have begun to do what we were premeditating then that action will be in time present because then it is no longer in time future. Whatever may be the manner of this secret foreseeing of future things nothing can be seen except what exists. But what exists now is not future but present. When therefore they say that future events are seen it is not the events themselves for they do not exist as yet that is they are still in time future. But perhaps instead their causes and their signs are seen which already do exist. Therefore to those already beholding these causes and signs they are not future but present. And from them future things are predicted because they are conceived in the mind. These conceptions however exist now and those who predict those things see these conceptions before them in time present. Let me take an example from the vast multitude and variety of such things. I see the dawn I predict that the sun is about to rise what I see is in time present what I predict is in time future not that the sun is future for it already exists but its rising is future because it is not yet yet I could not predict even its rising unless I had an image of it in my mind as indeed I do even now as I speak but that dawn which I see in the sky is not the rising of the sun though it does precede it nor is it a conception in my mind these two are seen in time present in order that the event which is in time future may be predicted. Future events therefore are not yet and if they are not yet they do not exist and if they do not exist they cannot be seen at all but they can be predicted from things present which now are and are seen. Chapter 19 Now therefore, O ruler of thy creatures, what is the mode by which thou teachest souls those things which are still future? For thou hast taught thy prophets. How dost thou to whom nothing is future teach future things, or rather teach things present from the signs of things future? For what does not exist certainly cannot be taught. This way of thine is too far from my sight. It is too great for me. I cannot attain to it. But I shall be enabled by thee when thou wilt grant it, O sweet light of my secret eyes. Chapter 20 But even now it is manifest and clear that there are neither times future nor times past. Thus it is not properly said that there are three times past, present, and future. Perhaps it might be said rightly that there are three times, a time present of things past, a time present of things present, and a time present of things future. For these three do coexist somehow in the soul, for otherwise I could not see them. The time present of things past is memory. The time present of things present is direct experience. The time present of things future is expectation. If we are allowed to speak of these things so, I see three times, and I grant that there are three. Let it still be said, then, as our misapplied custom has it, there are three times past, present, and future. I shall not be troubled by it, nor argue, nor object, always provided that what is said is understood so that neither the future nor the past is said to exist now. There are but few things about which we speak properly, and many more about which we speak improperly, though we understand one another's meaning. Chapter 21 I have said, then, that we measure periods of time as they pass, so that we can say that this time is twice as long as that one, or that this is just as long as that, and so on, for the other fractions of time which we can count by measuring. So, then, as I was saying, we measure periods of time as they pass, and if anyone asks me, how do you know this, I can answer. I know because we measure. We could not measure things that do not exist, and things past and future do not exist. But how do we measure present time since it has no extension? It is measured while it passes, but when it has passed it is not measured, for then there is nothing that could be measured. But whence and how and wither does it pass, while it is being measured? Whence but from the future? Which way save through the present? Wither but into the past. Therefore, from what is not yet, through what has no length, it passes into what is now no longer. But what do we measure unless it is a time of some length? For we cannot speak of single and double and triple and equal and all the other ways in which we speak of time except in terms of the length of the periods of time. But in what length, then, do we measure passing time? Is it in the future, from which it passes over? But what does not yet exist cannot be measured, or is it in the present, through which it passes? But what has no length we cannot measure? Or is it in the past, into which it passes? But what is no longer we cannot measure? CHAPTER 22 My soul burns ardently to understand this most intricate enigma. O Lord my God, O Good Father, I beseech thee through Christ. Do not close off these things, both the familiar and the obscure, from my desire. Do not bar it from entering into them, but let their light dawn by thy enlightening mercy, O Lord. Of whom shall I inquire about these things, and to whom shall I confess my ignorance of them with greater profit than to thee, to whom these studies are made? And to whom shall I confess my ignorance of them with greater profit than to thee, to whom these studies are made? And to whom shall I confess my ignorance of them with greater profit than to thee, to whom these studies of mine, ardently longing to understand thy scriptures, are not abhor? Give me what I love, for I do love it, and this thou hast given me. O Father, who truly knows how to give good gifts to thy children, give this to me. Grant it, since I have undertaken to understand it, and hard labor is my lot, until thou openest it. I beseech thee through Christ, and in his name, the holy of holies, let no man interrupt me, for I have believed, and therefore I speak. This is my hope, for this I live, that I may contemplate the joys of my Lord. Behold, thou hast made my days grow old, and they pass away, and how I do not know. We speak of this time, and that time, and these times, and those times. How long ago since he said this? How long ago since he did this? How long ago since I saw that? This syllable is twice as long as that single short syllable. These words we say in here, and we are understood, and we understand. They are quite commonplace and ordinary, and still the meaning of these very same things lies deeply hid, and its discovery is still to come. CHAPTER XXIII I once heard a learned man say that the motions of the sun, moon, and stars constituted time, and I did not agree. For why should not the motions of all bodies constitute time? What if the lights of heaven should cease, and a potter's wheel still turn round? Would there be no time by which we might measure those rotations, and say either that it turned at equal intervals, or, if it moved now more slowly and now more quickly, that some rotations were longer and others shorter? And while we were saying this, would we not also be speaking in time, or would there not be, in our words, some syllables that were long and others short, because the first took a longer time to sound, and the others a shorter time? O God, grant men to see in the small thing the motions that are common to all things, both great and small. Both the stars and the lights of heaven are for signs and seasons, and for days and years. This is doubtless the case, but just as I should not say that the circuit of that wooden wheel was a day, neither would that learned man say that there was, therefore, no time. I thirst to know the power and the nature of time, by which we measure the motions of bodies, and say, for example, that this motion is twice as long as that. For I ask, since the word day refers not only to the length of time that the sun is above the earth, which separates day from night, but also refers to the sun's entire circuit from east, all the way around to east, on account of which we can say so many days have passed, the nights being included when we say so many days, and their lengths not counted separately. Since then the day is ended by the motion of the sun, and by his passage from east to east. I ask whether the motion itself is the day, or whether the day is the period in which that motion is completed, or both. For if the sun's passage is a day, then there would be a day even if the sun should finish his course in as short a period as an hour. If the motion itself is a day, then it would not be a day if from one sunrise to another there were a period no longer than an hour, but the sun would have to go round twenty-four times to make just one day. If it is both, then that could not be called a day if the sun ran his entire course in the period of an hour. Nor would it be a day if, while the sun stood still, as much time passed as the sun usually covered during his whole course, from morning to morning. I shall therefore not ask any more what it is that is called a day, but rather what time is. For it is by time that we measure the circuit of the sun, and would be able to say that it was finished in half the period of time that it customarily takes, if it were completed in a period of only twelve hours. If, then, we compare these periods, we could call one of them a single and the other a double period, as if the sun might run his course from east to east sometimes in a single period, and sometimes in a double period. Let no man tell me, therefore, that the motions of the heavenly bodies constitute time. For when the sun stood still at the prayer of a certain man, in order that he might gain his victory in battle, the sun stood still, but time went on. For in as long a span of time as was sufficient, the battle was fought and ended. I see, then, that time is a certain kind of extension. But do I see it, or do I only seem to? Thou, O light and truth, will show me. CHAPTER 24 Test thou, command, that I should agree, if anyone says that time is the motion of a body. Thou dost not so command, for I hear that nobody is moved but in time. Test thou tellest me, but that the motion of a body itself is time I do not hear. Thou dost not say so. And when a body is moved, I measure by time how long it was moving from the time when it began to be moved until it stopped. And if I did not see when it began to be moved, and if it continued to move so that I could not see when it stopped, I could not measure the movement, except from the time when I began to see it until I stopped. But if I look at it for a long time, I can affirm only that the time is long, but not how long it may be. This is because when we say how long, we are speaking comparatively as, this is as long as that, or this is twice as long as that, or others, such similar ratios. But if we were able to observe the point in space where and from which the body, which is moved, comes and the point to which it is moved, or if we can observe its parts moving as in a wheel, we can say how long the movement of the body took, or the movement of its parts from this place to that. Since, therefore, the motion of a body is one thing, and the norm by which we measure how long it takes is another thing, we cannot say which of these two is to be called time. For although a body is sometimes moved and sometimes stands still, we measure not only its motion, but also its rest as well, and both by time. Thus we say, it stood still as long as it moved, or it stood still twice or three times as long as it moved, or any other ratio which are measuring as either determined or imagined, either roughly or precisely, according to our custom. Therefore time is not the motion of a body. Chapter 25. And I confess to thee, O Lord, that I am still ignorant as to what time is, and again I confess to thee, O Lord, that I know that I am speaking all these things in time, and that I have already spoken of time a long time, and that very long is not long except when measured by the duration of time. How, then, do I know this, when I do not know what time is, or is it possible that I do not know how I can express what I do know? Alas for me, I do not even know the extent of my own ignorance. Behold, O my God, in thy presence I do not lie, as my heart is, so I speak. Thou shall light my candle. Thou, O Lord, my God, wilt enlighten my darkness. Chapter 26. Does not my soul most truly confess to thee that I do measure intervals of time? But what is it that I thus measure, O my God? And how is it that I do not know what I measure? I measure the motion of a body by time, but the time itself I do not measure. But truly could I measure the motion of a body, how long it takes, how long it is in motion from this place to that, unless I could measure the time in which it is moving? How, then, do I measure this time itself? Do we measure a longer time by a shorter time as we measure the length of a cross beam in terms of cubits? Thus we can say that the length of a long syllable is measured by the length of a short syllable, and thus say that the long syllable is double. So also we measure the length of poems by the length of the lines, and the length of the line by the length of the feet, and the length of the feet by the length of the syllable, and the length of the long syllables by the length of the short ones. We do not measure by pages, for in that way we would measure space rather than time. But when we speak the words as they pass by, we say it is a long stanza because it is made up of so many verses. They are long verses because they consist of so many feet. They are long feet because they extend over so many syllables. This is a long syllable because it is twice the length of a short one. But no certain measure of time is obtained this way, since it is possible that if a shorter verse is pronounced slowly it may take up more time than a longer one, if it is pronounced hurriedly. The same would hold for a stanza, or a foot, or a syllable. From this it appears to me that time is nothing other than extendedness. But extendedness of what I do not know. This is a marvel to me. The extendedness may be of the mind itself. For what is it I measure? I ask thee, oh my God, when I say either roughly this time is longer than that, or more precisely this is twice as long as that. I know that I am measuring time, but I am not measuring the future, for it is not yet, and I am not measuring the present because it is extended by no length and I am not measuring the past because it no longer is. What is it therefore that I am measuring? Is it time in its passage, but not time past? Prateri untia tempura, non praterita. This is what I have been saying. Chapter 27 Press on, oh my mind, and attend with all your power. God is our helper. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Give heed where the truth begins to dawn. Suppose now that a bodily voice begins to sound, and continues to sound, on and on, and then ceases. Now there is silence. The voice is past, and there is no longer a sound. It was future before it sounded, and could not be measured because it was not yet, and now it cannot be measured because it is no longer. Therefore, while it was sounding, it might have been measured because then there was something that could be measured. But even then it did not stand still, for it was in motion and was passing away. Could it on that account be any more readily measured? For while it was passing away it was being extended into some interval of time in which it might be measured since the present has no length. Supposing though that it might have been measured, then also suppose that another voice had begun to sound, and is still sounding without any interruption to break its continued flow. We can measure it only while it is sounding, for when it has ceased to sound it will be already past, and there will not be anything there that can be measured. Let us measure it exactly, and let us say how much it is. But while it is sounding it cannot be measured except from the instant when it began to sound, down to the final moment when it left off. For we measure the time interval itself from some beginning point to some end. This is why a voice that has not yet ended cannot be measured, so that one could say how long or how briefly it will continue. Nor can it be said to be equal to another voice or single or double in comparison to it or anything like this, but when it has ended it is no longer. How therefore may it be measured? And yet we measure times, not those which are not yet, nor those which no longer are, nor those which are stretched out by some delay, nor those which have no limit.  And yet we do measure times. Deus creator omnium. This verse of eight syllables alternates between short and long syllables. The four short ones, that is the first, third, fifth, and seventh, are single in relation to the four long ones, that is the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth. Each of the long ones is double the length of each of the short ones. I affirm this and report it, and common sense perceives that this indeed is the case. By common sense then I measure a long syllable by a short one, and I find that it is twice as long. But when one sounds after another, if the first be short and the latter long, how can I hold the short one, and how can I apply it to the long one as a measure, so that I can discover that the long one is twice as long, when in fact the long one does not begin to sound until the short one leaves off sounding. That same long syllable I do not measure at present, since I cannot measure it until it is ended. But its ending is its passing away. What is it then that I can measure? Where is the short syllable by which I measure? Where is the long one that I am measuring? Both have sounded, have flown away, have passed on, and are no longer. And still I measure, and I confidently answer, as far as a trained ear can be trusted, that this syllable is single, and that syllable double. And I could not do this unless they both had passed and were ended, therefore I do not measure them, for they do not exist any more. But I measure something in my memory which remains fixed. It is in you, O mind of mine, that I measure the periods of time. Do not shout me down that it exists objectively. Do not overwhelm yourself with the turbulent flood of your impressions. In you, as I have said, I measure the periods of time. I measure as time present the impression that things make on you, as they pass by, and what remains after they have passed by. I do not measure the things themselves which have passed by and left their impression on you. This is what I measure when I measure periods of time. Either then there are the periods of time or else I do not measure time at all. What are we doing when we measure silence, and say that this silence has lasted as long as that voice lasts? Do we not project our thought to the measure of a sound, as if it were then sounding, so that we can say something concerning the intervals of silence in a given span of time? For even when both the voice and the tongue are still, we review in thought poems and verses and discourse of various kinds or various measures of motions, and we specify their time spans. How long this is in relation to that, just as if we were speaking them aloud? If anyone wishes to utter a prolonged sound, and if, in forethought, he has decided how long it should be, that man has already in silence gone through a span of time and committed his sound to memory. Thus he begins to speak in his voice sounds until it reaches the predetermined end.  But what is already finished has already sounded and what remains will still sound. Thus it passes on, until the present intention carries the future over into the past. The past increases by the diminution of the future, until by the consumption of all the future all is past. CHAPTER 28 But how has the future diminished or consumed when it does not yet exist? Or how does the past, which exists no longer, increase, unless it is that in the mind in which all this happens there are three functions. For the mind expects, it attends, and it remembers, so that what it expects passes into what it remembers by way of what it attends to. Who denies the future things do not exist as yet? But still there is already in the mind the expectation of things still future. And who denies that past things now exist no longer? Still there is in the mind the memory of things past. Who denies that time present has no length since it passes away in a moment? Yet our attention has a continuity, and it is through this that what is present may proceed to become absent. Therefore future time, which is non-existent, is not long. But a long future is a long expectation of the future, nor is time past which is now no longer long. A long past is a long memory of the past. I am about to repeat a Psalm that I know, before I begin my attention encompasses the whole, but once I have begun, as much of it as becomes past while I speak is still stretched out in my memory. The span of my action is divided between my memory, which contains what I have repeated, and my expectation, which contains what I am about to repeat. Yet my attention is continually present with me, and through it what was future is carried over, so that it becomes past. The more this is done and repeated, the more the memory is enlarged, and expectation is shortened until the whole expectation is exhausted, then the whole action is ended and passed into memory. And what takes place in the entire Psalm takes place also in each individual part of it, and in each individual syllable. This also holds in the even longer action of which that Psalm is only a portion. The same holds in the whole life of man, of which all the actions of men are parts. The same holds in the whole age of the sons of men, of which all the lives of men are parts. CHAPTER XXIX But since thy loving kindness is better than life itself, observe how my life is but a stretching out, and how my right hand has upheld me in my Lord, the Son of Man, the mediator between thee, the one, and us, the many, in so many ways, and by so many means. Thus through him I may lay hold upon him in whom I am also laid hold upon, and I may be gathered up from my old way of life to follow that one, and to forget that which is behind, no longer stretched out, but now pulled together again, stretching forth not to what shall be and shall pass away, but to those things that are before me. Not distractedly now, but intently, I follow on for the prize of my heavenly calling, where I may hear the sound of thy praise and contemplate thy delight, which neither come to be nor pass away. But now my years are spent in mourning, and thou, O Lord, art my comfort, my eternal Father. But I have been torn between the times, the order of which I do not know, and my thoughts, even the innmost and deepest places of my soul, are mangled by various commotions until I shall flow together into thee, purged and molten in the fire of thy love. CHAPTER 30 And I will be immovable and fixed in thee, and thy truth will be my mold, and I shall not have to endure the questions of those men who, as if in a morbid disease, thirst for more than they can hold and say. What did God make before he made heaven and earth? Or how did it come into his mind to make something when he had never before made anything? Grant them, O Lord, to consider well what they are saying, and grant them to see that where there is no time they cannot say never. When, therefore, he has said never to have made something, what is this but to say that it was made in no time at all? Let them, therefore, see that there could be no time without a created world, and let them cease to speak vanity of this kind. Let them also be stretched out to those things which are before them, and understand that thou, the eternal Creator of all times, art before all times, and that no times are co-eternal with thee, nor is any creature, even if there is a creature above time. CHAPTER 31 O Lord my God, what a chasm there is in thy deep secret. How far short of it have the consequences of my sins cast me. Heal my eyes, then I may enjoy thine light. Surely if there is a mind that so greatly abounds in knowledge and foreknowledge, to which all things past and future are as well known, as one Psalm is well known to me, that mind would be an exceeding marvel and altogether astonishing. For whatever is past, and whatever is yet to come, would be no more concealed from him than the past and future, of that Psalm were hidden from me when I was chanting it. How much of it had been sung from the beginning, and what, and how much still remain till the end? Far be it from thee, O Creator of the universe, and Creator of our souls and bodies. Far be it from thee that thou shouldest merely know all things past and future. Far far more wonderfully, and far more mysteriously thou knowest them. For it is not as the feelings of one's singing familiar songs, or hearing a familiar song in which, because of his expectation of words still to come, and his remembrance of those that are past, his feelings are varied and his senses are divided. This is not the way that anything happens to thee, who art unchangeably eternal, that is, the truly eternal Creator of minds, as in the beginning thou knowest both the heaven and the earth without any change in thy knowledge, so thou didst make heaven and earth in their beginnings without any division in thy action. Let him who understands this confess to thee, and let him who does not understand also confess to thee. O exalted is thy art, still the humble in heart are thy dwelling place. For thou liftest them who are cast down, and they fall not for whom thou art the most high. End of book 11, chapters 22 through 31, recorded by Craig Campbell in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 2009. CHAPTERS 1 THROUGH 11 OF CONFESSIONS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Anna Roberts. CHAPTER 1 My heart is deeply stirred, O Lord, when in this poor life of mine the words of thy holy scripture strike upon it. This is why the poverty of the human intellect expresses itself in an abundance of language. Inquiry is more loquacious than discovery. Demanding takes longer than obtaining, and the hand that knocks is more active than the hand that receives. But we have the promise, and who shall break it? If God be for us, who can be against us? Ask, and you shall receive, seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you, for every one that asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him that knocks it shall be opened. These are thy own promises, and who need fear to be deceived when truth promises? CHAPTER 2 In lowliness my tongue confesses to thy exultation, for thou madeest heaven and earth. This heaven which I see, and this earth on which I walk, from which came this earth that I carry about me, thou didst make. But where is that heaven of heavens, O Lord, of which we hear in the words of the psalm, the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth he hath given to the children of men? Where is the heaven that we cannot see, in relation to which all that we can see is earth? For this whole corporeal creation has been beautifully formed, though not everywhere in its entirety, and our earth is the lowest of these levels. Still, compared with that heaven of heavens, even the heaven of our own earth is only earth. Indeed, it is not absurd to call each of those two great bodies earth in comparison with that ineffable heaven which is the Lord's, and not for the sons of men. CHAPTER 3 And truly this earth was invisible and unformed, and there was an inexpressibly profound abyss above which there was no light since it had no form. Thou didst command it written that darkness was on the face of the deep. What else is darkness except the absence of light? For if there had been light, where would it have been except by being overall, showing itself rising aloft and giving light? Therefore, when there was no light as yet, why was it that darkness was present, unless it was that light was absent? Darkness then was heavy upon it, because the light from above was absent, just as there is silence when there is no sound. And what is it to have silence anywhere but simply not have sound? Hast thou not, O Lord, taught this soul which confesses to thee? Hast thou not thus taught me, O Lord, that before thou didst form and separate this formless matter when there was nothing, neither color nor figure nor body nor spirit? Yet it was not absolutely nothing, it was a certain formlessness without any shape. CHAPTER 4 What then should that formlessness be called so that somehow it might be indicated to those of sluggish mind unless we use some word in common speech? But what can be found anywhere in the world nearer to a total formlessness than the earth and the abyss? Because of their being on the lowest level they are less beautiful than are the other and higher parts, all translucent and shining. Therefore, why may I not consider the formlessness of matter which thou didst create without shapely form from which to make this shapely world as fittingly indicated to men by the phrase the earth invisible and unformed? CHAPTER 5 When our thoughts seek something for our sense to fasten to, in this concept of unformed matter, and when it says to itself it is not an intelligible form such as life or justice, since it is the material for bodies, and it is not a form or perception, for there is nothing in the invisible and unformed which can be seen and felt. While human thought says such things to itself it may be attempting either to know by being ignorant or by knowing how not to know. CHAPTER 6 But if, O Lord, I am to confess to thee by my mouth and my pen, the whole of what thou hast taught me concerning this unformed matter, I must say first of all that when I first heard of such matter and did not understand it, and those who told me of it could not understand it either, I conceived of it as having countless and varied forms. Thus I did not think about it rightly. My mind, in its agitation, used to turn up all sorts of foul and horrible forms, but still they were forms. And still I called it formless, not because it was unformed, but because it had what seemed to me a kind of form that my mind turned away from, as bizarre and incongruous, before which my human weakness was confused. And even what I did conceive of, as unformed, was so, not because it was deprived of all form, but only as it compared with more beautiful forms. Right reason, then, persuaded me that I ought to remove altogether all vestiges of form whatever, if I wished to conceive matter that was wholly unformed, and this I could not do. For I could more readily imagine that what was deprived of all form simply did not exist, than I could conceive of anything between form and nothing, something which was neither formed nor nothing, something that was unformed and nearly nothing. Thus my mind ceased to question my spirit, filled as it was with the images of formed bodies changing and varying them according to its will, and so I applied myself to the bodies themselves and looked more deeply into their mutability, by which they ceased to be what they had been and begin to be what they were not. This transition from form to form I had regarded as involving something like a formless condition, though not actual nothingness. But I desired to know not to guess, and if my voice and my pen were to confess to thee all the various knots thou hast untied for me about this question, who among my readers could endure to grasp the whole of the account? Still, despite this, my heart will not cease to give honor to thee or to sing thy praises concerning those things which it is not able to express. For the mutability of mutable things carries with it the possibility of all those forms into which mutable things can be changed. But this mutability, what is it? Is it soul? Is it body? Is it the external appearance of soul or body? Could it be said nothing was something, and that which is is not? If this were possible I would say that this was it, and in some such manner it must have been in order to receive these visible and composite forms. CHAPTER VII Wentson how was this, unless it came from thee, from whom all things are, insofar as they are? But the farther something is from thee, the more unlike thee it is, and this is not a matter of distance or place. Thus it was that thou, O Lord, who art not one thing in this place and another thing in another place, but the self-same, and the self-same and the self-same. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, thus it was that in the beginning, and through thy wisdom which is from thee, and born of thy substance, thou didst create something and that out of nothing. For thou didst create the heaven and the earth, not out of thy self, for then they would be equal to thy only Son and thereby to thee. And there is no sense in which it would be right that anything should be equal to thee that was not of thee. But what else besides thee was there, out of which thou mightst create these things, O God, one trinity, and trying unity? And therefore it was out of nothing at all that thou didst create the heaven and earth, something great and something small, for thou art almighty and good, and able to make all things good, even the great heaven and the small earth. Thou wasst, and there was nothing else from which thou didst create heaven and earth, these two things, one near thee, the other near to nothing, the one to which only thou art superior, the other to which nothing else is inferior. CHAPTER VIII. That heaven of heavens was thine, O Lord, but the earth which thou didst give to the sons of men to be seen and touched was not then in the same form as that in which we now see it and touch it. For then it was invisible and unformed, and there was an abyss over which there was no light. The darkness was truly over the abyss, that is, more than just in the abyss. For this abyss of waters, which is now visible, has even in its depths a certain light appropriate to its nature, perceptible in some fashion to fishes and the things that creep about on the bottom of it. But then the entire abyss was almost nothing, since it was still altogether unformed. Yet even there there was something that had the possibility of being formed. For thou, O Lord, hadst made the world out of unformed matter, and this thou didst make out of nothing and didst make it into almost nothing. From it thou hast then made these great things which we, the sons of men, marvel at. For this corporeal heaven is truly marvelous, this firmament between the water and the waters, which thou didst make on the second day after the creation of light, saying, Let it be done, and it was done. This firmament thou didst call heaven, that is, the heaven of this earth and sea, which thou madest on the third day, giving a visible shape to the unformed matter which thou hadst made before all the days. For even before any day thou hadst already made a heaven, but that was the heaven of this heaven, for in the beginning thou hadst made heaven and earth. But this earth itself which thou hadst made was unformed matter, it was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss. Out of this invisible and unformed earth, out of this formlessness which is almost nothing, thou didst then make all these things of which the changeable world consists, and yet does not fully consist in itself, for its very changeableness appears in this, that its times and seasons can be observed and numbered. The periods of time are measured by the changes of things, while the forms, whose matter is the invisible earth of which we have spoken, are varied and altered. CHAPTER IX. And therefore the spirit, the teacher of thy servant, when he mentions that, in the beginning thou madest heaven and earth, says nothing about times and is silent as to the days. For clearly, that heaven of heavens which thou didst create in the beginning is in some way an intellectual creature, although in no way co-eternal with thee, O Trinity, yet it is none the less a partaker in thy eternity. Because of the sweetness of its most happy contemplation of thee, it is greatly restrained in its own mutability, and cleaves to thee without any lapse from the time in which it was created, surpassing all the rolling change of time. But this shapelessness, this earth invisible and unformed, was not numbered among the days itself. For where there is no shape or order, there is nothing that either comes or goes, and where this does not occur there certainly are no days, nor any vicissitude of duration. CHAPTER X. O truth, O light of my heart, let not my own darkness speak to me. I had fallen into that darkness and was darkened thereby. But in it, even in its depths, I came to love thee. I went astray and still remembered thee. I heard thy voice behind me, bidding me return, though I could scarcely hear it for the tumults of my boisterous passions. And now, behold, I am returning, burning and thirsting after thy fountain. Let no one hinder me, here will I drink and so have life. Let me not be my own life, for of myself I have lived badly. I was death to myself, and thee I have revived. Speak to me, converse with me, I have believed thy books, and their words are very deep. CHAPTER XI. Thou hast told me already, O Lord, with a strong voice in my inner ear, that thou art eternal and alone hast immortality. Thou art not changed by any shape or motion, and thy will is not altered by temporal process, because no will that changes is immortal. This is clear to me in thy sight. Let it become clearer and clearer, I beseech thee. In that light let me abide soberly under thy wings. Thou hast also told me, O Lord, with a strong voice in my inner ear, that thou hast created all natures and all substances, which are not what thou art thyself, and yet they do exist. Only that which is nothing at all is not from thee, and that motion of the will away from thee, who art toward something that exists only in a lesser degree, such a motion is an offence and a sin. No one sin either hurts thee, or disturbs the order of thy rule, either first or last. All this in thy sight is clear to me. Let it become clearer and clearer, I beseech thee. And in that light let me abide soberly under thy wings. Likewise, thou hast told me, with a strong voice in my inner ear, that this creation, whose delight thou alone art, is not co-eternal with thee. With the most persevering purity it draws its support from thee, and nowhere it never betrays its own mutability. For thou art ever present with it, and it cleaves to thee with its entire affection, having no future to expect and no past that it remembers, it is varied by no change and is extended by no time. O blessed one, if such there be, clinging to thy blessedness. It is blessed in thee, its everlasting inhabitant and its light. I cannot find a term that I would judge more fitting for the heaven of the heavens of the Lord than thy house, which contemplates thy delights without any declination toward anything else, and which, with a pure mind in most harmonious stability, joins altogether in the peace of those saintly spirits who are citizens of thy city in those heavens that are above this visible heaven. From this let the soul that has wandered far away from thee understand, if now it thirsts for thee, if now its tears have become its bread, while daily they say to it, Where is your God? If now it requests of thee just one thing, and seeks after this, that it may dwell in thy house all the days of its life, and what is its life but thee, and what are thy days but thy eternity, like thy years which do not fail, since thou art the self-same. From this I say, let the soul understand, as far as it can, how far above all times thou art in thy eternity, and how thy house has never wandered away from thee. And, although it is not co-eternal with thee, it continually and unfailingly clings to thee, and suffers no vicissitudes of time. This, in thy sight, is clear to me, may it become clearer and clearer to me I beseech thee, and in this light may I abide soberly under thy wings. Now I do not know what kind of formlessness there is in these mutations of these last and lowest creatures, yet who will tell me, unless it is someone who, in the emptiness of his own heart, enters about and begins to be dizzy in his own fancies? Who except such a one would tell me whether, if all form were diminished and consumed, formlessness alone would remain, through which a thing was changed and turned from one species into another, so that sheer formlessness would then be characterized by temporal change. And surely this could not be, because without motion there is no time, and where there is no form there is no change. CHAPTER XII. These things I have considered as thou hast given me ability, oh my God, as thou hast excited me to knock, and as thou hast opened to me when I knock. Two things I find which thou hast made, not within intervals of time, although neither is co-eternal with thee. One of them is so formed that, without any wavering in its contemplation, without any interval of change, mutable but not changed, it may fully enjoy thy eternity and immutability. The other is so formless that it could not change from one form to another, either of motion or of rest, and so time has no hold upon it. But thou didst not leave this formless, for, before any day in the beginning, thou didst create heaven and earth. These are the two things of which I spoke. But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss. By these words its formlessness is indicated to us, so that by degrees they may be led forward who cannot wholly conceive of the probation of all form without arriving at nothing. From this formlessness a second heaven might be created and a second earth, visible and well-formed, with the ordered beauty of the waters and whatever else is recorded as created, though not without days, in the formation of this world. And all this because such things are so ordered that in them the changes of time may take place through the ordered processes of motion and form. CHAPTER XIII. Meanwhile, this is what I understand, O my God, when I hear thy scripture saying, in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss. It does not say on what day thou didst create these things. Thus for the time being I understand that heaven of heavens to mean the intelligible heaven, where to understand is to know all at once, not in part, not darkly, not through a glass, but as a simultaneous hole in full sight, face to face. It is not this thing now and then another thing, but, as we said, knowledge all at once without any temporal change. And by the invisible and unformed earth, I understand that which suffers no temporal vicissitude. Temporal change customarily means having one thing now and another later, but where there is no form there can be no distinction between this or that. It is, then, by means of these two, one thing well formed in the beginning, and another thing wholly unformed, the one heaven, that is, the heaven of heavens, and the other one earth, but the earth invisible and unformed, it is by means of these two notions that I am able to understand why the scripture said, without mention of days, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. For it immediately indicated which earth it was speaking about. When on the second day the firmament is recorded as having been created and called heaven, this suggests to us which heaven it was that he was speaking about earlier without specifying a day. CHAPTER XIV.  It is a fearful thing to look into them, an awe of honour and a tremor of love, their enemies I hate vehemently. Oh, if that would slay them with a two-edged sword, so that they should not be enemies, for I would prefer that they should be slain to themselves, that they might live to thee. But, see, there are others who are not critics but praisers of the book of Genesis. They say, the Spirit of God, who wrote these things by His servant Moses, did not wish these words to be understood like this. He did not wish to have it understood as you say, but as we say.  CHAPTER XV. Will you say that these things are false which truth tells me, with a loud voice in my inner ear, about the very eternity of the Creator, that His essence is changed in no respect by time and that His will is not distinct from His essence? Thus he doth not will one thing now and another thing later, but he willeth once and for all everything that he willeth, not again and again, and not now this and now that, nor does he will afterward what he did not will before, nor does he cease to will what he had willed before. Such a will would be mutable, and no mutable thing is eternal, but our God is eternal. Again, he tells me in my inner ear that the expectation of future things is turned to sight when they have come to pass, and this same sight is turned into memory when they have passed. Moreover, all thought that varies thus is mutable, and nothing mutable is eternal, but our God is eternal. These things I sum up and put together, and I conclude that my God, the eternal God, hath not made any creature by any new will, and his knowledge does not admit anything transitory. But what then will you say to this, you objectors? Are these things false? No, they say. What then, is it false that every entity already formed and all matter capable of receiving form is from him alone who is supremely good because he is supreme? We do not deny this either, they say. What then, do you deny this, that there is a certain sublime created order which cleaves with such a chaste love to the true and truly eternal God that, although it is not co-eternal with him, yet it does not separate itself from him, and does not flow away into any mutation of change or process, but abides in true contemplation of him alone? If thou, O God, dost show thyself to him who loves thee as thou hast commanded, and art sufficient for him, then such a one will neither turn himself away from thee, nor turn toward himself. This is the house of God. It is not an earthly house, and it is not made from any celestial matter, but it is a spiritual house, and it partakes in thy eternity because it is without blemish for ever. For thou hast made it steadfast for ever and ever, thou hast given it a law which will not be removed. Still it is not co-eternal with thee, O God, since it is not without beginning. It was created. For although we can find no time before it, for wisdom was created before all things, this is certainly not that wisdom which is absolutely co-eternal and equal with thee, our God, its Father, the wisdom through whom all things were created, and in whom, in the beginning, thou didst create the heaven and earth. This is truly the created wisdom, namely the intelligible nature which, in its contemplation of light, is light. For this is also called wisdom, even if it is a created wisdom. But the difference between the light that lightens and that which is enlightened is as great as is the difference between the wisdom that creates and that which is created. So also is the difference between the righteousness that justifies and the righteousness that is made by justification. For we also are called thy righteousness, for a certain servant of thine says that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Therefore there is a certain created wisdom that was created before all things, the rational and intelligible mind of that chaste city of thine. It is our mother which is above and is free and eternal in the heavens, but in what heavens except those which praise thee, the heaven of heavens? This also is the heaven of heavens which is the lords, although we find no time before it since what has been created before all things also precedes the creation of time. Still the eternity of the creator himself is before it, from whom it took its beginning as created, though not in time, since time is yet was not, even though time belongs to its created nature. Thus it is that the intelligible heaven came to be from thee, our God, but in such a way that it is quite another being than thou art, it is not the self same. Yet we find that time is not only before it, but not even in it, thus making it able to behold thy face forever and not ever be turned aside. Thus it is varied by no change at all, but there is still in it that mutability and virtue of which it could become dark and cold, if it did not, by cleaving to thee with a supernal love, shine and glow from thee like a perpetual noon. O house full of light and splendor, I have loved your beauty in the place of the habitation of the glory of my Lord, your builder and possessor. In my wandering let me sigh for you, this I ask of him who made you, that he should also possess me in you, seeing that he hath also made me.  What will you say to me now, you objectors to whom I spoke, who still believe that Moses was the holy servant of God, and that his books were the oracles of the Holy Spirit? Is it not in this house of God, not co-eternal with God, yet in its own mode eternal in the heavens, that you vainly seek for temporal change? You will not find it there, it rises above all extension in every revolving temporal period, and it rises to what is forever good and cleaves fast to God. It is so, they reply, what then about those things which my heart cried out to my God, when it heard within the voice of his praise, what then do you contend is false in them? Is it because matter was unformed, and since there was no form there was no order? But where there was no order there could have been no temporal change, yet even this almost nothing, since it was not altogether nothing, was truly from him whom everything that exists is in whatever state it is. This also, they say, we do not deny. CHAPTER XVI Now I would like to discuss a little further in thy presence, O my God, with those who admit that all these things are true, that thy truth has indicated to my mind. Let those who deny these things bark and drown their own voices with as much clamour as they please. I will endeavour to persuade them to be quiet and to permit thy word to reach them. But if they are unwilling, and if they repel me, I ask of thee, O my God, that thou shouldst not be silent to me. Speak truly in my heart, if only thou would speak thus I would send them away, blowing up the dust and raising it in their own eyes. As for myself I will enter into my closet, and there sing to thee the songs of love, groaning with groanings that are unutterable now in my pilgrimage, and remembering Jerusalem with my heart uplifted to Jerusalem my country, Jerusalem my mother, and to thee thyself, the ruler, and the source of light, its father, guardian, husband, its chaste and strong delight, its solid joy, and all its goods ineffable, and all of this at the same time since thou art the one supreme and true God, and I will not be turned away until thou hast brought back together all that I am from this dispersion and deformity, to the peace of that dearest mother, where the first fruits of my spirit are to be found, and from which all these things are promised me, which thou dost conform and confirm forever, O my God, my mercy. But as for those who do not say that all these things which are true or false, who still honor thy scripture set before us by the Holy Moses, who join us in placing it on the summit of authority for us to follow, and yet who oppose us in some particulars I say this. Be thou, O God, the judge between my confessions and their gain-saying. CHAPTER XVII. For they say, even if these things are true, still Moses did not refer to these two things when he said, by divine revelation, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, by the term heaven he did not mean that spiritual or intelligible created order which always beholds the face of God, and by the term earth he was not referring to the unformed matter. What then do these terms mean? They reply, that man, Moses, meant what we mean, this is what he was saying in those terms. What is that? By the terms of heaven and earth they say, he wished first to indicate universally and briefly this whole visible world, then after this, by an enumeration of the days, he could point out one by one all the things that it has pleased the Holy Spirit to reveal in this way. For the people to whom he spoke were rude and carnal, so that he judged it prudent that only those works of God which were visible should be mentioned to them. But they do agree that the phrase, the earth was invisible and unformed, and the darkened abyss, may not inappropriately be understood to refer to this unformed matter, and that out of this, as it is subsequently related, all the visible things which are known to all were made and set in order during those specified days. But now, what if another one should say, this same formlessness and chaos of matter was first mentioned by the name of heaven and earth, because out of it this visible world, with all its entities, which clearly appear in it, and which we are accustomed to be called by the name of heaven and earth, was created and perfected? And what if, still another should say, the invisible and visible nature is quite fittingly called heaven and earth? Thus the whole creation which God has made in his wisdom, that is, in the beginning, was included under these two terms. Yet, since all things have been made, not from the essence of God, but from nothing, and because they are not the same reality that God is, and because there is in them all a certain mutability, whether they abide as the eternal house of God abides, or whether they are changed as the soul and body of man are changed, then the common matter of all things invisible and visible, still formless, but capable of receiving form, from which heaven and earth were to be created, that is, the creature already fashioned, invisible as well as visible, all this was spoken of in the same terms by which the invisible and unformed earth, and the darkness over the abyss would be called. There was this difference, however, that the invisible and unformed earth is to be understood as having corporeal matter before it had any manner of form, but the darkness over the abyss was spiritual matter, before its unlimited fluidity was harnessed, and before it was enlightened by wisdom. And if anyone wished, he might also say, the entities already perfected and formed, invisible and visible, are not signified by the terms heaven and earth, when it reads, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Instead, the unformed beginning of things, the matter capable of receiving form and being made, was called by these terms, because the chaos was contained in it, and was not yet distinguished by qualities and forms, which have now been arranged in their own orders and are called heaven and earth, the former of spiritual creation, the latter of physical creation. CHAPTER XVIII. When all these things have been said and considered, I am unwilling to contend about words, for such contention is profitable for nothing but the subverting of the hearer. But the law is profitable for edification if a man use it lawfully, for the end of the law is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience, and faith unfaigned, and our master knew it well, for it was on these two commandments that he hung all the law and the prophets. And how would it harm me, oh my God, thou light of my eyes in secret, if while I am ardently confessing these things, since many different things may be understood from these words, all of which may be true, what harm would be done if I should interpret the meaning of the sacred writer differently from the way some other man interprets. Indeed, all of us who read are trying to trace out and understand what our author wished to convey, and since we believe that he speaks truly we dare not suppose that he has spoken anything that we either know or supposed to be false. Therefore, since every person tries to understand in the Holy Scripture what the writer understood, what harm is done if a man understands what thou, the light of all truth-speaking minds, show us him to be true, although the author he reads did not understand this aspect of truth, even though he did understand the truth in a different meaning. CHAPTER 19 For it is certainly true, oh Lord, that thou didst create the heaven and the earth. It is also true that the beginning is thy wisdom in which thou didst create all things. It is likewise true that this visible world has its own great division, the heaven and the earth, and these two terms include all entities that have been made and created. It is further true that everything mutable confronts our minds with a certain lack of form whereby it receives form or whereby it is capable of taking form. It is true yet again that what cleaves to the changeless form so closely, that even though it is mutable it is not changed, is not subject to temporal process. It is true that the formlessness which is almost nothing cannot have temporal change in it. It is true that that from which something is made can, in a manner of speaking, be called by the same name as the thing that is made from it. Thus that formlessness of which heaven and earth were made might be called heaven and earth. It is true that of all things having form nothing is nearer to the unformed than the earth and the abyss. It is true that not only every created and formed thing but also everything capable of creation and of form were created by thee from whom all things are. It is true, finally, that everything that is formed from what is formless was formless before it was created. From all these truths which are not doubted by those to whom thou hast granted insight in such things in their inner eye, and who believe unshakably that thy servant Moses spoke in the spirit of truth, from all these truths, then, one man takes the sense of, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth to mean, in his word, co-eternal with himself, God made both the intelligible and the tangible, the spiritual and the corporeal creation. Another takes it in a different sense, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth means, in his word, co-eternal with himself, God made the universal mass of this corporeal world with all the observable and known entities that it contains. Still, another finds a different meaning, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth means, in his word, co-eternal with himself, God made the unformed matter of the spiritual and corporeal creation. Another can take the sense, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth means, in his word, co-eternal with himself, God made the unformed matter of the physical creation, in which heaven and earth were as yet indistinguished, but now that they have come to be separated and formed, we can now perceive them both in the mighty mass of this world. Another takes still a further meaning, that in the beginning God created heaven and earth means, in the very beginning of creating and working, God made that unformed matter which contained, undifferentiated, heaven and earth, from which both of them were formed, and both now stand out and are observable with all the things that are in them. Chapter 21 Again, regarding the interpretation of the following words, one man selects for himself, from all the various truths, the interpretation that the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over, the abyss means that corporeal entity which God made was as yet the formless matter of physical things without order and without light. Another takes it in a different sense, that the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss means, this totality called heaven and earth was as yet unformed, and lightless matter, out of which the corporeal heaven and the corporeal earth were to be made with all the things in them that are known to our physical senses. Another takes it still differently and says that, but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss means, this totality called heaven and earth was as yet an unformed and lightless matter, from which were to be made that intelligible heaven, which is also called the heaven of heavens, and the earth which refers to the whole physical entity, under which term may be included this corporeal heaven. That is, he made the intelligible heaven from which every invisible and visible creature would be created. He takes it in yet another sense who says that, but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss means, the scripture does not refer to that formlessness by the term heaven and earth, that formlessness itself already existed. This it called the invisible earth, and the unformed lightless abyss from which, as it had said before, God made the heaven and the earth, namely the spiritual, and the corporeal creation. Still another says that, but the earth was invisible and formless, and darkness was over the abyss means, there was already an unformed matter from which, as the scripture had already said, God made heaven and earth, namely the entire corporeal mass of the world, divided into two very great parts, one superior, the other inferior, with all those familiar and known creatures that are in them. Chapter 22 Now suppose that someone tried to argue against these last two opinions as follows. If you will not admit that this formlessness of matter appears to be called by the term heaven and earth, then there was something that God had not made out of which he did make heaven and earth, and scripture has not told us that God made this matter, unless we understand that it is implied in the term heaven and earth, or the term earth alone, when it is said, in the beginning God created the heaven and earth. Thus in what follows, the earth was invisible and unformed, even though it pleased Moses thus to refer to unformed matter, yet we can only understand, by it, that which God himself hath made, as it stands written in the previous verse, God made heaven and earth. Those who maintain either one or the other of these two opinions, which we have set out above, will answer to such objections, we did not deny at all that this unformed matter was created by God, from whom all things are, and are very good, because we hold that what is created and endowed with form is a higher good, and we also hold that what is made capable of being created and endowed with form, though it is a lesser good, is still a good. But the scripture has not said specifically that God made this formlessness any more than it has said it specifically of many other things, such as the orders of cherubim and seraphim, and those others of which the apostle distinctly speaks, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, yet it is clear that God made all of these. If, in the phrase, he made heaven and earth, all things are included, what are we to say about the waters upon which the Spirit of God moved? For if they are understood as included in the term earth, then how can unformed matter be meant by the term earth when we see the water so beautifully formed? Or if it be taken thus, why, then, is it written that out of the same formlessness the firmament was made and called heaven, and yet it is not specifically written that the waters were made? For these waters, which we perceive flowing in so beautiful a fashion, are not formless and invisible. But if they received that beauty at the time God said of them, let the waters which are under the firmament be gathered together, thus indicating that their gathering together was the same thing as their reception of form, what, then, is to be said about the waters that are above the firmament? Because if they are unformed, they do not deserve to have a seat so honorable, and yet it is not written by what specific word they were formed. If, then, Genesis is silent about anything that God hath made, which neither sound faith nor unerring understanding doubts that God hath made, let not any sober teaching dare to say that these waters were co-eternal with God, because we find them mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and do not find it mentioned when they were created. If truth instructs us, why may we not interpret that unformed matter which the Scripture calls the earth, invisible and unformed, and the lightless abyss as having been made by God from nothing, and thus understand that they are not co-eternal with him, although the narrative fails to tell us precisely when they were made. End of Book 12, chapters 12 to 22. CHAPTERS 23 THROUGH 32 OF CONFESSIONS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Anna Roberts. Confessions by St. Augustine. Translated by Albert C. Outler. Book 12, chapters 23 through 32. CHAPTER 23 I have heard and considered these theories as well as my weak apprehension allows, and I confess my weakness to thee, O Lord, though already thou knowest it. Thus I see that two sorts of disagreements may arise when anything is related by signs, even by trustworthy reporters. There is one disagreement about the truth of the things involved, the other concerns the meaning of the one who reports them. It is one thing to inquire as to what is true about the formation of the creation. It is another thing, however, to ask what that excellent servant of thy faith, Moses, would have wished for the reader and hearer to understand from these words. As for the first question, let all those depart for me who imagine that Moses spoke things that are false. But let me be united with them and thee, O Lord, and delight myself in thee, with those who feed on thy truth in the bond of love. Let us approach together the words of thy book and make diligent inquiry in them, for thy meaning, through the meaning of thy servant, by whose pen thou hast given them to us. CHAPTER 24 But in the midst of so many truths which occurred to the interpreters of these words, understood as they can be in different ways, which one of us can discover that single interpretation which warrants our saying confidently that Moses thought thus, and that in this narrative he wishes this to be understood, as confidently as he would say that this is true, whether Moses thought that one or the other. For see, O my God, I am thy servant, and I have vowed in this book an offering of confession to thee, and I beseed to thee that by thy mercy I may pay my vow to thee. Now, see, could I assert that Moses meant nothing else than this, that is, my interpretation, when he wrote, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, as confidently as I can assert that thou and thy immutable word hast created all things, invisible and visible. No, I cannot do this, because it is not as clear to me that this was in his mind when he wrote these things, as I see it to be certain in thy truth. For his thoughts might be set upon the very beginning of the creation when he said, in the beginning, and he might have wished it understood that in this passage, heaven and earth refers to no formed and perfect entity, whether spiritual or corporeal, but each of them only newly begun and still formless. Whichever of these possibilities has been mentioned, I can see that it might have been said truly. But which of them did he actually intend to express in these words I do not clearly see? However, whether it was one of these, or some other meaning which I have not mentioned, that this great man saw in his mind when he used these words, I have no doubt whatever that he saw it truly and expressed it suitably. Chapter 25 Let no man fret me now by saying, Moses did not mean what you say, but what I say. Now if he asks me, how do you know that Moses meant what you deduce from his words, I ought to respond calmly and reply as I have already done, or even more fully if he happens to be untrained. But when he says, Moses did not mean what you say, but what I say, and then does not deny what either of us says, but allows that both are true, then, oh my God, life of the poor, in whose breast there is no contradiction, pour thy soothing balm into my heart, that I may patiently bear with people who talk like this. It is not because they are godly men, and have seen in the heart of thy servant what they say, but rather they are proud men, and have not considered Moses meaning, but only love their own, not because it is true, but because it is their own. Otherwise, they could equally love another true opinion. As I love what they say, when what they speak is true, not because it is theirs, but because it is true, and therefore not theirs, but true. And if they love an opinion because it is true, it becomes both theirs and mine, since it is the common property of all lovers of the truth. But I neither accept nor prove of it, when they contend that Moses did not mean what I say, but what they say, and this because, even if it were so, such rashness is borne not of knowledge, but of impudence. It comes not from vision, but from vanity. And therefore, O Lord, thy judgment should be held in awe, because thy truth is neither mine, nor his, nor anyone else's, but it belongs to all of us whom thou hast openly called to have it in common, and thou hast warned us not to hold on to it as our own special property, for if we do we lose it, for if anyone arrogates to himself what thou hast bestowed on all to enjoy, and if he desires something for his own that belongs to all, he is forced away from what is common to all to what is indeed his very own, that is, from truth to falsehood, for he who tells a lie speaks of his own thought. Here, O God, best judge of all, O truth itself, hear what I say to this disputant, hear it because I say it in thy presence and before my brethren who use the law rightly to the end of love. Hear and give heed to what I shall say to him if it pleases thee, for I would return this brotherly and peaceful word to him. If we both see that what you say is true, and if we both say that what I say is true, where is it I ask you that we see this? Certainly I do not see it in you, and you do not see it in me, but both of us see it in the unchangeable truth itself, which is above our minds. If, then, we do not disagree about the true light of the Lord our God, why do we disagree about the thoughts of our neighbor, which we cannot see as clearly as the immutable truth is seen? If Moses himself had appeared to us and said, This is what I meant, it would not be an order that we should see it, but that we should believe him. Let us not then go beyond what is written and be puffed up for the one against the other.  Unless we believe that whatever Moses meant in these books he meant to be ordered by those two precepts of love, we shall make God a liar if we judge of the soul of his servant in any other way than as he has taught us. See now how foolish it is in the face of so great an abundance of true opinions, which can be elicited from these words, rashly to affirm that Moses especially intended only one of these interpretations, and then, with destructive contention, to violate love itself on behalf of which he had said all the things we are endeavoring to explain. Chapter 26 And yet, oh my God, thou exaltation of my humility and rest of my toil, who hearest my confessions and forgivest my sins, since thou commandest me to love my neighbor as myself, I cannot believe that thou gavest thy most faithful servant Moses a lesser gift than I should wish in desire for myself from thee, if I had been born in his time, and if thou hadst placed me in the position where, by the use of my heart and my tongue, those books might be produced, which so long after were to profit all nations throughout the whole world from such a great pinnacle of authority, and were to surmount the words of all false and proud teachings. If I had been Moses, and we all come from the same mass, and what is man that thou art mindful of him, if I had been Moses at the time that he was, and if I had been ordered by thee to write the book of Genesis, I would surely have wished for such a power of expression and such an art of arrangement to be given to me, that those who cannot as yet understand how God created would still not reject my words as surpassing their powers of understanding, and I would have wished that those who are already able to do this would find fully contained in the laconic speech of thy servant whatever truths they had arrived at in their own thought, and if, in the light of the truth, some other man saw some further meaning, that too would be found congruent to my words. For just as the spring damned up is more plentiful and affords a larger supply of water for more streams over wider fields than any single stream led off from the same spring over a long course, so also is the narration of thy minister. It is intended to benefit many who are likely to discourse about it, and, with an economy of language, it overflows into various streams of clear truth, from which each one may draw out for himself that particular truth which he can about these topics. This one that truth, that one another truth, by the broader survey of various interpretations. For some people, when they read or hear these words, think that God, like some sort of man or like some sort of huge body, by some new and sudden decision, produced outside himself and at a certain distance two great bodies, one above the other below, within which all created things were to be contained. And when they hear, God said, Let such and such be done and it was done, they think of words begun and ended, sounding in time and then passing away, followed by the coming into being of what was commanded. They think of other things of the same sort, which their familiarity with the world suggests to them. In these people, who are still little children and whose weakness is borne up by this humble language, as if on a mother's breast, their faith is built up healthfully, and they come to possess and to hold a certain the conviction that God made all entities that their senses perceive all around them in such marvelous variety. And if one despises these words as if they were trivial, and with proud weakness stretches himself beyond his fostering cradle, he will, alas, fall away wretchedly. Have pity, O Lord God, lest those who pass by trample on the unfledged bird, and send thy angel, who may restore it to its nest, that it may live until it can fly. But others, to whom these words are no longer a nest, but rather a shady thicket, spy the fruits concealed in them, and fly around rejoicing, and search among them, and pluck them with cheerful chirpings. For when they read or hear these words, O God, they see that all times past and times future are transcended by thy eternal and stable permanence, and they see also that there is no temporal creature that is not of thy making. By thy will, since it is the same as thy being, thou hast created all things, not by any mutation of will, and not by any will that previously was not existent, and not out of thyself, but in thy own likeness, that it's make from nothing the form of all things. This was an unlikeness which was capable of being formed by thy likeness through its relation to thee, the one as each thing has been given form appropriate to its kind, according to its preordained capacity. Thus all things were made very good, whether they remain around thee or whether, removed in time and place by various degrees, they cause or undergo the beautiful changes of natural process. They see these things, and they rejoice in the light of thy truth to whatever degree they can. Again, one of these men directs his attention to the verse, In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and he beholds wisdom as the true beginning, because it also speaks to us. Another man directs his attention to the same words, and by beginning he understands simply the commencement of creation and interprets it thus. In the beginning he made, as if it were the same thing as to say, at the first moment God made. And among those who interpret in the beginning to mean that in thy wisdom, thou hast created the heaven and earth, one believes that the matter out of which heaven and earth were to be created is what is referred to by the phrase heaven and earth. But another believes that these entities were already formed and distinct. Still another will understand it to refer to one formed entity, a spiritual one designated by the term heaven, and to another unformed entity of corporeal matter designated by the term earth. But those who understand the phrase heaven and earth to mean the yet unformed matter from which the heaven and the earth were to be formed do not take it in a simple sense. One man regards it as that from which the intelligible and tangible creations are both produced, and another only as that from which the tangible corporeal world is produced, containing in its vast bosom these visible and observable entities. Nor are they in simple accord who believe that heaven and earth refers to the created things already set in order and arranged. One believes that it refers to the invisible and visible world, another only to the visible world in which we admire the luminous heavens and the darkened earth and all the things that they contain. Chapter 29 But he who understands in the beginning he made, as if it meant at first he made, can truly interpret the phrase heaven and earth as referring only to the matter of heaven and earth, namely of the prior universal which is the intelligible and corporeal creation. For if he would try to interpret the phrase as applying to the universe already formed, then it might rightly be asked of him, if God first made this, then what did he do afterward? And after the universe he will find nothing. But then he must, however unwillingly, face the question, how is this the first if there is nothing afterward? But when he said that God made matter first formless and then formed, he is not being absurd if he is able to discern what precedes by eternity and what proceeds in time, what comes from choice and what comes from origin. In eternity God is before all things. In the temporal process the flower is before the fruit, in the act of choice the fruit is before the flower, in the case of origin sound is before the tune. Of these four relations the first and last that I have referred to are understood with much difficulty. The second and third are very easily understood. For it is an uncommon and lofty vision, O Lord, to behold thy eternity immutably making mutable things, and thereby standing always before them. Whose mind is acute enough to be able, without great labour, to discover how the sound comes before the tune. For a tune is a formed sound and an unformed thing may exist, but a thing that does not exist cannot be formed. In the same way, matter is prior to what is made from it. It is not prior because it makes its product, for it is itself made, and its priority is not that of a time interval. For in time we do not first utter formless sounds without singing, and then adapt or fashion them into the form of a song, as wood or silver from which a chest or vessel is made. Such materials proceed in time the forms of the things which are made from them. But in singing this is not so, for when a song is sung, its sound is heard at the same time. There is not first a formless sound, which afterward is formed into a song, but just as soon as it has sounded it passes away, and you cannot find anything of it which you could gather up in shape. Therefore the song is absorbed in its own sound, and the sound of the song is its matter. But the sound is formed in order that it may be a tune. This is why, as I was saying, the matter of the sound is prior to the form of the tune. It is not before, in the sense that it has any power of making a sound or tune, nor is the sound itself the composer of the tune, rather the sound is sent forth from the body, and is ordered by the soul of the singer, so that from it he may form a tune. Nor is the sound first in time, for it is given forth together with the tune. Nor is it first in choice, because a sound is no better than a tune, since a tune is not merely a sound, but a beautiful sound. But it is first in origin, because the tune is not formed in order that it may become a sound, but the sound is formed in order that it may become a tune. From this example let him who is able to understand see that the matter of things was first made, and was called heaven and earth, because out of it the heaven and earth were made. This primal formlessness was not made first in time, because the form of things gives rise to time, but now in time it is intuited together with its form, and yet nothing can be related of this unformed matter, unless it is regarded as if it were the first in the time series, though the last in value, because things formed are certainly superior to things unformed, and it is preceded by the eternity of the Creator, so that from nothing there might be made that from which something might be made. Chapter 30 In this discord of true opinions let truth itself bring concord, and may our God have mercy on us all that we may use the law rightly to the end of the commandment which is pure love. Thus if anyone asks me which of these opinions was the meaning of thy servant Moses, these would not be my confessions did I not confess to thee that I do not know. Yet I do know that those opinions are true, with the exception of the carnal ones, about which I have said what I thought was proper. Yet those little ones of good hope are not frightened by these words of thy book, for they speak of high things in a lowly way, and of a few basic things in many varied ways. But let all of us, whom I acknowledge to see and speak the truth in these words, love one another, and also love thee, our God, a fountain of truth, as we will if we thirst not after vanity, but for the fountain of truth. Indeed, let us so honor this servant of thine, the dispenser of this scripture, full of thy spirit, so that we will believe that when thou distreveal thyself to him, and he wrote these things down, he intended through them, what will chiefly minister both for the light of truth, and to the increase of our fruitfulness. Chapter 31. Thus when one man says, Moses meant what I mean, and another says, No, he meant what I do, I think that I speak more faithfully when I say, Why could he not have meant both if both opinions are true? And if there should be still a third truth, or a fourth one, and if anyone should seek a truth quite different in those words, why would it not be right to believe that Moses saw all these different truths, since through him the one God has tempered the holy scriptures to the understanding of many different people, who should see truths in it even if they are different? Certainly, and I say this fearlessly, and from my heart, if I were to write anything on such a supreme authority, I would prefer to write it so that, whatever of truth anyone might apprehend from the matter under discussion, my words should re-echo in the several minds rather than that they should set down one true opinion so clearly on one point that I should exclude the rest, even though they contained no falsehood that offended me. Therefore I am unwilling, oh my God, to be so headstrong as not to believe that this man, Moses, has received at least this much from thee. Surely when he was writing these words he saw fully and understood all the truth we have been able to find in them, and also much besides that we have not been able to discern, or are not yet able to find out, though it is there in them still to be found. Finally, oh Lord, who art God and not flesh and blood, if any man sees anything less, can anything lie hid from thy good spirit, who shall lead me into the land of uprightness, which thou thyself, through those words, was revealing to future readers, even though he, through whom they were spoken, fixed on only one among the many interpretations that might have been found? And if this is so, let it be agreed that the meaning he saw is more exalted than the others. But to us, oh Lord, either point out the same meaning, or any other true one, as it pleases thee. Thus whether thou make us known to us, what thou made us known to that man of thine, or some other meaning by the agency of the same words, still do thou feed us, and let error not deceive us. Behold, oh Lord, my God, how much we have written concerning these few words, how much indeed, what strength of mind, what length of time, would suffice for all thy books to be interpreted in this fashion. Allow me, therefore, in these concluding words to confess more briefly to thee, and select some one, true, certain, and good sense that thou shalt inspire, although many meanings offer themselves, and many indeed are possible. This is the faith of my confession, that if I could say what thy servant meant, that is truest and best, and for that I must strive. Yet if I do not succeed, may it be that I shall say at least what thy truth wished to say to me, through its words, just as it said what it wished to Moses.