 Book 6 CHAPTER IX But this was already being laid up in his memory to be a medicine hereafter. So was that also, that when he was yet studying under me at Carthage, and was thinking over at midday in the marketplace what he was to say by heart, as scholars used to practice, thou sufferest him to be apprehended by the officers of the marketplace for a thief. For no other cause, I deem, dits thou, our God suffer it, but that he, who was hereafter to prove so good a man, should already begin to learn that in judging of causes man was not readily to be condemned by man out of a rash credulity. For as he was walking up and down by himself before the judgment seat, with his notebook and pen, lo, a young man, a lawyer, the real thief, privily bringing a hatchet, got in, unperceived by Olympias, as far as the leaden gratings, which fenced in the silversmith's shops, and began to cut away the lead. But the noise of the hatchet being heard, the silversmiths beneath began to make a stir, and sent to apprehend whomever they should find, but he hearing their voices ran away, leaving his hatchet, fearing to be taken with it. Olympias now, who had not seen him enter, was aware of his going, and saw with what speed he made away, and being desirous to know the matter, entered the place, where finding the hatchet he was standing, wondering and considering it, when behold, those that had been sent, find him alone with the hatchet in his hand, the noise whereof had startled and brought them thither. They seize him, hail him away, and gathering the dwellers in the marketplace together, most of having taken a notorious thief, and so he was being led away to be taken before the judge. But thus far was Olympias to be instructed, for forthwith, O Lord, thou succourist his innocencey, whereof thou alone were'd witness. For as he was being led, either to prison or to punishment, a certain architect met them, who had the chief charge of the public buildings. Glad they were to meet him especially, by whom they were want to be suspected of stealing the goods lost out of the marketplace, as though to show him at last by whom these thefts were committed. He, however, had diverse times seen Olympias at a certain senator's house, to whom he often went to pay his respects, and recognizing him immediately took him aside by the hand, and inquiring the occasion of so great a calamity, heard the whole matter, and bade all present amid much uproar and threats to go with him. So they came to the house of the young man who had done the deed. There before the door was a boy so young, as to be likely, not apprehending any harm to his master, to disclose the whole. For he had attended his master to the marketplace, whom so soon as Olympias remembered, he told the architect. And he, showing the hatchet to the boy, asked him, whose that was, ours, quote he presently, and being further questioned, he discovered everything. Thus the crime being transferred to that house, and the multitude ashamed, which had begun to insult over Olympias, he who was to be a dispenser of thy word, and an examiner of many causes in thy church, went away better experienced and instructed. CHAPTER X Him then I had found at Rome, and he claved to me by a most strong tie, and went with me to Milan, both that he might not leave me, and might practice something of the law he had studied, more to please his parents than himself. There he had thrice sat as assessor with an uncorruptness, much wondered at by others. He wondering at others, rather, who could prefer gold to honesty. His character was tried besides, not only with the bait of covetousness, but with the goad of fear. At Rome he was assessor to the count of the Italian treasury. There was at that time a very powerful senator, to whose favors many stood indebted, many much feared. He would needs, by his usual power, have a thing allowed him, which by the laws was unallowed. Olympias resisted it, a bribe was promised, with all his heart he scorned it, threats were held out. He trampled upon them, all wondering at so unwanted a spirit which neither desired the friendship nor feared the enmity of one so great and so mightily renowned for innumerable means of doing good or evil. And the very judge, whose counselor Olympias was, although also unwilling it should be, yet did not openly refuse, but put the matter off upon Olympias, alleging that he would not allow him to do it, for in truth had the judge done it, Olympias would have decided otherwise. With this one thing in the way of learning was he well nice seduced, that he might have books copied for him at Praetorian prices. But consulting justice he altered his deliberation for the better, esteeming equity whereby he was hindered more gainful than the power whereby he were allowed. These are slight things, but he that is faithful in little is faithful also in much, nor can that anyhow be void which preceded out of the mouth of thy truth. If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust true riches, and if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? He, being such, did at that time cleave to me, and with me, wavered in purpose, what course of life was to be taken. Nibridius also, who having left his native country near Carthage, yea, and Carthage itself, where he had much lived, leaving his excellent family estate, and house, and a mother behind, who was not to follow him, had come to Milan for no other reason, but that with me he might live in a most ardent search after truth and wisdom. Like me he sighed, like me he wavered, an ardent searcher after true life, and a most acute examiner of the most difficult questions. Thus were there the mouths of three indigent persons, sighing out their wants one to another, and waiting upon thee that thou mightest give them their meat in due season. And in all the bitterness, which by thy mercy followed our worldly affairs, as we looked towards the end, why we should suffer all this, darkness met us, and we turned away groaning and saying, how long shall these things be? As too we often said, and so saying forsook them not, for as yet there dawned nothing certain which, these forsaken we might embrace. CHAPTER XI And I, viewing and reviewing things, most wondered at the length of time from that my nineteenth year wherein I had begun to kindle with the desire of wisdom, settling when I had found her, to abandon all the empty hopes and lying frenzies of vain desires, and though I was now in my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, greedy of enjoying things present, which passed away and wasted my soul, while I said to myself, to-morrow I shall find it. It will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it. Lowe, Faustus, the manachee will come, and clear everything. O you great men, ye academicians, it is true then that no certainty can be attained for the ordering of life. They let us search the more diligently and despair not. Though things in the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which sometimes seemed absurd and may be otherwise taken, and in a good sense. I will take my stand where, as a child, my parents placed me until the clear truth be found out, but where shall it be sought, or when? Ambrose has no leisure, and we have no leisure to read, where shall we find even the books? Or when? Procure them. From whom? Borrow them. Let such times be appointed and certain hours be ordered for the health of our soul. Great hope has dawned. The Catholic faith teaches not what we thought and vainly accused it of. Her instructive members hold it profane to believe God to be bounded by the figure of a human body, and do we doubt to knock that the rest may be opened? The four noons our scholars take up. What do we, during the rest? Why not this? But when they pay we court to our great friends, whose favour we need? When compose what we may sell to scholars? When refresh ourselves, unbending our minds from this intenseness of care? Parish everything, dismiss we these empty vanities, and but take ourselves to the one search for truth. Life is vain, death uncertain. If it steals upon us, on a sudden, in what state shall we depart hence? And where shall we learn what here we have neglected, and shall we not rather suffer the punishment of this negligence? What if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling? Then must this be ascertained? But God forbid this. It is no vain and empty thing that the excellent dignity of the authority of the Christian faith hath overspread the whole world. Never would such and so great things be by God wrought for us, with the death of the body the life of the soul came to an end. Wherefore delay then to abandon worldly hopes and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the blessed life. But wait, even those things are pleasant. They have some and no small sweetness. We must not lightly abandon them, for it were a shame to return again to them. See, it is no great matter now to obtain some station, and then what should we more wish for? We have store of powerful friends, if nothing else offer, and we be in much haste, at least a presidential ship may be given us, and a wife with some money, that she increase not our charges, and this shall be the bound of desire. Many great men, and most worthy of imitation, have given themselves to the study of wisdom in the state of marriage. While I went over these things, and these winds shifted and drove my heart this way and that, time passed on, but I delayed to turn to the Lord, and from day to day deferred to live in thee, and deferred not daily to die in myself. Loving a happy life, I feared it in its own abode, and sought it by fleeing from it. I thought I should be too miserable, unless folded in female arms, and of the medicine of thy mercy to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it. As for continency, I supposed it to be our own power, though in myself I did not find that power, being so foolish as not to know what is written. None can be continent, unless thou give it. And that thou wouldst give it, if with inward groanings I did knock at thine ears, and with a settled faith did cast my care upon thee. CHAPTER XII. Olympias indeed kept me from marrying, alleging that so could we by no means with undistracted leisure live together in the love of wisdom, as we had long desired. For himself was even then most pure in this point, so that it was wonderful. And that the more, since an outset of his youth he had entered into that course but had not stuck fast therein, rather had he felt remorse and revolting at it, living thenceforth until now most contentedly. But I opposed him with the examples of those who as married men had cherished wisdom and served God acceptably, and retained their friends and loved them faithfully. Of whose greatness of spirit I was far short, and bound with the disease of the flesh and its deadly sweetness, drew along my chain, dreading to be loosed, and as if my wound had been fretted, put back his good persuasions, as it were the hand of one that would unchain me. Moreover by me did the serpent speak unto Olympias himself, by my tongue weaving and laying in his path pleasurable snares, wherein his virtuous and free feet might be entangled. For when he wandered that I, whom he esteemed not slightly, should stick so fast in the bird-lime of that pleasure, as to protest, so oft as we discussed it, that I could never lead a single life, and urged in my defense when I saw him wonder that there was great difference between his momentary and scarce remembered knowledge of that life, which though he might easily despise, and my continued acquaintance where too, if but the honourable name of marriage were added, he ought not to wonder why I could not contend that course. He began also to desire to be married, not as overcome with desire of such pleasure, but out of curiosity. For he would feign no, he said, what that should be, without which my life, to him so pleasing, would to me seem not life but a punishment. For his mind, free from that chain, was amazed at my thraldom, and through that amazement was going on to a desire of trying it, thence to the trial itself, and thence perhaps to sink into that bondage whereat he wondered, seeing he was willing to make a covenant with death, and he that loves danger shall fall into it. For whatever honour there be in the office of well-ordering a married life, and a family, moved us but slightly. But me for the most part the habit of satisfying an insatiable appetite tormented, while it held me captive, him, and admiring wonder, was leading captive. So were we, until thou, almost high, not forsaking our dust, commiserating us miserable, didst come to our help by wondrous and secret ways. CHAPTER XIII Continual effort was made to have me married. I would, I was promised, chiefly through my mother's pains, that once so married the health-giving baptism might cleanse me, towards which she rejoiced that I was being daily fitted, and observed that her prayers, and thy promises, were being fulfilled in my faith. At which time verily, both at my request and her own longing, with strong cries of heart, she daily begged of thee, that thou wouldst by a vision discover under her something concerning my future marriage, thou never wouldst. She saw indeed certain vain, fantastic things, such as the energy of the human spirit, busied thereon, brought together, and these she told me of, not with that confidence she was want, when thou showed us her anything, but slighting them. For she could, she said, through a certain feeling, which in words she could not express, discern betwixt thy revelations and the dreams of her own soul. Yet the matter was pressed on, and a maiden asked in marriage, two years under the fit age, and, as pleasing, was waited for. And many of us friends conferring about, and detesting the turbulent turmoils of human life, had debated and now almost resolved on living apart from business and the bustle of men, and this was to be thus obtained. We were to bring whatever we might severally procure, and make one household of all, so that through the truth of our friendship nothing should belong especially to any, but the whole thus derived from all, should as a whole belong to each, and to all. We thought there might be some ten persons in this society, some of whom were very rich, especially Romanianus, our townsmen, from childhood a very familiar friend of mine, whom the grievous perplexities of his affairs had brought up to court, who was the most earnest for this project, and therein was his voice of great weight, because his ample estate far exceeded any of the rest. We had settled also that two annual officers, as it were, to provide all things necessary, the rest being undisturbed. But when we began to consider whether the wives, which some of us already had, others hoped to have, would allow this, all that plan, which was being so well molded, fell to pieces in our hands, was utterly dashed and cast aside. Thence we betook us to size and groans, and our steps to follow the broad and beaten ways of the world, for many thoughts were in our heart, but thy counsels standeth for ever. Out of which counsel thou didst deride ours, and prepare its thine own, proposing to give us meat into season, and to open thy hand, and fill our souls with blessing. CHAPTER XV Meanwhile my sins were becoming multiplied, and my concubine being torn from my side, as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Afriq, vowing unto thee never to know any other man, leaving with me my son by her. But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, impatient of delay, inasmuch as not till after two years was I to obtain her I sought, not being so much a lover of marriage, as a slave to lust, procured another, though no wife, so that by the servitude of an enduring custom the disease of my soul might be kept up and carried on in its vigor, even augmented, into the dominion of marriage. Nor was that my wound cured, which had been made by the cutting away of the former, but after inflammation and most acute pain it mortified, and my pains became less acute, but more desperate. CHAPTER XVI To thee be praise, glory to thee, fountain of mercies, I was becoming more miserable, and thou nearer. Thy right hand was continually ready to pluck me out of the mire and to wash me thoroughly, and I knew it not. Nor did anything call me back from a yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures but the fear of death and of thy judgment to come, which amid all my changes never departed from my breast. And in my disputes with my friends, Olympius and Nibridius, the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus, had in my mind won the palm, had I not believed that after death there remained a life for the soul, and places of requital according to men's desserts, which Epicurus would not believe. And I asked, were we immortal, and to live in perpetual bodily pleasure without fear of losing it, why should we not be happy, or what else should we seek? Not knowing that great misery was involved in this very thing, that, being thus sunk and blinded, I could not discern that light of excellence and beauty to be embraced for its own sake, which the eyes of flesh cannot see, and is seen by the inner man. Nor did I, unhappy, consider from what source it sprung, that even on these things, foul as they were, I with pleasure discourse with my friends, nor could I, even according to the notions I then had of happiness, be happy without friends, amid what abundance so ever of carnal pleasures. And yet these friends I loved for themselves only, and I felt that I was beloved of them again for myself only. Oh, crooked Paz, woe to the audacious soul which hoped by forsaking thee to gain some better thing. Turn'd it hath, and turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, yet all was painful, and thou alone rest. And behold, thou art at hand, and deliverst us from our wretched wanderings, and placest us in thy way, and dost comfort us, and say, Run, I will carry you, yea, I will bring you through, there also will I carry you. CHAPTER XI Augustine's thirty-first year, gradually extricated from his heirs, but still with material conceptions of God, much aided by an argument of Nibridius, sees that the cause of sin lies in free will, rejects the Manichean heresy, but cannot altogether embrace the doctrine of the church, recovered from the belief of astrology, but miserably perplexed about the origin of evil, is led to find in the Platonus the seeds of the doctrine of the divinity of the word, but not of his humiliation. Hence he obtains clear notions of God's majesty, but not knowing Christ to be the mediator remains estranged from him. CHAPTER I Deceased was now that my evil and abominable youth, and I was passing into early manhood, the more defiled by vain things as I grew in years, who could not imagine any substance but such as is want to be seen with these eyes. I thought not of thee, O God, under the figure of a human body, since I began to hear out of wisdom, I always avoided this, and rejoiced to have found the same in the faith of our spiritual mother, the Catholic Church. But what else to conceive thee I knew not? And I, a man, and such a man, sought to conceive of thee the sovereign, only true God, and I did in my inmost soul believe that thou were't incorruptible and unendurable and unchangeable, because, though not knowing wence or how, yet I saw plainly and was sure, that that which may be corrupted must be inferior to that which cannot. What could not be injured I preferred unhesitatingly to what could receive injury, the unchangeable to things subject to change. My heart passionately cried out against all my phantoms, and with this one blow I sought to beat away from the eye of my mind all that unclean troop which buzzed around it, and lo, being scarce put off, in the twinkling of an eye they gathered again think about me, flew against my face and beclouded it, so that though not under the form of the human body, yet was I constrained to conceive of thee, that incorruptible, unendurable, and unchangeable, which I preferred before the corruptible, and injurable, and changeable, as being in space, whether infused into the world or diffused infinitely without it. Because whatsoever I conceived, deprived of this space, seemed to me nothing, yea altogether nothing, not even a void, as if a body were taken out of its place, and the place should remain empty of anybody at all, of earth and water, air and heaven, yet would it remain a void place, as it were a spacious nothing. I then, being thus gross-hearted, nor clear even to myself, whatsoever was not extended over certain spaces, nor diffused, nor condensed, nor swollen out, or did not, or could not receive some of these dimensions, I thought to be altogether nothing. For over such forms as my eyes were want to range, did my heart then range, nor yet did I see that this same notion of the mind, whereby I formed those very images, was not of this sort, and yet it could not have formed them, had not itself been some great thing. So also did I endeavour to conceive of thee, life of my life, as vast, through infinite spaces, on every side penetrating the whole mass of the universe, and beyond it, every way, through immeasurable boundless spaces, so that the earth should have thee, the heaven should have thee, all things have thee, and they be bounded in thee, and thou bounded nowhere. For that as the body of this air which is above the earth, hindreth not the light of the sun from passing through it, penetrating it, not by bursting, or by cutting, but by filling it wholly, so I thought the body not of heaven, air, and sea only, but of the earth, too, pervious to thee, so that in all its parts, the greatest as the smallest, it should admit thy presence, by a secret inspiration, within and without, directing all things which thou hast created. So I guessed, only as unable to conceive ought else, for it was false. For thus should a greater part of the earth contain a greater portion of thee, and a less, a lesser, and all things should in such sort be full of thee, that the body of an elephant should contain more of thee than that of a sparrow, by how much larger it is, and takes up more room, and thus shouldest thou make the several portions of thyself present unto the several portions of the world, in fragments, large to the large, petty to the petty. But such art not thou. But not as yet hath thou enlightened my darkness. CHAPTER II It was enough for me, Lord, to oppose to those deceived deceivers, and dumb praetors, since thy words sounded not out of them. That was enough, which long ago, while we were yet at Carthage, Nibridius used to propound, at which all we that heard it were staggered. That said nation of darkness, which the Manichees are want to set as an opposing mass, over against thee, what could it have done unto thee, hath thou refused to fight with it? For, if they answered, it would have done thee some hurt, and shouldst thou be subject to injury and corruption. But if it could do thee no hurt, then was no reason brought for thy fighting with it, and fighting in such wise as that a certain portion or member of thee, or offspring of thy very substance, should be mingled with opposed powers, and natures not created by thee, and be by them so far corrupted and changed to the worse as to be turned from happiness into misery, and need assistance whereby it might be extricated and purified. And that this offspring of thy substance was the soul which being enthralled, defiled, corrupted, thy word, free, pure, and whole, might relieve, that word itself being still corruptible, because it was one and the same substance. So then, should they affirm thee, whatsoever thou art, that is, thy substance whereby thou art, to be incorruptible, then were all these sayings false and excruble. But if corruptible, the very statement showed it to be false and revolting. This argument, then, of Nibridius, sufficed against those, who deserved wholly to be vomited out of the overcharged stomach, for they had no escape without horrible blasphemy of heart and tongue, thus thinking and speaking of thee. CHAPTER III But I also as yet, although I held and was firmly persuaded that thou art Lord the true God, who made us not only our souls but our bodies, and not only our souls and bodies, but all beings and all things, were it undefilable and unalterable, and in no degree mutable, yet understood I not, clearly and without difficulty, the cause of evil. And yet whatever it were, I perceived it was, in such wise to be sought out, as should not constrain me to believe the immutable God to be mutable, lest I should become that evil I was seeking out. I sought it out, then, thus far free from anxiety, certain of the untruth of what these held, from whom I shrunk with my whole heart, for I saw that through inquiring the origin of evil they were filled with evil, in that they preferred to think that thy substance did suffer ill, than that their own did commit it. And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free will was the cause of our doing ill, and thy just judgment of our suffering ill. But I was not able clearly to discern it, so then endeavouring to draw my soul's vision out of that deep pit, I was again plunged therein, and endeavouring often I was plunged back as often. But this raised me a little into thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will, as that I lived. When then I did will, or nil anything, I was most sure that no other than myself did will and nil, and I all but saw that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will, I saw that I suffered rather than did, and I judged not to be my fault, but my punishment. Whereby, however, holding thee to be just, I speedily confessed myself to be not unjustly punished. But again I said, who made me? Did not my God, who is not only good, but goodness itself? This then came I to will, evil, and nil good, so that I am thus justly punished. Who set this in me, and engrafted into me this plant of bitterness, seeing I was wholly formed by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, Wenz is the same devil. And if he also, by his own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, Wenz again came in him that evil will, whereby he became a devil, seeing the whole nature of angels was made by that most good Creator. By these thoughts I was again sunk down and choked, yet not brought down to that hell of error, where no man confesseth unto thee, to think rather that thou dost suffer ill, than that man doth it. CHAPTER 4 For I was in such wise striving to find out the rest, as one who had already found, that the incorruptible must needs be better than the corruptible, and thee, therefore, whatsoever thou wert, I confessed to be incorruptible. For never soul was, nor shall be, able to conceive anything which may be better than thou, who art the sovereign and the best good. But since most truly and certainly the incorruptible is preferable to the corruptible, as I did now prefer it, then, wereth thou not incorruptible, I could in thought have arrived at something better than my God. Where then I saw the incorruptible to be preferable to the incorruptible, there ought I to seek for thee, and there observe wherein evil itself was. That is, whence corruption comes, by which thy substance can by no means be impaired. For corruption does no ways impair our God. By no will, by no necessity, by no unlooked for chance, because he is God, and what he wills is good, and himself is that good. But to be corrupted is not good. What art thou against thy will constrained to anything, since thy will is not greater than thy power? But greater should it be, were thyself greater than thyself. For the will and power of God is God himself. And what can be unlooked for by thee, who knowest all things? Nor is there any nature in things, but thou knowest it. And what should we more say, why that substance which God is, should not be corruptible, seeing if it were so, should not be God? CHAPTER V And I sought, whence is evil, and sought in an evil way, and sought not the evil in my very search. I set now before the sight of my spirit the whole creation, whatsoever we can see therein, as sea, earth, air, stars, trees, mortal creatures, yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, all angels moreover, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof. But these very beings, as though they were bodies, did my fancy dispose in place, and I made one great mass of thy creation, distinguished as to the kinds of bodies, some real bodies, some what myself had feigned for spirits. And this mass I made huge, not as it was, which I could not know, but as I thought convenient, yet every way finite. But thee, O Lord, I imagined on every part environing and penetrating it through every way infinite, as if there were a sea everywhere, and on every side, through unmeasured space one only boundless sea, and it contained within it some sponge, huge but bounded. That sponge must needs, in all its parts, be filled from that immeasurable sea. So conceived I thy creation, itself finite, full of thee, the infinite. And I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath created, and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better than all these. But yet he, the good, created them good, and see how he environeth, and fulfills them. Where is evil then, and whence, or how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed, or hath it no being? Why then fear we, and avoid what is not? Or if we fear it idly, then is that very fear evil, whereby the soul is thus idly goaded and wracked? Yea, and so much a greater evil, as we have nothing to fear, and yet do fear. Therefore, either is that evil which we fear, or else evil is that we fear. Whence is it then, seeing God, the good, hath created all these things good? He, indeed, the greater and chiefest good, hath created these lesser goods, still both creator and created, all are good. Whence is evil, or was there some evil matter of which he made, and formed, and ordered it, yet left something in it which he did not convert into good? Why so then? Had he no might to turn and change the whole, so that no evil should remain in it, seeing he is almighty? Lastly, why would he make anything at all of it, and not rather by the same almightiness, cause it not to be made at all? Or could it then be against his will? Or if it were from eternity, why suffered he it to be so for infinite spaces of times past, and was pleased so long after to make something out of it? Or if he were suddenly pleased now to affect somewhat, this rather should the Almighty have affected, then this evil matter should not be, and he alone be, the whole, true, sovereign and infinite good. Or if it was not good that he who was good should not also frame and create something that were good, then that evil matter being taken away and brought to nothing, he might form good matter, whereof to create all things. For he should not be almighty if he might not create something good without the aid of that matter which himself had not created. These thoughts I revolved in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares, lest I should die ere I have found the truth. It was the faith that thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, professed in the Church Catholic, firmly fixed in my heart, in many points, indeed as yet unformed, and fluctuating from the rule of doctrine, yet did not my mind utterly leave it, but rather daily took in more and more of it. By this time also had I rejected the lying divinations and impious dotages of the astrologers. Let thine own mercies out of my very inmost soul confess unto thee for this also, oh my God. For thou, thou altogether, for who else calls us back from the death of all heirs, save the life which cannot die, and the wisdom which needing no light enlightens the minds that need it, whereby the universe is directed down to the whirling leaves of trees. Thou madeest provision for my obstinacy, wherewith I struggled against Vindicianus, an acute old man, and Nibridius, a young man of admirable talents. The first vehemently affirming, and the latter often, though with some doubtfulness saying, that there was no such art whereby to foresee things to come, but that man's conjectures were a sort of lottery, and that out of many things which they said should come to pass, some actually did, unawares to them who spake it, who stumbled upon it, through their oft speaking. Thou provideest then, while consultors and consulted, knew it not. Thus by thy hidden inspiration effect that the consultor should hear what according to the hidden deservings of souls he ought to hear, out of the unsearchable depth of thy just judgment, to whom let no man say, what is this, why that? Let him not so say, for he is man. CHAPTER VII Now then, oh my helper, hath thou loosed me from those fetters, and I thought, whence it's evil, and found no way. But thou sufferst me not by any fluctuations of thought to be carried away from faith whereby I believed thee both to be, and thy substance to be unchangeable, and that thou had a care of, and which judge man, and that in Christ thy Son, our Lord, and the holy scriptures, which the authority of thy Catholic Church pressed upon me, thou hath set the way of man's salvation to that life which is to be after this death. These things being safe and immovably settled in my mind I sought anxiously, whence was evil, what were the pangs of my teeming heart, what groans, oh my God. Yet even there were thine ears open, and I knew it not, and when in silence I vehemently sought, those silent contritions of my soul were strong cries unto thy mercy. Thou knewest what I suffered, and no man, for what was that which was thence through my tongue distilled into the ears of my most familiar friends, did the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor utterance sufficed, reached them. Yet went up the hole, to thy hearing, all which I roared out from the groaning of my heart, and my desire was before thee, and the light of mine eyes was not with me, for that was within, I without. Nor was that confined to place, but I was intent on things contained in place, but there found I no resting place, nor did they so receive me, that I could say, it is enough, it is well. Nor did they yet suffer me to turn back, where it might be well enough with me. For to these things I was superior, but inferior to thee, and thou art my true joy when subjected to thee, and thou has subjected to me what thou createest me below. And this was the true temperament, and middle region of my safety, to remain in thy image, and by serving thee, rule the body. But when I rose proudly against thee, and ran against the Lord with my neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, even these inferior things were set above me, and pressed me down, and nowhere was their respite or space of breathing. They met my sight on all sides by heaps and troops, and in thought the images thereof presented themselves unsought, as I would return to thee, as if they would say unto me, whither goest thou unworthy and defiled? And these things had grown out of my wound, for thou humblest the proud like one that is wounded, and through my own swelling I was separated from thee. Yea, my pride, swollen face, closed up my eyes. CHAPTER 8 But thou, Lord, abidest for ever, yet not for ever art thou angry with us, because thou piteest our dust and ashes, and it was pleasing in thy sight to reform my deformities. And by inward goads didst thou rouse me, that I should be ill at ease, until thou wert manifested to my inward sight. Thus, by the secret hand of thy medicineing, was my swelling abated, and the troubled and bedimmed eyesight of my mind, by the smarting anointings of healthful sorrows, was from day to day healed. CHAPTER 9 Thou, willing first to show me, how thou resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble, and by how great an act of thy mercy thou hest traced out to men the way of humility, in that thy word was made flesh, and dwelt among men, thou procurest for me, by means of one puffed up, with most unnatural pride, certain books of the Platonus, translated from Greek into Latin. And therein I read, not indeed in the very words, but to the very same purpose, enforced by many and diverse reasons, that, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made, that which was made by Him is life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. And that the soul of man, though it bears witness to the light, and itself is not that light, but the word of God, being God, is that true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and that he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not, but that he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, as many as believed in his name. This I read not there. Then I read there, that God the Word was born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God, but that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, I read not there. For I traced in those books, that it was many in diverse ways said, that the Son was in the form of the Father, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, for that naturally he was the same substance, but that he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross, wherefore God exalted him from the dead, and gave him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. Those books have not. For that before all times, and above all times, thy only begotten Son remaineth unchangeably co-eternal with thee, and that of his fullness souls receive, that they may be blessed, and that by participation of wisdom abiding in them they are renewed, so as to be wise, is there, but that in due time he died for the ungodly, and that thou spares not thine own Son, but deliverest him for us all, is not there. For thou hideest these things from the wise, and revealest them to babes, that they that labor, and are heavy laden, might come unto him, and he refresh them, because he is meek and lowly in heart, and the meek he directeth in judgment, and the gentle he teacheth his ways, beholding our lowliness and trouble, and forgiving all our sins. But such as are lifted up in the lofty walk of some would-be sublimer learning, hear him not, saying, Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls. Although they knew God, yet they glorify him not as God, nor are thankful, but wax vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart is darkened, professing that they were wise, they became fools. And therefore I did read there also, that they had changed the glory of thy incorruptible nature into idols and diverse shapes, into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and birds and beasts and creeping things, namely into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright, for that thy firstborn people worshipped the head of a four-footed beast instead of thee, turning in heart back towards Egypt, and bowing thy image their own soul before the image of a calf that eateth hay. These things found I hear, but I fed not on them. For it pleased thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminition from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger, and thou callst the Gentiles into thine inheritance, and I had come to thee from among the Gentiles, and I set my mind upon the gold which thou wilts thy people to take from Egypt, seeing thine it was, wheresoever it were. And to the Athenians thou sets by thy apostle, that in thee we live, move, and have our being, as one of their own poets had said. And verily these books came from thence. But I set not my mind on the idols of Egypt, whom they served with thy gold, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. CHAPTER X And being thence admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inward self, thou being my guide, and able I was, for thou wert become my helper. And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul, such as it was, above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the light unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be manifold brighter, and with its greatness take up all space. Not such was this light, but other, yea, far other, from all these. Nor was it above my soul, as oil is above water, nor yet is heaven above earth, but above to my soul, because it made me, and I below it, because I was made by it. He that knows the truth, knows what that light is, and he that knows it, knows eternity. Love knoweth it, O truth who art eternity, and love who art truth, and eternity who art love, thou art my God, to thee do I sigh night and day. Thee, when I first knew, thou liftest me up, that I might see there was what I might see, and that I was not yet, such as to see. And thou didst beat back the weakness of my sight, streaming forth thy beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trembled with love and awe. And I perceived myself to be far from thee, in the region of unlikeness, as if I heard this thy voice from on high. I am the food of grown men, grow, and thou shalt feed upon me, nor shalt thou convert me, like the food of thy flesh into thee, but thou shalt be converted into me. And I learned that thou for iniquity cleanseth man, and thou madeest my soul to consume away like a spider. And I said, is truth therefore nothing, because it is not diffused through space finite and infinite, and thou crites to me from afar, yea, verily, I am that I am, and I heard, as the heart hereeth, nor had I room to doubt, and I should sooner doubt that I live, than that truth is not, which is clearly seen being understood by those things which are made. CHAPTER 11 And I beheld the other things below thee, and I perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not, for they are, since they are from thee, but are not, because they are not, with thou art, for that truly is, which remains unchangeably. It is good then for me to hold fast unto God, for if I remain not in him, I cannot in myself, but he remaining in himself reneweth all things, and thou art the Lord my God, since thou standest not in need of my goodness. CHAPTER 12 And it was manifested unto me that those things be good, which yet are corrupted, which neither were they sovereignly good, nor unless they were good, could be corrupted. For if sovereignly good they were incorruptible, if not good at all, there were nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption injures, but unless it diminishes goodness, it could not injure. Either then corruption injures not, which cannot be, or which is most certain all which is corrupted is deprived of good. But if they be deprived of all good they shall cease to be. For if they should be, and can now no longer be corrupted, they shall be better than before, because they shall abide incorruptibly. And what more monstrous than to affirm things to become better by losing all their good? Therefore, if they shall be deprived of all good, they shall no longer be. So long therefore as they are, they are good. Therefore whatsoever is, is good. That evil then which I sought, whence it is, is not any substance. For were it a substance it should be good. For either it should be an incorruptible substance, and so achieve good. Or a corruptible substance, which unless it were good could not be corrupted. I perceived therefore, and it was manifested to me, that thou madeest all things good, nor is there any substance at all which thou madeest not. For that thou madeest not all things equal, therefore are all things, because each is good, and altogether very good, because our God made all things very good. CHAPTER XIII And to thee is nothing whatsoever evil. Yea, not only to thee, but also to thy creation as a whole, because there is nothing without which may break in and corrupt that order which thou hast appointed it. But in the parts thereof some things because unharmonizing with other, some, are accounted evil, whereas those very things harmonize with others and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which harmonize not together, do yet with the inferior part, which we call earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky harmonizing with it. Far be it then that I should say, these things should not be. For should I see not but these, I should indeed long for the better. But still must even for these alone praise thee. For that thou art to be praised, do show from the earth, dragons and all deeps, fire, hail, snow, ice, and stormy wind, which fulfill thy word, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowls, kings of the earth and all people, princes and all judges of the earth, young men and maidens, old men and young, praise thy name. But when, from heaven, these praise thee, praise thee our God in the heights, all thy angels, all thy hosts, sun and moon, all the stars and light, the heaven of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens, praise thy name? I did not now long for things better, because I conceived of all, and with a sounder judgment I apprehended, that the things above were better than these below, but altogether better than those above by themselves. CHAPTER XIV There is no soundness in them whom ought of thy creation displeaseth, as neither in me when much thou hast made displeased me, and because my soul doth not be displeased at my God, it would feign not account that thine which displeased it. Hence it had gone into the opinion of two substances, and had no rest but talked idly, and returning thence, it had made to itself a God, through infinite measures of all space, and thought it to be thee, and placed it in its heart, and had again become the temple of its own idol, to thee abominable. But after thou hast soothed my head, unknown to me, and closed mine eyes that they should not behold vanity, I ceased somewhat of my former self, and my frenzy was lulled to sleep, and I awoke in thee, and saw thee infinite, but in another way, and this sight was not derived from the flesh. CHAPTER XV And I looked back on other things, and I saw that they owed their being to thee, and were all bounded in thee, but in a different way, not as being in space, but because thou containest all things in thine hand in thy truth, and all things are true so far as they be, nor is there any falsehood, unless when that is thought to be which is not. And I saw that all things did harmonize, not with their places only, but with their seasons, and that thou, who only art eternal, didst not begin to work after innumerable spaces of times spent, for that all spaces of times, both which have passed and which shall pass, neither go nor come, but through thee, working and abiding. CHAPTER XVI And I perceived, and found it nothing strange, that bread which is pleasant to a healthy pallet is loathsome to one distempered, and to sore eyes light is offensive, which to the sound is delightful. And thy righteousness displeases the wicked, much more the viper and reptiles, which thou hast created good, fitting in with the inferior portions of thy creation, with which the very wicked also fit in, and that the more, by how much they be unlike thee, but with the superior creatures, by how much they become more like to thee, and I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be no substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from thee, O God, the Supreme, towards these lower things, and casting out its bowels, and puffed up inwardly. CHAPTER XVII And I wondered that I now loved thee, and no phantasm for thee. And yet I did not press on to enjoy my God, but was borne up to thee by thy beauty, and soon borne down from thee by my known weight, sinking with sorrow into these inferior things. This weight was carnal custom. Yet dwelt there with me a remembrance of thee, nor did I anyway doubt that there was one to whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet such as to cleave to thee. For that the body which is corrupted presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle watheth down the mind that museth upon many things. And most certain I was that thy invisible works from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even thy eternal power and Godhead. For examining, whence it was that I admired the beauty of bodies celestial or terrestrial, and what aided me in judging soundly on things mutable, and pronouncing this ought to be thus, this not, examining I say, whence it was that I was so judged, seeing I did so judge, I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of truth above my changeable mind. And thus by degrees I passed from bodies to the soul, which through bodily senses perceives, and thence to its inward faculty, to which the bodily senses represent things external, whither to reaches the faculties of beasts, and thence again to the reasoning faculty, to which what is received from the senses of the body is referred to be judged, which finding itself also to be in me a thing variable raised itself up to its own understanding, and drew away my thoughts from the power of habit, withdrawing itself from these troops of contradictory fantasms, so that it might find what that light was, whereby it was bedewed, when, without all doubting, it cried out, that the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable, whence also it knew that unchangeable, which unless it had in some way known, it had had no sure ground to prefer it to the changeable, and thus with the flash of one trembling glance it arrived at that which is, and then I saw thy invisible things understood by the things which are made. But I could not fix my gaze thereon, and my infirmity being struck back, I was thrown again on my wanted habits, carrying along with me only a loving memory thereof, and a longing for what I had, as it were, perceived the odor of, but was not yet able to feed on. CHAPTER XVIII Then I sought a way of obtaining strength sufficient to enjoy thee, and found it not until I embraced that mediator betwixt God and man, the man Jesus Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever more, calling unto me and saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and mingling that food which I was unable to receive with our flesh. For the word was made flesh, that thy wisdom, whereby thou createst all things, might provide milk for our infant state. For I did not hold to my Lord Jesus Christ, I humbled to the humble, nor knew I yet where to his infirmity would guide us. For thy word, the eternal truth, far above the higher parts of thy creation, raises up the subdued unto itself. But in this lower world, built for itself a lowly habitation of our clay, whereby to abase from themselves such as would be subdued, and bring them over to himself, allaying their swelling, and fomenting their love, to the end they might go on no further in self-confidence, but rather consent to become weak, seen before their feet the divinity weak by taking our coats of skin, and wearied might cast themselves down upon it, and it rising might lift them up. CHAPTER XIX But I thought otherwise, conceiving only of my Lord Christ as of a man of excellent wisdom whom no one could be equaled unto, especially for that being wonderfully born of a virgin, he seemed in conformity their width, through the divine care for us, to have attained that great eminence of authority, for an ensemble of despising things temporal for the obtaining of immortality. But what mystery there lay in, the word was made flesh, I could not even imagine. Only I had learnt out of what is delivered to us in writing of him that he did eat, and drink, sleep, walk, rejoiced in spirit, or sorrowful, discourced. That flesh did not cleave by itself unto thy word, but with the human soul and mind. All know this, who know the unchangeableness of thy word, which I now knew, as far as I could, nor did I at all doubt thereof. For now to move the limbs of the body by will, now not, now to be moved by some affection, now not, now to deliver wise sayings through human signs, now to keep silence, belong to soul and mind subject to variation. And should these things be falsely written of him, all the rest also would risk the charge, nor would there remain in those books any saving faith for mankind. Since then they were written truly, I acknowledged a perfect man to be in Christ, not the body of a man only, nor with the body a sensitive soul without a rational, but very man, whom, not only as being a form of truth, but for a certain great excellency of human nature and a more perfect participation of wisdom, I judged to be preferred before others. But Olympius imagined the Catholics to believe God to be so clothed with flesh that besides God in flesh there was no soul at all in Christ, and did not think that a human mind was ascribeable to him, and because he was well persuaded that the actions recorded of him could only be performed by a vital and a rational creature, he moved them more slowly towards the Christian faith, but understanding afterwards that this was the error of the Apollonarian heretics, he joined in and was conformed to the Catholic faith. But somewhat later, I confess, did I learn how in that saying the word was made flesh the Catholic truth is distinguished from the falsehood of Fotenius. For the rejection of heretics makes the tenants of thy church and sound doctrine to stand out more clearly, for there must also be heresies that the approved may be made manifest among the weak. CHAPTER XX But having then read those books of the Plotonus, and then spent taught to search for incorporeal truth, I saw thy invisible things understood by those things which are made, and though cast back I perceived what that was, which through the darkness of my mind I was hindered from contemplating, being assured, that thou were't, and were't infinite, and yet not diffused in space, finite or infinite, and that thou truly art who art the same for ever, and in no part nor motion varying, and that all other things are from thee, on this most sure ground alone, that they are, of these things I was assured, yet too unsure to enjoy thee. I praited as one well-skilled, but had I not sought thy way in Christ our Saviour I had proved to be not skilled, but killed. For now I had begun to wish to seem wise, being filled with my own punishment, yet I did not mourn, but rather scorn, puffed up with knowledge. For where was that charity building upon the foundation of humility which is Christ Jesus? Or when should these books teach me it? Upon these, I believe, thou therefore wilts that I should fall before I studied thy scriptures, so that it might be imprinted on my memory, how I was affected by them, and that afterwards when my spirits were tamed through thy books, and my wounds touched by thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish between presumption and confession, between those who saw whether they were to go, yet saw not the way, and the way that leadeth not to behold only, but to dwell in the beatific country. For had I first been informed in thy holy scriptures, and had thou in the familiar use of them grown sweet unto me, and had I then fallen upon those other volumes, they might perhaps have withdrawn me from the solid ground of piety, or had I continued in that healthful frame which I had thence imbibed, I might have thought that it might have been obtained by the study of those books alone. CHAPTER XXI. Most eagerly then did I seize that venerable writing of thy spirit, and chiefly the apostle Paul, whereupon those difficulties vanished away, wherein he once seemed to me to contradict himself, and the text of his discourse not to agree with the testimonies of the law and the prophets, and the face of that pure word appeared to me one and the same, and I learned to rejoice with trembling. So I began, and whatsoever truth I had read in those other books I found here amid the praise of thy grace, that whoso sees may not so glory as if he had not received, not only what he sees, but also that he sees, for what hath he when he hath not received, and that he may be not only admonished to behold thee, who art ever the same, but also healed to hold thee, and that he who cannot see afar off may yet walk on the way whereby he may arrive and behold and hold thee. For though a man be delighted with the law of God after the inner man, what shall he do with that other law in his members which warth against the law of his mind, and bringeth him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members? For thou art righteous, O Lord, but we have sinned and committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and thy hand is grown heavy upon us, and we are justly delivered unto that antient sinner, the king of death, because he persuaded our will to be like his will, whereby he abode not in thy truth. What shall wretched man do? Who shall deliver him from the body of this death, but only thy grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord, whom thou hast begotten, co-eternal, and formst in the beginning of thy ways, in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet killed he him? And the handwriting, which was contrary to us, was blotted out. This those things contain not. Those pages present not the image of this piety, the tears of confession, thy advice, a troubled spirit, a broken and contrite heart, the salvation of the people, the bridal city, the earnest of the Holy Ghost, the cup of our redemption. No man sings there, shall not my soul be submitted unto God. For of him cometh my salvation. For he is my God and my salvation, my guardian, I shall no more be moved. Know when there hears him call, come unto me, all ye that scorn to learn of him, because he is meek and lowly in heart. For these things hath thou hid from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes. For it is one thing, from the mountains shaggy top, to see the land of peace, and to find no way thither, and in vain to assay through ways unpassable, opposed and beset by fugitives and deserters, under their captain, the lion and the dragon, and another to keep on the way that leads thither, by the host of the heavenly general, where they spoil not who have deserted the heavenly army, for they avoid it as very torment. These things did wonderfully sink into my bowels when I read that least of thy apostles, and had meditated upon thy works, and trembled exceedingly. END OF BOOK SEVEN BOOK EIGHT CHAPTERS I TO VI OF THE CONFESSIONS BY ST. GUSTINE TRANSLATED BY E. B. PUSEY BOOK EIGHT Augustine's thirty-second year. He consults Simpliceanus. From him hears the history of the conversion of Victorinus, and longs to devote himself entirely to God, but is mastered by his old habits, is still further roused by the history of St. Anthony, and the conversion of two courtiers. During a severe struggle hears a voice from heaven, opens scripture, and is converted, with his friend, Alipius, his mother's vision fulfilled. CHAPTER I Oh my God, let me, with thanksgiving, remember and confess unto thee thy mercies on me. Let my bones be bedewed with thy love, and let them say unto thee, Who is like unto thee, O Lord? Thou hast broken my bonds in thunder, I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. And how thou hast broken them, I will declare. And all who worship thee, when they hear this, shall say, Blessed be the Lord, in heaven and in earth, great and wonderful is his name. Thy words had stuck fast in my heart, and I was hedged round about on all sides by thee. Of thy eternal life I was now certain, though I saw it in a figure and as through a glass. Yet I had ceased to doubt that there was an incorruptible substance, whence was all other substance, nor did I now desire to be more certain of thee, but more steadfast in thee. But for my temporal life all was wavering, and my heart had to be purged from the old leaven. The way, the Saviour himself, well pleased me, but as yet I shrunk from going through its straightness, and thou didst put into my mind, and it seemed good in my eyes, to go to Simplicianus, who seemed to me a good servant of thine, and thy grace shown in him. I had heard also that from his very youth he had lived most devoted unto thee. Now he was grown into years, and by reason of so great age spent in such zealous following of thy ways he seemed to me likely to have learned much experience, and so he had. Out of which store I wished that he would tell me, setting before him my anxieties, which were the fittest way for one, in my case, to walk in thy paths. For I saw the church full, and one went this way and another that way, but I was displeased that I led a secular life. Yea, now that my desires no longer inflamed me as of old, with hopes of honour and profit, a very grievous burden it was to undergo so heavy a bondage. For, in comparison of thy sweetness and the beauty of thy house which I loved, those things delighted me no longer. But still I was enthralled with the love of woman, nor did the apostle forbid me to marry, although he advised me to something better, chiefly wishing that all men were as himself was. But I being weak chose the more indulgent place, and because of this alone was tossed up and down in all beside, faint and wasted with withering cares, because in other matters I was constrained against my will to conform myself to a married life, to which I was given up and enthralled. I had heard from the mouth of the truth that there were some eunuchs which had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, but, sayeth he, let him who can receive it receive it. Surely vain are all men who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things which are seen, find out him who is good. But I was no longer in that vanity, I had surmounted it, and by the common witness of all thy creatures I had found thee our Creator, and thy Word, God with thee, and together with thee one God, by whom thou createst all things. There is yet another kind of ungodly, who, knowing God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. In this also I had fallen, but thy right hand upheld me, and took me thence, and thou placed me where I might recover. For thou hast said unto man, Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and, desire not to seem wise, because they who affirmed themselves to be wise became fools. But I had now found the goodly pearl, which selling all that I had, I ought to have bought, and I hesitated. To Simplicianus then I went, the father of Ambrose, a bishop now, in receiving thy grace, and whom Ambrose truly loved as a father. To him I related the mazes of my wanderings. But when I mentioned that I had read certain books of the Platonius, such as Victorinas, sometime rhetoric professor of Rome, who had died a Christian as I had heard, had translated into Latin, he testified his joy that I had not fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, phallosies, and deceits, after the rudiments of this world, whereas the Platonus many ways led to the belief in God and his word. Then to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones, he spoke of Victorinas himself, whom while at Rome he had most intimately known. And of him he related what I will not conceal, for it contains great praise of thy grace, to be confessed unto thee, how that aged man, most learned and skilled in the liberal sciences, and who had read and weighed so many works of the philosophers, the instructor of so many noble senators, who also, as a monument of his excellent discharge of his office, had, which men of this world esteem a high honor, both deserved and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum, he, to that age a worshipper of idols, and a partaker of the sacrilegious rites, to which almost all the nobility of Rome were given up, and had inspired the people with the love of Anubis, barking deity, and all the monster gods of every kind, who fought against Neptune, Venus, and Minerva, whom Rome once conquered, now adored, all which the aged Victorinas had with thundering eloquence so many years defended. He now blushed not to be the child of thy Christ, and the newborn babe of thy fountain, submitting his neck to the yoke of humility, and subduing his forehead to the reproach of the cross. Oh Lord! Lord! Which hast bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains, and they smoke, by what means didst thou convey thyself into that breast? He used to read, as Simplacianus said, the Holy Scripture most studiously sought and searched into all the Christian writings, and said to Simplacianus, not openly but privately and as a friend, understand that I am already a Christian. Where too he answered, I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among Christians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ. The other, in banter, replied, do walls then make Christians? And this he often said, that he was already a Christian. And Simplacianus, as often made the same answer, and the conceit of the walls, was by the other as often renewed. For he feared to offend his friends, proud demon-worshippers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from the cedars of Lybanus, which the Lord had not yet broken down, he supposed the weight of enmity would fall upon him. But after that, by reading, and earnest thought, he had gathered firmness, and feared to be denied by Christ before the holy angels, should he now be afraid to confess him before men, and appear to himself guilty of a heavy offense, in being ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of by word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons whose pride he had imitated, and their rites adopted, he became bold-faced against vanity, and shame-faced towards the truth, and suddenly and unexpectedly said to Simplacianus, as himself told me, Go we to the church, I wish to be made a Christian. But he, not containing himself for joy, went with him, and having been admitted to the first sacrament, and become a catechumen, not long after he further gave in his name that he might be regenerated by baptism, Rome wondering, the church rejoicing. The proud saw, and were wroth, they gnashed with their teeth and melted away, but the Lord God was the hope of thy servant, and he regarded not vanities and lying madness. To conclude, when the hour was come for making profession of his faith, which at Rome they, who were about to approach to thy grace, deliver from an elevated place in the sight of all the faithful, in a set form of words committed to memory, the presbyters, he said, offered Victorinas, as was done to such, as seemed likely through bashfulness to be alarmed, to make his profession more privately. But he chose rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy multitude. For it was not salvation that he taught in rhetoric, and yet that he had publicly professed. How much less than ought he, when pronouncing thy word, to dread thy meek flock, who, when delivering his own words, had not feared a mad multitude. When, then, he went up to make his profession, all, as they knew him, whispered his name one to another with the voice of congratulation, and who there knew him not, and there ran a low murmur through all the mouths of the rejoicing multitude, Victorinas, Victorinas. Sudden was the burst of rapture that they saw him, suddenly they were hushed that they might hear him. He pronounced the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all wished to draw him into their very heart, yet by their love and joy they drew him thither, such were the hands wherewith they drew him. CHAPTER III Good God! What takes place in man that he should more rejoice at the salvation of a soul despaired of, and freed from greater peril, than if there had always been hope of him, or the danger had been less? For so thou also, merciful father, thus more rejoice over one penitent than over ninety-nine just persons that need no repentance. And with much joyfulness do we hear, so often as we hear with what joy the sheep which had strayed is brought back upon thy shepherd's shoulder, and the groat is restored to thy treasury, the neighbor's rejoicing with the woman who found it, and the joy of the solemn service of thy house forces to tears when in thy house it is read of the younger son that he was dead and lived again, had been lost and disfound. For thou rejoicest in us, and in thy holy angels, holy through holy charity, for thou art ever the same, for all things which abide not the same, nor for ever, thou for ever knowest in the same way. What then takes place in the soul when it is more delighted at finding or recovering the things it loves than if it had ever had them? Ye, and other things witness hereon too, and all things are full of witnesses, crying out, so is it. The conquering commander triumpheth, yet had he not conquered, unless he had fought, and the more peril there was in the battle, so much the more joy is there in the triumph. The storms tossed the sailors, threatened Shipwreck. All wax pale at approaching death, sky and sea are calmed, and they are exceeding joyed as having been exceeding afraid. A friend is sick, and his pulse threatens danger, all who long for his recovery are sick in mind with him. He is restored, though as yet he walks not with his former strength. Yet there is such joy as was not, when before he walked sound and strong. Ye, the very pleasures of human life, men acquire by difficulties, not those only which fall upon us unlooked for and against our wills, but even by self-chosen and pleasure seeking trouble. Eating and drinking have no pleasure, unless there precede the pinching of hunger and thirst. Men, even to drink, eat certain salt meats. To procure a troublesome heat, which the drink allaying causes pleasure. It is also ordered that the affianced bride should not at once be given, lest as a husband he should hold cheap whom, as betrothed, he sighed not after. This law holds in foul and accursed joy, this impermitted and lawful joy, this in the very purest perfection of friendship, this in him who was dead and lived again, had been lost and was found. Everywhere the greater joy is ushered in by the greater pain. What means this, O Lord my God, whereas Thou art everlasting joy to Thyself, and some things around thee evermore rejoice in thee? What means this, that this portion of things, thus ebbs and flows alternately displeased and reconciled? Is this their lauded measure? Is this all Thou hast assigned to them, whereas from the highest heavens to the lowest earth, from the beginning of the world to the end of ages, from the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and realisest each in their season everything good after its kind? Woe is me! How high art Thou in the highest, and how deep in the deepest, and Thou never departest, and we scarcely return to thee? CHAPTER IV Up, Lord, and do, stir us up and recall us, kindle and draw us, in flame, grow sweet unto us, let us now love, let us run. Do not many, out of a deeper hell of blindness, than Victorinas, return to thee, approach and are enlightened, receiving that light which they who receive receive power from thee to become Thy sons. But if they be less known to the nations, even they that know them, joy less for them. For when many joy together each also has more exuberant joy, for that they are kindled and inflamed one by the other. Again, because those known to many influence the more towards salvation, and lead the way with many to follow. And therefore do they also who precede them much rejoice in them, because they rejoice not in them alone. For far be it that in thy tabernacle the persons of the rich should be accepted before the poor, or the noble before the ignoble. Seeing rather thou hast chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and the base things of this world, and the things despised, hast thou chosen, and those things which are not, that thou mightest bring to not things that are. And yet even that least of thy apostles, by whose tongue thou soundest forth these words, when through his warfare, Paulus the procounsel, his pride conquered, was made to pass under the easy yoke of thy Christ, and become a provincial of thy great king, he also for his former name Saul was pleased to be called Paul, in testimony of so great a victory. For the enemy is more overcome in one of whom he hath more hold, by whom he hath hold of more. But the proud he hath more hold of, through their nobility, and by them of more through their authority. But how much the more welcome then the heart of Victorinas was esteemed, which the devil had held as an impregnable possession, the tongue of Victorinas, with which mighty and keen weapon he had slain many, so much the more abundantly ought thy sons to rejoice, for that our king hath bound the strong man, and they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and made meat for thy honour, and become servicable for the Lord unto every good work. But when that man of thine, Simplicianus, related to me this of Victorinas, I was on fire to imitate him. For for this very end had he related it. But when he had subjoined also how in the days of the Emperor Julian a law was made whereby Christians were forbidden to teach the liberal sciences, or oratory, and how he obeying this law chose rather to give over the wordy school than thy word, by which thou makest eloquent the tongues of the dumb, he seemed to me not more resolute than blessed, in having thus found opportunity to wait on thee only. Which thing I was sighing for, bound as I was, not with another's irons, but by my own iron will. My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain for me, and bound me. For of a forward will was a lust made, and a lust served became custom, and custom not resisted became necessity, by which links, as it were, joined together, whence I called it a chain, a hard bondage held me enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to serve thee, and to wish to enjoy thee, O God, the only assured pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former willfulness strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, the other old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me, and by their discord undid my soul. Thus I understood, by my own experience, what I had read, how the flesh lusteth after the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Myself verily either way, yet more myself, in that which I approved in myself, than in that which in myself I disproved. For in this last it was now for the more part not myself, because in much I rather endured against my will than acted willingly. And yet it was through me that custom had obtained this power of warring against me, because I had come willingly, whether I willed not, and who has any right to speak against it, if just punishment followed the sinner? Nor had I now any longer my former plea, that I therefore as yet hesitated to be above the world and serve thee, for that the truth was not altogether ascertained to me, for now it too was. But I, still under service to the earth, refused to fight under thy banner, and feared as much to be freed of all encumbrances, as we should fear to be encumbered with it. Thus with the baggage of this present world I was held down pleasantly, as in sleep, and the thoughts wherein I meditated on thee, were like the efforts of such as would awake, who yet overcome with a heavy drowsiness, and are again drenched therein. And as no one would sleep for ever, and in all men's sober judgment waking is better, yet a man for the most part, feeling a heavy lethargy in all his limbs, defers to shake off sleep, and, though half-displeased, yet even after it is time to rise, with pleasure yields to it. So as I assured, that much better word for me to give myself up to thy charity, than to give myself over to mine own caputity. But though the former core satisfied me and gained the mastery, the latter pleased me and held me mastered. Nor had I anything to answer thee calling to me, awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. And when thou didst on all sides show me that what thou sayest was true, I, convicted by the truth, had nothing at all to answer, but only those dull and drowsy words, anon, anon, leave me but a little. But presently, presently, had no present, and my little while went on for a long while. In vain I delighted in thy law according to the inner man, when another law in my members rebelled against the law of my mind, and led me captive under the law of sin which was in my members. For the law of sin is the violence of custom, whereby the mind is drawn and holding even against its will, but deservedly for that it willingly fell into it. Who then should deliver me thus wretched from the body of this death, but thy grace only, through Jesus Christ our Lord? Chapter 6 And how thou didst deliver me out of the bonds of desire, wherewith I was bound most straightly to carnal concupiscence, and out of the drudgery of worldly things, I will now declare and confess unto thy name, O Lord, my helper and my redeemer. Amid increasing anxiety, I was doing my wanted business, and daily sighing unto thee. I tended thy church, whenever free from the business under the burden of which I groaned. Olympius was with me, now after the third sitting released from his law business, and awaiting to whom to sell his counsel, as I sold the skill of speaking, if indeed teaching can impart it. Nibridius had now, in consideration of our friendship, consented to teach under Verisundus, a citizen and a grammarian of Milan, and a very intimate friend of us all, who urgently desired, and by the right of friendship challenged from our company, such faithful aid as he greatly needed. Nibridius, who was not drawn to this by any desire of advantage, for he might have made much more of his learning had he so willed, but as a most kind and gentle friend he would not be wanting to a good office and slight our request. But he acted herein very discreetly, shunning to become known to personages great according to this world, avoiding the distraction of mind thence ensuing, and desiring to have it free and at leisure as many hours as might be, to seek or read or hear something concerning wisdom. Upon a day then, Nibridius being absent, I recollect not why, lo there came to see me and Olympius, when Pontitanius, our countrymen so far as being an African in high office in the Emperor's Court. What he would with us I knew not, but we set down to converse, and it happened that upon a table for some game before us he observed a book, took, opened it, and contrary to his expectation found it the Apostle Paul, for he had thought it some of those books which I was wearing myself in teaching. Were at smiling and looking at me he expressed his joy and wonder that he had on a sudden found this book, and this only before my eyes, for he was a Christian and baptized and often bowed himself before thee our God in the Church in frequent and continued prayers. When then I had told him that I bestowed very great pains upon those scriptures, a conversation arose, suggested by his account, on Antony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was in high reputation among thy servants, though to that hour unknown to us. Which when he discovered he dwelt the more upon that subject, informing and wondering at our ignorance of one so eminent. But we stood amazed, hearing thy wonderful works most fully attested, in times so recent, and almost in our own, wrought in the true faith and Church Catholic. We all wondered, we that were so great and he that they had not reached us. Thence his discourse turned to the flocks in the monasteries, and their holy ways, a sweet smelling savor unto thee, and the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, whereof we knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan, full of good brethren, without the city walls, under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we knew it not. He went on with his discourse, and we listened in intense silence. He told us then how one afternoon at Trier's, when the emperor was taken up with the Cersensian games, he and three others, his companions, went out to walk in gardens near the city walls. And there, as they happened to walk in pairs, one went apart with him, and the other two, wandered by themselves, and these in their wanderings, lighted upon a certain cottage, inhabited by certain of thy servants, poor in spirit of whom is the kingdom of heaven, and there they found a little book containing the life of Anthony. This one of them began to read, admire, and kindle at it, and as he read, to meditate on taking up such a life, and giving over his secular service to serve thee. And these two were of those whom they styled agents for the public affairs. Then suddenly, filled with a holy love, and a sober shame, in anger with himself, he cast his eyes upon his friend, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, what would we obtain by all these labours of ours? What aim we at? What serve we for? Can our hopes in court rise higher than to be the emperor's favourites? And in this, what is there not brittle and full of perils? And by how many perils arrive we at a greater peril? And when arrive we thither? But a friend of God, if I wish it, I become now at once. So spake ye, and in pain with the travail of a new life, he turned his eyes again upon the book, and read on, and was changed inwardly, where thou sawest, and his mind was stripped of the world, as soon appeared. For as he read, and rolled up and down the waves of his heart, he stormed at himself awhile, then discerned and determined on a better course. And now, being thine, said to his friend, Now I have broken loose from those our hopes, and am resolved to serve God. And this, from this hour, in this place, I begin upon. If thou likeest not to imitate me, oppose not. The other answered he would cleave to him to partake so glorious a reward, so glorious a service. Thus both being now thine, we're building the tower at the necessary cost, the forsaking all that they had, and following thee. Them Pontianus, and the other with him, that had walked in the other parts of the garden, came in search of them to the same place, and finding them reminded them to return, for the day was now far spent. But they relating their resolution and purpose, and how that will was begun, and settled in them, begged them, if they would not join, not to molest them. But the others, though nothing altered from their former selves, did not yet bewail themselves, as he affirmed, and piously congratulated them, recommending themselves to their prayers, and so, with hearts lingering on the earth, went away to the palace. But the other two, fixing their heart on heaven, remained in the cottage, and both had affianced brides, whom, when they heard hereof, also dedicated their virginity unto God. CHAPTER VII Such was the story of Pontianus. But thou, O Lord, while he was speaking, didst turn me round towards myself, taking me from behind my back, where I had placed me, unwilling to observe myself, and setting me before my own face, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and defiled, bespotted and ulcerous, and I beheld and stood aghast, and withered to flee from myself I found not, and if I sought to turn mine eye off from myself, he went on with his relation, and thou again didst set me over against myself, and thou thrusteth me before my eyes, that I might find out mine iniquity and hate it. I had known it, but made as though I sought not, winked at it, and forgot it. But now, the more ardently I loved those, whose healthful affections I heard of, that they had resigned themselves wholly to thee to be cured, the more did I abhor myself when compared with them. For many of my years, some twelve, had now run out with me since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading of Cicero's Hortensius, I was stirred to an earnest love of wisdom, and still I was deferring to reject mere earthly felicity, and give myself to search out that, whereof not the finding only, but the very search was to be preferred to the treasures and kingdoms of the world, though already found, and to the pleasures of the body, though spread around me at my will. But I wretched, most wretched, in the very commencement of my earthly youth, had begged chastity of thee, and said, Give me chastity and constancy, only not yet. For I feared lest thou shouldst hear me soon, and soon cure me of the desire of concupiscence, which I wished to have satisfied rather than extinguished. And I had wandered through crooked ways in a sacrilegious superstition, not indeed assured thereof, but as preferring it to the others, which I did not seek religiously, but opposed maliciously. And I had thought, that I therefore deferred from day to day to reject the hopes of this world, and follow thee only, because there did not appear ought certain, whether to direct my course. And now was the day come wherein I was to be laid bare to myself, and my conscience was to upbraid me. Where art thou now, my tongue? Thou seduced, that for an uncertain truth thou likeest not to cast off the baggage of vanity. Now it is certain, and yet that burden still oppresseth thee, while they who neither have so worn themselves out with seeking it, nor for ten years and more have been thinking thereon, have had their shoulders lightened, and received wings to fly away. Thus was I nod within, and exceedingly confounded with a horrible shame, while Pontitianus was still speaking. And he having brought to a close his tail and the business he came for went his way, and I into myself. What said I not against myself, with what scourges of condemnation lashed I not my soul, that it might follow me, striving to go after thee? Yet it drew back, refused but excused not itself. All arguments were spent and confuted. There remained a mute shrinking, and she feared, as she would death, to be restrained from the flux of that custom whereby she was wasting to death. CHAPTER VIII Then in this great contention of my inward dwelling, which I had strongly raised against my soul, in the chamber of my heart, troubled in mine and countenance, I turned upon Olympias. What ails us, I exclaim? What is it? What hurt is thou? The unlearned start up, and take heaven by force, and we with our learning, and without heart, lo, where we wallow in flesh and blood. Are we ashamed to follow because others are gone before, and not ashamed, not even to follow? Some such words I uttered, and my fever of mind tore me away from him, while he, gazing on me in astonishment, kept silence. For it was not my wanted tone, and my forehead, cheeks, eyes, color, tone of voice, spake my mind more than the words I uttered. A little garden there was to our lodging, which we had the use of, as of the whole house, for the master of the house, our host, was not living there. Thither had the tumult of my breast hurried me, where no man might hinder the hot contention wherein I had engaged with myself, until it should end as thou knewest, I knew not. Only I was healthfully distracted and dying, to live. Knowing what evil thing I was, and not knowing what good thing I was shortly to become. I retired then into the garden, and Olympias, on my steps, for his presence did not lessen my privacy, or how could he forsake me so disturbed? We set down as far removed as might be from the house. I was troubled in spirit, most vehemently indignant that I had entered not into thy will and covenant, oh my God, which all my bones cried out unto me to enter, and praised it to the skies. And therein we entered not by ships, or chariots, or feet, no, move not so far as I had come from the house to that place where we were sitting. For, not to go only, but to go in thither was nothing else but to will to go, but to will resolutely and thoroughly, not to turn and toss, this way and that, a maimed and half divided will, struggling, with one part sinking as another rose. Lastly, in the very fever of my irresolute-ness, I made with my body many such motions as men sometimes would, but cannot, if either they have not the limbs, or these be bound with bands, weakened with infirmity, or any other way hindered. Thus, if I tore my hair, beat my forehead, if locking my fingers I clasp my knee, I willed, I did it. But I might have willed, and not done it, if the power of motion in my limbs had not obeyed. So many things then I did when to will was not in itself to be able, and I did not what both I longed incomparably more to do, and which soon after, when I should will, I should be able to do, because soon after, when I should will, I should will thoroughly. For in these things the ability was one with the will, and to will was to do, and yet it was not done, and more easily did my body obey the weakest willing of my soul in moving its limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed itself to accomplish in the will alone this momentous will. CHAPTER IX Whence is this monstrousness, and to what end? Let thy mercy gleam that I may ask, if so be the secret penalties of men, and those dark pangs of the sons of Adam may perhaps answer me. Whence is this monstrousness, and to what end? The mind commands the body, and it obeys instantly. The mind commands itself, and is resisted. The mind commands the hand to be moved, and such readiness is there that command is scarce distinct from obedience. Yet the mind is mind, the hand is body. The mind commands the mind, its own self, to will, and yet it doth not. Whence this monstrousness, and to what end? It commands itself, I say, to will, and would not command, unless it willed, and what it commands is not done. But it willeth not entirely, therefore doth it not command entirely. For so far forth it commandeth as it willeth, and so far forth the thing is commanded not done as it willeth not. For the will commandeth that there be a will, not another but itself, but it doth not command entirely, therefore what it commandeth is not. For were the will entire it would not even command it to be, because it would already be. It is therefore no monstrousness partly to will, partly to nil, but a disease at the mind, that it doth not wholly rise, by truth borne up, borne down by custom. And therefore are there two wills, for that one of them is not entire, and what the one lacketh the other hath. CHAPTER X Let them perish from thy presence, O God, as perish vain talkers and seducers of the soul, who observing that in deliberating there were two wills, affirmed that there are two minds in us of two kinds, one good, the other evil. Themselves are truly evil when they hold these evil things, and themselves shall become good when they hold the truth, and ascend unto the truth, that thy apostle may say to them, ye were sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord. But they, wishing to be light, not in the Lord, but in themselves, imagining the nature of the soul to be that which God is, are made more gross darkness through a dreadful arrogancey, for that they went back farther from thee, the true light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Take heed what ye say, and blush for shame, draw near unto him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed. Myself when I was deliberating upon serving the Lord my God now, as I had long purposed it, it was I who willed, I who knilled, I, I myself. I neither willed entirely, nor knilled entirely, therefore was I at strife with myself, and rent asunder by myself, and this rent befell me against my will, and yet indicated not the presence of another mind, but the punishment of mine own. Therefore it was no more I that wrought it, but sin that dwelt in me, the punishment of a sin more freely committed, in that I was a son of Adam. For if there be so many contrary natures as there be conflicting wills, there shall now be not two only, but many. If a man deliberate whether he should go to their conventical or to the theatre, these manaches cry out, Behold, here are two natures, one good draws this way, another bad draws back that way, for whence else is this hesitation between conflicting wills, but I say that both be bad, that which draws to them as that which draws back to the theatre. But they believe not that will to be other than good which draws to them. What then if no one of us should deliberate, and amid the strife of his two wills, be in a straight whether he should go to the theatre or to our church, would not these manaches also be in a straight what to answer? For either they must confess, which they feign would not, that the will which leads to our church is good, as well as theirs, who have received and are held by the mysteries of theirs, or they must suppose two evil natures and two evil souls conflicting in one man, and it would not be true which they say that there is one good and another bad, or they must be converted to the truth, and no more deny, that where one deliberates one soul fluctuates between contrary wills. Let them no more say then, when they perceive two conflicting wills in one man, that the conflict is between two contrary souls of contrary substances, from two contrary principles, one good and the other bad. For thou, O true God, dost disprove, check, and convict them. As when, both wills being bad, one deliberates whether he should kill a man by poison or by the sword, whether he should seize this or that estate of another's, when he cannot both, whether he should purchase pleasure by luxury or keep his money by covetousness, whether he go to the circus or to the theatre if both be open on one day, or thirdly to rob another's house if he had the opportunity, or fourthly to commit adultery if at the same time he have the means thereof also. All these meeting together in the same juncture of time and all being equally desired which cannot at one time be acted, for they rend the mind amid four, or even amid the vast variety of things desired, more conflicting wills, nor do they yet allege that there are so many diverse substances. So also in wills which are good. For I ask them, is it good to take pleasure in reading the apostle, or good to take pleasure in a sober psalm, or good to discourse on the gospel? They will answer to each, it is good. What then if all give equal pleasure in all at once? Do not diverse wills distract the mind while he deliberates which he should rather choose. Yet all they are good, and are at variance till one be chosen, whether the one entire will may be born which before was divided into many. Thus also when above, Eternity delights us, and the pleasure of temporal goods holds us down below, it is the same soul which willeth not this or that with an entire will, and therefore is rent asunder with grievous perplexities, while out of truth it sets this first, but out of habit it sets not that aside. CHAPTER XI. Thus soul-sick was I, and tormented, accusing myself much more severely than my want, rolling and turning me in my chain, till that there were wholly broken, whereby I now was but just, but still was, held. And thou, O Lord, presseth upon me in my upward parts, by a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame, lest I should again give way, and not bursting that same slight remaining tie, it should recover strength and bind me the faster. For I said within myself, Be it done now, be it done now. And as I spake, I all but enacted it. I all but did it, and did it not. Yet sunk not back to my former state, but kept my stand hard by and took breath, and I assayed again, and wanted somewhat less of it, and somewhat less, and all but touched and laid hold of it, and yet came not at it, nor touched, nor laid hold of it, hesitating to die to death, and live to life. And the worse were to I was enured, prevailed more with me than the better were to I was enured. At the very moment wherein I was to become other than I was, the near it approached me, the greater horror did it strike into me. Yet did it not strike me back, nor turned me away, but held me in suspense. The very toy of toys, and vanity of vanities, my ancient mistresses still held me. They plucked my fleshly garment, and whispered softly, thus thou cast us off, and from that moment shall we no more be with thee for ever, and from that moment shall not this or that be lawful for thee for ever. And what was it, which they suggested, in that I said, this or that? What did they suggest, oh my God? Let thy mercy turn it away from the soul of thy servant. What defilements did they suggest? What shame! And now I much less than half heard them, and not openly showing themselves and contradicting me, but muttering as it were behind my back, and privily plucking me, as I was departing, but to look back on them. Yet they did not retard me, so that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to spring over whether I was called, a violent habit saying to me, Thinkest thou, thou canst live without them. But now it spake very faintly, for on that side whether I had set my face, and whether I trembled to go, there appeared to me the chaste dignity of contancy, serene yet not relaxedly gay, honestly alluring me to come, and doubt not, and stretching forth to receive and embrace me, her holy hands full of multitudes of good examples. There were so many young men and maidens here, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and aged virgins, and continents herself in all, not barren, but a fruitful mother of children of joys, by thee her husband, a Lord. And she smiled on me, with a persuasive mockery, as would she say, Canst thou not what these use, what these maidens can, or can they either in themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me unto them, why standest thou in thyself, and so standest not? Cast thyself upon him, fear not, he will not withdraw himself that thou shouldst fall. Cast thyself fearlessly upon him, he will receive and will heal thee. And I blushed exceedingly, for that I yet heard the muttering of those toys, and hung in suspense. And she again seemed to say, Stop thine ears against those thy unclean members of the earth, that they may be mortified. They tell thee of delights, but not as doth the law of the Lord thy God. This controversy in my heart was self against self only. An Olympus sitting close by my side, in silence waited the issue of my unwanted emotion. CHAPTER XII. But when a deep consideration had from the secret bottom of my soul drawn together, and heaped up all my misery in the sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm, bringing a mighty shower of tears. Which that I might pour forth wholly, in its natural expressions, I rose from Olympus, solitude was suggested to me as fitter for the business of weeping. Though I retired so far that even his presence could not be a burden to me. Thus it was then with me, and he perceiving something of it, for something I suppose I had spoken, wherein the tones of my voice appeared choked with weeping, and so had risen up. He then remained where we were sitting, most extremely astonished. I cast myself down I know not how, under a certain fig tree, giving full vent to my tears, and the floods of mine eyes gushed out, an acceptable sacrifice to thee. And not indeed in these words, yet to this purpose, spake I much unto thee. And thou, O Lord, how long, how long, Lord, will thou be angry, for ever? Remember not our former iniquities, for I felt that I was held by them. I sent up these sorrowful words. How long, how long, to-morrow and to-morrow? Why not now? Why not is there this hour, an end to my uncleanness? So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo, I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not, chanting and oft repeating, Take up and read, take up and read. Instantly my countenance altered. I began to think most intently whether children will want in any kind of play to sing such words, nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears I arose, interpreting it to be no other than a command from God, to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Anthony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him, Go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. And by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto thee. Early then I returned to the place where Elipius was sitting, for there I had laid the volume of the apostle when I rose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell. Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read, nor needed I, for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. Then putting my finger between, or some other mark, I shut the volume, and with a calmed countenance made it known to Elipius, and what was wrought in him which I knew not, he thus showed me. He asked to see what I had read, I showed him, and he looked even further than I had read, and I knew not what followed. This followed. Then that his weak in faith receive, which he applied to himself and disclosed to me, and by this admonition he was strengthened, and by a good resolution and purpose, and most corresponding to his character, wherein he did always, very far differ from me, for the better, without any turbulent delay he joined me. Thence we go into my mother, we tell her, she rejoiceth, we relate in order how it took place, she leaps for joy, and triumpheth, and blesseth thee, who art able to do above that which we ask or think, for she perceived that thou hast given her more for me than she was want to beg by her pitiful and most sorrowful groanings, for thou convertest me unto thyself, so that I sought neither wife nor any hope in this world, standing in that rule of faith, where thou hast showed me unto her in a vision so many years before. And thou disconvert her mourning into joy, much more plentiful than she had desired, and in a much more precious and pure way than she arised required by having grandchildren of my body. End of book eight.