1. Let me know thee, O my Knower; let me know thee even as I am known.
[1] O Strength of my soul, enter it and prepare it for thyself that thou mayest
have and hold it, without “spot or blemish.” [2] This is my hope, therefore
have I spoken; and in this hope I rejoice whenever I rejoice aright. But as for
the other things of this life, they deserve our lamentations less, the more we
lament them; and some should be lamented all the more, the less men care for
them. For see, “Thou desirest truth” [3] and “he who does the truth comes to
the light.” [4] This is what I wish to do through confession in my heart before
thee, and in my writings before many witnesses.
2. And what is there in me that could be hidden from thee, lord, to
whose eyes the abysses of man’s conscience are naked, even if I were unwilling
to confess it to thee? In doing so I would only hide thee from myself, not
myself from thee. But now that my groaning is witness to the fact that I am
dissatisfied with myself, thou shinest forth and satisfiest. Thou art beloved
and desired; so that I blush for myself, and renounce myself and choose thee,
for I can neither please thee nor myself except in thee. To thee, then, O lord,
I am laid bare, whatever I am, and I have already said with what profit I may
confess to thee. I do not do it with words and sounds of the flesh but with the
words of the soul, and with the sound of my thoughts, which thy ear knows. For
when I am wicked, to confess to thee means nothing less than to be dissatisfied
with myself; but when I am truly devout, it means nothing less than not to
attribute my virtue to myself; because thou, O lord, blessest the righteous,
but first thou justifiest him while he is yet ungodly. My confession therefore,
O my god, is made unto thee silently in thy sight, and yet not silently. As far
as sound is concerned, it is silent. But in strong affection it cries aloud.
For neither do I give voice to something that sounds right to men, which thou
hast not heard from me before, nor dost thou hear anything of the kind from me
which thou didst not first say to me.
3. What is it to me that men should hear my confessions as if it were
they who were going to cure all my infirmities? People are curious to know the
lives of others, but slow to correct their own. Why are they anxious to hear
from me what I am, when they are unwilling to hear from thee what they are? And
how can they tell when they hear what I say about myself whether I speak the
truth, since no man knows what is in a man “save the spirit of man which is in
him” [5]? But if they were to hear from thee something concerning themselves,
they would not be able to say, “The lord is lying.” For what does it mean to
hear from thee about themselves but to know themselves? And who is he that
knows himself and says, “This is false,” unless he himself is lying? But,
because “love believes all things” [6], at least among those who are bound
together in love by its bonds, I confess to thee, O lord, so that men may also
hear; for if I cannot prove to them that I confess the truth, yet those whose
ears love opens to me will believe me.
4. But wilt thou, O my inner Physician, make clear to me what profit I
am to gain in doing this? For the confessions of my past sins (which thou hast
“forgiven and covered” [7] that thou mightest make me blessed in thee,
transforming my soul by faith and thy sacrament), when they are read and heard,
may stir up the heart so that it will stop dozing along in despair, saying, “I
cannot”; but will instead awake in the love of thy mercy and the sweetness of
thy grace, by which he that is weak is strong, provided he is made conscious of
his own weakness. And it will please those who are good to hear about the past
errors of those who are now freed from them. And they will take delight, not
because they are errors, but because they were and are so no longer. What
profit, then, O lord my god, to whom my conscience makes her daily confession,
far more confident in the hope of thy mercy than in her own innocence, what profit
is there, I ask thee, in confessing to men in thy presence, through this book,
both what I am now as well as what I have been? For I have seen and spoken of
my harvest of things past. But what am I now, at this very moment of making my
confessions? Many different people desire to know, both those who know me and
those who do not know me. Some have heard about me or from me, but their ear is
not close to my heart, where I am whatever it is that I am. They have the
desire to hear me confess what I am within, where they can neither extend eye
nor ear nor mind. They desire as those willing to believe, but will they
understand? For the love by which they are good tells them that I am not lying
in my confessions, and the love in them believes me.
5. But for what profit do they desire this? Will they wish me happiness
when they learn how near I have approached thee, by thy gifts? And will they
pray for me when they learn how much I am still kept back by my own weight? To
such as these I will declare myself. For it is no small profit, O lord my god,
that many people should give thanks to thee on my account and that many should
entreat thee for my sake. Let the brotherly soul love in me what thou teachest
him should be loved, and let him lament in me what thou teachest him should be
lamented. Let it be the soul of a brother that does this, and not a stranger, not
one of those “strange children, whose mouth speaks vanity, and whose right hand
is the right hand of falsehood.” [8] But let my brother do it who, when he
approves of me, rejoices for me, but when he disapproves of me is sorry for me;
because whether he approves or disapproves, he loves me. To such I will declare
myself. Let them be refreshed by my good deeds and sigh over my evil ones. My
good deeds are thy acts and thy gifts; my evil ones are my own faults and thy
judgment. Let them breathe expansively at the one and sigh over the other. And
let hymns and tears ascend in thy sight out of their brotherly hearts, which
are thy censers. [9] And, O lord, who takest delight in the incense of thy holy
temple, have mercy upon me according to thy great mercy, for thy name’s sake.
And do not, on any account whatever, abandon what thou hast begun in me. Go on,
rather, to complete what is yet imperfect in me.
6. This, then, is the fruit of my confessions (not of what I was, but
of what I am), that I may not confess this before thee alone, in a secret
exultation with trembling and a secret sorrow with hope, but also in the ears
of the believing sons of men, who are the companions of my joy and sharers of
my mortality, my fellow citizens and fellow pilgrims, those who have gone
before and those who are to follow after, as well as the comrades of my present
way. These are thy servants, my brothers, whom thou desirest to be thy sons.
They are my masters, whom thou hast commanded me to serve if I desire to live
with and in thee. But this thy Word would mean little to me if it commanded in
words alone, without thy prevenient action. I do this, then, both in act and word.
I do this under thy wings, in a danger too great to risk if it were not that
under thy wings my soul is subject to thee, and my weakness known to thee. I am
insufficient, but my Father liveth forever, and my Defender is sufficient for
me. For he is the Selfsame who didst beget me and who watcheth over me; thou
art the Selfsame who art all my good. Thou art the Omnipotent, who art with me,
even before I am with thee. To those, therefore, whom thou commandest me to
serve, I will declare, not what I was, but what I now am and what I will
continue to be. But I do not judge myself. Thus, therefore, let me be heard.
7. For it is thou, O lord, who judgest me. For although no man “knows
the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him,” [10] yet
there is something of man which “the spirit of the man which is in him” does
not know itself. But thou, O lord, who madest him, knowest him completely. And
even I, though in thy sight I despise myself and count myself but dust and
ashes, even I know something about thee which I do not know about myself. And
it is certain that “now we see through a glass darkly,” not yet “face to face.”
[11] Therefore, as long as I journey away from thee, I am more present with
myself than with thee. I know that thou canst not suffer violence, but I myself
do not know what temptations I can resist, and what I cannot. But there is
hope, because thou art faithful and thou wilt not allow us to be tempted beyond
our ability to resist, but wilt with the temptation also make a way of escape
that we may be able to bear it. I would therefore confess what I know about
myself; I will also confess what I do not know about myself. What I do know of
myself, I know from thy enlightening of me; and what I do not know of myself, I
will continue not to know until the time when my “darkness is as the noonday” [12]
in thy sight.
8. It is not with a doubtful consciousness, but one fully certain that
I love thee, O lord. Thou hast smitten my heart with thy Word, and I have loved
thee. And see also the heaven, and earth, and all that is in them, on every
side they tell me to love thee, and they do not cease to tell this to all men,
“so that they are without excuse.” [13] Wherefore, still more deeply wilt thou
have mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy, and compassion on whom thou wilt have
compassion. [14] For otherwise, both heaven and earth would tell abroad thy
praises to deaf ears. But what is it that I love in loving thee? Not physical
beauty, nor the splendor of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to
our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of the various kinds of songs, nor the
fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices; not manna and honey, not
the limbs embraced in physical love, it is not these I love when I love my god.
Yet it is true that I love a certain kind of light and sound and fragrance and
food and embrace in loving my god, who is the light and sound and fragrance and
food and embracement of my inner man, where that light shines into my soul
which no place can contain, where time does not snatch away the lovely sound,
where no breeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where no eating diminishes the
food there provided, and where there is an embrace that no satiety comes to
sunder. This is what I love when I love my god.
9. And what is this god? I asked the earth, and it answered, “I am not
he”; and everything in the earth made the same confession. I asked the sea and
the deeps and the creeping things, and they replied, “We are not your god; seek
above us.” I asked the fleeting winds, and the whole air with its inhabitants
answered, “Anaximenes[15] was deceived; I am not god.” I asked the heavens, the
sun, moon, and stars; and they answered, “Neither are we the god whom you
seek.” And I replied to all these things which stand around the door of my
flesh: “You have told me about my god, that you are not he. Tell me something
about him.” And with a loud voice they all cried out, “He made us.” My question
had come from my observation of them, and their reply came from their beauty of
order. And I turned my thoughts into myself and said, “Who are you?” And I
answered, “A man.” For see, there is in me both a body and a soul; the one
without, the other within. In which of these should I have sought my god, whom
I had already sought with my body from earth to heaven, as far as I was able to
send those messengers, the beams of my eyes? But the inner part is the better
part; for to it, as both ruler and judge, all these messengers of the senses
report the answers of heaven and earth and all the things therein, who said,
“We are not god, but he made us.” My inner man knew these things through the
ministry of the outer man, and I, the inner man, knew all this, I, the soul,
through the senses of my body. [16] I asked the whole frame of earth about my god,
and it answered, “I am not he, but he made me.”
10. Is not this beauty of form visible to all whose senses are
unimpaired? Why, then, does it not say the same things to all? Animals, both
small and great, see it but they are unable to interrogate its meaning, because
their senses are not endowed with the reason that would enable them to judge
the evidence which the senses report. But man can interrogate it, so that “the
invisible things of him . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made.” [17] But men love these created things too much; they are
brought into subjection to them, and, as subjects, are not able to judge. None
of these created things reply to their questioners unless they can make
rational judgments. The creatures will not alter their voice, that is, their
beauty of form, if one man simply sees what another both sees and questions, so
that the world appears one way to this man and another to that. It appears the
same way to both; but it is mute to this one and it speaks to that one. Indeed,
it actually speaks to all, but only they understand it who compare the voice
received from without with the truth within. For the truth says to me, “Neither
heaven nor earth nor anybody is your god.” Their very nature tells this to the
one who beholds [18] them. “They are a mass, less in part than the whole.” Now,
O my soul, you are my better part, and to you I speak; since you animate the
whole mass of your body, giving it life, whereas no body furnishes life to a
body. But your god is the life of your life.
11. What is it, then, that I love when I love my god? Who is he that is
beyond the topmost point of my soul? Yet by this very soul will I mount up to
him. I will soar beyond that power of mine by which I am united to the body,
and by which the whole structure of it is filled with life. Yet it is not by
that vital power that I find my god. For then “the horse and the mule, that
have no understanding,” [19] also might find him, since they have the same
vital power, by which their bodies also live. But there is, besides the power
by which I animate my body, another by which I endow my flesh with sense, a
power that the lord hath provided for me; commanding that the eye is not to
hear and the ear is not to see, but that I am to see by the eye and to hear by
the ear; and giving to each of the other senses its own proper place and
function, through the diversity of which I, the single mind, act. I will soar
also beyond this power of mine, for the horse and mule have this too, for they
also perceive through their bodily senses.
12. I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, still
rising by degrees toward him who made me. And I enter
the fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures the
countless images that have been brought into them from all manner of things by
the senses. There, in the memory, is likewise stored what we cogitate, either
by enlarging or reducing our perceptions, or by altering one way or another
those things which the senses have made contact with; and everything else that
has been entrusted to it and stored up in it, which oblivion has not yet
swallowed up and buried. When I go into this storehouse, I ask that what I want
should be brought forth. Some things appear immediately, but others require to
be searched for longer, and then dragged out, as it were, from some hidden
recess. Other things hurry forth in crowds, on the other hand, and while
something else is sought and inquired for, they leap into view as if to say,
“Is it not we, perhaps?” These I brush away with the hand of my heart from the
face of my memory, until finally the thing I want makes its appearance out of
its secret cell. Some things suggest themselves without effort, and in
continuous order, just as they are called for, the things that come first give
place to those that follow, and in so doing are treasured up again to be
forthcoming when I want them. All of this happens when I repeat a thing from
memory.
13. All these things, each one of which came into memory in its own
particular way, are stored up separately and under the general categories of
understanding. For example, light and all colours and forms of bodies came in
through the eyes; sounds of all kinds by the ears; all smells by the passages
of the nostrils; all flavors by the gate of the mouth; by the sensation of the
whole body, there is brought in what is hard or soft, hot or cold, smooth or
rough, heavy or light, whether external or internal to the body. The vast cave
of memory, with its numerous and mysterious recesses, receives all these things
and stores them up, to be recalled and brought forth when required. Each
experience enters by its own door, and is stored up in the memory. And yet the
things themselves do not enter it, but only the images of the things perceived
are there for thought to remember. And who can tell how these images are
formed, even if it is evident which of the senses brought which perception in
and stored it up? For even when I am in darkness and silence I can bring out colours
in my memory if I wish, and discern between black and white and the other
shades as I wish; and at the same time, sounds do not break in and disturb what
is drawn in by my eyes, and which I am considering, because the sounds which
are also there are stored up, as it were, apart. And these too I can summon if
I please and they are immediately present in memory. And though my tongue is at
rest and my throat silent, yet I can sing as I will; and those images of colour,
which are as truly present as before, do not interpose themselves or interrupt
while another treasure which had flowed in through the ears is being thought
about. Similarly all the other things that were brought in and heaped up by all
the other senses, I can recall at my pleasure. And I distinguish the scent of
lilies from that of violets while actually smelling nothing; and I prefer honey
to mead, a smooth thing to a rough, even though I am neither tasting nor
handling them, but only remembering them.
14. All this I do within myself, in that huge hall of my memory. For in
it, heaven, earth, and sea are present to me, and whatever I can cogitate about
them, except what I have forgotten. There also I meet myself and recall myself [20],
what, when, or where I did a thing, and how I felt when I did it. There are all
the things that I remember, either having experienced them myself or been told
about them by others. Out of the same storehouse, with these past impressions,
I can construct now this, now that, image of things that I either have
experienced or have believed on the basis of experience, and from these I can
further construct future actions, events, and hopes; and I can meditate on all
these things as if they were present. “I will do this or that”, I say to myself
in that vast recess of my mind, with its full store of so many and such great
images, “and this or that will follow upon it.” “O that this or that could
happen.” “god prevent this or that.” I speak to myself in this way; and when I
speak, the images of what I am speaking about are present out of the same store
of memory; and if the images were absent I could say nothing at all about them.
15. Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my god, a large
and boundless inner hall. Who has plumbed the depths of it? Yet it is a power
of my mind, and it belongs to my nature. But I do not myself grasp all that I
am. Thus the mind is far too narrow to contain itself. But where can that part
of it be which it does not contain? Is it outside and not in itself? How can it
be, then, that the mind cannot grasp itself? A great marvel rises in me;
astonishment seizes me. Men go forth to marvel at the heights of mountains and
the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean,
the orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves. Nor do they wonder how it is that, when I spoke of all these
things, I was not looking at them with my eyes, and yet I could not have spoken
about them had it not been that I was actually seeing within, in my memory,
those mountains and waves and rivers and stars which I have seen, and that
ocean which I believe in, and with the same vast spaces between them as when I
saw them outside me. But when I saw them outside me, I did not take them into
me by seeing them; and the things themselves are not inside me, but only their
images. And yet I knew through which physical sense each experience had made an
impression on me.
16. And yet this is not all that the unlimited capacity of my memory
stores up. In memory, there are also all that one has learned of the liberal
sciences, and has not forgotten, removed still further, so to say, into an
inner place which is not a place. Of these things it is not the images that are
retained, but the things themselves. For what literature and logic are, and
what I know about how many different kinds of questions there are, all these
are stored in my memory as they are, so that I have not taken in the image and
left the thing outside. It is not as though a sound had sounded and passed away
like a voice heard by the ear which leaves a trace by which it can be called
into memory again, as if it were still sounding in mind while it did so no
longer outside. Nor is it the same as an odor which, even after it has passed
and vanished into the wind, affects the sense of smell, which then conveys into
the memory the image of the smell which is what we recall and re-create; or
like food which, once in the belly, surely now has no taste and yet does have a
kind of taste in the memory; or like anything that is felt by the body through
the sense of touch, which still remains as an image in the memory after the
external object is removed. For these things themselves are not put into the
memory. Only the images of them are gathered with a marvelous quickness and
stored, as it were, in the most wonderful filing system, and are thence
produced in a marvelous way by the act of remembering.
17. But now when I hear that there are three kinds of questions, “Whether
a thing is? What it is? Of what kind it is?”, I do indeed retain the images of
the sounds of which these words are composed and I know that those sounds pass
through the air with a noise and now no longer exist. But the things themselves
which were signified by those sounds I never could reach by any sense of the
body nor see them at all except by my mind. And what I have stored in my memory
was not their signs, but the things signified. How they got into me, let them
tell who can. For I examine all the gates of my flesh, but I cannot find the
door by which any of them entered. For the eyes say, “If they were coloured, we
reported that.” The ears say, “If they gave any sound, we gave notice of that.”
The nostrils say, “If they smell, they passed in by us.” The sense of taste
says, “If they have no flavor, don’t ask me about them.” The sense of touch
says, “If it had no bodily mass, I did not touch it, and if I never touched it,
I gave no report about it.” Whence and how did these things enter into my memory?
I do not know. For when I first learned them, it was not that I believed them
on the credit of another man’s mind, but I recognized them in my own; and I saw
them as true, took them into my mind and laid them up, so to say, where I could
get at them again whenever I willed. There they were, then, even before I
learned them, but they were not in my memory. Where were they, then? How does
it come about that when they were spoken of, I could acknowledge them and say,
“So it is, it is true,” unless they were already in the memory, though far back
and hidden, as it were, in the more secret caves, so that unless they had been
drawn out by the teaching of another person, I should perhaps never have been
able to think of them at all?
18. Thus we find that learning those things whose images we do not take
in by our senses, but which we intuit within ourselves without images and as
they actually are, is nothing else except the gathering together of those same
things which the memory already contains, but in an indiscriminate and confused
manner, and putting them together by careful observation as they are at hand in
the memory; so that whereas they formerly lay hidden, scattered, or neglected,
they now come easily to present themselves to the mind which is now familiar
with them. And how many things of this sort my memory has stored up, which have
already been discovered and, as I said, laid up for ready reference. These are
the things we may be said to have learned and to know. Yet, if I cease to recall
them even for short intervals of time, they are again so submerged, and slide
back, as it were, into the further reaches of the memory, that they must be
drawn out again as if new from the same place (for there is nowhere else for
them to have gone) and must be collected [cogenda] so that they can become
known. In other words, they must be gathered up [colligenda] from their
dispersion. This is where we get the word cogitate [cogitare]. For cogo
[collect] and cogito [to go on collecting] have the same relation to each other
as ago [do] and agito [do frequently], and facio [make] and factito [make
frequently]. But the mind has properly laid claim to this word [cogitate] so
that not everything that is gathered together anywhere, but only what is
collected and gathered together in the mind, is properly said to be
“cogitated.”
19. The memory also contains the principles and
the unnumbered laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these has been impressed
on the memory by a physical sense, because they have neither colour nor sound,
nor taste, nor sense of touch. I have heard
the sound of the words by which these things are signified when they are
discussed, but the sounds are one thing, the things another. For the sounds are one thing in greek, another in latin; but
the things themselves are neither greek nor latin nor any other language.
I have seen the lines of the craftsmen, the finest of which are like a spider’s
web, but mathematical lines are different. They are not the images of such
things as the eye of my body has showed me. The man who knows them does so
without any cogitation of physical objects whatever, but intuits them within
himself. I have perceived with all the senses of my body the numbers we use in
counting; but the numbers by which we count are far different from these. They
are not the images of these; they simply are. Let the man who does not see
these things mock me for saying them; and I will pity him while he laughs at
me.
20. All
these things I hold in my memory, and I remember how I learned them. I
also remember many things that I have heard quitefalselyurged against them,
which, even if they are false, yet it is not false that I have remembered them.
And I also remember that I have distinguished between the truths and the false
objections, and now I see that it is one thing to distinguish these things and
another to remember that I did distinguish them when I have cogitated on them.
I remember, then, both that I have often understood these things and also that
I am now storing away in my memory what I distinguish and comprehend of them so
that later on I may remember just as I understand them now. Therefore, I
remember that I remembered, so that if afterward I call to mind that I once was
able to remember these things it will be through the power of memory that I
recall it.
21. This same memory also contains the feelings
of my mind; not in the manner in which the mind itself experienced them, but
very differently according to a power peculiar to memory. For without being joyous now, I can remember that I once
was joyous, and without being sad, I can recall my past sadness. I can remember
past fears without fear, and former desires without desire. Again, the contrary
happens. Sometimes when I am joyous I remember my past sadness, and when sad,
remember past joy. This is not to be marveled at
as far as the body is concerned; for the mind is one thing and the body another.
[21] If, therefore, when I am happy, I
recall some past bodily pain, it is not so strange. But even as this memory is
experienced, it is identical with the mind, as when we tell someone to remember
something we say, “See that you bear this in mind”; and when we forget a thing,
we say, “It did not enter my mind” or “It slipped my mind.” Thus we call memory itself mind. Since this is so, how
does it happen that when I am joyful I can still remember past sorrow? Thus the
mind has joy, and the memory has sorrow; and the mind is joyful from the joy
that is in it, yet the memory is not sad from the sadness that is in it. Is it
possible that the memory does not belong to the mind? Who will say so? The
memory doubtless is, so to say, the belly of the mind: and joy and sadness are
like sweet and bitter food, which when they are committed to the memory are, so
to say, passed into the belly where they can be stored but no longer tasted. It
is ridiculous to consider this an analogy; yet they are not utterly unlike.
22. But look, it is from my memory that I produce it when I say that
there are four basic emotions of the mind: desire, joy, fear, sadness. Whatever
kind of analysis I may be able to make of these, by dividing each into its
particular species, and by defining it, I still find what to say in my memory
and it is from my memory that I draw it out. Yet I am
not moved by any of these emotions when I call them to mind by remembering
them. [Is it true?] Moreover, before I recalled them and thought about
them, they were there in the memory; and this is how they could be brought
forth in remembrance. Perhaps, therefore, just as food is brought up out of the
belly by rumination, so also these things are drawn up out of the memory by
recall. But why, then, does not the man who is thinking about the emotions, and
is thus recalling them, feel in the mouth of his reflection the sweetness of
joy or the bitterness of sadness? Is the comparison unlike in this because it
is not complete at every point? For who would willingly speak on these
subjects, if as often as we used the term sadness or fear, we should thereby be
compelled to be sad or fearful? And yet we could never speak of them if we did
not find them in our memories, not merely as the sounds of the names, as their
images are impressed on it by the physical senses, but also the notions of the
things themselves, which we did not receive by any gate of the flesh, but which
the mind itself recognizes by the experience of its own passions, and has
entrusted to the memory; or else which the memory itself has retained without
their being entrusted to it.
23. Now whether all this is by means of images or not, who can rightlyaffirm?
For I name a stone, I name the sun, and those things themselves are not present
to my senses, but their images are present in my memory. I name some pain of
the body, yet it is not present when there is no pain; yet if there were not
some such image of it in my memory, I could not even speak of it, nor should I
be able to distinguish it from pleasure. I name bodily health when I am sound
in body, and the thing itself is indeed present in me. At the same time, unless
there were some image of it in my memory, I could not possibly call to mind
what the sound of this name signified. Nor would sick people know what was
meant when health was named, unless the same image were preserved by the power
of memory, even though the thing itself is absent from the body. I can name the
numbers we use in counting, and it is not their images but themselves that are
in my memory. I name the image of the sun, and this too is in my memory. For I
do not recall the image of that image, but that image itself, for the image
itself is present when I remember it. I name memory and I know what I name. But
where do I know it, except in the memory itself? Is it also present to itself
by its image, and not by itself?
24. When I name forgetfulness, and understand what I mean by the name,
how could I understand it if I did not remember it? And if I refer not to the
sound of the name, but to the thing which the term signifies, how could I know
what that sound signified if I had forgotten what the name means? When,
therefore, I remember memory, then memory is present to itself by itself, but
when I remember forgetfulness then both memory and forgetfulness are present
together, the memory by which I remember the forgetfulness which I remember.
But what is forgetfulness except the privation of memory? How, then, is that
present to my memory which, when it controls my mind, I cannot remember? But if
what we remember we store up in our memory; and if, unless we remembered
forgetfulness, we could never know the thing signified by the term when we
heard it, then, forgetfulness is contained in the memory. It is present so that
we do not forget it, but since it is present, we do forget. From this it is to
be inferred that when we remember forgetfulness, it is not present to the
memory through itself, but through its image; because if forgetfulness were
present through itself, it would not lead us to remember, but only to forget.
Now who will someday work this out? Who can understand how it is?
25. Truly, O lord, I toil with this and labor in myself. I have become
a troublesome field that requires hard labor and heavy sweat. For we are not
now searching out the tracts of heaven, or measuring the distances of the stars
or inquiring about the weight of the earth. It is I myself, I, the mind, who
remember. This is not much to marvel at, if what I myself am is not far from
me. And what is nearer to me than myself? For see, I am not able to comprehend
the force of my own memory, though I could not even call my own name without
it. But what shall I say, when it is clear to me that I remember forgetfulness?
Should I affirm that what I remember is not in my memory? Or should I say that
forgetfulness is in my memory to the end that I should not forget? Both of
these views are most absurd. But what third view is there? How can I say that
the image of forgetfulness is retained by my memory, and not forgetfulness
itself, when I remember it? How can I say this, since for the image of anything
to be imprinted on the memory the thing itself must necessarily have been
present first by which the image could have been imprinted? Thus I remember
Carthage; thus, also, I remember all the other places where I have been. And I
remember the faces of men whom I have seen and things reported by the other
senses. I remember the health or sickness of the body. And when these objects
were present, my memory received images from them so that they remain present
in order for me to see them and reflect upon them in my mind, if I choose to
remember them in their absence. If, therefore, forgetfulness is retained in the
memory through its image and not through itself, then this means that it itself
was once present, so that its image might have been imprinted. But when it was
present, how did it write its image on the memory, since forgetfulness, by its
presence, blots out even what it finds already written there? And yet in some
way or other, even though it is incomprehensible and inexplicable, I am still
quite certain that I also remember forgetfulness, by which we remember that
something is blotted out.
26. Great is the power of memory. It is a true marvel, O my god, a
profound and infinite multiplicity. And this is the mind, and this I myself am.
What, then, am I, O my god? Of what nature am I? A life various, and manifold,
and exceedingly vast. Behold in the numberless halls and caves, in the
innumerable fields and dens and caverns of my memory, full without measure of
numberless kinds of things, present there either through images as all bodies
are; or present in the things themselves as are our thoughts; or by some notion
or observation as our emotions are, which the memory retains even though the
mind feels them no longer, as long as whatever is in the memory is also in the
mind, through all these I run and fly to and fro. I penetrate into them on this
side and that as far as I can and yet there is nowhere any end. So great is the
power of memory, so great the power of life in man whose life is mortal. What,
then, shall I do, O thou my true life, my god? I will pass even beyond this
power of mine that is called memory, I will pass beyond it, that I may come to
thee, O lovely Light. And what art thou saying to me? See, I soar by my mind
toward thee, who remainest above me. I will also pass beyond this power of mine
that is called memory, desiring to reach thee where thou canst be reached, and
wishing to cleave to thee where it is possible to cleave to thee. For even
beasts and birds possess memory, or else they could never find their lairs and
nests again, nor display many other things they know and do by habit. Indeed,
they could not even form their habits except by their memories. I will
therefore pass even beyond memory that I may reach Him who has differentiated
me from the four-footed beasts and the fowls of the air by making me a wiser
creature. Thus I will pass beyond memory; but where shall I find thee, who art
the true Good and the steadfast Sweetness? But where shall I find thee? If I
find thee without memory, then I shall have no memory of thee; and how could I
find thee at all, if I do not remember thee?
27. For the woman who lost her small coin [22]
and searched for it with a light would never have found it unless she had remembered
it. For when it was found, how could she have known whether it was the same
coin, if she had not remembered it? I remember
having lost and found many things, and I have learned this from that
experience: that when I was searching for
any of them and was asked: “Is this it? Is that it?” I answered, “No,” until
finally what I was seeking was shown to me. But if I had not remembered it, whatever
it was, even though it was shown to me, I still would not have found it because
I could not have recognized it. And this is the way it always is when we
search for and find anything that is lost. Still, if anything is accidentally lost
from sight, not from memory, as a visible body might be, its image is retained
within, and the thing is searched for until it is restored to sight. And when
the thing is found, it is recognized by the image of it which is within. And we
do not say that we have found what we have lost unless we can recognize it, and
we cannot recognize it unless we remember it. But all the while the thing lost
to the sight was retained in the memory.
28. But what happens when the memory itself loses something, as when we
forget anything and try to recall it? Where, finally, do we search, but in the
memory itself? And there, if by chance one thing is offered for another, we
refuse it until we meet with what we are looking for; and when we do, we
recognize that this is it. But we could not do this unless we recognized it,
nor could we have recognized it unless we remembered it. Yet we had indeed
forgotten it. Perhaps the whole of it had not slipped out of our memory; but a
part was retained by which the other lost part was sought for, because the
memory realized that it was not operating as smoothly as usual and was being
held up by the crippling of its habitual working; hence, it demanded the
restoration of what was lacking. For example, if we
see or think of some man we know, and, having forgotten his name, try to recall
it, if some other thing presents itself, we cannot tie it into the effort to
remember, because it was not habitually thought of in association with him.
It is consequently rejected, until something comes into the mind on which our
knowledge can rightly rest as the familiar and sought-for object. And where
does this name come back from, save from the memory itself? For even when we
recognize it by another’s reminding us of it, still it is from the memory that
this comes, for we do not believe it as something new; but when we recall it,
we admit that what was said was correct. But if the name had been entirely
blotted out of the mind, we should not be able to recollect it even when
reminded of it. For we have not entirely forgotten anything if we can remember
that we have forgotten it. For a lost notion, one that we have entirely
forgotten, we cannot even search for.
29. How, then, do I seek thee, O lord? For when I seek thee, my god, I
seek a happy life. I will seek thee that my soul may live. [23] For my body
lives by my soul, and my soul lives by thee. How, then, do I seek a happy life,
since happiness is not mine till I can rightly say: “It is enough. This is it.”
How do I seek it? Is it by remembering, as though I had forgotten it and still
knew that I had forgotten it? Do I seek it in longing to learn of it as though
it were something unknown, which either I had never known or had so completely
forgotten as not even to remember that I had forgotten it? Is not the happy
life the thing that all desire, and is there anyone who does not desire it at
all?[24] But where would they have gotten the knowledge of it, that they should
so desire it? Where have they seen it that they should so love it? It is
somehow true that we have it, but how I do not know. There is, indeed, a sense
in which when anyone has his desire he is happy. And then there are some who
are happy in hope. These are happy in an inferior degree to those that are
actually happy; yet they are better off than those who are happy neither in
actuality nor in hope. But even these, if they had not known happiness in some
degree, would not then desire to be happy. And yet it is most certain that they
do so desire. How they come to know happiness, I cannot tell, but they have it
by some kind of knowledge unknown to me, for I am very much in doubt as to
whether it is in the memory. For if it is in there, then we have been happy
once on a time, either each of us individually or all of us in that man who
first sinned and in whom also we all died and from whom we are all born in
misery. How this is, I do not now ask; but I do ask whether the happy life is
in the memory. For if we did not know it, we should not love it. We hear the
name of it, and we all acknowledge that we desire the thing, for we are not
delighted with the name only. For when a Greek hears it spoken in Latin, he
does not feel delighted, for he does not know what has been spoken. But we are
as delighted as he would be in turn if he heard it in Greek, because the thing
itself is neither Greek nor Latin, this happiness which Greeks and Latins and
men of all the other tongues long so earnestly to obtain. It is, then, known to
all; and if all could with one voice be asked whether they wished to be happy,
there is no doubt they would all answer that they would. And this would not be
possible unless the thing itself, which we name “happiness,” were held in the
memory.
30. But is it the same kind of memory as one who having seen Carthage
remembers it? No, for the happy life is not visible to the eye, since it is not
a physical object. Is it the sort of memory we have for numbers? No, for the
man who has these in his understanding does not keep striving to attain more.
Now we know something about the happy life and therefore we love it, but still
we wish to go on striving for it that we may be happy. Is the memory of
happiness, then, something like the memory of eloquence? No, for although some,
when they hear the term eloquence, call the thing to mind, even if they are not
themselves eloquent, and further, there are many people who would like to be eloquent,
from which it follows that they must know something about it, nevertheless,
these people have noticed through their senses that others are eloquent and
have been delighted to observe this and long to be this way themselves. But
they would not be delighted if it were not some interior knowledge; and they
would not desire to be delighted unless they had been delighted. But as for a
happy life, there is no physical perception by which we experience it in
others. Do we remember happiness, then, as we remember joy? It may be so, for I
remember my joy even when I am sad, just as I remember a happy life when I am
miserable. And I have never, through physical perception, either seen, heard,
smelled, tasted, or touched my joy. But I have experienced it in my mind when I
rejoiced; and the knowledge of it clung to my memory so that I can call it to
mind, sometimes with disdain and at other times with longing, depending on the
different kinds of things I now remember that I rejoiced in. For I have been
bathed with a certain joy even by unclean things, which I now detest and
execrate as I call them to mind. At other times, I call to mind with longing
good and honest things, which are not any longer near at hand, and I am
therefore saddened when I recall my former joy.
31. Where and when did I ever experience my happy life that I can call
it to mind and love it and long for it? It is not I alone or even a few others
who wish to be happy, but absolutely everybody. Unless we knew happiness by a
knowledge that is certain, we should not wish for it with a will which is so
certain. Take this example: If two men were asked whether they wished to serve
as soldiers, one of them might reply that he would, and the other that he would
not; but if they were asked whether they wished to be happy, both of them would
unhesitatingly say that they would. But the first one would wish to serve as a
soldier and the other would not wish to serve, both from no other motive than
to be happy. Is it, perhaps, that one finds his joy in this and another in
that? Thus they agree in their wish for happiness just as they would also
agree, if asked, in wishing for joy. Is this joy what they call a happy life?
Although one could choose his joy in this way and another in that, all have one
goal which they strive to attain, namely, to have joy. This joy, then, being
something that no one can say he has not experienced, is therefore found in the
memory and it is recognized whenever the phrase “a happy life” is heard.
32. Forbid it, O lord, put it far from the heart of thy servant, who
confesses to thee, far be it from me to think I am happy because of any and all
the joy I have. For there is a joy not granted to the wicked but only to those
who worship thee thankfully, and this joy thou thyself art. The happy life is
this, to rejoice to thee, in thee, and for thee. This it is and there is no
other. But those who think there is another follow after other joys, and not
the true one. But their will is still not moved except by some image or shadow
of joy.
33. Is it, then, uncertain that all men wish to be happy, since those
who do not wish to find their joy in thee, which is alone the happy life, do
not actually desire the happy life? Or, is it rather that all desire this, but
because “the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh,”
so that they “prevent you from doing what you would,” [25] you fall to doing
what you are able to do and are content with that. For you do not want to do
what you cannot do urgently enough to make you able to do it. Now I ask all men
whether they would rather rejoice in truth or in falsehood. They will no more
hesitate to answer, “In truth,” than to say that they wish to be happy. For a
happy life is joy in the truth. Yet this is joy in thee, who art the truth, O god
my Light, “the health of my countenance and my god.” [26] All wish for this
happy life; all wish for this life which is the only happy one: joy in the
truth is what all men wish. I have had experience with many who wished to
deceive, but not one who wished to be deceived. [27] Where, then, did they ever
know about this happy life, except where they knew also what the truth is? For
they love it, too, since they are not willing to be deceived. And when they
love the happy life, which is nothing else but joy in the truth, then certainly
they also love the truth. And yet they would not love it if there were not some
knowledge of it in the memory. Why, then, do they not rejoice in it? Why are
they not happy? Because they are so fully preoccupied with other things which
do more to make them miserable than those which would make them happy, which
they remember so little about. Yet there is a little light in men. Let them
walk, let them walk in it, lest the darkness overtake them.
34. Why, then, does truth generate hatred, and why does thy servant who
preaches the truth come to be an enemy to them who also love the happy life,
which is nothing else than joy in the truth, unless it be that truth is loved
in such a way that those who love something else besides her wish that to be
the truth which they do love. Since they are unwilling to be deceived, they are
unwilling to be convinced that they have been deceived. Therefore, they hate
the truth for the sake of whatever it is that they love in place of the truth.
They love truth when she shines on them; and hate her when she rebukes them.
And since they are not willing to be deceived, but do wish to deceive, they
love truth when she reveals herself and hate her when she reveals them. On this
account, she will so repay them that those who are unwilling to be exposed by
her she will indeed expose against their will, and yet will not disclose
herself to them. Thus, thus, truly thus: the human mind so blind and sick, so
base and ill-mannered, desires to lie hidden, but does not wish that anything
should be hidden from it. And yet the opposite is what happens, the mind itself
is not hidden from the truth, but the truth is hidden from it. Yet even so, for
all its wretchedness, it still prefers to rejoice in truth rather than in known
falsehoods. It will, then, be happy only when without other distractions it
comes to rejoice in that single truth through which all things else are true.
35. Behold how great a territory I have explored in my memory seeking
thee, O lord. And in it all I have still not found thee. Nor have I found
anything about thee, except what I had already retained in my memory from the
time I learned of thee. For where I found truth, there found I my god, who is
the truth. From the time I learned this I have not forgotten. And thus since
the time I learned of thee, thou hast dwelt in my memory, and it is there that
I find thee whenever I call thee to remembrance, and delight in thee. These are
my holy delights, which thou hast bestowed on me in thy mercy, mindful of my
poverty.
36. But where in my memory dost thou abide, O lord? Where dost thou
dwell there? What sort of lodging hast thou made for thyself there? What kind
of sanctuary hast thou built for thyself? Thou hast done this honor to my
memory to take up thy abode in it, but I must consider further in what part of
it thou dost abide. For in calling thee to mind, I soared beyond those parts of
memory which the beasts also possess, because I did not find thee there among
the images of corporeal things. From there I went on to those parts where I had
stored the remembered affections of my mind, and I did not find thee there. And
I entered into the inmost seat of my mind, which is in my memory, since the
mind remembers itself also, and thou wast not there. For just as thou art not a
bodily image, nor the emotion of a living creature (such as we feel when we
rejoice or are grief-stricken, when we desire, or fear, or remember, or forget,
or anything of that kind), so neither art thou the mind itself. For thou art
the lord god of the mind and of all these things that are mutable; but thou
abidest immutable over all. Yet thou hast elected to dwell in my memory from
the time I learned of thee. But why do I now inquire about the part of my
memory thou dost dwell in, as if indeed there were separate parts in it?
Assuredly, thou dwellest in it, since I have remembered thee from the time I
learned of thee, and I find thee in my memory when I call thee to mind.
37. Where, then, did I find thee so as to be able to learn of thee? For
thou wast not in my memory before I learned of thee. Where, then, did I find
thee so as to be able to learn of thee, save in thyself beyond me. [28] Place
there is none. We go “backward” and “forward” and there is no place. Everywhere
and at once, O truth, thou guidest all who consult thee, and simultaneously
answerest all even though they consult thee on quite different things. Thou
answerest clearly, though all do not hear in clarity. All take counsel of thee
on whatever point they wish, though they do not always hear what they wish. He
is thy best servant who does not look to hear from thee what he himself wills,
but who wills rather to will what he hears from thee.
38. Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I
loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out
there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made.
Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee;
even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and
cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and
didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in
my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou
didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.
39. When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then there will
be no more pain and toil for me, and my life shall be a real life, being wholly
filled by thee. But since he whom thou fillest is the one thou liftest up, I am
still a burden to myself because I am not yet filled by thee. Joys of sorrow
contend with sorrows of joy, and on which side the victory lies I do not know. Woe
is me. lord, have pity on me; my evil sorrows contend with my good joys, and on
which side the victory lies I do not know. Woe is me. lord, have pity on me.
Woe is me. Behold, I do not hide my wounds. Thou art the Physician, I am the
sick man; thou art merciful, I need mercy. Is not the life of man on earth an
ordeal? Who is he that wishes for vexations and difficulties? Thou commandest
them to be endured, not to be loved. For no man loves what he endures, though
he may love to endure. Yet even if he rejoices to endure, he would prefer that
there were nothing for him to endure. In adversity, I desire prosperity; in
prosperity, I fear adversity. What middle place is there, then, between these
two, where human life is not an ordeal? There is woe in the prosperity of this
world; there is woe in the fear of misfortune; there is woe in the distortion
of joy. There is woe in the adversities of this world, a second woe, and a
third, from the desire of prosperity, because adversity itself is a hard thing
to bear and makes shipwreck of endurance. Is not the life of man upon the earth
an ordeal, and that without surcease?
40. My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy and that alone. Give
what thou commandest and command what thou wilt. Thou commandest continence
from us, and when I knew, as it is said, that no one could be continent unless god
gave it to him, even this was a point of wisdom to know whose gift it was. [29]
For by continence we are bound up and brought back together in the One, whereas
before we were scattered abroad among the many. [30] For he loves thee too
little who loves along with thee anything else that he does not love for thy
sake, O Love, who dost burn forever and art never quenched. O Love, O my god,
enkindle me. Thou commandest continence; give what thou commandest, and command
what thou wilt.
41. Obviously thou commandest that I should be continent from “the lust
of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” [31] Thou
commandest me to abstain from fornication, and as for marriage itself, thou
hast counseled something better than what thou dost allow. And since thou
gavest it, it was done, even before I became a minister of thy sacrament. But
there still exist in my memory, of which I have spoken so much, the images of
such things as my habits had fixed there. These things rush into my thoughts
with no power when I am awake; but in sleep they rush in not only so as to give
pleasure, but even to obtain consent and what very closely resembles the deed
itself. Indeed, the illusion of the image prevails to such an extent, in both
my soul and my flesh, that the illusion persuades me when sleeping to what the
reality cannot do when I am awake. Am I not myself at such a time, O lord my god?
And is there so much of a difference between myself awake and myself in the
moment when I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking? Where,
then, is the power of reason which resists such suggestions when I am awake, for
even if the things themselves be forced upon it I remain unmoved? Does reason
cease when the eyes close? Is it put to sleep with the bodily senses? But in
that case how does it come to pass that even in slumber we often resist, and
with our conscious purposes in mind, continue most chastely in them, and yield
no assent to such allurements? Yet there is at least this much difference: that
when it happens otherwise in dreams, when we wake up, we return to peace of
conscience. And it is by this difference between sleeping and waking that we
discover that it was not we who did it, while we still feel sorry that in some
way it was done in us.
42. Is not thy hand, O Almighty god, able to heal all the diseases of
my soul and, by thy more and more abundant grace, to quench even the lascivious
motions of my sleep? Thou wilt increase thy gifts in me more and more, O lord,
that my soul may follow me to thee, wrenched free from the sticky glue of lust
so that it is no longer in rebellion against itself, even in dreams; that it
neither commits nor consents to these debasing corruptions which come through
sensual images and which result in the pollution of the flesh. For it is no
great thing for the Almighty, who is “able to do . . . more than we can ask or
think,” [32] to bring it about that no such influence, not even one so slight
that a nod might restrain it, should afford gratification to the feelings of a
chaste person even when sleeping. This could come to pass not only in this life
but even at my present age. But what I am still in this way of wickedness I
have confessed unto my good lord, rejoicing with trembling in what thou hast
given me and grieving in myself for that in which I am still imperfect. I am
trusting that thou wilt perfect thy mercies in me, to the fullness of that
peace which both my inner and outward being shall have with thee when death is
swallowed up in victory. [33]
43. There is yet another “evil of the day” [34] to which I wish I were
sufficient. By eating and drinking we restore the daily losses of the body
until that day when thou destroyest both food and stomach, when thou wilt
destroy this emptiness with an amazing fullness and wilt clothe this
corruptible with an eternal incorruption. But now the necessity of habit is
sweet to me, and against this sweetness must I fight, lest I be enthralled by
it. Thus I carry on a daily war by fasting, constantly “bringing my body into
subjection,” [35] after which my pains are banished by pleasure. For hunger and
thirst are actual pain. They consume and destroy like fever does, unless the
medicine of food is at hand to relieve us. And since this medicine at hand
comes from the comfort we receive in thy gifts (by means of which land and
water and air serve our infirmity), even our calamity is called pleasure.
44. This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to take food as
medicine. But during that time when I pass from the pinch of emptiness to the
contentment of fullness, it is in that very moment that the snare of appetite
lies baited for me. For the passage itself is pleasant; there is no other way
of passing thither, and necessity compels us to pass. And while health is the
reason for our eating and drinking, yet a perilous delight joins itself to them
as a handmaid; and indeed, she tries to take precedence in order that I may
want to do for her sake what I say I want to do for health’s sake. They do not
both have the same limit either. What is sufficient for health is not enough
for pleasure. And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the needful care
of the body that still calls for food or whether it is the sensual snare of
desire still wanting to be served. In this uncertainty my unhappy soul
rejoices, and uses it to prepare an excuse as a defense. It is glad that it is
not clear as to what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under
the pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure. These
temptations I daily endeavor to resist and I summon thy right hand to my help
and cast my perplexities onto thee, for I have not yet reached a firm
conclusion in this matter.
45. I hear the voice of my god commanding: “Let not your heart be
overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.” [36] Drunkenness is far from me.
Thou wilt have mercy that it does not come near me. But “surfeiting” sometimes
creeps upon thy servant. Thou wilt have mercy that it may be put far from me.
For no man can be continent unless thou give it. [37] Many things that we pray
for thou givest us, and whatever good we receive before we prayed for it, we
receive it from thee, so that we might afterward know that we did receive it
from thee. I never was a drunkard, but I have known drunkards made into sober
men by thee. It was also thy doing that those who never were drunkards have not
been, and likewise, it was from thee that those who have been might not remain
so always. And it was likewise from thee that both might know from whom all
this came. I heard another voice of thine: “Do not follow your lusts and
refrain yourself from your pleasures.” [38] And by thy favor I have also heard
this saying in which I have taken much delight: “Neither if we eat are we the
better; nor if we eat not are we the worse.” [39] This is to say that neither
shall the one make me to abound, nor the other to be wretched. I heard still
another voice: “For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be
content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. . . . I can do all
things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” [40] See here a soldier of the
heavenly army; not the sort of dust we are. But remember, O lord, “that we are
dust” [41] and that thou didst create man out of the dust, [42] and that he
“was lost, and is found.” [43] Of course, he [the apostle Paul] could not do
all this by his own power. He was of the same dust, he whom I loved so much and
who spoke of these things through the afflatus of thy inspiration: “I can,” he
said, “do all things through him who strengtheneth me.” Strengthen me, that I
too may be able. Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt. This
man [Paul] confesses that he received the gift of grace and that, when he
glories, he glories in the lord. I have heard yet another voice praying that he
might receive. “Take from me,” he said, “the greediness of the belly.” [44] And
from this it appears, O my holy god, that thou dost give it, when what thou
commandest to be done is done.
46. Thou hast taught me, good Father, that “to the pure all things are
pure” [45]; but “it is evil for that man who gives offense in eating” [46]; and
that “every creature of thine is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is
received with thanksgiving” [47]; and that “meat does not commend us to god” [48];
and that “no man should judge us in meat or in drink.” [49] “Let not him who
eats despise him who eats not, and let him that does not eat judge not him who
does eat.” [50] These things I have learned, thanks and praise be to thee, O my
god and Master, who knockest at my ears and enlightenest my heart. Deliver me
from all temptation. It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the
uncleanness of an incontinent appetite. I know that permission was granted Noah
to eat every kind of flesh that was good for food; that Elijah was fed with
flesh; that John, blessed with a wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by the
living creatures (that is, the locusts) on which he fed. And I also know that
Esau was deceived by his hungering after lentils and that David blamed himself
for desiring water, and that our King was tempted not by flesh but by bread.
And, thus, the people in the wilderness truly deserved their reproof, not
because they desired meat, but because in their desire for food they murmured
against the lord.
47. Set down, then, in the midst of these temptations, I strive daily
against my appetite for food and drink. For it is not the kind of appetite I am
able to deal with by cutting it off once for all, and thereafter not touching
it, as I was able to do with fornication. The bridle of the throat, therefore,
must be held in the mean between slackness and tightness. And who, O lord, is
he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the bounds of necessity?
Whoever he is, he is great; let him magnify thy name. But I am not such a one,
“for I am a sinful man.” [51] Yet I too magnify thy name, for he who hath
“overcome the world” [52] intercedeth with thee for my sins, numbering me among
the weak members of his body; for thy eyes did see what was imperfect in him,
and in thy book all shall be written down. [53]
48. I am not much troubled by the allurement of odors. When they are
absent, I do not seek them; when they are present, I do not refuse them; and I
am always prepared to go without them. At any rate, I appear thus to myself; it
is quite possible that I am deceived. For there is a lamentable darkness in
which my capabilities are concealed, so that when my mind inquires into itself
concerning its own powers, it does not readily venture to believe itself,
because what already is in it is largely concealed unless experience brings it
to light. Thus no man ought to feel secure in this life, the whole of which is
called an ordeal, ordered so that the man who could be made better from having
been worse may not also from having been better become worse. Our sole hope, our
sole confidence, our only assured promise, is thy mercy.
49. The delights of the ear drew and held me much more powerfully, but
thou didst unbind and liberate me. In those melodies which thy words inspire
when sung with a sweet and trained voice, I still find repose; yet not so as to
cling to them, but always so as to be able to free myself as I wish. But it is
because of the words which are their life that they gain entry into me and
strive for a place of proper honor in my heart; and I can hardly assign them a
fitting one. Sometimes, I seem to myself to give them more respect than is
fitting, when I see that our minds are more devoutly and earnestly inflamed in
piety by the holy words when they are sung than when they are not. And I recognize
that all the diverse affections of our spirits have their appropriate measures
in the voice and song, to which they are stimulated by I know not what secret
correlation. But the pleasures of my flesh, to which the mind ought never to be
surrendered nor by them enervated, often beguile me while physical sense does
not attend on reason, to follow her patiently, but having once gained entry to
help the reason, it strives to run on before her and be her leader. Thus in
these things I sin unknowingly, but I come to know it afterward.
50. On the other hand, when I avoid very earnestly this kind of
deception, I err out of too great austerity. Sometimes I go to the point of
wishing that all the melodies of the pleasant songs to which David’s Psalter is
adapted should be banished both from my ears and from those of the Church
itself. In this mood, the safer way seemed to me the one I remember was once
related to me concerning Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who required the
readers of the psalm to use so slight an inflection of the voice that it was
more like speaking than singing. However, when I call to mind the tears I shed
at the songs of thy Church at the outset of my recovered faith, and how even
now I am moved, not by the singing but by what is sung (when they are sung with
a clear and skillfully modulated voice), I then come to acknowledge the great
utility of this custom. Thus I vacillate between dangerous pleasure and
healthful exercise. I am inclined, though I pronounce no irrevocable opinion on
the subject, to approve of the use of singing in the church, so that by the
delights of the ear the weaker minds may be stimulated to a devotional mood. [54]
Yet when it happens that I am more moved by the singing than by what is sung, I
confess myself to have sinned wickedly, and then I would rather not have heard
the singing. See now what a condition I am in. Weep with me, and weep for me,
those of you who can so control your inward feelings that good results always
come forth. As for you who do not act this way at all, such things do not
concern you. But do thou, O lord, my god, give ear; look and see, and have
mercy upon me; and heal me, thou, in whose sight I am become an enigma to
myself; this itself is my weakness.
51. There remain the delights of these eyes of my flesh, about which I
must make my confession in the hearing of the ears of thy temple, brotherly and
pious ears. Thus I will finish the list of the temptations of carnal appetite
which still assail me, groaning and desiring as I am to be clothed upon with my
house from heaven. [55] The eyes delight in fair and varied forms, and bright
and pleasing colours. Let these not take possession of my soul. Rather let god
possess it, he who didst make all these things very good indeed. He is still my
good, and not these. The pleasures of sight affect me all the time I am awake.
There is no rest from them given me, as there is from the voices of melody,
which I can occasionally find in silence. For daylight, that queen of the colours,
floods all that we look upon everywhere I go during the day. It flits about me
in manifold forms and soothes me even when I am busy about other things, not
noticing it. And it presents itself so forcibly that if it is suddenly
withdrawn it is looked for with longing, and if it is long absent the mind is
saddened.
52. O Light, which Tobit saw even with his eyes closed in blindness,
when he taught his son the way of life, and went before him himself in the
steps of love and never went astray[56]; or that Light which Isaac saw when his
fleshly “eyes were dim, so that he could not see” [57] because of old age, and
it was permitted him unknowingly to bless his sons, but in the blessing of them
to know them; or that Light which Jacob saw, when he too, blind in old age yet with
an enlightened heart, threw light on the nation of men yet to come, presignified
in the persons of his own sons, and laid his hands mystically crossed upon his
grandchildren by Joseph (not as their father, who saw them from without, but as
though he were within them), and distinguished them aright[58]: this is the
true Light; it is one, and all are one who see and love it. But that corporeal
light, of which I was speaking, seasons the life of the world for her blind
lovers with a tempting and fatal sweetness. Those who know how to praise thee
for it, “O god, Creator of Us All,” take it up in thy hymn, [59] and are not
taken over by it in their sleep. Such a man I desire to be. I resist the
seductions of my eyes, lest my feet be entangled as I go forward in thy way;
and I raise my invisible eyes to thee, that thou wouldst be pleased to “pluck
my feet out of the net.” [60] Thou dost continually pluck them out, for they
are easily ensnared. Thou ceasest not to pluck them out, but I constantly
remain fast in the snares set all around me. However, thou who “keepest Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep.” [61]
53. What numberless things there are: products of the various arts and
manufactures in our clothes, shoes, vessels, and all such things; besides such
things as pictures and statuary, and all these far beyond the necessary and
moderate use of them or their significance for the life of piety, which men
have added for the delight of the eye, copying the outward forms of the things
they make; but inwardly forsaking Him by whom they were made and destroying
what they themselves have been made to be. And I, O my god and my Joy, I also
raise a hymn to thee for all these things, and offer a sacrifice of praise to
my Sanctifier, because those beautiful forms which pass through the medium of
the human soul into the artist’s hands come from that beauty which is above our
minds, which my soul sighs for day and night. But the craftsmen and devotees of
these outward beauties discover the norm by which they judge them from that
higher beauty, but not the measure of their use. Still, even if they do not see
it, it is there nevertheless, to guard them from wandering astray, and to keep
their strength for thee, and not dissipate it in delights that pass into
boredom. And for myself, though I can see and understand this, I am still
entangled in my own course with such beauty, but thou wilt rescue me, O lord,
thou wilt rescue me, “for thy loving-kindness is before my eyes.” [62] For I am
captivated in my weakness but thou in thy mercy dost rescue me: sometimes
without my knowing it, because I had only lightly fallen; at other times, the
rescue is painful because I was stuck fast.
54. Besides this there is yet another form of temptation still more
complex in its peril. For in addition to the fleshly appetite which strives for
the gratification of all senses and pleasures, in which its slaves perish
because they separate themselves from thee, there is also a certain vain and
curious longing in the soul, rooted in the same bodily senses, which is cloaked
under the name of knowledge and learning; not having pleasure in the flesh, but
striving for new experiences through the flesh. This longing, since its origin
is our appetite for learning, and since the sight is the chief of our senses in
the acquisition of knowledge, is called in the divine language “the lust of the
eyes.” [63] For seeing is a function of the eyes; yet we also use this word for
the other senses as well, when we exercise them in the search for knowledge. We
do not say, “Listen how it glows,” “Smell how it glistens,” “Taste how it
shines,” or “Feel how it flashes,” since all of these are said to be seen. And
we do not simply say, “See how it shines,” which only the eyes can perceive;
but we also say, “See how it sounds, see how it smells, see how it tastes, see
how hard it is.” Thus, as we said before, the whole round of sensory experience
is called “the lust of the eyes” because the function of seeing, in which the
eyes have the principal role, is applied by analogy to the other senses when
they are seeking after any kind of knowledge.
55. From this, then, one can the more clearly distinguish whether it is
pleasure or curiosity that is being pursued by the senses. For pleasure pursues
objects that are beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savory, soft. But curiosity,
seeking new experiences, will even seek out the contrary of these, not with the
purpose of experiencing the discomfort that often accompanies them, but out of
a passion for experimenting and knowledge. For what pleasure is there in the
sight of a lacerated corpse, which makes you shudder? And yet if there is one
lying close by we flock to it, as if to be made sad and pale. People fear lest
they should see such a thing even in sleep, just as they would if, when awake,
someone compelled them to go and see it or if some rumor of its beauty had
attracted them. This is also the case with the other senses; it would be
tedious to pursue a complete analysis of it. This malady of curiosity is the
reason for all those strange sights exhibited in the theater. It is also the
reason why we proceed to search out the secret powers of nature, those which
have nothing to do with our destiny, which do not profit us to know about, and
concerning which men desire to know only for the sake of knowing. And it is
with this same motive of perverted curiosity for knowledge that we consult the
magical arts. Even in religion itself, this prompting drives us to make trial
of god when signs and wonders are eagerly asked of him, not desired for any
saving end, but only to make trial of him.
56. In such a wilderness so vast, crammed with snares and dangers,
behold how many of them I have lopped off and cast from my heart, as thou, O god
of my salvation, hast enabled me to do. And yet, when would I dare to say,
since so many things of this sort still buzz around our daily lives, when would
I dare to say that no such motive prompts my seeing or creates a vain curiosity
in me? It is true that now the theaters never attract me, nor do I now care to
inquire about the courses of the stars, and my soul has never sought answers
from the departed spirits. All sacrilegious oaths I abhor. And yet, O lord my god,
to whom I owe all humble and singlehearted service, with what subtle suggestion
the enemy still influences me to require some sign from thee. But by our King,
and by Jerusalem, our pure and chaste homeland, I beseech thee that where any
consenting to such thoughts is now far from me, so may it always be farther and
farther. And when I entreat thee for the salvation of any man, the end I aim at
is something more than the entreating: let it be that as thou dost what thou
wilt, thou dost also give me the grace willingly to follow thy lead.
57. Now, really, in how many of the most minute and trivial things my
curiosity is still daily tempted, and who can keep the tally on how often I
succumb? How often, when people are telling idle tales, we begin by tolerating
them lest we should give offense to the sensitive; and then gradually we come
to listen willingly. I do not nowadays go to the circus to see a dog chase a
rabbit, but if by chance I pass such a race in the fields, it quite easily
distracts me even from some serious thought and draws me after it, not that I
turn aside with my horse, but with the inclination of my mind. And unless, by
showing me my weakness, thou dost speedily warn me to rise above such a sight
to thee by a deliberate act of thought, or else to despise the whole thing and
pass it by, then I become absorbed in the sight, vain creature that I am. How
is it that when I am sitting at home a lizard catching flies, or a spider
entangling them as they fly into her webs, oftentimes arrests me? Is the
feeling of curiosity not the same just because these are such tiny creatures?
From them I proceed to praise thee, the wonderful Creator and Disposer of all
things; but it is not this that first attracts my attention. It is one thing to
get up quickly and another thing not to fall, and of both such things my life
is full and my only hope is in thy exceeding great mercy. For when this heart
of ours is made the depot of such things and is overrun by the throng of these
abounding vanities, then our prayers are often interrupted and disturbed by
them. Even while we are in thy presence and direct the voice of our hearts to
thy ears, such a great business as this is broken off by the inroads of I know
not what idle thoughts.
58. Shall we, then, also reckon this vain curiosity among the things
that are to be but lightly esteemed? Shall anything restore us to hope except
thy complete mercy since thou hast begun to change us? Thou knowest to what
extent thou hast already changed me, for first of all thou didst heal me of the
lust for vindicating myself, so that thou mightest then forgive all my
remaining iniquities and heal all my diseases, and “redeem my life from
corruption and crown me with loving-kindness and tender mercies, and satisfy my
desires with good things.” [64] It was thou who didst restrain my pride with
thy fear, and bowed my neck to thy “yoke.” [65] And now I bear the yoke and it
is “light” to me, because thou didst promise it to be so, and hast made it to
be so. And so in truth it was, though I knew it not when I feared to take it
up.
59. But, O lord, thou who alone reignest without pride, because thou
alone art the true lord, who hast no lord, has this third kind of temptation
left me, or can it leave me during this life: the desire to be feared and loved
of men, with no other view than that I may find in it a joy that is no joy? It
is, rather, a wretched life and an unseemly ostentation. It is a special reason
why we do not love thee, nor devotedly fear thee. Therefore “thou resistest the
proud but givest grace to the humble.” [66] Thou thunderest down on the
ambitious designs of the world, and “the foundations of the hills” tremble. [67]
And yet certain offices in human society require the officeholder to be loved
and feared of men, and through this the adversary of our true blessedness
presses hard upon us, scattering everywhere his snares of “well done, well
done”; so that while we are eagerly picking them up, we may be caught unawares
and split off our joy from thy truth and fix it on the deceits of men. In this
way we come to take pleasure in being loved and feared, not for thy sake but in
thy stead. By such means as this, the adversary makes men like himself, that he
may have them as his own, not in the harmony of love, but in the fellowship of
punishment, the one who aspired to exalt his throne in the north, [68] that in
the darkness and the cold men might have to serve him, mimicking thee in
perverse and distorted ways. But see, O lord, we are thy little flock. Possess
us, stretch thy wings above us, and let us take refuge under them. Be thou our
glory; let us be loved for thy sake, and let thy word be feared in us. Those
who desire to be commended by the men whom thou condemnest will not be defended
by men when thou judgest, nor will they be delivered when thou dost condemn
them. But when, not as a sinner is praised in the wicked desires of his soul
nor when the unrighteous man is blessed in his unrighteousness, a man is
praised for some gift that thou hast given him, and he is more gratified at the
praise for himself than because he possesses the gift for which he is praised,
such a one is praised while thou dost condemn him. In such a case the one who
praised is truly better than the one who was praised. For the gift of god in
man was pleasing to the one, while the other was better pleased with the gift
of man than with the gift of god.
60. By these temptations we are daily tried, O lord; we are tried
unceasingly. Our daily “furnace” is the human tongue. [69] And also in this
respect thou commandest us to be continent. Give what thou commandest and command
what thou wilt. In this matter, thou knowest the groans of my heart and the
rivers of my eyes, for I am not able to know for certain how far I am clean of
this plague; and I stand in great fear of my “secret faults,” [70] which thy
eyes perceive, though mine do not. For in respect of the pleasures of my flesh
and of idle curiosity, I see how far I have been able to hold my mind in check
when I abstain from them either by voluntary act of the will or because they
simply are not at hand; for then I can inquire of myself how much more or less
frustrating it is to me not to have them. This is also true about riches, which
are sought for in order that they may minister to one of these three “lusts,”
or two, or the whole complex of them. The mind is able to see clearly if, when
it has them, it despises them so that they may be cast aside and it may prove
itself. But if we desire to test our power of doing without praise, must we
then live wickedly or lead a life so atrocious and abandoned that everyone who
knows us will detest us? What greater madness than this can be either said or
conceived? And yet if praise, both by custom and right, is the companion of a
good life and of good works, we should as little forgo its companionship as the
good life itself. But unless a thing is absent I do not know whether I should
be contented or troubled at having to do without it.
61. What is it, then, that I am confessing to thee, O lord, concerning
this sort of temptation? What else, than that I am delighted with praise, but
more with the truth itself than with praise. For if I were to have any choice
whether, if I were mad or utterly in the wrong, I would prefer to be praised by
all men or, if I were steadily and fully confident in the truth, would prefer
to be blamed by all, I see which I should choose. Yet I wish I were unwilling
that the approval of others should add anything to my joy for any good I have.
Yet I admit that it does increase it; and, more than that, dispraise diminishes
it. Then, when I am disturbed over this wretchedness of mine, an excuse
presents itself to me, the value of which thou knowest, O god, for it renders
me uncertain. For since it is not only continence that thou hast enjoined on us,
that is, what things to hold back our love from, but righteousness as well, that
is, what to bestow our love upon, and hast wished us to love not only thee, but
also our neighbor, it often turns out that when I am gratified by intelligent
praise I seem to myself to be gratified by the competence or insight of my neighbor;
or, on the other hand, I am sorry for the defect in him when I hear him
dispraise either what he does not understand or what is good. For I am
sometimes grieved at the praise I get, either when those things that displease
me in myself are praised in me, or when lesser and trifling goods are valued
more highly than they should be. But, again, how do I know whether I feel this
way because I am unwilling that he who praises me should differ from me
concerning myself not because I am moved with any consideration for him, but
because the good things that please me in myself are more pleasing to me when
they also please another? For in a way, I am not praised when my judgment of
myself is not praised, since either those things which are displeasing to me are
praised, or those things which are less pleasing to me are more praised. Am I
not, then, quite uncertain of myself in this respect?
62. Behold, O truth, it is in thee that I see that I ought not to be
moved at my own praises for my own sake, but for the sake of my neighbor’s
good. And whether this is actually my way, I truly do not know. On this score I
know less of myself than thou dost. I beseech thee now, O my god, to reveal
myself to me also, that I may confess to my brethren, who are to pray for me in
those matters where I find myself weak. Let me once again examine myself the
more diligently. If, in my own praise, I am moved with concern for my neighbor,
why am I less moved if some other man is unjustly dispraised than when it
happens to me? Why am I more irritated at that reproach which is cast on me
than at one which is, with equal injustice, cast upon another in my presence?
Am I ignorant of this also? Or is it still true that I am deceiving myself, and
do not keep the truth before thee in my heart and tongue? Put such madness far
from me, O lord, lest my mouth be to me “the oil of sinners, to anoint my head.”
[71]
63. “I am needy and poor.” [72] Still, I am better when in secret
groanings I displease myself and seek thy mercy until what is lacking in me is
renewed and made complete for that peace which the eye of the proud does not
know. The reports that come from the mouth and from actions known to men have
in them a most perilous temptation to the love of praise. This love builds up a
certain complacency in one’s own excellency, and then goes around collecting
solicited compliments. It tempts me, even when I inwardly reprove myself for
it, and this precisely because it is reproved. For a man may often glory vainly
in the very scorn of vainglory, and in this case it is not any longer the scorn
of vainglory in which he glories, for he does not truly despise it when he
inwardly glories in it.
64. Within us there is yet another evil arising from the same sort of
temptation. By it they become empty who please themselves in themselves,
although they do not please or displease or aim at pleasing others. But in
pleasing themselves they displease thee very much, not merely taking pleasure
in things that are not good as if they were good, but taking pleasure in thy
good things as if they were their own; or even as if they were thine but still
as if they had received them through their own merit; or even as if they had
them through thy grace, still without this grace with their friends, but as if
they envied that grace to others. In all these and similar perils and labors,
thou perceivest the agitation of my heart, and I would rather feel my wounds
being cured by thee than not inflicted by me on myself.
65. Where hast thou not accompanied me, O truth, teaching me both what
to avoid and what to desire, when I have submitted to thee what I could
understand about matters here below, and have sought thy counsel about them? With
my external senses I have viewed the world as I was able and have noticed the
life which my body derives from me and from these senses of mine. From that
stage I advanced inwardly into the recesses of my memory, the manifold chambers
of my mind, marvelously full of unmeasured wealth. And I reflected on this and
was afraid, and could understand none of these things without thee and found
thee to be none of them. Nor did I myself discover these things, I who went
over them all and labored to distinguish and to value everything according to
its dignity, accepting some things upon the report of my senses and questioning
about others which I thought to be related to my inner self, distinguishing and
numbering the reporters themselves; and in that vast storehouse of my memory,
investigating some things, depositing other things, taking out still others.
Neither was I myself when I did this, that is, that ability of mine by which I
did it, nor was it thou, for thou art that never-failing light from which I
took counsel about them all; whether they were what they were, and what was
their real value. In all this I heard thee teaching and commanding me. And this
I often do, and this is a delight to me, and as far as I can get relief from my
necessary duties, I resort to this kind of pleasure. But in all these things which
I review when I consult thee, I still do not find a secure place for my soul
save in thee, in whom my scattered members may be gathered together and nothing
of me escape from thee. And sometimes thou introducest me to a most rare and
inward feeling, an inexplicable sweetness. If this were to come to perfection
in me I do not know to what point life might not then arrive. But still, by
these wretched weights of mine, I relapse into these common things, and am
sucked in by my old customs and am held. I sorrow much, yet I am still closely
held. To this extent, then, the burden of habit presses us down. I can exist in
this fashion but I do not wish to do so. In that other way I wish I were, but
cannot be, in both ways I am wretched.
66. And now I have thus considered the infirmities of my sins, under
the headings of the three major “lusts,” and I have called thy right hand to my
aid. For with a wounded heart I have seen thy brightness, and having been
beaten back I cried: “Who can attain to it? I am cut off from before thy eyes.”
[73] Thou art the truth, who presidest over all things, but I, because of my
greed, did not wish to lose thee. But still, along with thee, I wished also to
possess a lie, just as no one wishes to lie in such a way as to be ignorant of
what is true. By this I lost thee, for thou wilt not condescend to be enjoyed
along with a lie.
67. Whom could I find to reconcile me to thee? Should I have approached
the angels? What kind of prayer? What kind of rites? Many who were striving to
return to thee and were not able of themselves have, I am told, tried this and
have fallen into a longing for curious visions and deserved to be deceived.
Being exalted, they sought thee in their pride of learning, and they thrust
themselves forward rather than beating their breasts. [74] And so by a likeness
of heart, they drew to themselves the princes of the air, [75] their
conspirators and companions in pride, by whom they were deceived by the power
of magic. Thus they sought a mediator by whom they might be cleansed, but there
was none. For the mediator they sought was the devil, disguising himself as an
angel of light. [76] And he allured their proud flesh the more because he had
no fleshly body. They were mortal and sinful, but thou, O lord, to whom they
arrogantly sought to be reconciled, art immortal and sinless. But a mediator
between god and man ought to have something in him like god and something in
him like man, lest in being like man he should be far from god, or if only like
god he should be far from man, and so should not be a mediator. That deceitful
mediator, then, by whom, by thy secret judgment, human pride deserves to be
deceived, had one thing in common with man, that is, his sin. In another
respect, he would seem to have something in common with god, for not being
clothed with the mortality of the flesh, he could boast that he was immortal.
But since “the wages of sin is death,” [77] what he really has in common with
men is that, together with them, he is condemned to death.
68. But the true Mediator, whom thou in thy secret mercy hast revealed
to the humble, and hast sent to them so that through his example they also
might learn the same humility, that “Mediator between god and man, the man
Christ Jesus,” [78] appeared between
mortal sinners and the immortal Just One. He was mortal as men are mortal; he
was righteous as god is righteous; and because the reward of righteousness is
life and peace, he could, through his righteousness united with god, cancel the
death of justified sinners, which he was willing to have in common with them.
Hence he was manifested to holy men of old, to the end that they might be saved
through faith in his Passion to come, even as we through faith in his Passion
which is past. As man he was Mediator, but as the Word he was not something in
between the two; because he was equal to god, and god with god, and, with the
Holy Spirit, one god.
69. How hast thou loved us, O good Father, who didst not spare thy only
Son, but didst deliver him up for us wicked ones.[79] How hast thou loved us,
for whom he who did not count it robbery to be equal with thee “became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross” [80]. He alone was “free among the
dead.” [81] He alone had power to lay down his life and power to take it up
again, and for us he became to thee both Victor and Victim; and Victor because
he was the Victim. For us, he was to thee both Priest and Sacrifice, and Priest
because he was the Sacrifice. Out of slaves, he maketh us thy sons, because he
was born of thee and did serve us. Rightly, then, is my hope fixed strongly on
him, that thou wilt “heal all my diseases” [82] through him, who sitteth at thy
right hand and maketh intercession for us. [83] Otherwise I should utterly
despair. For my infirmities are many and great; indeed, they are very many and
very great. But thy medicine is still greater. Otherwise, we might think that
thy word was removed from union with man, and despair of ourselves, if it had
not been that he was “made flesh and dwelt among us.” [84]
70. Terrified by my sins and the load of my misery, I had resolved in
my heart and considered flight into the wilderness. But thou didst forbid me,
and thou didst strengthen me, saying that “since Christ died for all, they who
live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for
them.” [85] Behold, O lord, I cast all my care on thee, that I may live and
“behold wondrous things out of thy law.” [86] Thou knowest my incompetence and
my infirmities; teach me and heal me. Thy only Son, he “in whom are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge” [87], hath redeemed me with his blood. Let
not the proud speak evil of me, because I keep my ransom before my mind, and
eat and drink and share my food and drink. For, being poor, I desire to be
satisfied from him, together with those who eat and are satisfied: “and they
shall praise the lord that seek Him.” [88]
Footnotes
Jump up ↑ Cf. 1 Cor. 13:12.
Jump up ↑ Eph. 5:27.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 51:6.
Jump up ↑ John 3:21.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 2:11.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 13:7.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 32:1.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 144:7, 8.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Rev. 8:3-5.
"And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up
before god out of the angel's hand" (v. 4).
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 2:11.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 13:12.
Jump up ↑ Isa. 58:10.
Jump up ↑ Rom. 1:20.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Rom. 9:15.
Jump up ↑ One of the
pre-Socratic "physiologers" who taught that αιθηρ was the primary
element in η φυσιγζ. Cf. Cicero's On the Nature of the gods (a likely source
for Augustine's knowledge of early Greek philosophy), I, 10: "After
Anaximander comes Anaximenes, who taught that the air is god..."
Jump up ↑ An important text
for Augustine's conception of sensation and the relation of body and mind. Cf.
On Music, VI, 5:10; The Magnitude of the Soul, 25:48; On the Trinity, XII, 2:2;
see also F. Coplestone, A History of Philosophy (London, 1950), II, 51-60, and
E. Gilson, Introduction à l'étude de Saint Augustin, pp. 74-87.
Jump up ↑ Rom. 1:20.
Jump up ↑ Reading videnti
(with De Labriolle) instead of vident (as in Skutella).
Jump up ↑ Ps. 32:9.
Jump up ↑ The notion of the
soul's immediate self-knowledge is a basic conception in Augustine's psychology
and epistemology; cf. the refutation of skepticism, Si fallor, sum in On Free
Will, II, 3:7; see also the City of god, XI, 26.
Jump up ↑ Again, the
mind-body dualism typical of the Augustinian tradition. Cf. E. Gilson, The
Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1940), pp.
173-188; and E. Gilson, The Philosophy of Saint Bonaventure (Sheed & Ward,
New York, 1938), ch. XI.
Jump up ↑ Luke 15:8.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Isa. 55:3.
Jump up ↑ Cf. the early
dialogue "On the Happy Life" in Vol. I of The Fathers of the Church
(New York, 1948).
Jump up ↑ Gal. 5:17.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 42:11.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Enchiridion,
VI, 19ff.
Jump up ↑ When he is known at
all, god is known as the Self-evident. This is, of course, not a doctrine of innate
ideas but rather of the necessity, and reality, of divine illumination as the
dynamic source of all our knowledge of divine reality. Cf. Coplestone, op.
cit., ch. IV, and Cushman, op. cit.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Wis. 8:21.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Enneads , VI, 9:4.
Jump up ↑ 1 John 2:16.
Jump up ↑ Eph. 3:20.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 15:54.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Matt. 6:34.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 9:27.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Luke 21:34.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Wis. 8:21.
Jump up ↑ Ecclus. 18:30.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 8:8.
Jump up ↑ Phil. 4:11-13.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 103:14.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Gen. 3:19.
Jump up ↑ Luke 15:24.
Jump up ↑ Ecclus. 23:6.
Jump up ↑ Titus 1:15.
Jump up ↑ Rom. 14:20.
Jump up ↑ 1 Tim. 4:4.
Jump up ↑ 1 Cor. 8:8.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Col. 2:16.
Jump up ↑ Rom. 14:3.
Jump up ↑ Luke 5:8.
Jump up ↑ John 16:33.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 139:16.
Jump up ↑ Cf. the evidence
for Augustine's interest and proficiency in music in his essay De musica,
written a decade earlier.
Jump up ↑ Cf. 2 Cor. 5:2.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Tobit, chs. 2
to 4.
Jump up ↑ Gen. 27:1; cf.
Augustine's Sermon IV, 20:21f.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Gen., ch. 48.
Jump up ↑ Again, Ambrose,
Deus, creator omnium , an obvious favorite of Augustine's. See above, Bk. IX,
Ch. XII, 32.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 25:15.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 121:4.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 26:3.
Jump up ↑ 1 John 2:16.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 103:3-5.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Matt. 11:30.
Jump up ↑ 1 Peter 5:5.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 18:7, 13.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Isa. 14:12-14.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Prov. 27:21.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 19:12.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 141:5.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 109:22.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 31:22.
Jump up ↑ Cf. the parable of
the Pharisee and the Publican, Luke 18:9-14.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Eph. 2:2.
Jump up ↑ 2 Cor. 11:14.
Jump up ↑ Rom. 6:23.
Jump up ↑ 1 Tim. 2:5.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Rom. 8:32.
Jump up ↑ Phil. 2:6-8.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 88:5; see
Ps. 87:6 (Vulgate).
Jump up ↑ Ps. 103:3.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Rom. 8:34.
Jump up ↑ John 1:14.
Jump up ↑ 2 Cor. 5:15.
Jump up ↑ Ps. 119:18.
Jump up ↑ Col. 2:3.
Jump up ↑ Cf. Ps. 21:27
(Vulgate).
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