(Augustine, Confesions. part 2)
The Confessions of Saint Augustine
BOOK ONE
In God's searching presence, Augustine undertakes to plumb
the depths of his memory to trace the mysterious pilgrimage of
grace which his life has been -- and to praise God for his
constant and omnipotent grace. In a mood of sustained prayer, he
recalls what he can of his infancy, his learning to speak, and his
childhood experiences in school. He concludes with a paean of
grateful praise to God.
CHAPTER I
1. "Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great
is thy power, and infinite is thy wisdom."[6] And man desires to
praise thee, for he is a part of thy creation; he bears his
mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and
the proof that thou dost resist the proud. Still he desires to
praise thee, this man who is only a small part of thy creation.
Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for
thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it
comes to rest in thee. Grant me, O Lord, to know and understand
whether first to invoke thee or to praise thee; whether first to
know thee or call upon thee. But who can invoke thee, knowing
thee not? For he who knows thee not may invoke thee as another
than thou art. It may be that we should invoke thee in order that
we may come to know thee. But "how shall they call on him in whom
they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a
preacher?"[7] Now, "they shall praise the Lord who seek him,"[8]
for "those who seek shall find him,"[9] and, finding him, shall
praise him. I will seek thee, O Lord, and call upon thee. I call
upon thee, O Lord, in my faith which thou hast given me, which
thou hast inspired in me through the humanity of thy Son, and
through the ministry of thy preacher.[10]
CHAPTER II
2. And how shall I call upon my God -- my God and my Lord?
For when I call on him I ask him to come into me. And what place
is there in me into which my God can come? How could God, the God
who made both heaven and earth, come into me? Is there anything
in me, O Lord my God, that can contain thee? Do even the heaven
and the earth, which thou hast made, and in which thou didst make
me, contain thee? Is it possible that, since without thee nothing
would be which does exist, thou didst make it so that whatever
exists has some capacity to receive thee? Why, then, do I ask
thee to come into me, since I also am and could not be if thou
wert not in me? For I am not, after all, in hell -- and yet thou
art there too, for "if I go down into hell, thou art there."[11]
Therefore I would not exist -- I would simply not be at all --
unless I exist in thee, from whom and by whom and in whom all
things are. Even so, Lord; even so. Where do I call thee to,
when I am already in thee? Or from whence wouldst thou come into
me? Where, beyond heaven and earth, could I go that there my God
might come to me -- he who hath said, "I fill heaven and
earth"?[12]
CHAPTER III
3. Since, then, thou dost fill the heaven and earth, do they
contain thee? Or, dost thou fill and overflow them, because they
cannot contain thee? And where dost thou pour out what remains of
thee after heaven and earth are full? Or, indeed, is there no
need that thou, who dost contain all things, shouldst be contained
by any, since those things which thou dost fill thou fillest by
containing them? For the vessels which thou dost fill do not
confine thee, since even if they were broken, thou wouldst not be
poured out. And, when thou art poured out on us, thou art not
thereby brought down; rather, we are uplifted. Thou art not
scattered; rather, thou dost gather us together. But when thou
dost fill all things, dost thou fill them with thy whole being?
Or, since not even all things together could contain thee
altogether, does any one thing contain a single part, and do all
things contain that same part at the same time? Do singulars
contain thee singly? Do greater things contain more of thee, and
smaller things less? Or, is it not rather that thou art wholly
present everywhere, yet in such a way that nothing contains thee
wholly?
CHAPTER IV
4. What, therefore, is my God? What, I ask, but the Lord
God? "For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is God besides
our God?"[13] Most high, most excellent, most potent, most
omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most
truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not
supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never
old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud,
and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet
needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating,
nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all
things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet
free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet
remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans
unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou
art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art
never greedy, yet demandest dividends. Men pay more than is
required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess
anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men
nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and
when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby. Yet, O
my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What
can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep
silence -- since even those who say most are dumb.
CHAPTER V
5. Who shall bring me to rest in thee? Who will send thee
into my heart so to overwhelm it that my sins shall be blotted out
and I may embrace thee, my only good? What art thou to me? Have
mercy that I may speak. What am I to thee that thou shouldst
command me to love thee, and if I do it not, art angry and
threatenest vast misery? Is it, then, a trifling sorrow not to
love thee? It is not so to me. Tell me, by thy mercy, O Lord, my
God, what thou art to me. "Say to my soul, I am your
salvation."[14] So speak that I may hear. Behold, the ears of my
heart are before thee, O Lord; open them and "say to my soul, I am
your salvation." I will hasten after that voice, and I will lay
hold upon thee. Hide not thy face from me. Even if I die, let me
see thy face lest I die.
6. The house of my soul is too narrow for thee to come in to
me; let it be enlarged by thee. It is in ruins; do thou restore
it. There is much about it which must offend thy eyes; I confess
and know it. But who will cleanse it? Or, to whom shall I cry
but to thee? "Cleanse thou me from my secret faults," O Lord,
"and keep back thy servant from strange sins."[15] "I believe,
and therefore do I speak."[16] But thou, O Lord, thou knowest.
Have I not confessed my transgressions unto thee, O my God; and
hast thou not put away the iniquity of my heart?[17] I do not
contend in judgment with thee,[18] who art truth itself; and I
would not deceive myself, lest my iniquity lie even to itself. I
do not, therefore, contend in judgment with thee, for "if thou,
Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"[19]
CHAPTER VI
7. Still, dust and ashes as I am, allow me to speak before
thy mercy. Allow me to speak, for, behold, it is to thy mercy
that I speak and not to a man who scorns me. Yet perhaps even
thou mightest scorn me; but when thou dost turn and attend to me,
thou wilt have mercy upon me. For what do I wish to say, O Lord
my God, but that I know not whence I came hither into this life-
in-death. Or should I call it death-in-life? I do not know. And
yet the consolations of thy mercy have sustained me from the very
beginning, as I have heard from my fleshly parents, from whom and
in whom thou didst form me in time -- for I cannot myself
remember. Thus even though they sustained me by the consolation
of woman's milk, neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own
breasts but thou, through them, didst give me the food of infancy
according to thy ordinance and thy bounty which underlie all
things. For it was thou who didst cause me not to want more than
thou gavest and it was thou who gavest to those who nourished me
the will to give me what thou didst give them. And they, by an
instinctive affection, were willing to give me what thou hadst
supplied abundantly. It was, indeed, good for them that my good
should come through them, though, in truth, it was not from them
but by them. For it is from thee, O God, that all good things
come -- and from my God is all my health. This is what I have
since learned, as thou hast made it abundantly clear by all that I
have seen thee give, both to me and to those around me. For even
at the very first I knew how to suck, to lie quiet when I was
full, and to cry when in pain -- nothing more.
8. Afterward I began to laugh -- at first in my sleep, then
when waking. For this I have been told about myself and I believe
it -- though I cannot remember it -- for I see the same things in
other infants. Then, little by little, I realized where I was and
wished to tell my wishes to those who might satisfy them, but I
could not! For my wants were inside me, and they were outside,
and they could not by any power of theirs come into my soul. And
so I would fling my arms and legs about and cry, making the few
and feeble gestures that I could, though indeed the signs were not
much like what I inwardly desired and when I was not satisfied --
either from not being understood or because what I got was not
good for me -- I grew indignant that my elders were not subject to
me and that those on whom I actually had no claim did not wait on
me as slaves -- and I avenged myself on them by crying. That
infants are like this, I have myself been able to learn by
watching them; and they, though they knew me not, have shown me
better what I was like than my own nurses who knew me.
9. And, behold, my infancy died long ago, but I am still
living. But thou, O Lord, whose life is forever and in whom
nothing dies -- since before the world was, indeed, before all
that can be called "before," thou wast, and thou art the God and
Lord of all thy creatures; and with thee abide all the stable
causes of all unstable things, the unchanging sources of all
changeable things, and the eternal reasons of all non-rational and
temporal things -- tell me, thy suppliant, O God, tell me, O
merciful One, in pity tell a pitiful creature whether my infancy
followed yet an earlier age of my life that had already passed
away before it. Was it such another age which I spent in my
mother's womb? For something of that sort has been suggested to
me, and I have myself seen pregnant women. But what, O God, my
Joy, preceded _that_ period of life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or
anybody? No one can explain these things to me, neither father
nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory. Dost
thou laugh at me for asking such things? Or dost thou command me
to praise and confess unto thee only what I know?
10. I give thanks to thee, O Lord of heaven and earth,
giving praise to thee for that first being and my infancy of which
I have no memory. For thou hast granted to man that he should
come to self-knowledge through the knowledge of others, and that
he should believe many things about himself on the authority of
the womenfolk. Now, clearly, I had life and being; and, as my
infancy closed, I was already learning signs by which my feelings
could be communicated to others.
Whence could such a creature come but from thee, O Lord? Is
any man skillful enough to have fashioned himself? Or is there
any other source from which being and life could flow into us,
save this, that thou, O Lord, hast made us -- thou with whom being
and life are one, since thou thyself art supreme being and supreme
life both together. For thou art infinite and in thee there is no
change, nor an end to this present day -- although there is a
sense in which it ends in thee since all things are in thee and
there would be no such thing as days passing away unless thou
didst sustain them. And since "thy years shall have no end,"[20]
thy years are an ever-present day. And how many of ours and our
fathers' days have passed through this thy day and have received
from it what measure and fashion of being they had? And all the
days to come shall so receive and so pass away. "But thou art the
same"![21] And all the things of tomorrow and the days yet to
come, and all of yesterday and the days that are past, thou wilt
gather into this thy day. What is it to me if someone does not
understand this? Let him still rejoice and continue to ask, "What
is this?" Let him also rejoice and prefer to seek thee, even if
he fails to find an answer, rather than to seek an answer and not
find thee!
CHAPTER VII
11. "Hear me, O God! Woe to the sins of men!" When a man
cries thus, thou showest him mercy, for thou didst create the man
but not the sin in him. Who brings to remembrance the sins of my
infancy? For in thy sight there is none free from sin, not even
the infant who has lived but a day upon this earth. Who brings
this to my remembrance? Does not each little one, in whom I now
observe what I no longer remember of myself? In what ways, in
that time, did I sin? Was it that I cried for the breast? If I
should now so cry -- not indeed for the breast, but for food
suitable to my condition -- I should be most justly laughed at and
rebuked. What I did then deserved rebuke but, since I could not
understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor common sense
permitted me to be rebuked. As we grow we root out and cast away
from us such childish habits. Yet I have not seen anyone who is
wise who cast away the good when trying to purge the bad. Nor was
it good, even in that time, to strive to get by crying what, if it
had been given me, would have been hurtful; or to be bitterly
indignant at those who, because they were older -- not slaves,
either, but free -- and wiser than I, would not indulge my
capricious desires. Was it a good thing for me to try, by
struggling as hard as I could, to harm them for not obeying me,
even when it would have done me harm to have been obeyed? Thus,
the infant's innocence lies in the weakness of his body and not in
the infant mind. I have myself observed a baby to be jealous,
though it could not speak; it was livid as it watched another
infant at the breast.
Who is ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that
they cure these things by I know not what remedies. But is this
innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and
abundant, that another who needs it should not be allowed to share
it, even though he requires such nourishment to sustain his life?
Yet we look leniently on such things, not because they are not
faults, or even small faults, but because they will vanish as the
years pass. For, although we allow for such things in an infant,
the same things could not be tolerated patiently in an adult.
12. Therefore, O Lord my God, thou who gavest life to the
infant, and a body which, as we see, thou hast furnished with
senses, shaped with limbs, beautified with form, and endowed with
all vital energies for its well-being and health -- thou dost
command me to praise thee for these things, to give thanks unto
the Lord, and to sing praise unto his name, O Most High.[22] For
thou art God, omnipotent and good, even if thou hadst done no more
than these things, which no other but thou canst do -- thou alone
who madest all things fair and didst order everything according to
thy law.
I am loath to dwell on this part of my life of which, O Lord,
I have no remembrance, about which I must trust the word of others
and what I can surmise from observing other infants, even if such
guesses are trustworthy. For it lies in the deep murk of my
forgetfulness and thus is like the period which I passed in my
mother's womb. But if "I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin my
mother nourished me in her womb,"[23] where, I pray thee, O my
God, where, O Lord, or when was I, thy servant, ever innocent?
But see now, I pass over that period, for what have I to do with a
time from which I can recall no memories?
CHAPTER VIII
13. Did I not, then, as I grew out of infancy, come next to
boyhood, or rather did it not come to me and succeed my infancy?
My infancy did not go away (for where would it go?). It was
simply no longer present; and I was no longer an infant who could
not speak, but now a chattering boy. I remember this, and I have
since observed how I learned to speak. My elders did not teach me
words by rote, as they taught me my letters afterward. But I
myself, when I was unable to communicate all I wished to say to
whomever I wished by means of whimperings and grunts and various
gestures of my limbs (which I used to reinforce my demands), I
myself repeated the sounds already stored in my memory by the mind
which thou, O my God, hadst given me. When they called some thing
by name and pointed it out while they spoke, I saw it and realized
that the thing they wished to indicate was called by the name they
then uttered. And what they meant was made plain by the gestures
of their bodies, by a kind of natural language, common to all
nations, which expresses itself through changes of countenance,
glances of the eye, gestures and intonations which indicate a
disposition and attitude -- either to seek or to possess, to
reject or to avoid. So it was that by frequently hearing words,
in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the
words stood for and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs,
I was thereby able to express my will. Thus I exchanged with
those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and
advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life,
depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the
behest of my elders.
CHAPTER IX
14. O my God! What miseries and mockeries did I then
experience when it was impressed on me that obedience to my
teachers was proper to my boyhood estate if I was to flourish in
this world and distinguish myself in those tricks of speech which
would gain honor for me among men, and deceitful riches! To this
end I was sent to school to get learning, the value of which I
knew not -- wretch that I was. Yet if I was slow to learn, I was
flogged. For this was deemed praiseworthy by our forefathers and
many had passed before us in the same course, and thus had built
up the precedent for the sorrowful road on which we too were
compelled to travel, multiplying labor and sorrow upon the sons of
Adam. About this time, O Lord, I observed men praying to thee,
and I learned from them to conceive thee -- after my capacity for
understanding as it was then -- to be some great Being, who,
though not visible to our senses, was able to hear and help us.
Thus as a boy I began to pray to thee, my Help and my Refuge, and,
in calling on thee, broke the bands of my tongue. Small as I was,
I prayed with no slight earnestness that I might not be beaten at
school. And when thou didst not heed me -- for that would have
been giving me over to my folly -- my elders and even my parents
too, who wished me no ill, treated my stripes as a joke, though
they were then a great and grievous ill to me.
15. Is there anyone, O Lord, with a spirit so great, who
cleaves to thee with such steadfast affection (or is there even a
kind of obtuseness that has the same effect) -- is there any man
who, by cleaving devoutly to thee, is endowed with so great a
courage that he can regard indifferently those racks and hooks and
other torture weapons from which men throughout the world pray so
fervently to be spared; and can they scorn those who so greatly
fear these torments, just as my parents were amused at the
torments with which our teachers punished us boys? For we were no
less afraid of our pains, nor did we beseech thee less to escape
them. Yet, even so, we were sinning by writing or reading or
studying less than our assigned lessons.
For I did not, O Lord, lack memory or capacity, for, by thy
will, I possessed enough for my age. However, my mind was
absorbed only in play, and I was punished for this by those who
were doing the same things themselves. But the idling of our
elders is called business; the idling of boys, though quite like
it, is punished by those same elders, and no one pities either the
boys or the men. For will any common sense observer agree that I
was rightly punished as a boy for playing ball -- just because
this hindered me from learning more quickly those lessons by means
of which, as a man, I could play at more shameful games? And did
he by whom I was beaten do anything different? When he was
worsted in some small controversy with a fellow teacher, he was
more tormented by anger and envy than I was when beaten by a
playmate in the ball game.
CHAPTER X
16. And yet I sinned, O Lord my God, thou ruler and creator
of all natural things -- but of sins only the ruler -- I sinned, O
Lord my God, in acting against the precepts of my parents and of
those teachers. For this learning which they wished me to acquire
-- no matter what their motives were -- I might have put to good
account afterward. I disobeyed them, not because I had chosen a
better way, but from a sheer love of play. I loved the vanity of
victory, and I loved to have my ears tickled with lying fables,
which made them itch even more ardently, and a similar curiosity
glowed more and more in my eyes for the shows and sports of my
elders. Yet those who put on such shows are held in such high
repute that almost all desire the same for their children. They
are therefore willing to have them beaten, if their childhood
games keep them from the studies by which their parents desire
them to grow up to be able to give such shows. Look down on these
things with mercy, O Lord, and deliver us who now call upon thee;
deliver those also who do not call upon thee, that they may call
upon thee, and thou mayest deliver them.
CHAPTER XI
17. Even as a boy I had heard of eternal life promised to us
through the humility of the Lord our God, who came down to visit
us in our pride, and I was signed with the sign of his cross, and
was seasoned with his salt even from the womb of my mother, who
greatly trusted in thee. Thou didst see, O Lord, how, once, while
I was still a child, I was suddenly seized with stomach pains and
was at the point of death -- thou didst see, O my God, for even
then thou wast my keeper, with what agitation and with what faith
I solicited from the piety of my mother and from thy Church (which
is the mother of us all) the baptism of thy Christ, my Lord and my
God. The mother of my flesh was much perplexed, for, with a heart
pure in thy faith, she was always in deep travail for my eternal
salvation. If I had not quickly recovered, she would have
provided forthwith for my initiation and washing by thy life-
giving sacraments, confessing thee, O Lord Jesus, for the
forgiveness of sins. So my cleansing was deferred, as if it were
inevitable that, if I should live, I would be further polluted;
and, further, because the guilt contracted by sin after baptism
would be still greater and more perilous.
Thus, at that time, I "believed" along with my mother and the
whole household, except my father. But he did not overcome the
influence of my mother's piety in me, nor did he prevent my
believing in Christ, although he had not yet believed in him. For
it was her desire, O my God, that I should acknowledge thee as my
Father rather than him. In this thou didst aid her to overcome
her husband, to whom, though his superior, she yielded obedience.
In this way she also yielded obedience to thee, who dost so
command.
18. I ask thee, O my God, for I would gladly know if it be
thy will, to what good end my baptism was deferred at that time?
Was it indeed for my good that the reins were slackened, as it
were, to encourage me in sin? Or, were they not slackened? If
not, then why is it still dinned into our ears on all sides, "Let
him alone, let him do as he pleases, for he is not yet baptized"?
In the matter of bodily health, no one says, "Let him alone; let
him be worse wounded; for he is not yet cured"! How much better,
then, would it have been for me to have been cured at once -- and
if thereafter, through the diligent care of friends and myself, my
soul's restored health had been kept safe in thy keeping, who gave
it in the first place! This would have been far better, in truth.
But how many and great the waves of temptation which appeared to
hang over me as I grew out of childhood! These were foreseen by
my mother, and she preferred that the unformed clay should be
risked to them rather than the clay molded after Christ's
image.[24]
CHAPTER XII
19. But in this time of childhood -- which was far less
dreaded for me than my adolescence -- I had no love of learning,
and hated to be driven to it. Yet I was driven to it just the
same, and good was done for me, even though I did not do it well,
for I would not have learned if I had not been forced to it. For
no man does well against his will, even if what he does is a good
thing. Neither did they who forced me do well, but the good that
was done me came from thee, my God. For they did not care about
the way in which I would use what they forced me to learn, and
took it for granted that it was to satisfy the inordinate desires
of a rich beggary and a shameful glory. But thou, Lord, by whom
the hairs of our head are numbered, didst use for my good the
error of all who pushed me on to study: but my error in not being
willing to learn thou didst use for my punishment. And I --
though so small a boy yet so great a sinner -- was not punished
without warrant. Thus by the instrumentality of those who did not
do well, thou didst well for me; and by my own sin thou didst
justly punish me. For it is even as thou hast ordained: that
every inordinate affection brings on its own punishment.
CHAPTER XIII
20. But what were the causes for my strong dislike of Greek
literature, which I studied from my boyhood? Even to this day I
have not fully understood them. For Latin I loved exceedingly --
not just the rudiments, but what the grammarians teach. For those
beginner's lessons in reading, writing, and reckoning, I
considered no less a burden and pain than Greek. Yet whence came
this, unless from the sin and vanity of this life? For I was "but
flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again."[25] Those
first lessons were better, assuredly, because they were more
certain, and through them I acquired, and still retain, the power
of reading what I find written and of writing for myself what I
will. In the other subjects, however, I was compelled to learn
about the wanderings of a certain Aeneas, oblivious of my own
wanderings, and to weep for Dido dead, who slew herself for love.
And all this while I bore with dry eyes my own wretched self dying
to thee, O God, my life, in the midst of these things.
21. For what can be more wretched than the wretch who has no
pity upon himself, who sheds tears over Dido, dead for the love of
Aeneas, but who sheds no tears for his own death in not loving
thee, O God, light of my heart, and bread of the inner mouth of my
soul, O power that links together my mind with my inmost thoughts?
I did not love thee, and thus committed fornication against
thee.[26] Those around me, also sinning, thus cried out: "Well
done! Well done!" The friendship of this world is fornication
against thee; and "Well done! Well done!" is cried until one
feels ashamed not to show himself a man in this way. For my own
condition I shed no tears, though I wept for Dido, who "sought
death at the sword's point,"[27] while I myself was seeking the
lowest rung of thy creation, having forsaken thee; earth sinking
back to earth again. And, if I had been forbidden to read these
poems, I would have grieved that I was not allowed to read what
grieved me. This sort of madness is considered more honorable and
more fruitful learning than the beginner's course in which I
learned to read and write.
22. But now, O my God, cry unto my soul, and let thy truth
say to me: "Not so, not so! That first learning was far better."
For, obviously, I would rather forget the wanderings of Aeneas,
and all such things, than forget how to write and read. Still,
over the entrance of the grammar school there hangs a veil. This
is not so much the sign of a covering for a mystery as a curtain
for error. Let them exclaim against me -- those I no longer fear
-- while I confess to thee, my God, what my soul desires, and let
me find some rest, for in blaming my own evil ways I may come to
love thy holy ways. Neither let those cry out against me who buy
and sell the baubles of literature. For if I ask them if it is
true, as the poet says, that Aeneas once came to Carthage, the
unlearned will reply that they do not know and the learned will
deny that it is true. But if I ask with what letters the name
Aeneas is written, all who have ever learned this will answer
correctly, in accordance with the conventional understanding men
have agreed upon as to these signs. Again, if I should ask which
would cause the greatest inconvenience in our life, if it were
forgotten: reading and writing, or these poetical fictions, who
does not see what everyone would answer who had not entirely lost
his own memory? I erred, then, when as a boy I preferred those
vain studies to these more profitable ones, or rather loved the
one and hated the other. "One and one are two, two and two are
four": this was then a truly hateful song to me. But the wooden
horse full of its armed soldiers, and the holocaust of Troy, and
the spectral image of Creusa were all a most delightful -- and
(continued in part 3 ...)
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