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- 71764
- char_start
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- chunk_index
- 9
- chunk_total
- 89
- description
- This text chunk, the ninth of 89 from the file [confessions](arke:01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R) within the [confessions](arke:01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW) collection, details the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ)'s spiritual journey, marked by early errors, intellectual pursuits, and a pivotal turning point towards [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X).
The [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) reflects on his youthful "love of [grief](arke:01KJR8RH3MVPM26XJZ2C3DVW19)s," which he describes as a superficial ailment likened to a [foul disease](arke:01KJR8RCV5G5J4Y7KM88Q30G2J). He recounts pursuing a [sacrilegious curiosity](arke:01KJR8RD1PNX7G8MRAFB3YZTAE), forsaking [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X) to engage in the "beguiling service of [devils](arke:01KJR8RCVEJ4K9BWSGBNSEPQQY)," even while [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X)'s solemnities were celebrated within His [Church](arke:01KJR8RCV40HMY6MWXNZ411GS2).
During his time in [rhetoric school](arke:01KJR8RDD1KTR93PE7Y30Y08H7), where he excelled and took pride in his craftiness, the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) associated with a group known as the "[Subverters](arke:01KJR8REJDDHS7A4X4EWECS3HQ)," whose malicious actions, such as persecuting the [modesty of strangers](arke:01KJR8RHDQ9GVT0A1BW5EP5HN7), he abhorred but found himself drawn to their friendship.
A significant turning point occurred in his nineteenth year, [two years before narrator's nineteenth year](arke:01KJR8RHNPSAMEGKRGTNFQJT80) after his [narrator's father](arke:01KJR8RDZH7DA33VGSFGHD2SPB) had died, with his [narrator's mother](arke:01KJR8RCVSJ0EAE7WYK04A0GT8) providing allowances. He encountered [Cicero](arke:01KJR8RDERCPT5Z6GABSEDG87B)'s book, "[Hortensius](arke:01KJR8RDNTDZPQZEVNFQD3DRFC)," an exhortation to [philosophy](arke:01KJR8RDEYS5H17J4SCV54132X) (the love of wisdom). This book profoundly altered his [narrator's affections](arke:01KJR8RHKK423X14SNY512K83J) and redirected his prayers and desires towards [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X).
Despite the powerful impact of "[Hortensius](arke:01KJR8RDNTDZPQZEVNFQD3DRFC)," the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) felt a crucial element was missing: the [name of Christ](arke:01KJR8RHPAVT6EKV65DRGMPDFT), his [Saviour Thy Son](arke:01KJR8RDGXPCYVRE28A6NBFXGW), which had been instilled in his heart from infancy by his [narrator's mother](arke:01KJR8RCVSJ0EAE7WYK04A0GT8). This absence prompted him to turn to the [Holy Scriptures](arke:01KJR8RE392KZXBVTQNPQM266C). However, his pride prevented him from appreciating their perceived lowliness, finding them incomparable to the elegance of [Cicero](arke:01KJR8RDERCPT5Z6GABSEDG87B)'s prose.
Subsequently, the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) fell among [men proudly doting](arke:01KJR8REX74CXN0G9QTX3M4H29), who, despite speaking of [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X), [Jesus Christ](arke:01KJR8RE9ASSVJ2EZY47NJ72AM), and the [Holy Ghost](arke:01KJR8REEBYG583WJFCNYZQ70P), were void of [truth](arke:01KJR8RENT5GDAEZJJBSSVRRWR) in their hearts. These individuals, serving as snares of the Devil, offered the [Sun](arke:01KJR8RE3RPZS4WRY0CA8H0JCT) and [Moon](arke:01KJR8RGDZRM2NABFX6YGB4HAY)—beautiful works of [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X)—instead of [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X) Himself, though they claimed to speak of [truth](arke:01KJR8RENT5GDAEZJJBSSVRRWR).
- description_generated_at
- 2026-03-03T02:46:14.409Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash
- estimated_tokens
- 1962
- source_file_key
- confessions
- text
- who is thought to suffer hardship, by missing some pernicious pleasure,
and the loss of some miserable felicity. This certainly is the truer
mercy, but in it grief delights not. For though he that grieves for the
miserable, be commended for his office of charity; yet had he, who is
genuinely compassionate, rather there were nothing for him to grieve
for. For if good will be ill willed (which can never be), then may
he, who truly and sincerely commiserates, wish there might be some
miserable, that he might commiserate. Some sorrow may then be allowed,
none loved. For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more
purely than we, and hast more incorruptibly pity on them, yet are
wounded with no sorrowfulness. And who is sufficient for these things?
But I, miserable, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve
at, when in another's and that feigned and personated misery, that
acting best pleased me, and attracted me the most vehemently, which
drew tears from me. What marvel that an unhappy sheep, straying from
Thy flock, and impatient of Thy keeping, I became infected with a foul
disease? And hence the love of griefs; not such as should sink deep into
me; for I loved not to suffer, what I loved to look on; but such as upon
hearing their fictions should lightly scratch the surface; upon which,
as on envenomed nails, followed inflamed swelling, impostumes, and a
putrefied sore. My life being such, was it life, O my God?
And Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous
iniquities consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity, that
having forsaken Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous abyss, and
the beguiling service of devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil actions,
and in all these things Thou didst scourge me! I dared even, while Thy
solemnities were celebrated within the walls of Thy Church, to desire,
and to compass a business deserving death for its fruits, for which Thou
scourgedst me with grievous punishments, though nothing to my fault,
O Thou my exceeding mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible
destroyers, among whom I wandered with a stiff neck, withdrawing
further from Thee, loving mine own ways, and not Thine; loving a vagrant
liberty.
Those studies also, which were accounted commendable, had a view to
excelling in the courts of litigation; the more bepraised, the craftier.
Such is men's blindness, glorying even in their blindness. And now I
was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled
with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether
removed from the subvertings of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened
and devilish name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived,
with a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived,
and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever
did abhor--i.e., their "subvertings," wherewith they wantonly persecuted
the modesty of strangers, which they disturbed by a gratuitous jeering,
feeding thereon their malicious birth. Nothing can be liker the very
actions of devils than these. What then could they be more truly called
than "Subverters"? themselves subverted and altogether perverted first,
the deceiving spirits secretly deriding and seducing them, wherein
themselves delight to jeer at and deceive others.
Among such as these, in that unsettled age of mine, learned I books
of eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent, out of a damnable and
vainglorious end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary course of
study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all
admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation
to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." But this book altered my
affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself O Lord; and made me have
other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worthless to
me; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality of
wisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to Thee. For not
to sharpen my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with my
mother's allowances, in that my nineteenth year, my father being dead
two years before), not to sharpen my tongue did I employ that book; nor
did it infuse into me its style, but its matter.
How did I burn then, my God, how did I burn to re-mount from earthly
things to Thee, nor knew I what Thou wouldest do with me? For with Thee
is wisdom. But the love of wisdom is in Greek called "philosophy,"
with which that book inflamed me. Some there be that seduce through
philosophy, under a great, and smooth, and honourable name colouring and
disguising their own errors: and almost all who in that and former ages
were such, are in that book censured and set forth: there also is
made plain that wholesome advice of Thy Spirit, by Thy good and devout
servant: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world,
and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily. And since at that time (Thou, O light of my heart, knowest)
Apostolic Scripture was not known to me, I was delighted with that
exhortation, so far only, that I was thereby strongly roused, and
kindled, and inflamed to love, and seek, and obtain, and hold, and
embrace not this or that sect, but wisdom itself whatever it were; and
this alone checked me thus unkindled, that the name of Christ was not
in it. For this name, according to Thy mercy, O Lord, this name of
my Saviour Thy Son, had my tender heart, even with my mother's milk,
devoutly drunk in and deeply treasured; and whatsoever was without that
name, though never so learned, polished, or true, took not entire hold
of me.
I resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I might see
what they were. But behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud,
nor laid open to children, lowly in access, in its recesses lofty, and
veiled with mysteries; and I was not such as could enter into it, or
stoop my neck to follow its steps. For not as I now speak, did I feel
when I turned to those Scriptures; but they seemed to me unworthy to be
compared to the stateliness of Tully: for my swelling pride shrunk from
their lowliness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet
were they such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to be a
little one; and, swollen with pride, took myself to be a great one.
Therefore I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal and prating,
in whose mouths were the snares of the Devil, limed with the mixture of
the syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy
Ghost, the Paraclete, our Comforter. These names departed not out of
their mouth, but so far forth as the sound only and the noise of the
tongue, for the heart was void of truth. Yet they cried out "Truth,
Truth," and spake much thereof to me, yet it was not in them: but they
spake falsehood, not of Thee only (who truly art Truth), but even of
those elements of this world, Thy creatures. And I indeed ought to have
passed by even philosophers who spake truth concerning them, for love
of Thee, my Father, supremely good, Beauty of all things beautiful.
O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul pant
after Thee, when they often and diversely, and in many and huge books,
echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the
dishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee,
served up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works,
not Thyself, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spiritual works are before
these corporeal works, celestial though they be, and shining.
- title
- Narrator's Spiritual Struggle and Conversion from "Confessions" (Chunk 9)