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- confessions
- text
- 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. But I
hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Thine, but
after Thee Thyself, the Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning: yet they still set before me in those dishes,
glittering fantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun
(which is real to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by
our eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed
thereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou
art; for Thou wast not these emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them,
but exhausted rather. Food in sleep shows very like our food awake; yet
are not those asleep nourished by it, for they are asleep. But those
were not even any way like to Thee, as Thou hast now spoken to me; for
those were corporeal fantasies, false bodies, than which these true
bodies, celestial or terrestrial, which with our fleshly sight we
behold, are far more certain: these things the beasts and birds discern
as well as we, and they are more certain than when we fancy them. And
again, we do with more certainty fancy them, than by them conjecture
other vaster and infinite bodies which have no being. Such empty husks
was I then fed on; and was not fed. But Thou, my soul's Love, in looking
for whom I fail, that I may become strong, art neither those bodies
which we see, though in heaven; nor those which we see not there; for
Thou hast created them, nor dost Thou account them among the chiefest of
Thy works. How far then art Thou from those fantasies of mine, fantasies
of bodies which altogether are not, than which the images of those
bodies, which are, are far more certain, and more certain still the
bodies themselves, which yet Thou art not; no, nor yet the soul, which
is the life of the bodies. So then, better and more certain is the life
of the bodies than the bodies. But Thou art the life of souls, the life
of lives, having life in Thyself; and changest not, life of my soul.
Where then wert Thou then to me, and how far from me? Far verily was I
straying from Thee, barred from the very husks of the swine, whom with
husks I fed. For how much better are the fables of poets and grammarians
than these snares? For verses, and poems, and "Medea flying," are more
profitable truly than these men's five elements, variously disguised,
answering to five dens of darkness, which have no being, yet slay the
believer. For verses and poems I can turn to true food, and "Medea
flying," though I did sing, I maintained not; though I heard it sung,
I believed not: but those things I did believe. Woe, woe, by what steps
was I brought down to the depths of hell! toiling and turmoiling through
want of Truth, since I sought after Thee, my God (to Thee I confess
it, who hadst mercy on me, not as yet confessing), not according to the
understanding of the mind, wherein Thou willedst that I should excel
the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh. But Thou wert more
inward to me than my most inward part; and higher than my highest. I
lighted upon that bold woman, simple and knoweth nothing, shadowed out
in Solomon, sitting at the door, and saying, Eat ye bread of secrecies
willingly, and drink ye stolen waters which are sweet: she seduced me,
because she found my soul dwelling abroad in the eye of my flesh, and
ruminating on such food as through it I had devoured.
For other than this, that which really is I knew not; and was, as it
were through sharpness of wit, persuaded to assent to foolish deceivers,
when they asked me, "whence is evil?" "is God bounded by a bodily shape,
and has hairs and nails?" "are they to be esteemed righteous who had
many wives at once, and did kill men, and sacrifice living creatures?"
At which I, in my ignorance, was much troubled, and departing from the
truth, seemed to myself to be making towards it; because as yet I knew
not that evil was nothing but a privation of good, until at last a thing
ceases altogether to be; which how should I see, the sight of whose eyes
reached only to bodies, and of my mind to a phantasm? And I knew not God
to be a Spirit, not one who hath parts extended in length and breadth,
or whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the
whole: and if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is defined
by a certain space, than in its infinitude; and so is not wholly every
where, as Spirit, as God. And what that should be in us, by which we
were like to God, and might be rightly said to be after the image of
God, I was altogether ignorant.
Nor knew I that true inward righteousness which judgeth not according
to custom, but out of the most rightful law of God Almighty, whereby
the ways of places and times were disposed according to those times and
places; itself meantime being the same always and every where, not one
thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, were righteous, and all
those commended by the mouth of God; but were judged unrighteous by
silly men, judging out of man's judgment, and measuring by their own
petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race. As if in an
armory, one ignorant what were adapted to each part should cover his
head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, and complain that
they fitted not: or as if on a day when business is publicly stopped in
the afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop,
because he had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth
some servant take a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered
to meddle with; or something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden
in the dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one
family, the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all. Even
such are they who are fretted to hear something to have been lawful
for righteous men formerly, which now is not; or that God, for certain
temporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these another, obeying
both the same righteousness: whereas they see, in one man, and one day,
and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and
a thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so; in one corner
permitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden and punished.
Is justice therefore various or mutable? No, but the times, over which
it presides, flow not evenly, because they are times. But men whose days
are few upon the earth, for that by their senses they cannot harmonise
the causes of things in former ages and other nations, which they had
not experience of, with these which they have experience of, whereas in
one and the same body, day, or family, they easily see what is fitting
for each member, and season, part, and person; to the one they take
exceptions, to the other they submit.
These things I then knew not, nor observed; they struck my sight on all
sides, and I saw them not. I indited verses, in which I might not place
every foot every where, but differently in different metres; nor even in
any one metre the self-same foot in all places.