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- confessions
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- prophets. And what gained I by scoffing at them, but to be scoffed at by
Thee, being insensibly and step by step drawn on to those follies, as
to believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked, and the tree, its
mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding (plucked by some
other's, not his own, guilt) had some Manichaean saint eaten, and
mingled with his bowels, he should breathe out of it angels, yea, there
shall burst forth particles of divinity, at every moan or groan in his
prayer, which particles of the most high and true God had remained bound
in that fig, unless they had been set at liberty by the teeth or belly
of some "Elect" saint! And I, miserable, believed that more mercy was
to be shown to the fruits of the earth than men, for whom they were
created. For if any one an hungered, not a Manichaean, should ask for
any, that morsel would seem as it were condemned to capital punishment,
which should be given him.
And Thou sentest Thine hand from above, and drewest my soul out of that
profound darkness, my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee for me,
more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children. For she,
by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the death
wherein I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her, and
despisedst not her tears, when streaming down, they watered the ground
under her eyes in every place where she prayed; yea Thou heardest her.
For whence was that dream whereby Thou comfortedst her; so that she
allowed me to live with her, and to eat at the same table in the
house, which she had begun to shrink from, abhorring and detesting
the blasphemies of my error? For she saw herself standing on a certain
wooden rule, and a shining youth coming towards her, cheerful and
smiling upon her, herself grieving, and overwhelmed with grief. But he
having (in order to instruct, as is their wont not to be instructed)
enquired of her the causes of her grief and daily tears, and she
answering that she was bewailing my perdition, he bade her rest
contented, and told her to look and observe, "That where she was, there
was I also." And when she looked, she saw me standing by her in the same
rule. Whence was this, but that Thine ears were towards her heart? O
Thou Good omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, as if Thou
caredst for him only; and so for all, as if they were but one!
Whence was this also, that when she had told me this vision, and I would
fain bend it to mean, "That she rather should not despair of being one
day what I was"; she presently, without any hesitation, replies: "No;
for it was not told me that, 'where he, there thou also'; but 'where
thou, there he also'?" I confess to Thee, O Lord, that to the best of my
remembrance (and I have oft spoken of this), that Thy answer, through
my waking mother,--that she was not perplexed by the plausibility of my
false interpretation, and so quickly saw what was to be seen, and which
I certainly had not perceived before she spake,--even then moved me more
than the dream itself, by which a joy to the holy woman, to be fulfilled
so long after, was, for the consolation of her present anguish, so long
before foresignified. For almost nine years passed, in which I wallowed
in the mire of that deep pit, and the darkness of falsehood, often
assaying to rise, but dashed down the more grievously. All which time
that chaste, godly, and sober widow (such as Thou lovest), now more
cheered with hope, yet no whit relaxing in her weeping and mourning,
ceased not at all hours of her devotions to bewail my case unto Thee.
And her prayers entered into Thy presence; and yet Thou sufferedst me to
be yet involved and reinvolved in that darkness.
Thou gavest her meantime another answer, which I call to mind; for much
I pass by, hasting to those things which more press me to confess unto
Thee, and much I do not remember. Thou gavest her then another answer,
by a Priest of Thine, a certain Bishop brought up in Thy Church,
and well studied in Thy books. Whom when this woman had entreated to
vouchsafe to converse with me, refute my errors, unteach me ill things,
and teach me good things (for this he was wont to do, when he found
persons fitted to receive it), he refused, wisely, as I afterwards
perceived. For he answered, that I was yet unteachable, being puffed
up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already perplexed divers
unskilful persons with captious questions, as she had told him: "but
let him alone a while" (saith he), "only pray God for him, he will of
himself by reading find what that error is, and how great its impiety."
At the same time he told her, how himself, when a little one, had by his
seduced mother been consigned over to the Manichees, and had not
only read, but frequently copied out almost all, their books, and had
(without any argument or proof from any one) seen how much that sect was
to be avoided; and had avoided it. Which when he had said, and she would
not be satisfied, but urged him more, with entreaties and many tears,
that he would see me and discourse with me; he, a little displeased at
her importunity, saith, "Go thy ways and God bless thee, for it is not
possible that the son of these tears should perish." Which answer she
took (as she often mentioned in her conversations with me) as if it had
sounded from heaven.
BOOK IV
For this space of nine years (from my nineteenth year to my
eight-and-twentieth) we lived seduced and seducing, deceived and
deceiving, in divers lusts; openly, by sciences which they call liberal;
secretly, with a false-named religion; here proud, there superstitious,
every where vain. Here, hunting after the emptiness of popular praise,
down even to theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and strifes for
grassy garlands, and the follies of shows, and the intemperance of
desires. There, desiring to be cleansed from these defilements, by
carrying food to those who were called "elect" and "holy," out of which,
in the workhouse of their stomachs, they should forge for us Angels
and Gods, by whom we might be cleansed. These things did I follow, and
practise with my friends, deceived by me, and with me. Let the arrogant
mock me, and such as have not been, to their soul's health, stricken and
cast down by Thee, O my God; but I would still confess to Thee mine own
shame in Thy praise. Suffer me, I beseech Thee, and give me grace to go
over in my present remembrance the wanderings of my forepassed time,
and to offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what am I to
myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own downfall? or what am I even
at the best, but an infant sucking the milk Thou givest, and feeding
upon Thee, the food that perisheth not? But what sort of man is any man,
seeing he is but a man? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh at us,
but let us poor and needy confess unto Thee.
In those years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, made sale
of a loquacity to overcome by. Yet I preferred (Lord, Thou knowest)
honest scholars (as they are accounted), and these I, without artifice,
taught artifices, not to be practised against the life of the guiltless,
though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar
perceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and amid much smoke
sending out some sparks of faithfulness, which I showed in that my
guidance of such as loved vanity, and sought after leasing, myself their
companion.