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- confessions
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-
That greediness then, wherewith I had of so long time expected that man,
was delighted verily with his action and feeling when disputing, and his
choice and readiness of words to clothe his ideas. I was then delighted,
and, with many others and more than they, did I praise and extol him.
It troubled me, however, that in the assembly of his auditors, I was not
allowed to put in and communicate those questions that troubled me,
in familiar converse with him. Which when I might, and with my friends
began to engage his ears at such times as it was not unbecoming for him
to discuss with me, and had brought forward such things as moved me; I
found him first utterly ignorant of liberal sciences, save grammar, and
that but in an ordinary way. But because he had read some of Tully's
Orations, a very few books of Seneca, some things of the poets, and such
few volumes of his own sect as were written in Latin and neatly, and
was daily practised in speaking, he acquired a certain eloquence, which
proved the more pleasing and seductive because under the guidance of a
good wit, and with a kind of natural gracefulness. Is it not thus, as I
recall it, O Lord my God, Thou judge of my conscience? before Thee is
my heart, and my remembrance, Who didst at that time direct me by the
hidden mystery of Thy providence, and didst set those shameful errors of
mine before my face, that I might see and hate them.
For after it was clear that he was ignorant of those arts in which I
thought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the
difficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he
might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For
their books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars,
sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to
decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with
the calculations I had elsewhere read, the account given in the books of
Manichaeus were preferable, or at least as good. Which when I proposed
to be considered and discussed, he, so far modestly, shrunk from the
burthen. For he knew that he knew not these things, and was not ashamed
to confess it. For he was not one of those talking persons, many of whom
I had endured, who undertook to teach me these things, and said nothing.
But this man had a heart, though not right towards Thee, yet neither
altogether treacherous to himself. For he was not altogether ignorant of
his own ignorance, nor would he rashly be entangled in a dispute, whence
he could neither retreat nor extricate himself fairly. Even for this I
liked him the better. For fairer is the modesty of a candid mind, than
the knowledge of those things which I desired; and such I found him, in
all the more difficult and subtile questions.
My zeal for the writings of Manichaeus being thus blunted, and
despairing yet more of their other teachers, seeing that in divers
things which perplexed me, he, so renowned among them, had so turned
out; I began to engage with him in the study of that literature, on
which he also was much set (and which as rhetoric-reader I was at that
time teaching young students at Carthage), and to read with him, either
what himself desired to hear, or such as I judged fit for his genius.
But all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that sect,
upon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I detached
myself from them altogether, but as one finding nothing better, I had
settled to be content meanwhile with what I had in whatever way fallen
upon, unless by chance something more eligible should dawn upon me.
Thus, that Faustus, to so many a snare of death, had now neither willing
nor witting it, begun to loosen that wherein I was taken. For Thy hands,
O my God, in the secret purpose of Thy providence, did not forsake my
soul; and out of my mother's heart's blood, through her tears night and
day poured out, was a sacrifice offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst
deal with me by wondrous ways. Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps
of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how
shall we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re-making what it made?
Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome, and
to teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage. And how I was
persuaded to this, I will not neglect to confess to Thee; because herein
also the deepest recesses of Thy wisdom, and Thy most present mercy to
us, must be considered and confessed. I did not wish therefore to go to
Rome, because higher gains and higher dignities were warranted me by my
friends who persuaded me to this (though even these things had at that
time an influence over my mind), but my chief and almost only reason
was, that I heard that young men studied there more peacefully, and were
kept quiet under a restraint of more regular discipline; so that they
did not, at their pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of
one whose pupils they were not, nor were even admitted without his
permission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among the scholars a most
disgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in audaciously, and
with gestures almost frantic, disturb all order which any one hath
established for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit,
with a wonderful stolidity, punishable by law, did not custom uphold
them; that custom evincing them to be the more miserable, in that they
now do as lawful what by Thy eternal law shall never be lawful; and they
think they do it unpunished, whereas they are punished with the very
blindness whereby they do it, and suffer incomparably worse than what
they do. The manners then which, when a student, I would not make my
own, I was fain as a teacher to endure in others: and so I was well
pleased to go where, all that knew it, assured me that the like was not
done. But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of the living;
that I might change my earthly dwelling for the salvation of my soul,
at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn from it; and at
Rome didst proffer me allurements, whereby I might be drawn thither,
by men in love with a dying life, the one doing frantic, the other
promising vain, things; and, to correct my steps, didst secretly use
their and my own perverseness. For both they who disturbed my quiet were
blinded with a disgraceful frenzy, and they who invited me elsewhere
savoured of earth. And I, who here detested real misery, was there
seeking unreal happiness.
But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet
showedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, who grievously bewailed my
journey, and followed me as far as the sea. But I deceived her, holding
me by force, that either she might keep me back or go with me, and I
feigned that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he had a fair
wind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped:
for this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me, preserving me, thus full
of execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, for the water of
Thy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother's eyes
should be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under
her face. And yet refusing to return without me, I scarcely persuaded
her to stay that night in a place hard by our ship, where was an Oratory
in memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I privily departed, but she
was not behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so
many tears asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldest not suffer me to sail?
But Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her
desire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me
what she ever asked.