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- confessions
- text
- the creature; but Truth, Artificer of the creature, they seek not
piously, and therefore find Him not; or if they find Him, knowing Him
to be God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful, but
become vain in their imaginations, and profess themselves to be wise,
attributing to themselves what is Thine; and thereby with most perverse
blindness, study to impute to Thee what is their own, forging lies of
Thee who art the Truth, and changing the glory of uncorruptible God
into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed
beasts, and creeping things, changing Thy truth into a lie, and
worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.
Yet many truths concerning the creature retained I from these men, and
saw the reason thereof from calculations, the succession of times, and
the visible testimonies of the stars; and compared them with the saying
of Manichaeus, which in his frenzy he had written most largely on these
subjects; but discovered not any account of the solstices, or equinoxes,
or the eclipses of the greater lights, nor whatever of this sort I
had learned in the books of secular philosophy. But I was commanded to
believe; and yet it corresponded not with what had been established by
calculations and my own sight, but was quite contrary.
Doth then, O Lord God of truth, whoso knoweth these things, therefore
please Thee? Surely unhappy is he who knoweth all these, and knoweth not
Thee: but happy whoso knoweth Thee, though he know not these. And whoso
knoweth both Thee and them is not the happier for them, but for Thee
only, if, knowing Thee, he glorifies Thee as God, and is thankful, and
becomes not vain in his imaginations. For as he is better off who knows
how to possess a tree, and return thanks to Thee for the use thereof,
although he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads,
than he that can measure it, and count all its boughs, and neither owns
it, nor knows or loves its Creator: so a believer, whose all this world
of wealth is, and who having nothing, yet possesseth all things, by
cleaving unto Thee, whom all things serve, though he know not even
the circles of the Great Bear, yet is it folly to doubt but he is in a
better state than one who can measure the heavens, and number the stars,
and poise the elements, yet neglecteth Thee who hast made all things in
number, weight, and measure.
But yet who bade that Manichaeus write on these things also, skill in
which was no element of piety? For Thou hast said to man, Behold
piety and wisdom; of which he might be ignorant, though he had perfect
knowledge of these things; but these things, since, knowing not, he most
impudently dared to teach, he plainly could have no knowledge of piety.
For it is vanity to make profession of these worldly things even when
known; but confession to Thee is piety. Wherefore this wanderer to this
end spake much of these things, that convicted by those who had truly
learned them, it might be manifest what understanding he had in the
other abstruser things. For he would not have himself meanly thought of,
but went about to persuade men, "That the Holy Ghost, the Comforter and
Enricher of Thy faithful ones, was with plenary authority personally
within him." When then he was found out to have taught falsely of the
heaven and stars, and of the motions of the sun and moon (although these
things pertain not to the doctrine of religion), yet his sacrilegious
presumption would become evident enough, seeing he delivered things
which not only he knew not, but which were falsified, with so mad a
vanity of pride, that he sought to ascribe them to himself, as to a
divine person.
For when I hear any Christian brother ignorant of these things, and
mistaken on them, I can patiently behold such a man holding his opinion;
nor do I see that any ignorance as to the position or character of the
corporeal creation can injure him, so long as he doth not believe any
thing unworthy of Thee, O Lord, the Creator of all. But it doth injure
him, if he imagine it to pertain to the form of the doctrine of piety,
and will yet affirm that too stiffly whereof he is ignorant. And yet
is even such an infirmity, in the infancy of faith, borne by our mother
Charity, till the new-born may grow up unto a perfect man, so as not
to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. But in him who in such
wise presumed to be the teacher, source, guide, chief of all whom he
could so persuade, that whoso followed him thought that he followed,
not a mere man, but Thy Holy Spirit; who would not judge that so great
madness, when once convicted of having taught any thing false, were
to be detested and utterly rejected? But I had not as yet clearly
ascertained whether the vicissitudes of longer and shorter days and
nights, and of day and night itself, with the eclipses of the greater
lights, and whatever else of the kind I had read of in other books,
might be explained consistently with his sayings; so that, if they by
any means might, it should still remain a question to me whether it
were so or no; but I might, on account of his reputed sanctity, rest my
credence upon his authority.
And for almost all those nine years, wherein with unsettled mind I had
been their disciple, I had longed but too intensely for the coming of
this Faustus. For the rest of the sect, whom by chance I had lighted
upon, when unable to solve my objections about these things, still held
out to me the coming of this Faustus, by conference with whom these
and greater difficulties, if I had them, were to be most readily and
abundantly cleared. When then he came, I found him a man of pleasing
discourse, and who could speak fluently and in better terms, yet still
but the self-same things which they were wont to say. But what availed
the utmost neatness of the cup-bearer to my thirst for a more precious
draught? Mine ears were already cloyed with the like, nor did they seem
to me therefore better, because better said; nor therefore true, because
eloquent; nor the soul therefore wise, because the face was comely,
and the language graceful. But they who held him out to me were no good
judges of things; and therefore to them he appeared understanding and
wise, because in words pleasing. I felt however that another sort of
people were suspicious even of truth, and refused to assent to it, if
delivered in a smooth and copious discourse. But Thou, O my God, hadst
already taught me by wonderful and secret ways, and therefore I believe
that Thou taughtest me, because it is truth, nor is there besides Thee
any teacher of truth, where or whencesoever it may shine upon us. Of
Thyself therefore had I now learned, that neither ought any thing to
seem to be spoken truly, because eloquently; nor therefore falsely,
because the utterance of the lips is inharmonious; nor, again, therefore
true, because rudely delivered; nor therefore false, because the
language is rich; but that wisdom and folly are as wholesome and
unwholesome food; and adorned or unadorned phrases as courtly or country
vessels; either kind of meats may be served up in either kind of dishes.
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.