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- confessions
- text
- I could not separate them. And while I opened my heart to admit "how
eloquently he spake," there also entered "how truly he spake"; but this
by degrees. For first, these things also had now begun to appear to
me capable of defence; and the Catholic faith, for which I had thought
nothing could be said against the Manichees' objections, I now thought
might be maintained without shamelessness; especially after I had heard
one or two places of the Old Testament resolved, and ofttimes "in a
figure," which when I understood literally, I was slain spiritually.
Very many places then of those books having been explained, I now blamed
my despair, in believing that no answer could be given to such as hated
and scoffed at the Law and the Prophets. Yet did I not therefore then
see that the Catholic way was to be held, because it also could find
learned maintainers, who could at large and with some show of reason
answer objections; nor that what I held was therefore to be condemned,
because both sides could be maintained. For the Catholic cause seemed to
me in such sort not vanquished, as still not as yet to be victorious.
Hereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by any
certain proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once have
conceived a spiritual substance, all their strongholds had been beaten
down, and cast utterly out of my mind; but I could not. Notwithstanding,
concerning the frame of this world, and the whole of nature, which the
senses of the flesh can reach to, as I more and more considered and
compared things, I judged the tenets of most of the philosophers to have
been much more probable. So then after the manner of the Academics (as
they are supposed) doubting of every thing, and wavering between all, I
settled so far, that the Manichees were to be abandoned; judging that,
even while doubting, I might not continue in that sect, to which I
already preferred some of the philosophers; to which philosophers
notwithstanding, for that they were without the saving Name of Christ,
I utterly refused to commit the cure of my sick soul. I determined
therefore so long to be a Catechumen in the Catholic Church, to which
I had been commended by my parents, till something certain should dawn
upon me, whither I might steer my course.
BOOK VI
O Thou, my hope from my youth, where wert Thou to me, and whither wert
Thou gone? Hadst not Thou created me, and separated me from the beasts
of the field, and fowls of the air? Thou hadst made me wiser, yet did I
walk in darkness, and in slippery places, and sought Thee abroad out of
myself, and found not the God of my heart; and had come into the depths
of the sea, and distrusted and despaired of ever finding truth. My
mother had now come to me, resolute through piety, following me over sea
and land, in all perils confiding in Thee. For in perils of the sea, she
comforted the very mariners (by whom passengers unacquainted with the
deep, use rather to be comforted when troubled), assuring them of a safe
arrival, because Thou hadst by a vision assured her thereof. She found
me in grievous peril, through despair of ever finding truth. But when
I had discovered to her that I was now no longer a Manichee, though
not yet a Catholic Christian, she was not overjoyed, as at something
unexpected; although she was now assured concerning that part of my
misery, for which she bewailed me as one dead, though to be reawakened
by Thee, carrying me forth upon the bier of her thoughts, that Thou
mightest say to the son of the widow, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise;
and he should revive, and begin to speak, and Thou shouldest deliver him
to his mother. Her heart then was shaken with no tumultuous exultation,
when she heard that what she daily with tears desired of Thee was
already in so great part realised; in that, though I had not yet
attained the truth, I was rescued from falsehood; but, as being assured,
that Thou, Who hadst promised the whole, wouldest one day give the rest,
most calmly, and with a heart full of confidence, she replied to me,
"She believed in Christ, that before she departed this life, she should
see me a Catholic believer." Thus much to me. But to Thee, Fountain
of mercies, poured she forth more copious prayers and tears, that Thou
wouldest hasten Thy help, and enlighten my darkness; and she hastened
the more eagerly to the Church, and hung upon the lips of Ambrose,
praying for the fountain of that water, which springeth up unto life
everlasting. But that man she loved as an angel of God, because she knew
that by him I had been brought for the present to that doubtful state of
faith I now was in, through which she anticipated most confidently that
I should pass from sickness unto health, after the access, as it were,
of a sharper fit, which physicians call "the crisis."
When then my mother had once, as she was wont in Afric, brought to the
Churches built in memory of the Saints, certain cakes, and bread and
wine, and was forbidden by the door-keeper; so soon as she knew that the
Bishop had forbidden this, she so piously and obediently embraced
his wishes, that I myself wondered how readily she censured her own
practice, rather than discuss his prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not
lay siege to her spirit, nor did love of wine provoke her to hatred of
the truth, as it doth too many (both men and women), who revolt at a
lesson of sobriety, as men well-drunk at a draught mingled with
water. But she, when she had brought her basket with the accustomed
festival-food, to be but tasted by herself, and then given away, never
joined therewith more than one small cup of wine, diluted according to
her own abstemious habits, which for courtesy she would taste. And if
there were many churches of the departed saints that were to be honoured
in that manner, she still carried round that same one cup, to be
used every where; and this, though not only made very watery, but
unpleasantly heated with carrying about, she would distribute to those
about her by small sips; for she sought there devotion, not pleasure.
So soon, then, as she found this custom to be forbidden by that famous
preacher and most pious prelate, even to those that would use it
soberly, lest so an occasion of excess might be given to the drunken;
and for these, as it were, anniversary funeral solemnities did much
resemble the superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly forbare
it: and for a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to
bring to the Churches of the martyrs a breast filled with more
purified petitions, and to give what she could to the poor; that so
the communication of the Lord's Body might be there rightly celebrated,
where, after the example of His Passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed
and crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God, and thus thinks my
heart of it in Thy sight, that perhaps she would not so readily have
yielded to the cutting off of this custom, had it been forbidden by
another, whom she loved not as Ambrose, whom, for my salvation,
she loved most entirely; and he her again, for her most religious
conversation, whereby in good works, so fervent in spirit, she was
constant at church; so that, when he saw me, he often burst forth into
her praises; congratulating me that I had such a mother; not knowing
what a son she had in me, who doubted of all these things, and imagined
the way to life could not be found out.
Nor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou wouldest help me; but
my spirit was wholly intent on learning, and restless to dispute. And
Ambrose himself, as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom
personages so great held in such honour; only his celibacy seemed to me
a painful course.