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- confessions
- text
- refused to fight with it? For, if they answered, 'it would have
done Thee some hurt,' then shouldest Thou be subject to injury and
corruption: but it could do Thee no hurt,' then was no reason brought
for Thy fighting with it; and fighting in such wise, as that a certain
portion or member of Thee, or offspring of Thy very Substance, should be
mingled with opposed powers, and natures not created by Thee, and be
by them so far corrupted and changed to the worse, as to be turned
from happiness into misery, and need assistance, whereby it might be
extricated and purified; and that this offspring of Thy Substance was
the soul, which being enthralled, defiled, corrupted, Thy Word, free,
pure, and whole, might relieve; that Word itself being still corruptible
because it was of one and the same Substance. So then, should they
affirm Thee, whatsoever Thou art, that is, Thy Substance whereby
Thou art, to be incorruptible, then were all these sayings false and
execrable; but if corruptible, the very statement showed it to be false
and revolting." This argument then of Nebridius sufficed against those
who deserved wholly to be vomited out of the overcharged stomach; for
they had no escape, without horrible blasphemy of heart and tongue, thus
thinking and speaking of Thee.
But I also as yet, although I held and was firmly persuaded that Thou
our Lord the true God, who madest not only our souls, but our bodies,
and not only our souls and bodies, but all beings, and all things, wert
undefilable and unalterable, and in no degree mutable; yet understood I
not, clearly and without difficulty, the cause of evil. And yet whatever
it were, I perceived it was in such wise to be sought out, as should not
constrain me to believe the immutable God to be mutable, lest I should
become that evil I was seeking out. I sought it out then, thus far free
from anxiety, certain of the untruth of what these held, from whom I
shrunk with my whole heart: for I saw, that through enquiring the origin
of evil, they were filled with evil, in that they preferred to think
that Thy substance did suffer ill than their own did commit it.
And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free-will was the
cause of our doing ill, and Thy just judgment of our suffering ill. But
I was not able clearly to discern it. So then endeavouring to draw my
soul's vision out of that deep pit, I was again plunged therein, and
endeavouring often, I was plunged back as often. But this raised me a
little into Thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will, as that I
lived: when then I did will or nill any thing, I was most sure that no
other than myself did will and nill: and I all but saw that there
was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will, I saw that
I suffered rather than did, and I judged not to be my fault, but my
punishment; whereby, however, holding Thee to be just, I speedily
confessed myself to be not unjustly punished. But again I said, Who made
me? Did not my God, Who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence
then came I to will evil and nill good, so that I am thus justly
punished? who set this in me, and ingrafted into me this plant of
bitterness, seeing I was wholly formed by my most sweet God? If the
devil were the author, whence is that same devil? And if he also by his
own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence, again, came
in him that evil will whereby he became a devil, seeing the whole nature
of angels was made by that most good Creator? By these thoughts I was
again sunk down and choked; yet not brought down to that hell of error
(where no man confesseth unto Thee), to think rather that Thou dost
suffer ill, than that man doth it.
For I was in such wise striving to find out the rest, as one who had
already found that the incorruptible must needs be better than the
corruptible: and Thee therefore, whatsoever Thou wert, I confessed to
be incorruptible. For never soul was, nor shall be, able to conceive any
thing which may be better than Thou, who art the sovereign and the
best good. But since most truly and certainly, the incorruptible is
preferable to the corruptible (as I did now prefer it), then, wert Thou
not incorruptible, I could in thought have arrived at something better
than my God. Where then I saw the incorruptible to be preferable to the
corruptible, there ought I to seek for Thee, and there observe "wherein
evil itself was"; that is, whence corruption comes, by which Thy
substance can by no means be impaired. For corruption does no ways
impair our God; by no will, by no necessity, by no unlooked-for chance:
because He is God, and what He wills is good, and Himself is that
good; but to be corrupted is not good. Nor art Thou against Thy will
constrained to any thing, since Thy will is not greater than Thy power.
But greater should it be, were Thyself greater than Thyself. For the
will and power of God is God Himself. And what can be unlooked-for by
Thee, Who knowest all things? Nor is there any nature in things, but
Thou knowest it. And what should we more say, "why that substance which
God is should not be corruptible," seeing if it were so, it should not
be God?
And I sought "whence is evil," and sought in an evil way; and saw not
the evil in my very search. I set now before the sight of my spirit
the whole creation, whatsoever we can see therein (as sea, earth, air,
stars, trees, mortal creatures); yea, and whatever in it we do not see,
as the firmament of heaven, all angels moreover, and all the spiritual
inhabitants thereof. But these very beings, as though they were
bodies, did my fancy dispose in place, and I made one great mass of Thy
creation, distinguished as to the kinds of bodies; some, real bodies,
some, what myself had feigned for spirits. And this mass I made huge,
not as it was (which I could not know), but as I thought convenient, yet
every way finite. But Thee, O Lord, I imagined on every part environing
and penetrating it, though every way infinite: as if there were a sea,
every where, and on every side, through unmeasured space, one only
boundless sea, and it contained within it some sponge, huge, but
bounded; that sponge must needs, in all its parts, be filled from that
unmeasurable sea: so conceived I Thy creation, itself finite, full of
Thee, the Infinite; and I said, Behold God, and behold what God hath
created; and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better
than all these: but yet He, the Good, created them good; and see how
He environeth and fulfils them. Where is evil then, and whence, and how
crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed? Or hath it no
being? Why then fear we and avoid what is not? Or if we fear it idly,
then is that very fear evil, whereby the soul is thus idly goaded and
racked. Yea, and so much a greater evil, as we have nothing to fear, and
yet do fear. Therefore either is that evil which we fear, or else evil
is, that we fear. Whence is it then? seeing God, the Good, hath created
all these things good. He indeed, the greater and chiefest Good, hath
created these lesser goods; still both Creator and created, all are
good. Whence is evil? Or, was there some evil matter of which He made,
and formed, and ordered it, yet left something in it which He did not
convert into good? Why so then? Had He no might to turn and change the
whole, so that no evil should remain in it, seeing He is All-mighty?
Lastly, why would He make any thing at all of it, and not rather by
the same All-mightiness cause it not to be at all? Or, could it then be
against His will? Or if it were from eternity, why suffered He it so to
be for infinite spaces of times past, and was pleased so long after to
make something out of it?