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- confessions
- text
- with Thee; and yet know I Thee that Thou art in no ways passible; but I,
what temptations I can resist, what I cannot, I know not. And there is
hope, because Thou art faithful, Who wilt not suffer us to be tempted
above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also make a way to
escape, that we may be able to bear it. I will confess then what I
know of myself, I will confess also what I know not of myself. And that
because what I do know of myself, I know by Thy shining upon me; and
what I know not of myself, so long know I not it, until my darkness be
made as the noon-day in Thy countenance.
Not with doubting, but with assured consciousness, do I love Thee, Lord.
Thou hast stricken my heart with Thy word, and I loved Thee. Yea also
heaven, and earth, and all that therein is, behold, on every side they
bid me love Thee; nor cease to say so unto all, that they may be without
excuse. But more deeply wilt Thou have mercy on whom Thou wilt have
mercy, and wilt have compassion on whom Thou hast had compassion: else
in deaf ears do the heaven and the earth speak Thy praises. But what do
I love, when I love Thee? not beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony
of time, nor the brightness of the light, so gladsome to our eyes, nor
sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and
ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs acceptable to
embracements of flesh. None of these I love, when I love my God; and
yet I love a kind of light, and melody, and fragrance, and meat, and
embracement when I love my God, the light, melody, fragrance, meat,
embracement of my inner man: where there shineth unto my soul what space
cannot contain, and there soundeth what time beareth not away, and there
smelleth what breathing disperseth not, and there tasteth what eating
diminisheth not, and there clingeth what satiety divorceth not. This is
it which I love when I love my God.
And what is this? I asked the earth, and it answered me, "I am not He";
and whatsoever are in it confessed the same. I asked the sea and the
deeps, and the living creeping things, and they answered, "We are not
thy God, seek above us." I asked the moving air; and the whole air with
his inhabitants answered, "Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God." I
asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars, "Nor (say they) are we the God whom
thou seekest." And I replied unto all the things which encompass the
door of my flesh: "Ye have told me of my God, that ye are not He; tell
me something of Him." And they cried out with a loud voice, "He made
us." My questioning them, was my thoughts on them: and their form of
beauty gave the answer. And I turned myself unto myself, and said to
myself, "Who art thou?" And I answered, "A man." And behold, in me there
present themselves to me soul, and body, one without, the other within.
By which of these ought I to seek my God? I had sought Him in the body
from earth to heaven, so far as I could send messengers, the beams
of mine eyes. But the better is the inner, for to it as presiding and
judging, all the bodily messengers reported the answers of heaven and
earth, and all things therein, who said, "We are not God, but He made
us." These things did my inner man know by the ministry of the outer: I
the inner knew them; I, the mind, through the senses of my body. I asked
the whole frame of the world about my God; and it answered me, "I am not
He, but He made me."
Is not this corporeal figure apparent to all whose senses are perfect?
why then speaks it not the same to all? Animals small and great see it,
but they cannot ask it: because no reason is set over their senses to
judge on what they report. But men can ask, so that the invisible things
of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made;
but by love of them, they are made subject unto them: and subjects
cannot judge. Nor yet do the creatures answer such as ask, unless they
can judge; nor yet do they change their voice (i.e., their appearance),
if one man only sees, another seeing asks, so as to appear one way to
this man, another way to that, but appearing the same way to both, it is
dumb to this, speaks to that; yea rather it speaks to all; but they only
understand, who compare its voice received from without, with the truth
within. For truth saith unto me, "Neither heaven, nor earth, nor any
other body is thy God." This, their very nature saith to him that seeth
them: "They are a mass; a mass is less in a part thereof than in the
whole." Now to thee I speak, O my soul, thou art my better part: for
thou quickenest the mass of my body, giving it life, which no body can
give to a body: but thy God is even unto thee the Life of thy life.
What then do I love, when I love my God? who is He above the head of
my soul? By my very soul will I ascend to Him. I will pass beyond that
power whereby I am united to my body, and fill its whole frame with
life. Nor can I by that power find my God; for so horse and mule that
have no understanding might find Him; seeing it is the same power,
whereby even their bodies live. But another power there is, not that
only whereby I animate, but that too whereby I imbue with sense my
flesh, which the Lord hath framed for me: commanding the eye not to
hear, and the ear not to see; but the eye, that through it I should
see, and the ear, that through it I should hear; and to the other senses
severally, what is to each their own peculiar seats and offices; which,
being divers, I the one mind, do through them enact. I will pass beyond
this power of mine also; for this also have the horse, and mule, for
they also perceive through the body.
I will pass then beyond this power of my nature also, rising by degrees
unto Him Who made me. And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of
my memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into
it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses. There is stored up,
whatsoever besides we think, either by enlarging or diminishing, or
any other way varying those things which the sense hath come to; and
whatever else hath been committed and laid up, which forgetfulness hath
not yet swallowed up and buried. When I enter there, I require what I
will to be brought forth, and something instantly comes; others must be
longer sought after, which are fetched, as it were, out of some inner
receptacle; others rush out in troops, and while one thing is desired
and required, they start forth, as who should say, "Is it perchance
I?" These I drive away with the hand of my heart, from the face of my
remembrance; until what I wish for be unveiled, and appear in sight, out
of its secret place. Other things come up readily, in unbroken order, as
they are called for; those in front making way for the following; and
as they make way, they are hidden from sight, ready to come when I will.
All which takes place when I repeat a thing by heart.
There are all things preserved distinctly and under general heads, each
having entered by its own avenue: as light, and all colours and forms of
bodies by the eyes; by the ears all sorts of sounds; all smells by the
avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by the sensation of
the whole body, what is hard or soft; hot or cold; or rugged; heavy or
light; either outwardly or inwardly to the body. All these doth that
great harbour of the memory receive in her numberless secret and
inexpressible windings, to be forthcoming, and brought out at need; each
entering in by his own gate, and there laid up. Nor yet do the things
themselves enter in; only the images of the things perceived are there
in readiness, for thought to recall. Which images, how they are formed,
who can tell, though it doth plainly appear by which sense each hath
been brought in and stored up?