The Confessions of St. Augustine
bosom, and through narrow passages waft over towards Thee some few, yet
many more than if it stood not aloft on such a height of authority, nor
drew multitudes within its bosom by its holy lowliness. These things
I thought on, and Thou wert with me; I sighed, and Thou heardest me; I
wavered, and Thou didst guide me; I wandered through the broad way of
the world, and Thou didst not forsake me.
I panted after honours, gains, marriage; and thou deridedst me. In these
desires I underwent most bitter crosses, Thou being the more gracious,
the less Thou sufferedst aught to grow sweet to me, which was not Thou.
Behold my heart, O Lord, who wouldest I should remember all this, and
confess to Thee. Let my soul cleave unto Thee, now that Thou hast freed
it from that fast-holding birdlime of death. How wretched was it! and
Thou didst irritate the feeling of its wound, that forsaking all else,
it might be converted unto Thee, who art above all, and without whom all
things would be nothing; be converted, and be healed. How miserable was
I then, and how didst Thou deal with me, to make me feel my misery on
that day, when I was preparing to recite a panegyric of the Emperor,
wherein I was to utter many a lie, and lying, was to be applauded by
those who knew I lied, and my heart was panting with these anxieties,
and boiling with the feverishness of consuming thoughts. For, passing
through one of the streets of Milan, I observed a poor beggar, then, I
suppose, with a full belly, joking and joyous: and I sighed, and spoke
to the friends around me, of the many sorrows of our frenzies; for that
by all such efforts of ours, as those wherein I then toiled dragging
along, under the goading of desire, the burthen of my own wretchedness,
and, by dragging, augmenting it, we yet looked to arrive only at that
very joyousness whither that beggar-man had arrived before us, who
should never perchance attain it. For what he had obtained by means of a
few begged pence, the same was I plotting for by many a toilsome turning
and winding; the joy of a temporary felicity. For he verily had not the
true joy; but yet I with those my ambitious designs was seeking one much
less true. And certainly he was joyous, I anxious; he void of care, I
full of fears. But should any ask me, had I rather be merry or fearful?
I would answer merry. Again, if he asked had I rather be such as he was,
or what I then was? I should choose to be myself, though worn with cares
and fears; but out of wrong judgment; for, was it the truth? For I ought
not to prefer myself to him, because more learned than he, seeing I
had no joy therein, but sought to please men by it; and that not to
instruct, but simply to please. Wherefore also Thou didst break my bones
with the staff of Thy correction.
Away with those then from my soul who say to her, "It makes a difference
whence a man's joy is. That beggar-man joyed in drunkenness; Thou
desiredst to joy in glory." What glory, Lord? That which is not in
Thee. For even as his was no true joy, so was that no true glory: and
it overthrew my soul more. He that very night should digest his
drunkenness; but I had slept and risen again with mine, and was to sleep
again, and again to rise with it, how many days, Thou, God, knowest. But
"it doth make a difference whence a man's joy is." I know it, and the
joy of a faithful hope lieth incomparably beyond such vanity. Yea, and
so was he then beyond me: for he verily was the happier; not only for
that he was thoroughly drenched in mirth, I disembowelled with cares:
but he, by fair wishes, had gotten wine; I, by lying, was seeking for
empty, swelling praise. Much to this purpose said I then to my friends:
and I often marked in them how it fared with me; and I found it went ill
with me, and grieved, and doubled that very ill; and if any prosperity
smiled on me, I was loth to catch at it, for almost before I could grasp
it, it flew away.
These things we, who were living as friends together, bemoaned together,
but chiefly and most familiarly did I speak thereof with Alypius and
Nebridius, of whom Alypius was born in the same town with me, of persons
of chief rank there, but younger than I. For he had studied under me,
both when I first lectured in our town, and afterwards at Carthage, and
he loved me much, because I seemed to him kind, and learned; and I him,
for his great towardliness to virtue, which was eminent enough in one of
no greater years. Yet the whirlpool of Carthaginian habits (amongst whom
those idle spectacles are hotly followed) had drawn him into the
madness of the Circus. But while he was miserably tossed therein, and
I, professing rhetoric there, had a public school, as yet he used not my
teaching, by reason of some unkindness risen betwixt his father and me.
I had found then how deadly he doted upon the Circus, and was deeply
grieved that he seemed likely, nay, or had thrown away so great promise:
yet had I no means of advising or with a sort of constraint reclaiming
him, either by the kindness of a friend, or the authority of a master.
For I supposed that he thought of me as did his father; but he was not
such; laying aside then his father's mind in that matter, he began to
greet me, come sometimes into my lecture room, hear a little, and be
gone.
I however had forgotten to deal with him, that he should not, through
a blind and headlong desire of vain pastimes, undo so good a wit. But
Thou, O Lord, who guidest the course of all Thou hast created, hadst
not forgotten him, who was one day to be among Thy children, Priest
and Dispenser of Thy Sacrament; and that his amendment might plainly be
attributed to Thyself, Thou effectedst it through me, unknowingly. For
as one day I sat in my accustomed place, with my scholars before me,
he entered, greeted me, sat down, and applied his mind to what I
then handled. I had by chance a passage in hand, which while I was
explaining, a likeness from the Circensian races occurred to me, as
likely to make what I would convey pleasanter and plainer, seasoned
with biting mockery of those whom that madness had enthralled; God, Thou
knowest that I then thought not of curing Alypius of that infection. But
he took it wholly to himself, and thought that I said it simply for his
sake. And whence another would have taken occasion of offence with me,
that right-minded youth took as a ground of being offended at himself,
and loving me more fervently. For Thou hadst said it long ago, and put
it into Thy book, Rebuke a wise man and he will love Thee. But I had
not rebuked him, but Thou, who employest all, knowing or not knowing, in
that order which Thyself knowest (and that order is just), didst of my
heart and tongue make burning coals, by which to set on fire the
hopeful mind, thus languishing, and so cure it. Let him be silent in Thy
praises, who considers not Thy mercies, which confess unto Thee out of
my inmost soul. For he upon that speech burst out of that pit so deep,
wherein he was wilfully plunged, and was blinded with its wretched
pastimes; and he shook his mind with a strong self-command; whereupon
all the filths of the Circensian pastimes flew off from him, nor came he
again thither. Upon this, he prevailed with his unwilling father that he
might be my scholar. He gave way, and gave in. And Alypius beginning
to be my hearer again, was involved in the same superstition with me,
loving in the Manichees that show of continency which he supposed true
and unfeigned. Whereas it was a senseless and seducing continency,
ensnaring precious souls, unable as yet to reach the depth of virtue,
yet readily beguiled with the surface of what was but a shadowy and
counterfeit virtue.
He, not forsaking that secular course which his parents had charmed him
to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study law, and there he was
carried away incredibly with an incredible eagerness after the shows of
gladiators. For being utterly averse to and detesting spectacles, he was
one day by chance met by divers of his acquaintance and fellow-students
coming from dinner, and they with a familiar violence haled him,
vehemently refusing and resisting, into the Amphitheatre, during these
cruel and deadly shows, he thus protesting: "Though you hale my body to
that place, and there set me, can you force me also to turn my mind or
my eyes to those shows? I shall then be absent while present, and
so shall overcome both you and them." They, hearing this, led him on
nevertheless, desirous perchance to try that very thing, whether he
could do as he said. When they were come thither, and had taken their
places as they could, the whole place kindled with that savage pastime.
But he, closing the passage of his eyes, forbade his mind to range
abroad after such evil; and would he had stopped his ears also! For in
the fight, when one fell, a mighty cry of the whole people striking him
strongly, overcome by curiosity, and as if prepared to despise and be
superior to it whatsoever it were, even when seen, he opened his eyes,
and was stricken with a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he
desired to behold, was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he
upon whose fall that mighty noise was raised, which entered through his
ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and beating
down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker, in that it
had presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on Thee. For so soon
as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down savageness; nor turned
away, but fixed his eye, drinking in frenzy, unawares, and was delighted
with that guilty fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. Nor was
he now the man he came, but one of the throng he came unto, yea, a true
associate of theirs that brought him thither. Why say more? He beheld,
shouted, kindled, carried thence with him the madness which should goad
him to return not only with them who first drew him thither, but also
before them, yea and to draw in others. Yet thence didst Thou with a
most strong and most merciful hand pluck him, and taughtest him to have
confidence not in himself, but in Thee. But this was after.
But this was already being laid up in his memory to be a medicine
hereafter. So was that also, that when he was yet studying under me at
Carthage, and was thinking over at mid-day in the market-place what he
was to say by heart (as scholars use to practise), Thou sufferedst him
to be apprehended by the officers of the market-place for a thief. For
no other cause, I deem, didst Thou, our God, suffer it, but that he who
was hereafter to prove so great a man, should already begin to learn
that in judging of causes, man was not readily to be condemned by man
out of a rash credulity. For as he was walking up and down by himself
before the judgment-seat, with his note-book and pen, lo, a young man, a
lawyer, the real thief, privily bringing a hatchet, got in, unperceived
by Alypius, as far as the leaden gratings which fence in the
silversmiths' shops, and began to cut away the lead. But the noise of
the hatchet being heard, the silversmiths beneath began to make a stir,
and sent to apprehend whomever they should find. But he, hearing their
voices, ran away, leaving his hatchet, fearing to be taken with it.
Alypius now, who had not seen him enter, was aware of his going, and
saw with what speed he made away. And being desirous to know the matter,
entered the place; where finding the hatchet, he was standing, wondering
and considering it, when behold, those that had been sent, find him
alone with the hatchet in his hand, the noise whereof had startled and
brought them thither. They seize him, hale him away, and gathering the
dwellers in the market-place together, boast of having taken a notorious
thief, and so he was being led away to be taken before the judge.