The Confessions of St. Augustine
laughed at and reproved. What I then did was worthy reproof; but since
I could not understand reproof, custom and reason forbade me to be
reproved. For those habits, when grown, we root out and cast away. Now
no man, though he prunes, wittingly casts away what is good. Or was
it then good, even for a while, to cry for what, if given, would hurt?
bitterly to resent, that persons free, and its own elders, yea, the very
authors of its birth, served it not? that many besides, wiser than it,
obeyed not the nod of its good pleasure? to do its best to strike and
hurt, because commands were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its
hurt? The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence.
Myself have seen and known even a baby envious; it could not speak, yet
it turned pale and looked bitterly on its foster-brother. Who knows not
this? Mothers and nurses tell you that they allay these things by I know
not what remedies. Is that too innocence, when the fountain of milk
is flowing in rich abundance, not to endure one to share it, though
in extremest need, and whose very life as yet depends thereon? We bear
gently with all this, not as being no or slight evils, but because they
will disappear as years increase; for, though tolerated now, the very
same tempers are utterly intolerable when found in riper years.
Thou, then, O Lord my God, who gavest life to this my infancy,
furnishing thus with senses (as we see) the frame Thou gavest,
compacting its limbs, ornamenting its proportions, and, for its general
good and safety, implanting in it all vital functions, Thou commandest
me to praise Thee in these things, to confess unto Thee, and sing unto
Thy name, Thou most Highest. For Thou art God, Almighty and Good, even
hadst Thou done nought but only this, which none could do but Thou:
whose Unity is the mould of all things; who out of Thy own fairness
makest all things fair; and orderest all things by Thy law. This age
then, Lord, whereof I have no remembrance, which I take on others' word,
and guess from other infants that I have passed, true though the guess
be, I am yet loth to count in this life of mine which I live in this
world. For no less than that which I spent in my mother's womb, is it
hid from me in the shadows of forgetfulness. But if I was shapen in
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where, I beseech Thee, O
my God, where, Lord, or when, was I Thy servant guiltless? But, lo! that
period I pass by; and what have I now to do with that, of which I can
recall no vestige?
Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, or rather it came to me,
displacing infancy. Nor did that depart,--(for whither went it?)--and
yet it was no more. For I was no longer a speechless infant, but a
speaking boy. This I remember; and have since observed how I learned to
speak. It was not that my elders taught me words (as, soon after, other
learning) in any set method; but I, longing by cries and broken accents
and various motions of my limbs to express my thoughts, that so I might
have my will, and yet unable to express all I willed, or to whom I
willed, did myself, by the understanding which Thou, my God, gavest me,
practise the sounds in my memory. When they named any thing, and as they
spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered that they called what they
would point out by the name they uttered. And that they meant this
thing and no other was plain from the motion of their body, the natural
language, as it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance,
glances of the eye, gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice,
indicating the affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses,
rejects, or shuns. And thus by constantly hearing words, as they
occurred in various sentences, I collected gradually for what they
stood; and having broken in my mouth to these signs, I thereby gave
utterance to my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me these current
signs of our wills, and so launched deeper into the stormy intercourse
of human life, yet depending on parental authority and the beck of
elders.
O God my God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when
obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in
order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science,
which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next
I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not
what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this
was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course
before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to
pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, Lord, we
found that men called upon Thee, and we learnt from them to think of
Thee (according to our powers) as of some great One, who, though hidden
from our senses, couldest hear and help us. For so I began, as a boy, to
pray to Thee, my aid and refuge; and broke the fetters of my tongue to
call on Thee, praying Thee, though small, yet with no small earnestness,
that I might not be beaten at school. And when Thou heardest me not (not
thereby giving me over to folly), my elders, yea my very parents, who
yet wished me no ill, mocked my stripes, my then great and grievous ill.
Is there, Lord, any of soul so great, and cleaving to Thee with so
intense affection (for a sort of stupidity will in a way do it); but
is there any one who, from cleaving devoutly to Thee, is endued with so
great a spirit, that he can think as lightly of the racks and hooks and
other torments (against which, throughout all lands, men call on Thee
with extreme dread), mocking at those by whom they are feared most
bitterly, as our parents mocked the torments which we suffered in
boyhood from our masters? For we feared not our torments less; nor
prayed we less to Thee to escape them. And yet we sinned, in writing or
reading or studying less than was exacted of us. For we wanted not, O
Lord, memory or capacity, whereof Thy will gave enough for our age; but
our sole delight was play; and for this we were punished by those who
yet themselves were doing the like. But elder folks' idleness is called
"business"; that of boys, being really the same, is punished by those
elders; and none commiserates either boys or men. For will any of sound
discretion approve of my being beaten as a boy, because, by playing a
ball, I made less progress in studies which I was to learn, only that,
as a man, I might play more unbeseemingly? and what else did he who beat
me? who, if worsted in some trifling discussion with his fellow-tutor,
was more embittered and jealous than I when beaten at ball by a
play-fellow?
And yet, I sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator and Disposer of all
things in nature, of sin the Disposer only, O Lord my God, I sinned in
transgressing the commands of my parents and those of my masters. For
what they, with whatever motive, would have me learn, I might afterwards
have put to good use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but
from love of play, loving the pride of victory in my contests, and to
have my ears tickled with lying fables, that they might itch the more;
the same curiosity flashing from my eyes more and more, for the shows
and games of my elders. Yet those who give these shows are in such
esteem, that almost all wish the same for their children, and yet are
very willing that they should be beaten, if those very games detain them
from the studies, whereby they would have them attain to be the givers
of them. Look with pity, Lord, on these things, and deliver us who call
upon Thee now; deliver those too who call not on Thee yet, that they may
call on Thee, and Thou mayest deliver them.
As a boy, then, I had already heard of an eternal life, promised
us through the humility of the Lord our God stooping to our pride; and
even from the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed
with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt. Thou sawest, Lord,
how while yet a boy, being seized on a time with sudden oppression of
the stomach, and like near to death--Thou sawest, my God (for Thou wert
my keeper), with what eagerness and what faith I sought, from the pious
care of my mother and Thy Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of
Thy Christ, my God and Lord. Whereupon the mother of my flesh, being
much troubled (since, with a heart pure in Thy faith, she even more
lovingly travailed in birth of my salvation), would in eager haste
have provided for my consecration and cleansing by the health-giving
sacraments, confessing Thee, Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins,
unless I had suddenly recovered. And so, as if I must needs be
again polluted should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the
defilements of sin would, after that washing, bring greater and more
perilous guilt. I then already believed: and my mother, and the whole
household, except my father: yet did not he prevail over the power of my
mother's piety in me, that as he did not yet believe, so neither
should I. For it was her earnest care that Thou my God, rather than he,
shouldest be my father; and in this Thou didst aid her to prevail over
her husband, whom she, the better, obeyed, therein also obeying Thee,
who hast so commanded.
I beseech Thee, my God, I would fain know, if so Thou willest, for
what purpose my baptism was then deferred? was it for my good that the
rein was laid loose, as it were, upon me, for me to sin? or was it not
laid loose? If not, why does it still echo in our ears on all sides,
"Let him alone, let him do as he will, for he is not yet baptised?" but
as to bodily health, no one says, "Let him be worse wounded, for he is
not yet healed." How much better then, had I been at once healed; and
then, by my friends' and my own, my soul's recovered health had been
kept safe in Thy keeping who gavest it. Better truly. But how many and
great waves of temptation seemed to hang over me after my boyhood! These
my mother foresaw; and preferred to expose to them the clay whence I
might afterwards be moulded, than the very cast, when made.
In boyhood itself, however (so much less dreaded for me than youth),
I loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Yet I was forced; and
this was well done towards me, but I did not well; for, unless forced, I
had not learnt. But no one doth well against his will, even though what
he doth, be well. Yet neither did they well who forced me, but what was
well came to me from Thee, my God. For they were regardless how I should
employ what they forced me to learn, except to satiate the insatiate
desires of a wealthy beggary, and a shameful glory. But Thou, by whom
the very hairs of our head are numbered, didst use for my good the error
of all who urged me to learn; and my own, who would not learn, Thou
didst use for my punishment--a fit penalty for one, so small a boy and
so great a sinner. So by those who did not well, Thou didst well for me;
and by my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For Thou hast commanded,
and so it is, that every inordinate affection should be its own
punishment.
But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not
yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters, but
what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons,
reading, writing and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty
as any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but from the sin and vanity
of this life, because I was flesh, and a breath that passeth away and
cometh not again? For those first lessons were better certainly, because
more certain; by them I obtained, and still retain, the power of reading
what I find written, and myself writing what I will; whereas in the