The Confessions of St. Augustine
Patricius, her sometimes husband, by whose bodies Thou broughtest me
into this life, how I know not. May they with devout affection remember
my parents in this transitory light, my brethren under Thee our Father
in our Catholic Mother, and my fellow-citizens in that eternal Jerusalem
which Thy pilgrim people sigheth after from their Exodus, even unto
their return thither. That so my mother's last request of me, may
through my confessions, more than through my prayers, be, through the
prayers of many, more abundantly fulfilled to her.
BOOK X
Let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest me: let me know Thee, as I am
known. Power of my soul, enter into it, and fit it for Thee, that
Thou mayest have and hold it without spot or wrinkle. This is my hope,
therefore do I speak; and in this hope do I rejoice, when I rejoice
healthfully. Other things of this life are the less to be sorrowed for,
the more they are sorrowed for; and the more to be sorrowed for, the
less men sorrow for them. For behold, Thou lovest the truth, and he that
doth it, cometh to the light. This would I do in my heart before Thee in
confession: and in my writing, before many witnesses.
And from Thee, O Lord, unto whose eyes the abyss of man's conscience is
naked, what could be hidden in me though I would not confess it? For
I should hide Thee from me, not me from Thee. But now, for that my
groaning is witness, that I am displeased with myself, Thou shinest out,
and art pleasing, and beloved, and longed for; that I may be ashamed of
myself, and renounce myself, and choose Thee, and neither please Thee
nor myself, but in Thee. To Thee therefore, O Lord, am I open, whatever
I am; and with what fruit I confess unto Thee, I have said. Nor do I it
with words and sounds of the flesh, but with the words of my soul, and
the cry of the thought which Thy ear knoweth. For when I am evil, then
to confess to Thee is nothing else than to be displeased with myself;
but when holy, nothing else than not to ascribe it to myself: because
Thou, O Lord, blessest the godly, but first Thou justifieth him when
ungodly. My confession then, O my God, in Thy sight, is made silently,
and not silently. For in sound, it is silent; in affection, it cries
aloud. For neither do I utter any thing right unto men, which Thou hast
not before heard from me; nor dost Thou hear any such thing from me,
which Thou hast not first said unto me.
What then have I to do with men, that they should hear my
confessions--as if they could heal all my infirmities--a race, curious
to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why seek they
to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what themselves
are? And how know they, when from myself they hear of myself, whether
I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but the spirit of man
which is in him? But if they hear from Thee of themselves, they cannot
say, "The Lord lieth." For what is it to hear from Thee of themselves,
but to know themselves? and who knoweth and saith, "It is false," unless
himself lieth? But because charity believeth all things (that is, among
those whom knitting unto itself it maketh one), I also, O Lord, will
in such wise confess unto Thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannot
demonstrate whether I confess truly; yet they believe me, whose ears
charity openeth unto me.
But do Thou, my inmost Physician, make plain unto me what fruit I may
reap by doing it. For the confessions of my past sins, which Thou hast
forgiven and covered, that Thou mightest bless me in Thee, changing my
soul by Faith and Thy Sacrament, when read and heard, stir up the heart,
that it sleep not in despair and say "I cannot," but awake in the love
of Thy mercy and the sweetness of Thy grace, whereby whoso is weak, is
strong, when by it he became conscious of his own weakness. And the good
delight to hear of the past evils of such as are now freed from them,
not because they are evils, but because they have been and are not. With
what fruit then, O Lord my God, to Whom my conscience daily confesseth,
trusting more in the hope of Thy mercy than in her own innocency,
with what fruit, I pray, do I by this book confess to men also in Thy
presence what I now am, not what I have been? For that other fruit I
have seen and spoken of. But what I now am, at the very time of making
these confessions, divers desire to know, who have or have not known me,
who have heard from me or of me; but their ear is not at my heart where
I am, whatever I am. They wish then to hear me confess what I am within;
whither neither their eye, nor ear, nor understanding can reach; they
wish it, as ready to believe--but will they know? For charity, whereby
they are good, telleth them that in my confessions I lie not; and she in
them, believeth me.
But for what fruit would they hear this? Do they desire to joy with me,
when they hear how near, by Thy gift, I approach unto Thee? and to pray
for me, when they shall hear how much I am held back by my own weight?
To such will I discover myself. For it is no mean fruit, O Lord my God,
that by many thanks should be given to Thee on our behalf, and Thou be
by many entreated for us. Let the brotherly mind love in me what Thou
teachest is to be loved, and lament in me what Thou teachest is to be
lamented. Let a brotherly, not a stranger, mind, not that of the strange
children, whose mouth talketh of vanity, and their right hand is a
right hand of iniquity, but that brotherly mind which when it approveth,
rejoiceth for me, and when it disapproveth me, is sorry for me; because
whether it approveth or disapproveth, it loveth me. To such will I
discover myself: they will breathe freely at my good deeds, sigh for my
ill. My good deeds are Thine appointments, and Thy gifts; my evil ones
are my offences, and Thy judgments. Let them breathe freely at the one,
sigh at the other; and let hymns and weeping go up into Thy sight,
out of the hearts of my brethren, Thy censers. And do Thou, O Lord,
be pleased with the incense of Thy holy temple, have mercy upon me
according to Thy great mercy for Thine own name's sake; and no ways
forsaking what Thou hast begun, perfect my imperfections.
This is the fruit of my confessions of what I am, not of what I have
been, to confess this, not before Thee only, in a secret exultation with
trembling, and a secret sorrow with hope; but in the ears also of the
believing sons of men, sharers of my joy, and partners in my mortality,
my fellow-citizens, and fellow-pilgrims, who are gone before, or are to
follow on, companions of my way. These are Thy servants, my brethren,
whom Thou willest to be Thy sons; my masters, whom Thou commandest me to
serve, if I would live with Thee, of Thee. But this Thy Word were little
did it only command by speaking, and not go before in performing. This
then I do in deed and word, this I do under Thy wings; in over great
peril, were not my soul subdued unto Thee under Thy wings, and my
infirmity known unto Thee. I am a little one, but my Father ever liveth,
and my Guardian is sufficient for me. For He is the same who begat me,
and defends me: and Thou Thyself art all my good; Thou, Almighty,
Who are with me, yea, before I am with Thee. To such then whom Thou
commandest me to serve will I discover, not what I have been, but what I
now am and what I yet am. But neither do I judge myself. Thus therefore
I would be heard.
For Thou, Lord, dost judge me: because, although no man knoweth the
things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him, yet is there
something of man, which neither the spirit of man that is in him, itself
knoweth. But Thou, Lord, knowest all of him, Who hast made him. Yet I,
though in Thy sight I despise myself, and account myself dust and ashes;
yet know I something of Thee, which I know not of myself. And truly,
now we see through a glass darkly, not face to face as yet. So long
therefore as I be absent from Thee, I am more present with myself than
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