And Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous
iniquities consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity,
that having forsaken Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous
abyss, and the beguiling service of devils, to whom I sacrificed
my evil actions, and in all these things Thou didst scourge me!
I dared even, while Thy solemnities were celebrated within the
walls of Thy church, to desire, and to compass a business deserving
death for its fruits, for which Thou scourgedst me with grievous
punishments, though nothing to my fault, O Thou my exceeding mercy,
my God, my refuge from those terrible destroyers, among whom I
wandered with a stiff neck, withdrawing further from Thee, loving
mine own ways, and not Thine; loving a vagrant liberty.
Those studies also, which were accounted commendable, had a view
to excelling in the courts of litigation; the more be praised,
the craftier. Such is men's blindness, glorying even in their
blindness. And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat
I joyed proudly, and I swelled with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou
knowest) far quieter and altogether removed from the subvertings
of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish
name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with
a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived,
and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings
I ever did abhor -- i.e., their "subvertings," wherewith
they wantonly persecuted the modesty of strangers, which they
disturbed by a gratuitous jeering, feeding thereon their malicious
mirth. Nothing can be liker the very actions of devils than these.
What then could they be more truly called than "Subverters"?
Themselves subverted and altogether perverted first, the deceiving
spirits secretly deriding and seducing them, wherein themselves
delight to jeer at, and deceive others.
Among such as these, in that unsettled age of mine, learned I
books of eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent, out of a
damnable and vainglorious end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary
course of study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech
almost all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains
an exhortation to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius."
But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to
Thyself O Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. Every
vain hope at once became worthless to me; and I longed with an
incredibly burning desire for an immortality of wisdom, and began
now to arise, that I might return to Thee. For not to sharpen
my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with my mother's
allowances, in that my nineteenth year, my father being dead two
years before), not to sharpen my tongue did I employ that book;
nor did it infuse into me its style, but its matter.
How did I burn then, my God, how did I burn to re-mount from earthly
things to Thee, nor knew I what Thou wouldest do with me? For
with Thee is wisdom. But the love of wisdom is in Greek called
"philosophy," with which that book inflamed me. Some
there be that seduce through philosophy, under a great, and smooth,
and honourable name colouring and disguising their own errors:
and almost all who in that and former ages were such, are in that
book censured and set forth: there also is made plain that wholesome
advice of Thy Spirit, by Thy good and devout servant: Beware lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
And since at that time (Thou, O light of my heart, knowest) Apostolic
Scripture was not known to me, I was delighted with that exhortation,
so far only, that I was thereby strongly roused, and kindled,
and inflamed to love, and seek, and obtain, and hold, and embrace
not this or that sect, but wisdom itself whatever it were; and
this alone checked me thus enkindled, that the name of Christ
was not in it. For this name, according to Thy mercy, O Lord,
this name of my Saviour Thy Son, had my tender heart, even with
my mother's milk, devoutly drunk in, and deeply treasured; and
whatsoever was without that name, though never so learned, polished,
or true, took not entire hold of me.
I resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I
might see what they were. But behold, I see a thing not understood
by the proud, nor laid open to children, lowly in access, in its
recesses lofty, and veiled with mysteries; and I was not such
as could enter into it, or stoop my neck to follow its steps.
For not as I now speak, did I feel when I turned to those Scriptures;
but they seemed to me unworthy to be compared to the stateliness
of Tully: for my swelling pride shrunk from their lowliness, nor
could my sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet were they
such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to be a
little one; and, swollen with pride, took myself to be a great
one.