Therefore I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal and
prating, in whose mouths were the snares of the Devil, limed with
the mixture of the syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, our Comforter. These
names departed not out of their mouth, but so far forth as the
sound only and the noise of the tongue, for the heart was void
of truth. Yet they cried out "Truth, Truth," and spake
much thereof to me, yet it was not in them: but they spake falsehood,
not of Thee only (who truly art Truth), but even of those elements
of this world, Thy creatures. And I indeed ought to have passed
by even philosophers who spake truth concerning them, for love
of Thee, my Father, supremely good, Beauty of all things beautiful.
O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul
pant after Thee, when they often and diversly, and in many and
huge books, echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And
these were the dishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they,
instead of Thee, served up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of
Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thyself, no nor Thy first works.
For Thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works, celestial
though they be, and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even
after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the
Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning:
yet they still set before me in those dishes, glittering fantasies,
than which better were it to love this very sun (which is real
to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by our eyes
deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed
thereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as
Thou art; for Thou wast not these emptinesses, nor was I nourished
by them, but exhausted rather. Food in sleep shows very like our
food awake; yet are not those asleep nourished by it, for they
are asleep. But those were not even any way like to Thee, as Thou
hast now spoken to me; for those were corporeal fantasies, false
bodies, than which these true bodies, celestial or terrestrial,
which with our fleshly sight we behold, are far more certain:
these things the beasts and birds discern as well as we, and they
are more certain than when we fancy them. And again, we do with
more certainty fancy them, than by them conjecture other vaster
and infinite bodies which have no being. Such empty husks was
I then fed on; and was not fed. But Thou, my soul's Love, in looking
for whom I fail, that I may become strong, art neither those bodies
which we see, though in heaven; nor those which we see not there;
for Thou hast created them, nor dost Thou account them among the
chiefest of Thy works. How far then art Thou from those fantasies
of mine, fantasies of bodies which altogether are not, than which
the images of those bodies, which are, are far more certain, and
more certain still the bodies themselves, which yet Thou art not;
no, nor yet the soul, which is the life of the bodies. So then,
better and more certain is the life of the bodies than the bodies.
But Thou art the life of souls, the life of lives, having life
in Thyself; and changest not, life of my soul.
Where then wert Thou then to me, and how far from me? Far verily
was I straying from Thee, barred from the very husks of the swine,
whom with husks I fed. For how much better are the fables of poets
and grammarians than these snares? For verses, and poems, and
"Medea flying," are more profitable truly than these
men's five elements, variously disguised, answering to five dens
of darkness, which have no being, yet slay the believer. For verses
and poems I can turn to true food, and "Medea flying,"
though I did sing, I maintained not; though I heard it sung, I
believed not: but those things I did believe. Woe, woe, by what
steps was I brought down to the depths of hell! Toiling and turmoiling
through want of Truth, since I sought after Thee, my God (to Thee
I confess it, who hadst mercy on me, not as yet confessing), not
according to the understanding of the mind, wherein Thou willedst
that I should excel the beasts, but according to the sense of
the flesh. But Thou wert more inward to me, than my most inward
part; and higher than my highest. I lighted upon that bold woman,
simple and knowing nothing, shadowed out in Solomon, sitting at
the door, and saying, Eat ye bread of secrecies willingly, and
drink ye stolen waters which are sweet: she seduced me, because
she found my soul dwelling abroad in the eye of my flesh, and
ruminating on such food as through it I had devoured.