O madness, which knowest not how to love
men, like men! O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently
the lot of man! I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted;
had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and
bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose
it, I found not. Not in calm groves, not in games and music, nor
in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor in the pleasures
of the bed and the couch; nor (finally) in books or poesy, found
it repose. All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light; whatsoever
was not what he was, was revolting and hateful, except groaning
and tears. For in those alone found I a little refreshment. But
when my soul was withdrawn from them a huge load of misery weighed
me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee
to lighten; I knew it; but neither could nor would; the more,
since, when I thought of Thee, Thou wert not to me any solid or
substantial thing. For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom,
and my error was my God. If I offered to discharge my load thereon,
that it might rest, it glided through the void, and came rushing
down again on me; and I had remained to myself a hapless spot,
where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For whither should
my heart flee from my heart? Whither should I flee from myself?
Whither not follow myself? And yet I fled out of my country; for
so should mine eyes less look for him, where they were not wont
to see him. And thus from Thagaste, I came to Carthage.
Times lose no time; nor do they roll idly by; through our senses
they work strange operations on the mind. Behold, they went and
came day by day, and by coming and going, introduced into my mind
other imaginations and other remembrances; and little by little
patched me up again with my old kind of delights, unto which that
my sorrow gave way. And yet there succeeded, not indeed other
griefs, yet the causes of other griefs. For whence had that former
grief so easily reached my very inmost soul, but that I had poured
out my soul upon the dust, in loving one that must die, as if
he would never die? For what restored and refreshed me chiefly
was the solaces of other friends, with whom I did love, what instead
of Thee I loved; and this was a great fable, and protracted lie,
by whose adulterous stimulus, our soul, which lay itching in our
ears, was being defiled. But that fable would not die to me, so
oft as any of my friends died. There were other things which in
them did more take my mind; to talk and jest together, to do kind
offices by turns; to read together honied books; to play the fool
or be earnest together; to dissent at times without discontent,
as a man might with his own self; and even with the seldomness
of these dissentings, to season our more frequent consentings;
sometimes to teach, and sometimes learn; long for the absent with
impatience; and welcome the coming with joy. These and the like
expressions, proceeding out of the hearts of those that loved
and were loved again, by the countenance, the tongue, the eyes,
and a thousand pleasing gestures, were so much fuel to melt our
souls together, and out of many make but one.
This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a man's
conscience condemns itself, if he love not him that loves him
again, or love not again him that loves him, looking for nothing
from his person but indications of his love. Hence that mourning,
if one die, and darkenings of sorrows, that steeping of the heart
in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness; and upon the loss
of life of the dying, the death of the living. Blessed whoso loveth
Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thee. For he alone
loses none dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who cannot
be lost. And who is this but our God, the God that made heaven
and earth, and filleth them, because by filling them He created
them? Thee none loseth, but who leaveth. And who leaveth Thee,
whither goeth or whither fleeth he, but from Thee well-pleased,
to Thee displeased? For where doth he not find Thy law in his
own punishment? And Thy law is truth, and truth Thou.
Turn us, O God of Hosts, show us Thy countenance, and we shall
be whole. For whithersoever the soul of man turns itself, unless
toward Thee, it is riveted upon sorrows, yea though it is riveted
on things beautiful. And yet they, out of Thee, and out of the
soul, were not, unless they were from Thee. They rise, and set;
and by rising, they begin as it were to be; they grow, that they
may be perfected; and perfected, they wax old and wither; and
all grow not old, but all wither. So then when they rise and tend
to be, the more quickly they grow that they may be, so much the
more they haste not to be. This is the law of them . Thus much
hast Thou allotted them, because they are portions of things,
which exist not all at once, but by passing away and succeeding,
they together complete that universe, whereof they are portions.
And even thus is our speech completed by signs giving forth a
sound: but this again is not perfected unless one word pass away
when it hath sounded its part, that another may succeed. Out of
all these things let my soul praise Thee, O God, Creator of all;
yet let not my soul be riveted unto these things with the glue
of love, through the senses of the body. For they go whither they
were to go, that they might not be; and they rend her with pestilent
longings, because she longs to be, yet loves to repose in what
she loves. But in these things is no place of repose; they abide
not, they flee; and who can follow them with the senses of the
flesh? Yea, who can grasp them, when they are hard by? For the
sense of the flesh is slow, because it is the sense of the flesh;
and thereby is it bounded. It sufficeth for that it was made for;
but it sufficeth not to stay things running their course from
their appointed starting-place to the end appointed. For in Thy
Word, by which they are created, they hear their decree, "hence
and hitherto."