Monday
BOOK FIVESt. Augustine's twenty-ninth year. Faustus, a snare of
Satan to many, made an instrument of deliverance to St. Augustine,
by showing the ignorance of the Manichees on those things, wherein
they professed to have divine knowledge. Augustine gives up all
thought of going further among the Manichees: is guided to Rome
and Milan, where he hears St. Ambrose, leaves the Manichees, and
becomes again a Catechumen in the Church Catholic.
ACCEPT the sacrifice of my confessions from
the ministry of my tongue, which Thou hast formed and stirred
up to confess unto Thy name. Heal Thou all my bones, and let them
say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee? For he who confesses to Thee
doth not teach Thee what takes place within him; seeing a closed
heart closes not out Thy eye, nor can man's hard-heartedness thrust
back Thy hand: for Thou dissolvest it at Thy will in pity or in
vengeance, and nothing can hide itself from Thy heat. But let
my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess
Thy own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee. Thy whole creation
ceaseth not, nor is silent in Thy praises; neither the spirit
of man with voice directed unto Thee, nor creation animate or
inanimate, by the voice of those who meditate thereon: that so
our souls may from their weariness arise towards Thee, leaning
on those things which Thou hast created, and passing on to Thyself,
who madest them wonderfully; and there is refreshment and true
strength. Let the restless, the godless, depart and flee from
Thee; yet Thou seest them, and dividest the darkness. And behold,
the universe with them is fair, though they are foul. And how
have they injured Thee? Or how have they disgraced Thy government,
which, from the heaven to this lowest earth, is just and perfect?
For whither fled they, when they fled from Thy presence? or where
dost not Thou find them? But they fled, that they might not see
Thee seeing them, and, blinded, might stumble against Thee (because
Thou forsakest nothing Thou hast made); that the unjust, I say,
might stumble upon Thee, and justly be hurt; withdrawing themselves
from Thy gentleness, and stumbling at Thy uprightness, and falling
upon their own ruggedness. Ignorant, in truth, that Thou art every
where, Whom no place encompasseth! And Thou alone art near, even
to those that remove far from Thee. Let them then be turned, and
seek Thee; because not as they have forsaken their Creator, hast
Thou forsaken Thy creation. Let them be turned and seek Thee;
and behold, Thou art there in their heart, in the heart of those
that confess to Thee, and cast themselves upon Thee, and weep
in Thy bosom, after all their rugged ways. Then dost Thou gently
wipe away their tears, and they weep the more, and joy in weeping;
even for that Thou, Lord, -- not man of flesh and blood, but --
Thou, Lord, who madest them, re-makest and comfortest them. But
where was I, when I was seeking Thee? And Thou wert before me,
but I had gone away from Thee; nor did I find myself, how much
less Thee!
I would lay open before my God that nine-and-twentieth year of
mine age. There had then come to Carthage a certain Bishop of
the Manichees, Faustus by name, a great snare of the Devil, and
many were entangled by him through that lure of his smooth language:
which though I did commend, yet could I separate from the truth
of the things which I was earnest to learn: nor did I so much
regard the service of oratory as the science which this Faustus,
so praised among them, set before me to feed upon. Fame had before
bespoken him most knowing in all valuable learning, and exquisitely
skilled in the liberal sciences. And since I had read and well
remembered much of the philosophers, I compared some things of
theirs with those long fables of the Manichees, and found the
former the more probable; even although they could only prevail
so far as to make judgment of this lower world, the Lord of it
they could by no means find out. For Thou art great, O Lord, and
hast respect unto the humble, but the proud Thou beholdest afar
off. Nor dost thou draw near, but to the contrite in heart, nor
art found by the proud, no, not though by curious skill they could
number the stars and the sand, and measure the starry heavens,
and track the courses of the planets.
For with their understanding and wit, which Thou bestowedst on
them, they search out these things; and much have they found out;
and foretold, many years before, eclipses of those luminaries,
the sun and moon, -- what day and hour, and how many digits, --
nor did their calculation fail; and it came to pass as they foretold;
and they wrote down the rules they had found out, and these are
read at this day, and out of them do others foretell in what year
and month of the year, and what day of the month, and what hour
of the day, and what part of its light, moon or sun is to be eclipsed,
and so it shall be, as it is foreshowed. At these things men,
that know not this art, marvel and are astonished, and they that
know it, exult, and are puffed up; and by an ungodly pride departing
from Thee, and failing of Thy light, they foresee a failure of
the sun's light, which shall be, so long before, but see not their
own, which is. For they search not religiously whence they have
the wit, wherewith they search out this. And finding that Thou
madest them, they give not themselves up to Thee, to preserve
what Thou madest, nor sacrifice to Thee what they have made themselves;
nor slay their own soaring imaginations, as fowls of the air,
nor their own diving curiosities (wherewith, like the fishes of
the sea, they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss), nor
their own luxuriousness, as beasts of the field, that Thou, Lord,
a consuming fire, mayest burn up those dead cares of theirs, and
re-create themselves immortally.