Thursday
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.
My zeal for the writings of Manicheus being
thus blunted, and despairing yet more of their other teachers,
seeing that in divers things which perplexed me, he, so renowned
among them, had so turned out; I began to engage with him in the
study of that literature, on which he also was much set (and which
as rhetoric-reader I was at that time teaching young students
at Carthage), and to read with him, either what himself desired
to hear, or such as I judged fit for his genius. But all my efforts
whereby I had purposed to advance in that sect, upon knowledge
of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I detached myself
from them altogether, but as one finding nothing better, I had
settled to be content meanwhile with what I had in whatever way
fallen upon, unless by chance something more eligible should dawn
upon me. Thus that Faustus, to so many a snare of death, had now,
neither willing nor witting it, begun to loosen that wherein I
was taken. For Thy hands, O my God, in the secret purpose of Thy
providence, did not forsake my soul; and out of my mother's heart's
blood, through her tears night and day poured out, was a sacrifice
offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst deal with me by wondrous
ways. Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps of a man are ordered
by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how shall we obtain
salvation, but from Thy hand, re-making what it made?
Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome,
and to teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage. And
how I was persuaded to this, I will not neglect to confess to
Thee: because herein also the deepest recesses of Thy wisdom,
and Thy most present mercy to us, must be considered and confessed.
I did not wish therefore to go to Rome, because higher gains and
higher dignities were warranted me by my friends who persuaded
me to this (though even these things had at that time an influence
over my mind), but my chief and almost only reason was, that I
heard that young men studied there more peacefully, and were kept
quiet under a restraint of more regular discipline; so that they
did not, at their pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of
one whose pupils they were not, nor were even admitted without
his permission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among the scholars
a most disgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in audaciously,
and with gestures almost frantic, disturb all order which any
one hath established for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages
they commit, with a wonderful stolidity, punishable by law, did
not custom uphold them; that custom evincing them to be the more
miserable, in that they now do as lawful what by Thy eternal law
shall never be lawful; and they think they do it unpunished, whereas
they are punished with the very blindness whereby they do it,
and suffer incomparably worse than what they do. The manners then
which, when a student, I would not make my own, I was fain as
a teacher to endure in others: and so I was well pleased to go
where, all that knew it, assured me that the like was not done.
But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of the living;
that I might change my earthly dwelling for the salvation of my
soul, at Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn
from it; and at Rome didst proffer me allurements, whereby I might
be drawn thither, by men in love with a dying life, the one doing
frantic, the other promising vain, things; and, to correct my
steps, didst secretly use their and my own perverseness. For both
they who disturbed my quiet were blinded with a disgraceful frenzy,
and they who invited me elsewhere savoured of earth. And I, who
here detested real misery, was there seeking unreal happiness.
But why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet
showedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, who grievously bewailed
my journey, and followed me as far as the sea. But I deceived
her, holding me by force, that either she might keep me back or
go with me, and I feigned that I had a friend whom I could not
leave, till he had a fair wind to sail. And I lied to my mother,
and such a mother, and escaped: for this also hast Thou mercifully
forgiven me, preserving me, thus full of execrable defilements,
from the waters of the sea, for the water of Thy Grace; whereby
when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother's eyes should be
dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under her
face. And yet refusing to return without me, I scarcely persuaded
her to stay that night in a place hard by our ship, where was
an Oratory in memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I privily
departed, but she was not behind in weeping and prayer. And what,
O Lord, was she with so many tears asking of Thee, but that Thou
wouldest not suffer me to sail? But Thou, in the depth of Thy
counsels and hearing the main point of her desire, regardedst
not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me what she ever
asked. The wind blew and swelled our sails, and withdrew the shore
from our sight; and she on the morrow was there, frantic with
sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears, who
didst then disregard them; whilst through my desires, Thou wert
hurrying me to end all desire, and the earthly part of her affection
to me was chastened by the allotted scourge of sorrows. For she
loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many;
and she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her
out of my absence. She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail,
and by this agony there appeared in her the inheritance of Eve,
with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she had brought forth. And
yet, after accusing my treachery and hard-heartedness, she betook
herself again to intercede to Thee for me, went to her wonted
place, and I to Rome.