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Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions
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Chapter II.—That the God Whom We Invoke is in Us, and We in Him.
Chapter III.—Everywhere God Wholly Filleth All Things, But Neither Heaven Nor Earth Containeth Him.
Chapter IV.—The Majesty of God is Supreme, and His Virtues Inexplicable.
Chapter V.—He Seeks Rest in God, and Pardon of His Sins.
Chapter VI.—He Describes His Infancy, and Lauds the Protection and Eternal Providence of God.
Chapter VII.—He Shows by Example that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin.
Chapter XIV.—Why He Despised Greek Literature, and Easily Learned Latin.
Chapter XVII.—He Continues on the Unhappy Method of Training Youth in Literary Subjects.
Chapter I.—He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth.
Chapter VIII.—In His Theft He Loved the Company of His Fellow-Sinners.
Chapter IX.—It Was a Pleasure to Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others.
Chapter X.—With God There is True Rest and Life Unchanging.
Chapter VIII.—He Argues Against the Same as to the Reason of Offences.
Chapter IX.—That the Judgment of God and Men as to Human Acts of Violence, is Different.
Chapter X.—He Reproves the Triflings of the Manichæans as to the Fruits of the Earth.
Chapter V.—Why Weeping is Pleasant to the Wretched.
Chapter VI.—His Friend Being Snatched Away by Death, He Imagines that He Remains Only as Half.
Chapter VII.—Troubled by Restlessness and Grief, He Leaves His Country a Second Time for Carthage.
Chapter VIII.—That His Grief Ceased by Time, and the Consolation of Friends.
Chapter XIII.—Love Originates from Grace and Beauty Enticing Us.
Chapter XIV.—Concerning the Books Which He Wrote “On the Fair and Fit,” Dedicated to Hierius.
Chapter I.—That It Becomes the Soul to Praise God, and to Confess Unto Him.
Chapter II.—On the Vanity of Those Who Wished to Escape the Omnipotent God.
Chapter VI.—Faustus Was Indeed an Elegant Speaker, But Knew Nothing of the Liberal Sciences.
Chapter VIII.—He Sets Out for Rome, His Mother in Vain Lamenting It.
Chapter IX.—Being Attacked by Fever, He is in Great Danger.
Chapter XII.—Professing Rhetoric at Rome, He Discovers the Fraud of His Scholars.
Chapter XIII.—He is Sent to Milan, that He, About to Teach Rhetoric, May Be Known by Ambrose.
Chapter II.—She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains from Honouring the Memory of the Martyrs.
Chapter VI.—On the Source and Cause of True Joy,—The Example of the Joyous Beggar Being Adduced.
Chapter XI.—Being Troubled by His Grievous Errors, He Meditates Entering on a New Life.
Chapter XII.—Discussion with Alypius Concerning a Life of Celibacy.
Chapter XIV.—The Design of Establishing a Common Household with His Friends is Speedily Hindered.
Chapter XV.—He Dismisses One Mistress, and Chooses Another.
Chapter III.—That the Cause of Evil is the Free Judgment of the Will.
Chapter IV.—That God is Not Corruptible, Who, If He Were, Would Not Be God at All.
Chapter VI.—He Refutes the Divinations of the Astrologers, Deduced from the Constellations.
Chapter VII.—He is Severely Exercised as to the Origin of Evil.
Chapter VIII.—By God’s Assistance He by Degrees Arrives at the Truth.
Chapter XI.—That Creatures are Mutable and God Alone Immutable.
Chapter XII.—Whatever Things the Good God Has Created are Very Good.
Chapter XV.—Whatever Is, Owes Its Being to God.
Chapter XVI.—Evil Arises Not from a Substance, But from the Perversion of the Will.
Chapter XVII.—Above His Changeable Mind, He Discovers the Unchangeable Author of Truth.
Chapter XVIII.—Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the Only Way of Safety.
Chapter XIX.—He Does Not Yet Fully Understand the Saying of John, that “The Word Was Made Flesh.”
Chapter XX.—He Rejoices that He Proceeded from Plato to the Holy Scriptures, and Not the Reverse.
Chapter XXI.—What He Found in the Sacred Books Which are Not to Be Found in Plato.
Chapter V.—Of the Causes Which Alienate Us from God.
Chapter VI.—Pontitianus’ Account of Antony, the Founder of Monachism, and of Some Who Imitated Him.
Chapter IX.—That the Mind Commandeth the Mind, But It Willeth Not Entirely.
Chapter II.—As His Lungs Were Affected, He Meditates Withdrawing Himself from Public Favour.
Chapter VI.—He is Baptized at Milan with Alypius and His Son Adeodatus. The Book “De Magistro.”
Chapter X.—A Conversation He Had with His Mother Concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.
Chapter XI.—His Mother, Attacked by Fever, Dies at Ostia.
Chapter XII.—How He Mourned His Dead Mother.
Chapter XIII.—He Entreats God for Her Sins, and Admonishes His Readers to Remember Her Piously.
Chapter I.—In God Alone is the Hope and Joy of Man.
Chapter III.—He Who Confesseth Rightly Unto God Best Knoweth Himself.
Chapter IV.—That in His Confessions He May Do Good, He Considers Others.
Chapter V.—That Man Knoweth Not Himself Wholly.
Chapter VII.—That God is to Be Found Neither from the Powers of the Body Nor of the Soul.
Chapter VIII.——Of the Nature and the Amazing Power of Memory.
Chapter XI.—What It is to Learn and to Think.
Chapter XII.—On the Recollection of Things Mathematical.
Chapter XIII.—Memory Retains All Things.
Chapter XV.—In Memory There are Also Images of Things Which are Absent.
Chapter XVI.—The Privation of Memory is Forgetfulness.
Chapter XVII.—God Cannot Be Attained Unto by the Power of Memory, Which Beasts and Birds Possess.
Chapter XVIII.—A Thing When Lost Could Not Be Found Unless It Were Retained in the Memory.
Chapter XIX.—What It is to Remember.
Chapter XX.—We Should Not Seek for God and the Happy Life Unless We Had Known It.
Chapter XXI.—How a Happy Life May Be Retained in the Memory.
Chapter XXII.—A Happy Life is to Rejoice in God, and for God.
Chapter XXIII.—All Wish to Rejoice in the Truth.
Chapter XXIV.—He Who Finds Truth, Finds God.
Chapter XXV.—He is Glad that God Dwells in His Memory.
Chapter XXVI.—God Everywhere Answers Those Who Take Counsel of Him.
Chapter XXVII.—He Grieves that He Was So Long Without God.
Chapter XXVIII.—On the Misery of Human Life.
Chapter XXIX.—All Hope is in the Mercy of God.
Chapter XXX.—Of the Perverse Images of Dreams, Which He Wishes to Have Taken Away.
Chapter XXXII.—Of the Charms of Perfumes Which are More Easily Overcome.
Chapter XXXV.—Another Kind of Temptation is Curiosity, Which is Stimulated by the Lust of the Eyes.
Chapter XXXVI.—A Third Kind is “Pride” Which is Pleasing to Man, Not to God.
Chapter XXXVII.—He is Forcibly Goaded on by the Love of Praise.
Chapter XXXVIII.—Vain-Glory is the Highest Danger.
Chapter XXXIX.—Of the Vice of Those Who, While Pleasing Themselves, Displease God.
Chapter XL.—The Only Safe Resting-Place for the Soul is to Be Found in God.
Chapter XLI.—Having Conquered His Triple Desire, He Arrives at Salvation.
Chapter XLII.—In What Manner Many Sought the Mediator.
Chapter I.—By Confession He Desires to Stimulate Towards God His Own Love and That of His Readers.
Chapter II.—He Begs of God that Through the Holy Scriptures He May Be Led to Truth.
Chapter III.—He Begins from the Creation of the World—Not Understanding the Hebrew Text.
Chapter IV.—Heaven and Earth Cry Out that They Have Been Created by God.
Chapter V.—God Created the World Not from Any Certain Matter, But in His Own Word.
Chapter VI.—He Did Not, However, Create It by a Sounding and Passing Word.
Chapter VII.—By His Co-Eternal Word He Speaks, and All Things are Done.
Chapter IX.—Wisdom and the Beginning.
Chapter X.—The Rashness of Those Who Inquire What God Did Before He Created Heaven and Earth.
Chapter XII.—What God Did Before the Creation of the World.
Chapter XIII.—Before the Times Created by God, Times Were Not.
Chapter XIV.—Neither Time Past Nor Future, But the Present Only, Really is.
Chapter XV.—There is Only a Moment of Present Time.
Chapter XVI.—Time Can Only Be Perceived or Measured While It is Passing.
Chapter XVII.—Nevertheless There is Time Past and Future.
Chapter XVIII.—Past and Future Times Cannot Be Thought of But as Present.
Chapter XIX.—We are Ignorant in What Manner God Teaches Future Things.
Chapter XX.—In What Manner Time May Properly Be Designated.
Chapter XXI.—How Time May Be Measured.
Chapter XXII.—He Prays God that He Would Explain This Most Entangled Enigma.
Chapter XXIII.—That Time is a Certain Extension.
Chapter XXIV.—That Time is Not a Motion of a Body Which We Measure by Time.
Chapter XXV.—He Calls on God to Enlighten His Mind.
Chapter XXVI.—We Measure Longer Events by Shorter in Time.
Chapter XXVII.—Times are Measured in Proportion as They Pass by.
Chapter XXVIII.—Time in the Human Mind, Which Expects, Considers, and Remembers.
Chapter XXX.—Again He Refutes the Empty Question, “What Did God Before the Creation of the World?”
Chapter XXXI.—How the Knowledge of God Differs from that of Man.
Chapter I .—The Discovery of Truth is Difficult, But God Has Promised that He Who Seeks Shall Find.
Chapter II.—Of the Double Heaven,—The Visible, and the Heaven of Heavens.
Chapter III.—Of the Darkness Upon the Deep, and of the Invisible and Formless Earth.
Chapter IV.—From the Formlessness of Matter, the Beautiful World Has Arisen.
Chapter V.—What May Have Been the Form of Matter.
Chapter VI.—He Confesses that at One Time He Himself Thought Erroneously of Matter.
Chapter VII.—Out of Nothing God Made Heaven and Earth.
Chapter XI.—What May Be Discovered to Him by God.
Chapter XII.—From the Formless Earth God Created Another Heaven and a Visible and Formed Earth.
Chapter XIV.—Of the Depth of the Sacred Scripture, and Its Enemies.
Chapter XV.—He Argues Against Adversaries Concerning the Heaven of Heavens.
Chapter XVI.—He Wishes to Have No Intercourse with Those Who Deny Divine Truth.
Chapter XVII.—He Mentions Five Explanations of the Words of Genesis I. I.
Chapter XVIII.—What Error is Harmless in Sacred Scripture.
Chapter XIX.—He Enumerates the Things Concerning Which All Agree.
Chapter XX.—Of the Words, “In the Beginning,” Variously Understood.
Chapter XXI.—Of the Explanation of the Words, “The Earth Was Invisible.”
Chapter XXIII.—Two Kinds of Disagreements in the Books to Be Explained.
Chapter XXVI.—What He Might Have Asked of God Had He Been Enjoined to Write the Book of Genesis.
Chapter XXVII.—The Style of Speaking in the Book of Genesis is Simple and Clear.
Chapter XXIX.—Concerning the Opinion of Those Who Explain It “At First He Made.”
Chapter XXX.—In the Great Diversity of Opinions, It Becomes All to Unite Charity and Divine Truth.
Chapter XXXI.—Moses is Supposed to Have Perceived Whatever of Truth Can Be Discovered in His Words.
Chapter I.—He Calls Upon God, and Proposes to Himself to Worship Him.
Chapter II.—All Creatures Subsist from the Plenitude of Divine Goodness.
Chapter III.—Genesis I. 3,—Of “Light,”—He Understands as It is Seen in the Spiritual Creature.
Chapter V.—He Recognises the Trinity in the First Two Verses of Genesis.
Chapter VI.—Why the Holy Ghost Should Have Been Mentioned After the Mention of Heaven and Earth.
Chapter VII.—That the Holy Spirit Brings Us to God.
Chapter VIII.—That Nothing Whatever, Short of God, Can Yield to the Rational Creature a Happy Rest.
Chapter IX.—Why the Holy Spirit Was Only “Borne Over” The Waters.
Chapter X.—That Nothing Arose Save by the Gift of God.
Chapter XIII.—That the Renewal of Man is Not Completed in This World.
Chapter XV.—Allegorical Explanation of the Firmament and Upper Works, Ver. 6.
Chapter XVI.—That No One But the Unchangeable Light Knows Himself.
Chapter XVII.—Allegorical Explanation of the Sea and the Fruit-Bearing Earth—Verses 9 and 11.
Chapter XVIII.—Of the Lights and Stars of Heaven—Of Day and Night, Ver. 14.
Chapter XIX.—All Men Should Become Lights in the Firmament of Heaven.
Chapter XXII.—He Explains the Divine Image (Ver. 26) of the Renewal of the Mind.
Chapter XXIII.—That to Have Power Over All Things (Ver. 26) is to Judge Spiritually of All.
Chapter XXV.—He Explains the Fruits of the Earth (Ver. 29) of Works of Mercy.
Chapter XXXI.—We Do Not See “That It Was Good” But Through the Spirit of God Which is in Us.
Chapter XXXII.—Of the Particular Works of God, More Especially of Man.
Chapter XXXIII.—The World Was Created by God Out of Nothing.
Chapter XXXV.—He Prays God for that Peace of Rest Which Hath No Evening.
Chapter XXXVII.—Of Rest in God Who Ever Worketh, and Yet is Ever at Rest.
Chapter V.—He Rejects the Sacred Scriptures as Too Simple, and as Not to Be Compared with the Dignity of Tully.
9. I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. And behold, I perceive something not comprehended by the proud, not disclosed to children, but lowly as you approach, sublime as you advance, and veiled in mysteries; and I was not of the number of those who could enter into it, or bend my neck to follow its steps. For not as when now I speak did I feel when I tuned towards those Scriptures,108 In connection with the opinion Augustin formed of the Scriptures before and after his conversion, it is interesting to recall Fénélon’s glowing description of the literary merit of the Bible. The whole passage might well be quoted did space permit:—“L’Ecriture surpasse en naïveté, en vivacité, en grandeur, tous les écrivains de Rome et de la Grèce. Jamais Homère même n’a approché de la sublimité de Moïse dans ses cantiques.…Jamais nulle ode Grecque ou Latine n’a pu atteindre à la hauteur des Psaumes.…Jamais Homerè ni aucun autre poëte n’a égalé Isaïe peignant la majesté de Dieu.…Tantôt ce prophète à toute la douceur et toute la tendresse d’une églogue, dans les riantes peintures qu’il fait de la paix, tantôt il s’élève jusqu’ à laisser tout au-dessous de lui. Mais qu’y a-t-il, dans l’antiquité profane, de comparable au tendre Jérémie, déplorant les maux de son peuple; ou à Nahum, voyant de loin, en esprit, tomber la superbe Ninive sous les efforts d’une armée innombrable? On croit voir cette armée, ou croit entendre le bruit des armes et des chariots; tout est dépeint d’une manière vive qui saisit l’imagination; il laisse Homère loin derrière lui.…Enfin, il y a autant de différence entre les poëtes profanes et les prophètes, qu’il y en a entre le véritable enthousiasme et le faux.”—Sur l’ Eloq. de la Chaire, Dial. iii. but they appeared to me to be unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully; for my inflated pride shunned their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit pierce their inner meaning.109 That is probably the “spiritual” meaning on which Ambrose (vi. 6, below) laid so much emphasis. How different is the attitude of mind indicated in xi. 3 from the spiritual pride which beset him at this period of his life! When converted he became as a little child, and ever looked to God as a Father, from whom he must receive both light and strength. He speaks, on Ps. cxlvi., of the Scriptures, which were plain to “the little ones,” being obscured to the mocking spirit of the Manichæans. See also below, iii. 14, note. Yet, truly, were they such as would develope in little ones; but I scorned to be a little one, and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as a great one.
CAPUT V. Fastidiit sacras Litteras propter simplicitatem stili.
9. Itaque institui animum intendere in Scripturas sanctas, ut viderem quales essent. Et ecce video rem non compertam superbis, neque nudatam pueris; sed incessu humilem, successu excelsam et velatam mysteriis: et non eram ego talis ut intrare in eam possem, aut inclinare cervicem ad ejus gressus. Non enim sicut modo loquor, ita sensi cum attendi ad illam Scripturam: sed visa est mihi indigna quam Tullianae dignitati compararem. Tumor enim meus refugiebat modum ejus; et acies mea non penetrabat interiora ejus. Verumtamen illa erat quae cresceret cum parvulis; sed ego dedignabar esse parvulus, et turgidus fastu mihi grandis videbar.