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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 XVI.—He Very Easily Understood the Liberal Arts and the Categories of Aristotle, But Without True Fruit.
28. And what did it profit me that, when scarce twenty years old, a book of Aristotle’s, entitled The Ten Predicaments, fell into my hands,—on whose very name I hung as on something great and divine, when my rhetoric master of Carthage, and others who were esteemed learned, referred to it with cheeks swelling with pride,—I read it alone and understood it? And on my conferring with others, who said that with the assistance of very able masters—who not only explained it orally, but drew many things in the dust221 As the mathematicians did their figures, in dust or sand.—they scarcely understood it, and could tell me no more about it than I had acquired in reading it by myself alone? And the book appeared to me to speak plainly enough of substances, such as man is, and of their qualities,—such as the figure of a man, of what kind it is; and his stature, how many feet high; and his relationship, whose brother he is; or where placed, or when born; or whether he stands or sits, or is shod or armed, or does or suffers anything; and whatever innumerable things might be classed under these nine categories,222 “The categories enumerated by Aristotle are ὀυσία, πόσον, ποῖον, πρόστι, ποῦ, πότε, κείσθαι, ἔχειν, ποιεῖν, πάσχειν; which are usually rendered, as adequately as perhaps they can be in our language, substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, possession, action, suffering. The catalogue (which certainly is but a very crude one) has been by some writers enlarged, as it is evident may easily be done by subdividing some of the heads; and by others curtailed, as it is no less evident that all may ultimately be referred to the two heads of substance and attribute, or, in the language of some logicians, ‘accident’” (Whately’s Logic, iv. 2, sec. 1, note). “These are called in Latin the prædicaments, because they can be said or predicated in the same sense of all other terms, as well as of all the objects denoted by them, whereas no other term can be correctly said of them, because no other is employed to express the full extent of their meaning” (Gillies, Analysis of Aristotle, c. 2).—of which I have given some examples,—or under that chief category of substance.
29. What did all this profit me, seeing it even hindered me, when, imagining that whatsoever existed was comprehended in those ten categories, I tried so to understand, O my God, Thy wonderful and unchangeable unity as if Thou also hadst been subjected to Thine own greatness or beauty, so that they should exist in Thee as their subject, like as in bodies, whereas Thou Thyself art Thy greatness and beauty? But a body is not great or fair because it is a body, seeing that, though it were less great or fair, it should nevertheless be a body. But that which I had conceived of Thee was falsehood, not truth,—fictions of my misery, not the supports of Thy blessedness. For Thou hadst commanded, and it was done in me, that the earth should bring forth briars and thorns to me,223 Isa. xxxii. 13. and that with labour I should get my bread.224 Gen. iii. 19.
30. And what did it profit me that I, the base slave of vile affections, read unaided, and understood, all the books that I could get of the so-called liberal arts? And I took delight in them, but knew not whence came whatever in them was true and certain. For my back then was to the light, and my face towards the things enlightened; whence my face, with which I discerned the things enlightened, was not itself enlightened. Whatever was written either on rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, or arithmetic, did I, without any great difficulty, and without the teaching of any man, understand, as Thou knowest, O Lord my God, because both quickness of comprehension and acuteness of perception are Thy gifts. Yet did I not thereupon sacrifice to Thee. So, then, it served not to my use, but rather to my destruction, since I went about to get so good a portion of my substance225 Luke xv. 12. into my own power; and I kept not my strength for Thee,226 Ps. lix. 9, Vulg. but went away from Thee into a far country, to waste it upon harlotries.227 Luke xv. 13. For what did good abilities profit me, if I did not employ them to good uses? For I did not perceive that those arts were acquired with great difficulty, even by the studious and those gifted with genius, until I endeavoured to explain them to such; and he was the most proficient in them who followed my explanations not too slowly.
31. But what did this profit me, supposing that Thou, O Lord God, the Truth, wert a bright and vast body,228 See iii. 12; iv. 3, 12; v. 19. and I a piece of that body? Perverseness too great! But such was I. Nor do I blush, O my God, to confess to Thee Thy mercies towards me, and to call upon Thee—I, who blushed not then to avow before men my blasphemies, and to bark against Thee. What profited me then my nimble wit in those sciences and all those knotty volumes, disentangled by me without help from a human master, seeing that I erred so odiously, and with such sacrilegious baseness, in the doctrine of piety? Or what impediment was it to Thy little ones to have a far slower wit, seeing that they departed not far from Thee, that in the nest of Thy Church they might safely become fledged, and nourish the wings of charity by the food of a sound faith? O Lord our God, under the shadow of Thy wings let us hope,229 Ps. xxxvi. 7. defend us, and carry us. Thou wilt carry us both when little, and even to grey hairs wilt Thou carry us;230 Isa. xlvi. 4. for our firmness, when it is Thou, then is it firmness; but when it is our own, then it is infirmity. Our good lives always with Thee, from which when we are averted we are perverted. Let us now, O Lord, return, that we be not overturned, because with Thee our good lives without any eclipse, which good Thou Thyself art.231 See xi. sec. 5, note, below. And we need not fear lest we should find no place unto which to return because we fell away from it; for when we were absent, our home—Thy Eternity—fell not.
CAPUT XVI. Categorias Aristotelis et liberalium artium libros per se intellexit.
28. Et quid mihi proderat quod annos natus ferme viginti, cum in manus meas venissent Aristotelica quaedam, quas appellant decem Categorias; quarum nomine, cum eas rhetor Carthaginensis magister meus buccis typho crepantibus commemoraret, et alii qui docti habebantur, tanquam in nescio quid magnum et divinum suspensus inhiabam; legi eas solus et intellexi? Quas cum contulissem cum eis qui se dicebant vix eas, magistris eruditissimis, non loquentibus tantum, sed multa in pulvere depingentibus, intellexisse; nihil inde aliud mihi dicere potuerunt, quam ego solus apud meipsum legens cognoveram, et satis aperte mihi videbantur loquentes de substantiis, sicuti est homo; et quae in illis essent, sicuti est figura hominis; qualis sit et statura, quot pedum sit; et cognatio, cujus frater sit; aut ubi sit constitutus; aut quando natus; aut stet, aut sedeat; aut calceatus vel armatus sit; aut aliquid faciat; aut patiatur aliquid: et quaecumque in his novem generibus, quorum exempli gratia quaedam posui, vel in ipso substantiae genere innumerabilia reperiuntur.
29. Quid hoc mihi proderat, quando et oberat? cum etiam te, Deus meus, mirabiliter simplicem atque incommutabilem, illis decem praedicamentis putans quidquid esset omnino comprehensum, sic intelligere 0705 conarer, quasi et tu subjectus esses magnitudini tuae aut pulchritudini, ut illa essent in te quasi in subjecto, sicut in corpore; cum tua magnitudo et tua pulchritudo tu ipse sis: corpus autem non eo sit magnum et pulchrum quo corpus est; quia etsi minus magnum et minus pulchrum esset, nihilominus corpus esset. Falsitas enim erat quam de te cogitabam, non veritas; et figmenta miseriae meae, non firmamenta beatitudinis tuae. Jusseras enim, et ita fiebat in me, ut terra spinas et tribulos pareret mihi, et cum labore pervenirem ad panem meum (Gen. III, 18, 19).
30. Et quid mihi proderat quod omnes libros artium quas liberales vocant, tunc nequissimus malarum cupiditatum servus per meipsum legi et intellexi, quoscumque legere potui? Et gaudebam in eis, et nesciebam unde esset quidquid ibi verum et certum esset. Dorsum enim habebam ad lumen, et ad ea quae illuminantur, faciem: unde ipsa facies mea, qua illuminata cernebam, non illuminabatur. Quidquid de arte loquendi et disserendi, quidquid de dimensionibus figurarum, et de musicis et de numeris, sine magna difficultate, nullo hominum tradente intellexi, scis tu, Domine Deus meus; quia et celeritas intelligendi, et dispiciendi acumen , donum tuum est: sed non inde sacrificabam tibi. Itaque mihi non ad usum, sed ad perniciem magis valebat, quia tam bonam partem substantiae meae sategi habere in potestate: et fortitudinem meam non ad te custodiebam (Psal. LVIII, 10); sed profectus sum abs te in longinquam regionem, ut eam dissiparem in meretrices cupiditates (Luc. XV, 12, 13, 0706 30). Nam quid mihi proderat bona res, non utenti bene? Non enim sentiebam illas artes etiam ab studiosis et ingeniosis difficillime intelligi, nisi cum eis easdem conabar exponere; et erat ille excellentissimus in eis, qui me exponentem non tardius sequeretur.
31. Sed quid mihi hoc proderat, putanti quod tu, Domine Deus veritas, corpus esses lucidum et immensum, et ego frustum de illo corpore? Nimia perversitas! sed sic eram. Nec erubesco, Deus meus, confiteri tibi in me misericordias tuas, et invocare te, qui non erubui tunc profiteri hominibus blasphemias meas, et latrare adversum te. Quid ergo mihi tunc proderat ingenium per illas doctrinas agile, et nullo adminiculo humani magisterii tot nodosissimi libri enodati, cum deformiter et sacrilega turpitudine in doctrina pietatis errarem? Aut quid tantum oberat parvulis tuis longe tardius ingenium, cum a te longe non recederent, ut in nido Ecclesiae tuae tuti plumescerent, et alas charitatis alimento sanae fidei nutrirent? O Domine, Deus noster, in velamento alarum tuarum speremus (Psal. LXII, 8); et protege nos, et porta nos. Tu portabis et parvulos, et usque ad canos tu portabis (Isai. XLVI, 4): quoniam firmitas nostra quando tu es, tunc est firmitas; cum autem nostra est, infirmitas est. Vivit apud te semper bonum nostrum; et quia inde aversi sumus, perversi sumus. Revertamur jam, Domine, ut non evertamur; quia vivit apud te sine ullo defectu bonum nostrum, quod tu ipse es: et non timemus ne non sit quo redeamus, quia nos inde ruimus; nobis autem absentibus non ruit domus nostra aeternitas tua.