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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 XLIII.—That Jesus Christ, at the Same Time God and Man, is the True and Most Efficacious Mediator.
68. But the true Mediator, whom in Thy secret mercy Thou hast pointed out to the humble, and didst send, that by His example857 See notes 3, p. 71, and 9 and 11, p. 74, above. also they might learn the same humility—that “Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”858 1 Tim. ii. 5. appeared between mortal sinners and the immortal Just One—mortal with men, just with God; that because the reward of righteousness is life and peace, He might, by righteousness conjoined with God, cancel the death of justified sinners, which He willed to have in common with them.859 Not that our Lord is to be supposed, as some have held, to have been under the law of death in Adam, because “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. xv. 22; see the whole of c. 23, in De Civ. Dei, xiii, and compare ix. sec. 34, note 3, above); for he says in Serm. ccxxxii. 5: “As there was nothing in us from which life could spring, so there was nothing in Him from which death could come.” He laid down His life (John x. 18), and as being partaker of the divine nature, could see no corruption (Acts ii. 27). This is the explanation Augustin gives in his comment on Ps. lxxxv. 5 (quoted in the next section) of Christ’s being “free among the dead.” So also in his De Trin. xiii. 18, he says he was thus free because “solus enim a debito mortis liber est mortuus.” The true analogy between the first and second Adam is surely then to be found in our Lord’s being free from the law of death by reason of His divine nature, and Adam before his transgression being able to avert death by partaking of the Tree of Life. Christ was, it is true, a child of Adam, but a child of Adam miraculously born. See note 3, p. 73, above. Hence He was pointed out to holy men of old; to the intent that they, through faith in His Passion to come,860 See De Trin. iv. 2; and Trench, Hulsean Lectures (1845), latter part of lect. iv. even as we through faith in that which is past, might be saved. For as man He was Mediator; but as the Word He was not between,861 Medius, alluding to mediator immediately before. See his De Civ. Dei, ix. 15, and xi. 2, for an enlargement of this distinction between Christ as man and Christ as the Word. Compare also De Trin. i. 20 and xiii. 13; and Mansel, Bampton Lectures, lect. v. note 20. because equal to God, and God with God, and together with the Holy Spirit862 Some mss. omit Cum spiritu sancto. one God.
69. How hast Thou loved us,863 Christ did not, as in the words of a well-known hymn, “change the wrath to love.” For, as Augustin remarks in a very beautiful passage in Ev. Joh. Tract. cx. 6, God loved us before the foundation of the world, and the reconcilement wrought by Christ must not be “so understood as if the Son reconciled us unto Him in this respect, that He now began to love those whom He formerly hated, in the same way as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so that thereafter they become friends, and mutual love takes the place of their mutual hatred; but we were reconciled unto Him who already loved us, but with whom we were at enmity because of our sin. Whether I say the truth on this let the apostle testify, when he says: ‘God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’” (Rom. v. 8, 9). He similarly applies the text last quoted in his De Trin. xiii. 15. See also ibid. sec. 21, where he speaks of the wrath of God, and ibid. iv. 2. Compare Archbishop Thomson, Bampton Lectures, lect. vii., and note 95. O good Father, who sparedst not Thine only Son, but deliveredst Him up for us wicked ones!864 Rom. viii. 34, which is not “for us wicked ones,” but “for us all,” as the Authorized Version has it; and we must not narrow the words. Augustin, in Ev. Joh. Tract. cx. 2, it will be remembered, when commenting on John xvii. 21, “that they all may be one…that the world may believe Thou hast sent me,” limits “the world” to the believing world, and continues (ibid.sec. 4), “Ipsi sunt enim mundus, non permanens inimicus, qualis est mundis damnationi prædestinatus.” On Christ being a ransom for all, see Archbishop Thomson, Bampton Lectures, lect. vii. part 5, and note 101. How hast Thou loved us, for whom He, who thought it no robbery to be equal with Thee, “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;”865 Phil. ii. 6, 8. He alone “free among the dead,”866 Ps. lxxxviii. 5; see sec. 68, note, above. that had power to lay down His life, and power to take it again;867 John x. 18. for us was He unto Thee both Victor and Victim, and the Victor as being the Victim; for us was He unto Thee both Priest and Sacrifice, and Priest as being the Sacrifice; of slaves making us Thy sons, by being born of Thee, and serving us. Rightly, then, is my hope strongly fixed on Him, that Thou wilt heal all my diseases868 Ps. ciii. 3. by Him who sitteth at Thy right hand and maketh intercession for us;869 Rom. viii. 34. else should I utterly despair.870 See note 11, p. 140, above. For numerous and great are my infirmities, yea, numerous and great are they; but Thy medicine is greater. We might think that Thy Word was removed from union with man, and despair of ourselves had He not been “made flesh and dwelt among us.”871 John i. 14.
70. Terrified by my sins and the load of my misery, I had resolved in my heart, and meditated flight into the wilderness;872 Ps. lv. 7. but Thou didst forbid me, and didst strengthen me, saying, therefore, Christ “died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them.”873 2 Cor. v. 15. Behold, O Lord, I cast my care upon Thee,874 Ps. lv. 22. that I may live, and “behold wondrous things out of Thy law.”875 Ps. cxix. 18. Thou knowest my unskilfulness and my infirmities; teach me, and heal me. Thine only Son—He “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”876 Col. ii. 3. Compare Dean Mansel, Bampton Lectures, lect. v. and note 22.—hath redeemed me with His blood. Let not the proud speak evil of me,877 Ps. cxix. 122, Old Ver. He may perhaps here allude to the spiritual pride of the Donatists, who, holding rigid views as to purity of discipline, disparaged both his life and doctrine, pointing to his Manichæanism and the sinfulness of life before baptism. In his Answer to Petilian, iii. 11, 20, etc., and Serm. 3, sec. 19, on Ps. xxxvi., he alludes at length to the charges brought against him, referring then finally to his own confessions in book iii. above. because I consider my ransom, and eat and drink, and distribute; and poor, desire to be satisfied from Him, together with those who eat and are satisfied, and they praise the Lord that seek him.878 Ps. xxii. 26. Augustin probably alludes here to the Lord’s Supper, in accordance with the general Patristic interpretation.
CAPUT XLIII. Christus verus mediator.
68. Verax autem mediator quem secreta tua misericordia demonstrasti humilibus, et misisti ut ejus exemplo etiam ipsam discerent humilitatem, mediator ille Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus, inter mortales peccatores et immortalem justum apparuit; mortalis cum hominibus, justus cum Deo. Ut quoniam stipendium justitiae vita et pax est, per justitiam conjunctam Deo evacuaret mortem justificatorum impiorum , quam cum illis voluit habere communem. Hic demonstratus est antiquis sanctis, ut ita ipsi per fidem futurae passionis ejus, sicut nos per fidem praeteritae, salvi fierent. In quantum enim homo, in tantum mediator; in quantum autem verbum, non medius, quia aequalis Deo, et Deus apud Deum, et simul cum Spiritu sancto unus Deus.
69. Quomodo nos amasti, Pater bone, qui Filio tuo unico non pepercisti, sed pro nobis impiis tradidisti eum! (Rom. VIII, 32.) Quomodo nos amasti pro quibus ille non rapinam arbitratus esse aequalis tibi, factus est subditus usque ad mortem crucis (Philipp. II, 6); unus ille in mortuis liber (Ps. LXXXVII, 6-8), potestatem habens ponendi animam suam, et potestatem habens iterum sumendi eam (Joan. X, 18); pro nobis tibi victor et victima, et ideo victor quia victima; pro nobis tibi sacerdos et sacrificium, et ideo sacerdos quia sacrificium; faciens tibi nos de servis filios, de te nascendo, nobis serviendo! Merito mihi spes valida in illo est, quod sanabis omnes languores meos, per eum qui sedet ad dexteram tuam et te interpellat pro nobis (Rom. VIII, 34); alioquin desperarem. Multi enim et magni sunt iidem languores mei, multi sunt et magni; sed amplior est medicina tua. Potuimus putare Verbum tuum remotum esse a conjunctione hominis, et desperare de nobis, nisi caro fieret et habitaret in nobis.
70. Conterritus peccatis meis et mole miseriae meae agitaveram in corde meditatusque fueram fugam in solitudinem; sed prohibuisti me, et confirmasti me, dicens: Ideo pro omnibus Christus mortuus est, ut qui vivunt, jam non sibi vivant, sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est (II Cor. V, 15). Ecce, Domine, jacto in te curam 0809 meam ut vivam, et considerabo mirabilia de lege tua (Psal. CXVIII, 18). Tu scis imperitiam meam et infirmitatem meam: doce me, et sana me. Ille tuus Unicus in quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae absconditi (Coloss. II, 3), redemit me sanguine suo. 0810 Non calumnientur mihi superbi: quoniam cogito pretium meum, et manduco, et bibo, et erogo, et pauper cupio saturari ex eo inter illos qui edunt et saturantur, et laudant Dominum qui requirunt eum (Ps. XXI, 27.