Confessions, Book 7

That evil and shameful youth of mine was now dead, and I was passing into full manhood. The older I grew, the worse my vanity became. For I could not conceive of any substance but the sort I could see with my own eyes. I no longer thought of you, God, by the analogy of a human body. Ever since I inclined my ear to philosophy I had avoided this error—and I rejoiced to find the truth on this point in the faith of our spiritual mother, your Catholic Church. Yet I could not see how else to conceive you. And I, a man—and such a man!-sought to conceive you, the sovereign and only true God. In my inmost heart, I believed that you are incorruptible and inviolable and unchangeable, because—though I did not know how or why—I could still see plainly and without doubt that the corruptible is inferior to the incorruptible, the inviolable obviously superior to its opposite, and the unchangeable better than the changeable. My heart cried out violently against all phantasms, and with this one clear certainty I tried to brush away the swarm of unclean flies that swarmed around the eyes of my mind. But behold they were scarcely scattered before they gathered again, buzzed against my face, and clouded my vision. I no longer thought of God in the analogy of a human body, yet I was forced to conceive of you to be some kind of body in space, either infused into the world, or infinitely diffused beyond the world—and this was the incorruptible, inviolable, unchangeable substance, which I thought was better than the corruptible, the violable, and the changeable. For whatever I conceived to be deprived of the dimensions of space appeared to me to be nothing, absolutely nothing; not even a void, for if a body is taken out of space, or if space is emptied of all its contents (of earth, water, air, or heaven), yet it remains an empty space—a spacious nothing, as it were.
Being so dull of heart and unclear even to myself, I then held that whatever had neither length nor breadth nor density nor solidity, and did not or could not receive such dimensions, was absolutely nothing. For at that time my mind dwelt only with ideas, which resembled the forms with which my eyes are still familiar, and I could not see that the act of thought, by which I formed those ideas, was itself immaterial, and yet it could not have formed them if it were not itself a measurable entity. So also I thought about you, Life of my life, as stretched out through infinite space, interpenetrating the whole mass of the world, reaching out beyond in all directions, to immensity without end; so that the earth should have you, the heaven have you, all things have you, and all of them be limited in you, while you are placed nowhere at all. As the body of the air above the earth does not bar the passage of the light of the sun, so that the light penetrates it, not by bursting nor dividing, but filling it entirely, so I imagined that the body of heaven and air and sea, and even of the earth, was all open to you and, in all its greatest parts as well as the smallest, was ready to receive your presence by a secret inspiration which, from within or without all, orders all things you have created. This was my conjecture, because I was unable to think of anything else; yet it was untrue. For in this way a greater part of the earth would contain a greater part of you; a smaller part, a smaller fraction of you. All things would be full of you in such a sense that there would be more of you in an elephant than in a sparrow, because one is larger than the other and fills a larger space. And this would make the portions of yourself present in the several portions of the world in fragments, great to the great, small to the small. But you are not like that. But you had not yet enlightened my darkness.

But it was not sufficient for me, Lord, to be able to oppose those deceived deceivers and those mute orators—mute because your Word did not ring out from them—to oppose them with the answer which, in the old Carthaginian days, Nebridius used to pose, shaking all of us who heard it: "What could this imaginary people of darkness, which the Manicheans usually set up as an army opposed to you, have done to you if you had refused to fight?" If they replied that it could have hurt you, they would then have made you violable and corruptible. If, on the other hand, the dark could have done you no harm, then there was no cause for any battle at all; there was less cause for a battle in which a part of you, one of your members, a child of your own substance, should be mixed up with opposing powers, not of your creation; and should be corrupted and deteriorated and changed by them from happiness into misery, so that it could not be delivered and cleansed without your help. This offspring of your substance was supposed to be the human soul to which your Word—free, pure, and entire—could bring help when it was being enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted. But on their hypothesis that Word was itself corruptible because it is one and the same substance as the soul. And therefore if they admitted that your nature—whatever you are—is incorruptible, then all these assertions of theirs are false and should be rejected with horror. But if your substance is corruptible, then this is self-evidently false and should be abhorred as soon as it is uttered. This line of argument, then, was enough against those deceivers who ought to be thrown up from an overfull stomach—for out of this dilemma they could find no way of escape without dreadful sacrilege of mind and tongue, when they think and speak such things about you.

But as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded that you our Lord, the true God, who made not only our souls but our bodies as well—and not only our souls and bodies but all creatures and all things—were free from stain and alteration and in no way mutable, yet I could not readily and clearly understand what was the cause of evil. Whatever it was, I realized that the question must be analyzed in such a way that no answer would force me to believe that the immutable God was mutable, for fear that I would myself become the thing I was seeking out. And so I pursued the search with a quiet mind, now feeling confident that what had been said by the Manicheans—and I shrank from them with my whole heart—could not be true. I now realized that when they asked what was the origin of evil their answer was dictated by a wicked pride, which would rather affirm that your nature is capable of suffering evil than that their own nature is capable of doing it.
And I turned my attention to understanding what I was now told, that free will is the cause of our doing evil and that your just judgment is the cause of our having to suffer from its consequences. But I could not see this clearly. So then, trying to draw the eye of my mind up out of that pit, I was plunged back into it again, and trying often was just as often plunged back down. But one thing lifted me up toward your light: it was that I had come to know that I had a will as certainly as I knew that I had life. When, therefore, I willed or was unwilling to do something, I was utterly certain that it was no one but myself who willed or was unwilling—and immediately I realized that there was the cause of my sin. I could see that what I did against my will I suffered rather than did; and I did not regard such actions as faults, but rather as punishments in which I might quickly confess that I was not unjustly punished, since I believed you to be most just. Who was it that put this in me, and implanted in me the root of bitterness, in spite of the fact that I was altogether the handiwork of my most sweet God? If the devil is to blame, who made the devil himself? And if he was a good angel who by his own wicked will became the devil, how did there happen to be in him that wicked will by which he became a devil, since a good Creator made him wholly a good angel? By these reflections I was again cast down and stultified. Yet I was not plunged into that hell of error—where no man confesses to you—where I thought that you suffered evil, rather than that men do it.

For in my struggle to solve the rest of my difficulties, I now took it as settled truth from then on that the incorruptible must be superior to the corruptible, and I did acknowledge that you, whatever you are, are incorruptible. For there never has been, and never will be, a soul able to conceive of anything better than you, who are the highest and best good. And since most truly and certainly the incorruptible is to be placed above the corruptible—as I now admit it—it followed that I could rise in my thoughts to something better than my God, if you were not incorruptible. When, therefore, I saw that the incorruptible was to be preferred to the corruptible, I saw then where I ought to seek you, and where I should look for the source of evil: that is, the corruption by which your substance can in no way be profaned. For it is obvious that corruption in no way injures our God, by no inclination, by no necessity, by no unforeseen chance—because he is our God, and what he wills is good, and he himself is that good. But to be corrupted is not good. Nor are you compelled to do anything against your will, since your will is not greater than your power. But it would have to be greater if you yourself were greater than yourself—for the will and power of God are God himself. And what can take you by surprise, since you know all, and there is no kind of nature that you do not know? And what more should we say about why that substance which God is cannot be corrupted; because if this were so it could not be God?

And I kept seeking for an answer to the question, Where does evil come from? And I sought it in an evil way, and I did not see the evil in my very search. I marshaled before the sight of my spirit all creation: all that we see of earth and sea and air and stars and trees and animals; and all that we do not see, the firmament of the sky above and all the angels and all spiritual things, for my imagination arranged these also, as if they were bodies, in this place or that. And I pictured to myself your creation as one vast mass, composed of various kinds of bodies—some of which were actually bodies, some of those which I imagined spirits were like. I pictured this mass as vast—of course not in its full dimensions, for these I could not know—but as large as I could possibly think, still only finite on every side. But you, Lord, I imagined as surrounding the mass on every side and penetrating it, still infinite in every direction—as if there were a sea everywhere, and everywhere through measureless space nothing but an infinite sea; and it contained within itself some sort of sponge, huge but still finite, so that the sponge would in all its parts be filled from the immeasurable sea. Thus I conceived your creation itself to be finite, and filled by you, the infinite. And I said, "Behold God, and behold what God has created!" God is good, indeed most mightily and incomparably better than all his works. But yet he who is good has created them good; behold how he encircles and fills them. Where, then, is evil, and where does it come from and how has it crept in? What is its root and what its seed? Has it no being at all? Why, then, do we fear and shun what has no being? Or if we fear it needlessly, then surely that fear is evil by which the heart is unnecessarily stabbed and tortured—and indeed a greater evil since we have nothing real to fear, and yet do fear. Therefore, either what we fear is evil, or the act of fearing is in itself evil. But, then, where does it come from, since God who is good has made all these things good? Indeed, he is the greatest and highest Good, and has created these lesser goods; but both Creator and created are all good. Where, then, does evil come from? Or, again, was there some evil matter out of which he made and formed and ordered it, but left something in his creation that he did not convert into good? But why should this be? Was he powerless to change the whole lump so that no evil would remain in it, if he is the Omnipotent? Finally, why would he make anything at all out of such stuff? Why did he not, rather, annihilate it by his same almighty power? Could evil exist contrary to his will? And if it were from eternity, why did he permit it to be nonexistent for unmeasured intervals of time in the past, and why, then, was he pleased to make something out of it after so long a time? Or, if he wished now all of a sudden to create something, would not an almighty being have chosen to annihilate this evil matter and live by himself—the perfect, true, sovereign, and infinite Good? Or, if it were not good that he who was good should not also be the framer and creator of what was good, then why was that evil matter not removed and brought to nothing, so that he might form good matter, out of which he might then create all things? For he would not be omnipotent if he were not able to create something good without being assisted by that matter which had not been created by himself. I turned such perplexities over in my wretched breast, overwhelmed with gnawing fears that I might die before I discovered the truth. And still the faith of your Christ, our Lord and Savior, as it was taught me by the Catholic Church, stuck fast in my heart. It was still unformed on many points and diverged from the rule of right doctrine, but my mind did not utterly lose it, and every day drank in more and more of it.

By now I had also repudiated the lying divinations and impious absurdities of the astrologers. Let your mercies, out of the depth of my soul, confess this to you also, my God. For you, you only (for who else is it who calls us back from the death of all errors except the Life which does not know how to die and the Wisdom which gives light to minds that need it, although it itself has no need of light—by which the whole universe is governed, even to the fluttering leaves of the trees?)—you alone also provided for my obstinacy with which I struggled against Vindicianus, a sagacious old man, and Nebridius, that remarkably talented young man. The former declared vehemently and the latter frequently—though with some reservation—that no art existed by which we foresee future things. But men's guesses are often helped by chance, and out of many things which they foretold some came true without the predictors' knowing it, since they hit on the truth by making so many guesses. And you also provided a friend for me, who was not a negligent consulter of the astrologers even though he was not thoroughly skilled in the art either—as I said, one who consulted them out of curiosity. He knew a good deal about it, which, he said, he had heard from his father, and he never realized how far his ideas would help to overthrow my opinion of that art. His name was Firminus and he had received a liberal education and was a cultivated rhetorician. It so happened that he consulted me, as one very dear to him, as to what I thought about some affairs of his in which his worldly hopes had risen, viewed in the light of his so-called horoscope. Although I had now begun to lean in this matter toward Nebridius' opinion, I did not altogether refuse to speculate about the matter or to tell him what thoughts still came into my irresolute mind, although I did add that I was almost persuaded now that these were only empty and ridiculous follies. He then told me that his father had been very much interested in such books, and that he had a friend who was as much interested in them as he was himself. They, in combined study and consultation, fanned the flame of their affection for this folly, going so far as to observe the moment when the dumb animals which belonged to their household gave birth to young, and then observed the position of the heavens with regard to them, so as to gather fresh evidence for this so-called art. Moreover, he reported that his father had told him that, at the same time his mother was about to give birth to him [Firminus], a female slave of a friend of his father's was also pregnant. This could not be hidden from her master, who kept records with the most diligent exactness of the birth dates even of his dogs. And so it happened that—under the most careful observations, one for his wife and the other for his servant, with exact calculations of the days, hours, and minutes—both women gave birth at the same moment, so that both were compelled to cast the very same horoscope, down to the minute: the one for his son, the other for his young slave. For as soon as the women began to be in labor, they each sent word to the other as to what was happening in their respective houses and had messengers ready to dispatch to one another as soon as they had information of the actual birth—and each, of course, knew instantly the exact time. It turned out, Firminus said, that the messengers from the respective houses met one another at a point equidistant from either house, so that neither of them could discern any difference either in the position of the stars or any other of the most minute points. And yet Firminus, born to a high position in his parents' house, ran his course through the prosperous paths of this world, grew in wealth, and elevated to honors. At the same time, the slave, with the yoke of his condition never loosened, continued to serve his masters as Firminus, who knew him, was able to report.
Upon hearing and believing these things related by so reliable a person all my resistance melted away. First, I tried to reclaim Firminus himself from his superstition by telling him that after inspecting his horoscope, I ought, if I could foretell truly, to have seen in it parents eminent among their neighbors, a noble family in its own city, a good birth, a proper education, and liberal learning. But if that servant had consulted me with the same horoscope, since he had the same one, I would again have to tell him, just as truly, that I saw in it the lowliness of his origin, the abjectness of his condition, and everything else different and contrary to the former prediction. If, then, in casting the same horoscopes I had to make contrary analyses in order to speak the truth, or else speak falsely if I made identical readings, then surely it followed that whatever was truly foretold by the analysis of the horoscopes was not by art, but by chance. And whatever was said falsely was not from incompetence in the art, but from the error of chance.
Once an opening had been made in my darkness in this way, I began to consider other implications involved here. Suppose that one of the fools—who followed such an occupation and whom I longed to assail, and to reduce to confusion—were to argue against me that Firminus had given me false information, or that his father had informed him falsely. I then turned my thoughts to those who are born twins, who generally come out of the womb so close to each other that the short interval between them—whatever importance they may ascribe to it in the nature of things—cannot be noted by human observation or expressed in those tables which the astrologer uses to examine when he undertakes to pronounce the truth. But such pronouncements cannot be true. For looking into the same horoscopes, he must have foretold the same future for Esau and Jacob, whereas the same future did not turn out for them. He must therefore speak falsely. If he is to speak truly, then he must read contrary predictions into the same horoscopes. But this would mean that it was not by art, but by chance, that he would speak truly. For you, Lord, most righteous ruler of the universe, work by a secret impulse—whether those who inquire or those inquired of know it or not—so that the inquirer may hear what, according to the secret merit of his soul, he ought to hear from the depths of your righteous judgment. Therefore let no man say to you, "What is this?" or, "Why is that?" Do not let him speak this way, for he is only a man.

By now, my Helper, you had freed me from those fetters. But still I inquired, "Where does evil come from?"—and found no answer. But you did not allow me to be carried away from the faith by these fluctuations of thought. I still believed both that you exist and that your substance is immutable, and that you care for and will judge all men, and that in Christ, your Son our Lord, and the Holy Scriptures, which the authority of your Catholic Church pressed on me, you have planned the way of man's salvation to that life which is to come after this death. With these convictions safe and immovably settled in my mind, I eagerly inquired, "Where does evil come from?" What torments my laboring heart then endured! What sighs, my God! Yet even then your ears were open and I did not know it, and when in stillness I sought earnestly, those silent contritions of my soul were loud cries to your mercy. No man knew, but you knew what I endured. How little of it could I express in words to the ears of my dearest friends! How could the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor speech was sufficient, come to them? Yet the whole of it went into your ears, all of which I bellowed out in the anguish of my heart. My desire was before you, and the light of my eyes was not with me; for it was within and I was outside. Nor was that light in any place; but I still kept thinking only of things that are contained in a place, and could find among them no place to rest in. They did not receive me in such a way that I could say, "It is sufficient; it is well." Nor did they allow me to turn back to where it might be well enough with me. For I was higher than they, though lower than you. You are my true joy if I depend upon you, and you had subjected to me what you created lower than I. And this was the true mean and middle way of salvation for me, to continue in your image and by serving you have dominion over the body. But when I lifted myself proudly against you, and "ran against the Lord, even against his neck, with the thick bosses of my shield," even the lower things were placed above me and pressed down on me, so that there was no respite or breathing space. They thrust themselves on my sight on every side, in crowds and masses, and when I tried to think, the images of bodies intruded into my way back to you, as if they would say to me, "Where are you going, unworthy and unclean one?" And all these had sprung out of my wound, for you had humbled the haughty like one who is wounded. By my swelling pride I was separated from you, and my bloated cheeks blinded my eyes.

But you, Lord, are forever the same, yet you are not forever angry with us, for you have compassion on our dust and ashes. It was pleasing in your sight to reform my deformity, and by inward stings you disturbed me so that I was impatient until you were made clear to my inward sight. By the secret hand of your healing my swelling was lessened, the disordered and darkened eyesight of my mind was made whole day by day by the stinging salve of wholesome grief.

And first of all, wishing to show me how you "resist the proud, but give grace to the humble," and how mercifully you have made known to men the way of humility since your Word "was made flesh and dwelt among men," you procured for me, through one inflated with the most monstrous pride, certain books of the Platonists, translated from Greek into Latin. And in them I found, not indeed in the same words, but to the very same effect, enforced by many and various reasons that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him nothing was made that was made." That which was made by him is "life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it." Furthermore, I read that the soul of man, though it "bears witness to the light," yet itself "is not the light; but the Word of God, being God, is that true light that lights every man who comes into the world." And further, that "he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world did not know him." But that "he came to his own, and his own did not receive him. And as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to those who believed in his name"—this I did not find there.
Similarly, I read there that God the Word was born "not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God." But, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"—I found this nowhere there. And I discovered in those books, expressed in many and various ways, that "the Son was in the form of God and did not think it robbery to be equal in God," for he was naturally of the same substance. But, that "he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him" from the dead, "and given him a name above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father"—those books do not have this. I read further in them that before all times and beyond all times, your only Son remains unchangeably coeternal with you, and that of his fullness all souls receive so that they may be blessed, and that by participation in that wisdom which abides in them, they are renewed so that they may be wise. But, that "in due time, Christ died for the ungodly" and that you "did not spare your only Son, but delivered him up for us all"—this is not there. "For you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes"; so that those "who labor and are heavy laden" might "come to him and he might refresh them" because he is "meek and lowly in heart." "He will guide the meek in judgment; and he will teach the meek his way; beholding our lowliness and our trouble and forgiving all our sins." But those who strut in the high boots of what they deem to be superior knowledge will not hear Him who says, "Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls." Thus, though they know God, yet they do not glorify him as God, nor are they thankful. Therefore, they "become futile in their thinking; their foolish heart is darkened, and professing themselves to be wise they become fools."
And, moreover, I also read there how "they changed the glory of your incorruptible nature into idols and various images—into an image made like corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things": namely, into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright; so that your first-born people worshiped the head of a four-footed beast instead of you, turning back in their hearts toward Egypt and prostrating your image (their own soul) before the image of an ox that eats grass. I found these things there, but I did not feed on them. For it pleased you, Lord, to take away the reproach of his minority from Jacob, so that the elder would serve the younger and you might call the Gentiles, and I had sought strenuously after that gold which you allowed your people to take from Egypt, since wherever it was it was yours. And you said to the Athenians by the mouth of your apostle that in you "we live and move and have our being," as one of their own poets had said. And truly these books came from there. But I did not set my mind on the idols of Egypt which they fashioned of gold, "changing the truth of God into a lie and worshiping and serving the creature more than the Creator."

And prompted by these books to return into myself, I entered into my inward soul, guided by you. I could do this because you were my helper. And I entered, and with the eye of my soul—such as it was—saw above the same eye of my soul and above my mind the Immutable Light. It was not the common light, which all flesh can see; nor was it simply a greater one of the same sort, as if the light of day were to grow brighter and brighter, and flood all space. It was not like that light, but different, indeed very different from any earthly light at all. Nor was it above my mind in the same way as oil is above water, or heaven above earth, but it was higher, because it made me, and I was below it, because I was made by it. He who knows the Truth knows that Light, and he who knows it knows eternity. Love knows it, Eternal Truth and True Love and Beloved Eternity! You are my God, to whom I sigh both night and day. When I first knew you, you lifted me up, so that I might see that there was something to be seen, though I was not yet fit to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, shining your dazzling beams of light on me, and I trembled with love and fear. I realized that I was far away from you in the land of unlikeness, as if I heard your voice from on high: "I am the food of strong men; grow and you shall feed on me; nor shall you change me, like the food of your flesh into yourself, but you shall be changed into my likeness." And I understood that you chasten man for his iniquity, and make my soul be eaten away as though by a spider. And I said, "Is Truth, therefore, nothing, because it is not diffused through space—neither finite nor infinite?" And you cried to me from afar, "I am that I am." And I heard this, as things are heard in the heart, and there was no room for doubt. I would sooner have doubted that I am alive than that the Truth exists—the Truth which is "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."

And I viewed all the other things that are beneath you, and I realized that they are neither wholly real nor wholly unreal. They are real insofar as they come from you; but they are unreal insofar as they are not what you are. For what remains immutable is truly real. It is good, then, for me to hold fast to God, for if I do not remain in him, I shall not remain in myself either; but he, remaining in himself, renews all things.⁠a And you are the Lord my God, since you have no need of my goodness.

And it was made clear to me that all things are good even if they are corrupted. They could not be corrupted if they were supremely good; but unless they were good they could not be corrupted. If they were supremely good, they would be incorruptible; if they were not good at all, there would be nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption harms; but unless it could diminish goodness, it could not harm. Either, then, corruption does not harm—which cannot be—or, as is certain, all that is corrupted is in this way deprived of good. But if they are deprived of all good, they will cease to be. For if they are at all and cannot be at all corrupted, they will become better, because they will remain incorruptible. Now what can be more monstrous than to maintain that by losing all good they have become better? If, then, they are deprived of all good, they will cease to exist. So long as they are, therefore, they are good. Therefore, whatever is, is good. Evil, then, the origin of which I had been seeking, has no substance at all; for if it were a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance and so a supreme good, or a corruptible substance, which could not be corrupted unless it were good. I understood, therefore, and it was made clear to me that you made all things good, and there is no substance at all that you did not make. And because the things you made are not all equal, each by itself is good, and the sum of all of them is very good, for our God made all things very good.

To you there is no such thing as evil, and even in your whole creation taken as a whole, there is not; because there is nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order which you have appointed for it. But in the parts of creation, some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are considered evil. Yet those same things harmonize with others and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which do not harmonize with each other still harmonize with the inferior part of creation which we call the earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky of the same nature as itself. Far be it from me, then, to say, "These things should not be." For if I could see nothing but these, I would indeed desire something better—but still I ought to praise you, if only for these created things. That you are to be praised is shown by the fact that "earth, dragons, and all deeps; fire, and hail, snow and vapors, stormy winds fulfilling your word; mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl; things of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens, old men and children," praise your name! But seeing also that in heaven all your angels praise you, God, praise you in the heights, "and all your hosts, sun and moon, all stars and light, the heavens of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens," praise your name—seeing this, I say, I no longer desire a better world, because my thought ranged over all, and with a sounder judgment I reflected that the things above were better than those below, yet that all creation together was better than the higher things alone.

There is no health in those who find fault with any part of your creation; as there was no health in me when I found fault with so many of your works. And, because my soul did not dare to be displeased with my God, it would not admit that the things which displeased me were from you. Hence it had wandered into the notion of two substances, and could find no rest, but talked foolishly. And turning from that error, it had then made for itself a god extended through infinite space; and it thought this was you and set it up in its heart, and it became once more the temple of its own idol, an abomination to you. But you soothed my brain, though I was unaware of it, and closed my eyes so that they would not behold vanity; and so I ceased a little from preoccupation with myself and my madness was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in you, and saw you as the Infinite, but not in the way I had thought—and this vision was not derived from the flesh.

And I looked around at other things, and I saw that it was to you that all of them owed their being, and that they were all finite in you; yet they are in you not as in a space, but because you hold all things in the hand of your truth, and because all things are true insofar as they are; and because falsehood is nothing except the existence in thought of what does not exist in fact. And I saw that all things harmonize, not only in their places but also in their seasons. And I saw that you, who alone are eternal, did not begin to work after unnumbered periods of time—because all ages, both those which are past and those which shall pass, neither go nor come except through your working and abiding.

And I saw and found it no wonder that bread which is distasteful to an unhealthy palate is pleasant to a healthy one; or that the light, which is painful to sore eyes, is a delight to sound ones. Your righteousness displeases the wicked, and they find even more fault with the viper and the little worm, which you have created good, fitting in as they do with the inferior parts of creation. The wicked themselves also fit in here, and proportionately more so as they become unlike you—but they harmonize with the higher creation proportionately as they become like you. And I asked what wickedness was, and I found that it was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from you, God, the supreme substance, toward these lower things, casting away its inmost treasure and becoming bloated with external good.⁠a

And I marveled that I now loved you, and no phantasm in your place, and yet I was not stable enough to enjoy my God steadily. Instead I was transported to you by your beauty, and then at once torn away from you by my own weight, sinking with grief into these lower things. This weight was carnal habit. But your memory remained with me, and I never doubted in the least that there was One for me to cling to; but I was not yet ready to cling to you firmly. For the body which is corrupted presses down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind, which ponders many things.⁠a My greatest certainty was that "the invisible things of yours from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even your eternal power and Godhead." For when I inquired how it was that I could appreciate the beauty of bodies, both celestial and terrestrial; and what it was that supported me in making correct judgments about things mutable; and when I concluded, "This ought to be so; this ought not"—then when I inquired how it was that I could make such judgments (since I did, in fact, make them), I realized that I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of truth above my changeable mind. And so, step by step, I was led upward from bodies to the soul which perceives them by means of the bodily senses, and from there on to the soul's inward faculty, to which the bodily senses report outward things—and this belongs even to the capacities of the beasts—and from there on up to the reasoning power, to whose judgment is referred the experience received from the bodily sense. And when this power of reason within me also found that it was changeable, it raised itself up to its own intellectual principle, and withdrew its thoughts from experience, abstracting itself from the contradictory throng of phantasms in order to seek for that light in which it was bathed. Then, without any doubting, it cried out that the unchangeable was better than the changeable. From this it follows that the mind somehow knew the unchangeable, for, unless it had known it in some way, it could have had no sure ground for preferring it to the changeable. And thus with the flash of a trembling glance, it arrived at that which is. And I saw your invisibility [invisibilia tua] understood by means of the things that are made. But I was not able to sustain my gaze. My weakness was dashed back, and I lapsed again into my usual ways, carrying along with me nothing but a loving memory of my vision, and an appetite for what I had, as it were, smelled the odor of, but was not yet able to eat.

I sought, therefore, some way to acquire the strength sufficient to enjoy you; but I did not find it until I embraced that "Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," "who is over all, God blessed forever," who came calling and saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and mingling with our fleshly humanity the heavenly food I was unable to receive. For "the Word was made flesh" in order that your wisdom, by which you created all things, might become milk for our infancy. And I was not yet humble enough to hold the humble Jesus; nor did I understand what lesson his weakness was meant to teach us. For your Word, the eternal Truth, far exalted above even the higher parts of your creation, lifts his subjects up toward himself. But in this lower world, he built for himself a humble habitation of our own clay, so that he might pull down from themselves and win over to himself those whom he is to bring under his rule; lowering their pride and heightening their love, so that they would go no farther in self-confidence—but rather should become weak, seeing at their feet the Deity made weak by sharing our coats of skin—so that they might cast themselves, exhausted, upon him and be uplifted by his rising.

But I thought otherwise. I saw in our Lord Christ only a man of eminent wisdom to whom no other man could be compared—especially because he was miraculously born of a virgin—sent to set us an example of despising worldly things for the attainment of immortality, and thus exhibiting his divine care for us. Because of this, I held that he had merited his great authority as leader. But concerning the mystery contained in "the Word was made flesh," I could not even form a notion. From what I learned from what has been handed down to us in the books about him—that he ate, drank, slept, walked, rejoiced in spirit, was sad, and talked with his companions—I realized that his flesh alone was not bound to your Word, but also that there was a bond with the human soul and body. Everyone knows this who knows the unchangeableness of your Word, and I knew this by now, as far as I was able, and I had no doubts at all about it. For at one time to move the limbs by an act of will, at another time not; at one time to feel some emotion, at another time not; at one time to speak intelligibly through verbal signs, at another, not—these are all properties of a soul and mind subject to change. And if these things were falsely written about him, all the rest would risk being suspected of falsehood, and there would remain in those books no saving faith for the human race. Therefore, because they were written truthfully, I acknowledged a perfect man to be in Christ—not the body of a man only, nor, in the body, an animal soul without a rational one as well, but a true man. And I held this man to be superior to all others, not only because he was a form of the Truth, but also because of the great excellence and perfection of his human nature, due to his participation in wisdom. Alypius, on the other hand, supposed that the Catholics believed that God was so clothed with flesh that besides God and the flesh there was no soul in Christ, and he did not think that a human mind was ascribed to him. And because he was fully persuaded that the actions recorded of him could not have been performed except by a living rational creature, he moved all the more slowly toward Christian faith. But when he later learned that this was the error of the Apollinarian heretics, he rejoiced in the Catholic faith and accepted it. For myself, I must confess that it was even later that I learned how in the sentence, "The Word was made flesh," the Catholic truth can be distinguished from the falsehood of Photinus. For the refutation of heretics makes the tenets of your Church and sound doctrine stand out boldly. "For there must also be heresies [factions] so that those who are approved may be made manifest among the weak."

Having read the books of the Platonists in this way, and having been taught by them to search for the incorporeal Truth, I saw how your invisible things are understood through the things that are made. And, even when I was thrown back, I still sensed what it was that the dullness of my soul would not allow me to contemplate. I was assured that you were, and were infinite, though not diffused in finite space or infinity; that you truly are, who are ever the same, varying neither in part nor motion; and that all things are from you, as is proved by this sure cause alone: that they exist. I was convinced of all this, yet I was too weak to enjoy you. I chattered away as if I were an expert; but if I had not sought your Way in Christ our Savior, my knowledge would have turned out to be not instruction but destruction. For now full of what was in fact my punishment, I had begun to desire to seem wise. I did not mourn my ignorance, but rather was puffed up with knowledge. For where was that love which builds upon the foundation of humility, which is Jesus Christ? Or, when would these books teach me this? I now believe that it was your pleasure that I should come upon these books before I studied your Scriptures, so that it might be impressed on my memory how I was affected by them; and then afterward, when I was subdued by your Scriptures and when my wounds were touched by your healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish what a difference there is between presumption and confession—between those who saw where they were to go even if they did not see the way, and the Way which leads, not only to the observing, but also the inhabiting of the blessed country. For if I had first been molded in your Holy Scriptures, and if you had grown sweet to me through my familiar use of them, and if then I had afterward come upon those volumes, they might have pushed me off the solid ground of godliness—or if I had stood firm in that wholesome disposition which I had there acquired, I might have thought that wisdom could be attained by the study of those [Platonist] books alone.

With great eagerness, then, I fastened upon the venerable writings of your Spirit and principally upon the apostle Paul. I had thought that he sometimes contradicted himself and that the text of his teaching did not agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets; but now all these doubts vanished away. And I saw that those pure words had only one face, and I learned to rejoice with trembling. So I began, and I found that whatever truth I had read [in the Platonists] was here combined with the exaltation of your grace. Thus, he who sees must not glory as if he had not received, not only the things that he sees, but the very power of sight—for what does he have that he has not received as a gift? By this he is not only exhorted to see, but also to be cleansed, so that he may grasp you, who are ever the same; and thus he who cannot see you from afar may yet enter upon the road that leads to reaching, seeing, and possessing you. For although a man may "delight in the law of God in the inward man," what shall he do with that other "law in his members which wars against the law of his mind, and brings him into captivity under the law of sin, which is in his members"? You are righteous, Lord; but we have sinned and committed iniquities, and have done wickedly. Your hand has grown heavy upon us, and we are justly delivered over to that ancient sinner, the lord of death.⁠a For he persuaded our wills to become like his will, by which he did not remain in your truth. What shall "wretched man" do? "Who shall deliver him from the body of this death," except your grace through Jesus Christ our Lord; whom you have begotten, coeternal with yourself, and created in the beginning of your ways—in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet he killed him—and so the handwriting which was all against us was blotted out? The books of the Platonists tell nothing of this. Their pages do not contain the expression of this kind of godliness—the tears of confession, your sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, the salvation of your people, the espoused City, the pledge of the Holy Spirit, the cup of our redemption. In them, no man sings: "Shall not my soul be subject to God, for from him comes my salvation? He is my God and my salvation, my defender; I shall no more be moved." In them, no one hears him calling, "Come to me all you who labor." They scorn to learn from him because he is "meek and lowly of heart"; for "you have hidden those things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes." For it is one thing to see the land of peace from a wooded mountaintop: and fail to find the way there—to attempt impassable ways in vain, opposed and waylaid by fugitives and deserters under their captain, the "lion" and "dragon"; but it is quite another thing to keep to the highway that leads there, guarded by the hosts of the heavenly Emperor, on which there are no deserters from the heavenly army to rob the passers-by, for they shun it as a torment. These thoughts sank wonderfully into my heart, when I read that "least of your apostles" and when I had considered all your works and trembled.