My God, let me remember with gratitude and confess to you your mercies toward me. Let my bones be bathed in your love, and let them say: "Lord, who is like you? You have broken my bonds apart, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving." And I will declare how you broke them, and all who worship you shall say, when they hear these things: "Blessed be the Lord in heaven and earth, great and wonderful is his name." Your words had stuck fast in my breast, and I was hedged around by you on every side. I was now certain of your eternal life, although I had seen it "in a mirror dimly." And I had been relieved of all doubt that there is an incorruptible substance and that it is the source of every other substance. I no longer craved greater certainty about you, but rather greater steadfastness in you. But as for my temporal life, everything was uncertain, and my heart had to be purged of the old leaven. "The Way"—the Savior himself—pleased me well, but I was still reluctant to pass through the narrow gate. And you put it into my mind, and it seemed good to me, to go to Simplicianus, who appeared to me a faithful servant of yours, and your grace shone forth in him. I had also been told that from his youth he had lived in entire devotion to you. He was already an old man, and because of his great age, which he had passed in such a zealous discipleship in your way, he appeared to me likely to have gained much wisdom—and, indeed, he had. From all his experience, I wanted him to tell me—setting before him all my agitations—which would be the most fitting way for one who felt as I did to walk in your way.
For I saw the Church full; and one man was going this way and another that. Still, I could not be satisfied with the life I was living in the world. Now, indeed, my passions had ceased to excite me as they once had with hopes of honor and wealth, and it was a heavy burden to go on in such servitude. For, compared with your sweetness and the beauty of your house—which I loved—those things delighted me no longer. But I was still tightly bound by the love of women; nor did the apostle forbid me to marry, although he exhorted me to something better, wishing earnestly that all men were as he himself was. But I was weak and chose the easier way, and for this single reason my whole life was one of inner turbulence and listless indecision, because from so many influences I was compelled—even though unwilling—to agree to a married life which bound me hand and foot. I had heard from the mouth of Truth that "there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake" but, said he, "He who is able to receive it, let him receive it." Certainly, all men are vain who do not have the knowledge of God, or have not been able, from the good things that are seen, to find him who is good.⁠a But I was no longer fettered in that vanity. I had surmounted it, and from the united testimony of your whole creation had found you, our Creator, and your Word—God with you, and together with you and the Holy Spirit, one God—by whom you have created all things. There is still another sort of wicked men, who "when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful." Into this also I had fallen, but your right hand held me up and bore me away, and you placed me where I might recover. For you have said to men, "Behold the fear of the Lord, this is wisdom," and, "Do not be wise in your own eyes," because "those who profess themselves to be wise become fools." But I had now found the fine pearl; and I ought to have sold all that I had and bought it—yet I hesitated.