Chapter XIV.—Concerning the Books Which He Wrote “On the Fair and Fit,” Dedicated to Hierius.
21. But what was it that prompted me, O Lord my God, to dedicate these books to Hierius, an orator of Rome, whom I knew not by sight, but loved the man for the fame of his learning, for which he was renowned, and some words of his which I had heard, and which had pleased me? But the more did he please me in that he pleased others, who highly extolled him, astonished that a native of Syria, instructed first in Greek eloquence, should afterwards become a wonderful Latin orator, and one so well versed in studies pertaining unto wisdom. Thus, a man is commended and loved when absent. Doth this love enters into the heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commander? Not so. But through one who loveth is another inflamed. For hence he is loved who is commended when the commander is believed to praise him with an unfeigned heart; that is, when he that loves him praises him.
22. Thus, then, loved I men upon the judgment of men, not upon Thine, O my God, in which no man is deceived. But yet why not as the renowned charioteer, as the huntsman known far and wide by a vulgar popularity—but far otherwise, and seriously, and so as I would desire to be myself commended? For I would not that they should commend and love me as actors are,—although I myself did commend and love them,—but I would prefer being unknown than so known, and even being hated than so loved. Where now are these influences of such various and divers’ kinds of loves distributed in one soul? What is it that I am in love with in another, which, if I did not hate, I should not detest and repel from myself, seeing we are equally men? For it does not follow that because a good horse is loved by him who would not, though he might, be that horse, the same should therefore be affirmed by an actor, who partakes of our nature. Do I then love in a man that which I, who am a man, hate to be? Man, himself is a great deep, whose very hairs Thou numberest, O Lord, and they fall not to the ground without Thee. And yet are the hairs of his head more readily numbered than are his affections and the movements of his heart.
23. But that orator was of the kind that I so loved as I
wished myself to be such a one; and I erred through an inflated pride, and was
“carried about with every wind,” but yet was piloted by Thee, though very
secretly. And whence know I, and whence confidently confess I unto Thee that I
loved him more because of the love of those who praised him, than for the very
things for which they praised him? Because had he been upraised, and these
self-same men had dispraised him, and with dispraise and scorn told the same
things of him, I should never have been so inflamed and provoked to love him.
And yet the things had not been different, nor he himself different, but only
the affections of the narrators. See where lieth the impotent soul that is not
yet sustained by the solidity of truth! Just as the blasts of tongues blow from
the breasts of conjecturers, so is it tossed this way and that, driven forward
and backward, and the light is obscured to it and the truth not perceived. And
behold it is before us. And to me it was a great matter that my style and
studies should be known to that man; the which if he approved, I were the more
stimulated, but if he disapproved, this vain heart of mine, void of Thy
solidity, had been offended. And yet that “fair and fit,” about which I wrote
to him, I reflected on with pleasure, and contemplated it, and admired it,
though none joined me in doing so.
Chapter XV.—While Writing, Being Blinded by Corporeal Images, He Failed to Recognise the Spiritual Nature of God.
24. But not yet did I perceive the hinge on which this impotent matter turned in Thy wisdom, O Thou Omnipotent, “who alone doest great wonders;” and my mind ranged through corporeal forms, and I defined and distinguished as “fair,” that which is so in itself, and “fit,” that which is beautiful as it corresponds to some other thing; and this I supported by corporeal examples. And I turned my attention to the nature of the mind, but the false opinions which I entertained of spiritual things prevented me from seeing the truth. Yet the very power of truth forced itself on my gaze, and I turned away my throbbing soul from incorporeal substance, to lineaments, and colours, and bulky magnitudes. And not being able to perceive these in the mind, I thought I could not perceive my mind. And whereas in virtue I loved peace, and in viciousness I hated discord, in the former I distinguished unity, but in the latter a kind of division. And in that unity, I conceived the rational soul and the nature of truth and of the chief good330 to consist. But in this division I, unfortunate one, imagined there was I know not what substance of irrational life, and the nature of the chief evil, which should not be a substance only, but real life also, and yet not emanating from Thee, O my God, from whom are all things. And yet the first I called a Monad, as if it had been a soul without sex, but the other a Duad,—anger in deeds of violence, in deeds of passion, lust,—not knowing of what I talked. For I had not known or learned that neither was evil a substance, nor our soul that chief and unchangeable good.
25. For even as it is in the case of deeds of violence, if
that emotion of the soul from whence the stimulus comes be depraved, and carry
itself insolently and mutinously; and in acts of passion, if that affection of
the soul whereby carnal pleasures are imbibed is unrestrained,—so do errors and
false opinions contaminate the life, if the reasonable soul itself be depraved,
as it was at that time in me, who was ignorant that it must be enlightened by
another light that it may be partaker of truth, seeing that itself is not that
nature of truth. “For Thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten
my darkness; and “of His fulness have all we received,” for “that was the true
Light which lighted every man that cometh into the world;” for in Thee there is
“no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
26. But I pressed towards Thee and was repelled by Thee that
I might taste of death, for Thou “resistest the proud.” But what prouder than
for me, with a marvellous madness, to assert myself to be that by nature which
Thou art? For whereas I was mutable,—so much being clear to me, for my very
longing to become wise arose from the wish from worse to become better,—yet
chose I rather to think Thee mutable, than myself not to be that which Thou
art. Therefore was I repelled by Thee, and Thou resistedst my changeable
stiffneckedness; and I imagined corporeal forms, and, being flesh, I accused
flesh, and, being “a wind that passed away,” I returned not to Thee, but went
wandering and wandering on towards those things that have no being, neither in
Thee, nor in me, nor in the body. Neither were they created for me by Thy truth
but conceived by my vain conceit out of corporeal things. And I used to ask Thy
faithful little ones, my fellow-citizens,—from whom I unconsciously stood
exiled,—I used flippantly and foolishly to ask, “Why, then, doth the soul which
God created err?” But I would not permit any one to ask me, “Why, then, doth
God err?” And I contended that Thy immutable substance erred of constraint,
rather than admit that my mutable substance had gone astray of free will and
erred as a punishment.
27. I was about six or seven and twenty years of age when I
wrote those volumes—meditating upon corporeal fictions, which clamoured in the
ears of my heart. These I directed; O sweet Truth, to Thy inward melody,
pondering on the “fair and fit,” and longing to stay and listen to Thee, and to
rejoice greatly at the Bridegroom’s voice, and I could not; for by the voices
of my own errors was I driven forth, and by the weight of my own pride was I
sinking into the lowest pit. For Thou didst not “make me to hear joy and
gladness;” nor did the bones which were not yet humbled rejoice.
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 dust—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,—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, and that with labour I should get my bread.
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 substance into my own power; and I kept not my
strength for Thee, but went away from Thee into a far country, to waste it upon
harlotries. 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, 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, defend us, and carry us. Thou wilt carry us both when little, and even to
grey hairs wilt Thou carry us; 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. 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.
