Confessions

by Augustine of Hippo

You used me to set him on the right path, but so that we might recognize that it was all by your doing, you used me without my knowledge.

The wise are grateful for a remonstrance.1 I had not meant to rebuke him, but you use us all, whether we know it or not, for a purpose which is known to you, a purpose which is just.

The weakness of his soul was in relying upon itself instead of trusting in you.

Yet you stretched out your almighty, ever merciful hand, O God, and rescued him from this madness. You taught him to trust in you, not in himself. But this was much later.

opportunity which made it possible. This is a small matter; but he who is trustworthy over a little sum is trustworthy over a greater.1 The words of Christ, the Voice of your truth, can never be unmeaning, and it was he who said If you, then, could not be trusted to use the base riches you had, who will put the true riches in your keeping? Who will give you property of your own, if you could not be trusted with what was only lent you?1

turned away asking, ‘How long is this to be?’ Again and again we asked ourselves this question, but we did not relinquish our worldly aims, because we could not see the light of any truth that we might grasp in place of them.

must plan my time and arrange my day for the good of my soul…. ‘Great hope is born in me, because I have found that the doctrines of the Catholic faith are not what I thought them to be, and my accusations were unfounded. The learned men of the Church hold it wrong to believe that God is limited by the shape of a human body. Why, then, do I hesitate to knock, so that the door may be opened to reveal what is still hidden from me…?

‘But it is unthinkable that this could be true. It is not for nothing, not mere chance, that the towering authority of the Christian faith has spread throughout the world. God would never have done so much, such wonderful things for us if the life of the soul came to an end with the death of the body. Why then do I delay? Why do I not abandon my worldly hopes and give myself up entirely to the search for God and the life of true happiness…?

There have been many great men who have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of wisdom even though they were married, and I might do well to follow their example.’

longed for a life of happiness but I was frightened to approach it in its own domain; and yet, while I fled from it, I still searched for it. I thought it would be too much for me to bear if I were to be deprived of woman's love. In your mercy you have given us a remedy to cure this weakness, but I gave it no thought because I had never tried it for myself. I believed that continence was to be achieved by man's own power, which I knew that I did not possess. Fool that I was, I did not know that no man can be master of himself, except of God's bounty,1 as your Bible tells us.

was Alypius who prevented me from marrying, because he insisted that if I did so, we could not possibly live together in uninterrupted leisure, devoted to the pursuit of wisdom, as we had long desired to do.

But I was far from being the equal of these noble spirits. I was bound down by this disease of the flesh. Its deadly pleasures were a chain that I dragged along with me, yet I was afraid to be freed from it; and I refused to accept the good advice of Alypius, repelling the hand that meant to loose my bonds, as though it only rubbed my sores.

amazement led to the desire to test it for himself. If he made the experiment, he was likely to fall into the very state which was the object of his amazement, for he was willing to make terms with death,1 and danger loved is death won.2

For my part I was a prisoner of habit, suffering cruel torments through trying to satisfy a lust that could never be sated: while Alypius was being led by curiosity into a like state of captivity.

Once more we turned to our sighs and groans. Again we trod the wide, well-beaten tracks of the world, and thought jostled thought in our hearts.1 But your will stands firm1 and in the wisdom of your plan you made light of ours and prepared the way you had chosen for us. You were ready to grant us, in due time, our nourishment, ready to open your hand and fill our souls with your blessing.2

was impatient at the delay of two years which had to pass before the girl whom I had asked to marry became my wife, and because I was more a slave of lust than a true lover of marriage, I took another mistress, without the sanction of wedlock.

Nothing prevented me from plunging still deeper into the gulf of carnal pleasure except the fear of death and your judgement to come. Through all my changing opinions this fear never left my heart.

With my friends Alypius and Nebridius I often discussed the nature of good and evil. In my judgement Epicurus would have won all the honours, were it not that I believed that the soul lived on after death and received the reward or punishment which it deserved. Epicurus had refused to believe this. If we were immortal, I used to say, and could live in a perpetual state of bodily pleasure, with no fear of losing it, why should we not be happy? What else could we desire?

What crooked paths I trod! What dangers threatened my soul when it rashly hoped that by abandoning you it would find something better! Whichever way it turned, on front or back or sides, it lay on a bed that was hard, for in you alone the soul can rest. You are there to free us from the misery of error which leads us astray, to set us on your own path and to comfort us by saying, ‘Run on, for I shall hold you up. I shall lead you and carry you on to the end.’

BY now my adolescence, with all its shameful sins, was dead. I was approaching mature manhood, but the older I grew, the more disgraceful was my self-delusion. I could imagine no kind of substance except such as is normally seen by the eye. But I did not think of you, my God, in the shape of a human body, for I had rejected this idea ever since I had first begun to study philosophy, and I was glad to find that our spiritual mother, your Catholic Church, also rejected such beliefs. But I did not know how else to think of you.

understood with complete certainty that what is subject to decay is inferior to that which is not, and without hesitation I placed that which cannot be harmed above that which can, and I saw that what remains constant is better than that which is changeable.

My heart was full of bitter protests against the creations of my imagination, and this single truth was the only weapon with which I could try to drive from my mind's eye all the unclean images which swarmed before it. But hardly had I brushed them aside than, in the flicker of an eyelid, they crowded upon me again, forcing themselves upon my sight and clouding my vision, so that although I did not imagine you in the shape of a human body, I could not free myself from the thought that you were some kind of bodily substance extended in space, either permeating the world or diffused in infinity beyond

So I thought of you too, O Life of my life, as a great being with dimensions extending everywhere, throughout infinite space, permeating the whole mass of the world and reaching in all directions beyond it without limit, so that the earth and the sky and all creation were full of you and their limits were within you, while you had no limits at all.

I was told that we do evil because we choose to do so of our own free will, and suffer it because your justice rightly demands that we should.

When I chose to do something or not to do it, I was quite certain that it was my own self, and not some other person, who made this act of will, so that I was on the point of understanding that herein lay the cause of my sin. If I did anything against my will, it seemed to me to be something which happened to me rather than something which I did, and I looked upon it not as a fault, but as a punishment. And because I thought of you as a just God, I admitted at once that your punishments were not unjust.

How, then, do I come to possess a will that can choose to do wrong and refuse to do good, thereby providing a just reason why I should be punished? Who put this will into me? Who sowed this seed of bitterness in me, when all that I am was made by my God, who is Sweetness itself? If it was the devil who put it there, who made the devil? If he was a good angel who became a devil because of his own wicked will, how did he come to possess the wicked will which made him a devil, when the Creator, who is entirely good, made him a good angel and nothing else?’ These thoughts swept me back again into the gulf where I was being stifled. But I did not sink as far as that hell of error where no one confesses to you his own guilt, choosing to believe that you suffer evil rather than that man does

Now that I had realized that what is incorruptible is better than that which is not, I took this as the basis for further research and acknowledged that, whatever your nature might be, you must be incorruptible. For no soul has ever been, or ever will be, able to conceive of anything better than you, who are the supreme, the perfect Good.

For there is no means whatsoever by which corruption can injure our God, whether by an act of will, by necessity, or by chance. This is because he is God and what he wills is good and he is himself that same Good: whereas to be corrupted is not good. And you are never compelled, my God, to do or suffer anything against your will, because your will is not greater than your power. It would be greater only if you were greater than yourself, for the will and power of God are God himself. Neither can anything unforeseen happen to you, because you know all things and nothing, whatever its nature, exists except by reason of the very fact that you know it.

was trying to find the origin of evil, but I was quite blind to the evil in my own method of research. In my mind's eye I pictured the whole of creation, both the things which are visible to us, such as the earth and the sea, the air and the stars, the trees and the animals which live their lives and die, and the things which we cannot see, such as the firmament of Heaven above, with all its angels and everything in it that is spiritual – for I thought of spiritual things, too, as material bodies, each in its allotted place.

The messengers, so Firminus told me, crossed paths at a point which was exactly half way between the two houses, so that each of the two friends inevitably made an identical observation of the stars and could not find the least difference in the time of birth. Yet Firminus, who was born of a rich family, strode along the smoother paths of life. His wealth increased and high honours came his way. But the slave continued to serve his masters. Firminus, who knew him, said that his lot had been in no way bettered.

was therefore perfectly clear to me that when predictions based on observations of the stars turn out to be true, it is a matter of luck, not of skill. When they turn out to be wrong, it is not due to lack of skill, but to the perversity of chance.

This proves that if he had foretold the truth, it would have been by luck, not by skill. For, O Lord, though neither the astrologers nor those who consult them know it, by your secret prompting each man, when he seeks their advice, hears what it is right for him to hear. For you rule the universe with the utmost justice, and in the inscrutable depths of your just judgement you know what is right for him, because you can see the hidden merits of our souls. And let no man question the why or the wherefore of your judgement. This he must not do, for he is only a man.

now, O God my Help, you had released me by this means from the bondage of astrology. But I was still trying to discover the origin of evil, and I could find no solution to the problem. My ideas were always changing, like the ebb and flow of the tide, but you never allowed them to sweep me away from the faith by which I believed that you were, that your substance was unchangeable, and that it was yours to care for and to judge mankind.

believed too that it was in Christ your Son, our Lord, and in the Holy Scriptures, which are affirmed by the authority of your Catholic Church, that you had laid the path of man's salvation, so that he might come to that other life which is to follow this our life in death. These beliefs remained intact and firmly rooted in my mind, but I was still burning with anxiety to find the source from which evil comes.

You knew what I endured, but no man knew. How little of it could I find words to tell, even to my closest friends! Could they catch a sound of the turmoil in my soul? Time did not suffice to tell them and words failed me. But as I groaned aloud in the weariness of my heart,1 all my anguish reached your ears. You knew all my longings; the very light that shone in my eyes was mine no longer.1

But when I rose in pride against you and made onslaught against my Lord, proud of my strong sinews,2 even those lower things became my masters and oppressed me, and nowhere could I find respite or time to draw my breath.

Lord, you are eternal but you will not always be indignant with us,2 because you take pity on our dust and ashes. You saw me and it pleased you to transform all that was misshapen in me. Your goad was thrusting at my heart, giving me no peace until the eye of my soul could discern you without mistake.

First of all it was your will to make me understand how you thwart the proud and keep your grace for the humble3 and what a great act of your mercy it was to show mankind the way of humility when the Word was made flesh and came to dwell4 among the men of this world.

Platonists, translated from the Greek into Latin. In them I read – not, of course, word for word, though the sense was the same and it was supported by all kinds of different arguments – that at the beginning of time the Word already was; and God had the Word abiding with him, and the Word was God. He abode, at the beginning of time, with God. It was through him that all things came into being, and without him came nothing that has come to be. In him there was life, and that life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, a darkness which was not able to master it. I read too that the soul of man, although it bears witness of the light, is not the Light. But the Word, who is himself God, is the true Light, which enlightens every soul born into the world. He, through whom the world was made, was in the world, and the world treated him as a stranger. But I did not find it written in those books that he came to what was his own, and they who were his own gave him no welcome. But all those who did welcome him he empowered to become the children of God, all those who believe in his name.1

the same books I also read of the Word, God, that his birth came not from human stock, not from nature's will or man's, but from God.1 But I did not read in them that the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among us.1

also learned from these books that God the Son, being himself, like the Father, of divine nature, did not see, in the rank of Godhead, a prize to be coveted.2 But they do not say that he dispossessed himself, and took the nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of men, and presenting himself to us in human form; and then he lowered his own dignity, accepted an obedience which brought him to death, death on a cross; and that is why God has raised him from the dead, given him that name which is greater than any other name; so that everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth must bend the knee before the name of Jesus, and every tongue must confess Jesus Christ as the Lord, dwelling in the glory of God the Father.3

But there is no word in those books to say that in his own appointed time he underwent death for us sinners5 and that you did not even spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all.6 For you have hidden all this from the wise and revealed it to little children, so that all that labour and are burdened may come to him and he will give them rest, because he is gentle and humble of heart;7 and in his own laws he will train the humble, in his own paths the humble he will guide,8 for he sees how we are restless and forlorn and is merciful to our sins.9 But some hold their heads so high in the clouds of learning that they do not hear him saying Learn from me; I am gentle and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.10 Although they have the knowledge of God, they do not honour him or give thanks to him as God; they become fantastic in their notions, and their senseless hearts grow benighted; they, who claim to be so wise, turn fools.1

Eternal Truth, true Love, beloved Eternity – all this, my God, you are, and it is to you that I sigh by night and day. When first I knew you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to be seen, but also that I was not yet able to see it. I gazed on you with eyes too weak to resist the dazzle of your splendour. Your light shone upon me in its brilliance, and I thrilled with love and dread alike. I realized that I was far away from you. It was as though I were in a land where all is different from your own and I heard your voice calling from on high, saying ‘I am the food of full-grown men. Grow and you shall feed on me.

realized too that you have chastened man for his sins1; you made my life melt away like gossamer,1 and I asked myself ‘Is truth then nothing at all, simply because it has no extension in space, with or without limits?’ And, far off, I heard your voice saying I am the God who IS.2

for me, I know no other content but clinging to God,4 because unless my being remains in him, it cannot remain in me. But himself ever unchanged, he makes all things new.5 I own him as my God; he has no need of aught that is mine.6

The conclusion then must be either that corruption does no harm – which is not possible; or that everything which is corrupted is deprived of good – which is beyond doubt. But if they are deprived of all good, they will not exist at all. For if they still exist but can no longer be corrupted, they will be better than they were before, because they now continue their existence in an incorruptible state. But could anything be more preposterous than to say that things are made better by being deprived of all good?

Therefore, whatever is, is good; and evil, the origin of which I was trying to find, is not a substance, because if it were a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance of the supreme order of goodness, or it would be a corruptible substance which would not be corruptible unless it were good. So it became obvious to me that all that you have made is good, and that there are no substances whatsoever that were not made by you. And because you did not make them all equal, each single thing is good and collectively they are very good, for our God made his whole creation very good.1

The heavens, too, ring with your praises, O God, for you are the God of us all. Give praise to the Lord in heaven; praise him, all that dwells on high. Praise him, all you angels of his, praise him, all his armies. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, every star that shines. Praise him, you highest heavens, you waters beyond the heavens. Let all these praise the Lord.2 And since this is so, I no longer wished for a better world, because I was thinking of the whole of creation, and in the light of this clearer discernment I had come to see that though the higher things are better than the lower, the sum of all creation is better than the higher things alone.

Falsehood is nothing but the supposed existence of something which has no being.

saw too that all things are fit and proper not only to the places but also to the times in which they exist, and that you, who are the only eternal Being, did not begin to work only after countless ages of time had elapsed, because no age of time, past or still to come, could either come or go if it were not that you abide for ever and cause time to come and go.