Confessions

by Augustine of Hippo

the same way the wicked find your justice disagreeable, just as they find vipers and worms unpleasant. Yet these animals were created good by you. They were created to suit the lower order of your creation. Thus the wicked themselves are suited to this lower order in as much as they are unlike you, whereas they are suited to the higher order in so far as they become more like you.

was astonished that although I now loved you and not some phantom in your place, I did not persist in enjoyment of my God. Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight and in dismay I plunged again into the things of this world.

For ever the soul is weighed down by a mortal body, earth-bound cell that clogs the manifold activity of its thought.1 I was most certain, too, that from the foundations of the world men have caught sight of your invisible nature, your eternal power, and your divineness, as they are known through your creatures.2

step by step, my thoughts moved on from the consideration of material things to the soul, which perceives things through the senses of the body, and then to the soul's inner power, to which the bodily senses communicate external facts. Beyond this dumb animals cannot go. The next stage is the power of reason, to which the facts communicated by the bodily senses are submitted for judgement.

began to search for a means of gaining the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I could not find this means until I embraced the mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man, like them,2 and also rules as God over all things, blessed for ever.3 He was calling to me and saying I am the way; I am truth and life.4 He it was who united with our flesh that food which I was too weak to take; for the Word was made flesh5 so that your Wisdom, by which you created all things, might be milk to suckle us in infancy. For I was not humble enough to conceive of the humble Jesus Christ as my God, nor had I learnt what lesson his human weakness was meant to teach. The lesson is that your Word, the eternal Truth, which far surpasses even the higher parts of your creation, raises up to himself all who subject themselves to him.

taken a human soul and a human mind. This much is known to all who know that your Word cannot suffer change, as by now I knew in so far as I was able to know it.

accepted that Christ was perfect man. I did not think of him as having only the body of a man or man's body and sensitive soul without his reasoning mind, but as a man complete. And I thought he was superior to other men, not because he was Truth in person, but because in him human nature had reached the highest point of excellence and he had a more perfect share of divine wisdom.

was sure that it is you who truly are, since you are always the same, varying in neither part nor motion. I knew too that all other things derive their being from you, and the one indisputable proof of this is the fact that they exist at all. I was quite certain of these truths, but I was too weak to enjoy you. I used to talk glibly as though I knew the meaning of it all, but unless I had looked for the way which leads to you in Christ our Saviour, instead of finding knowledge I should have found my end. For I had now begun to wish to be thought wise. I was full of self-esteem, which was a punishment of my own making. I ought to have deplored my state, but instead my knowledge only bred self-conceit.3

seized eagerly upon the venerable writings inspired by your Holy Spirit, especially those of the apostle Paul.

began to read and discovered that whatever truth I had found in the Platonists was set down here as well, and with it there was praise for your grace bestowed. For Saint Paul teaches that he who sees ought not to boast as though what he sees, and even the power by which he sees, had not come to him by gift.2 For, whatever powers he has, did they not come to him by gift?.2

you. For even if a man inwardly applauds God's disposition,3 how is he to resist that other disposition in his lower self, which raises war against the disposition of his conscience, so that he is handed over as a captive to that disposition towards sin, which his lower self contains?4 For you have right on your side, O Lord, but we are sinners, that have wronged and forsaken you; all is amiss with us.5 We are bowed down by your chastisement.6

What is man to do in his plight? Who is to set him free from a nature thus doomed to death? Nothing else than the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,8 who was begotten by you to be co-eternal with yourself and whom you made when first you went about your work.9 In him the prince of this world found no crime worthy of death:1 yet he slew him, and thus the decree made to our prejudice was cancelled.2

They make no mention of the tears of confession or of the sacrifice that you will never disdain, a broken spirit, a heart that is humbled and contrite,3 nor do they speak of the salvation of your people, the city adorned like a bride,4 the foretaste of your Spirit,5 or the chalice of our redemption. In them no one sings No rest has my soul but in God's hands; to him I look for deliverance. I have no other stronghold, no other deliverer but him; safe in his protection, I fear no deadly fall.6 In them no one listens to the voice which says Come to me all you that labour.7 They disdain his teaching because he is gentle and humble of heart. For you have hidden all this from the wise and revealed it to little children.7

cry Lord, there is none like you!1 You have broken the chains that bound me; I will sacrifice in your honour.2

had now been rid of all my doubts about an incorruptible substance from which all other substance takes its being. I did not ask for more certain proof of you, but only to be made more steadfast in you. But in my worldly life all was confusion. My heart had still to be rid of the leaven which remained over.4

mind might walk upon your way. I saw that the Church was full, yet its members each followed a different path in the world. But my own life in the world was unhappy. It was a heavy burden to me, because the hope of honour and wealth was no longer, as before, a spur to my ambition, enabling me to bear so onerous a life devoted to their service. Such things now held no attractions for me in comparison with your sweetness and my love of the house where you dwell, the shrine of your glory.1

The voice of Truth had told me that there are some who have made themselves eunuchs for love of the kingdom of heaven.2 But he also said Let only those take this in whose hearts are large enough for it.2 What folly it argues in man's nature, this ignorance of God! So much good seen, and he, who is existent Good, not known!3

you, by whom you created all things. But there are godless men of another kind, those who have the knowledge of God, but do not honour him or give thanks to him as God.4 I had fallen into this error also, but your right hand supported me.5

For you have told man that wisdom is fearing the Lord,6 and you have warned him Do not give yourself airs of wisdom7, for they who claim to be so wise turn fools.8

so I had been told, had died a Christian, Simplicianus said that he was glad that I had not stumbled upon the writings of other philosophers, which were full of fallacies and misrepresentations drawn from worldly principles.1 In the Platonists, he said, God and his Word are constantly implied. Then, to encourage me to follow Christ's example of humility, which is hidden from the wise and revealed to little children,2 he told me about Victorinus, whom he had known intimately when he was in Rome.

Victorinus was an old man of great learning, with a profound knowledge of all the liberal sciences. He had studied a great many books of philosophy and published criticisms of them. He had been master to many distinguished members of the Senate, and to mark his outstanding ability as a teacher, he had even been awarded a statue in the Roman forum – a great honour in the eyes of the world.

fire of his oratory, and yet he was not ashamed to be the child of Christ and to become an infant at your font, submitting his neck to the yoke of humility and bowing his head before the ignominy of the Cross.

At this Victorinus would laugh and say, ‘Is it then the walls of the church that make the Christian?’ He often repeated his claim to be a Christian, and each time Simplicianus gave him the same answer, only to receive the same rejoinder about the walls. He was afraid of offending his proud friends who worshipped heathen gods, and he thought that a storm of hostility would break upon him from the peak of their Babylonian dignity, as though it were from the cedars of Lebanon which the Lord had not yet brought down.1

He was seized by the fear that Christ might deny him before the holy angels if he was too faint-hearted to acknowledge Christ before men, and he felt himself guilty of a great crime in being ashamed of the sacraments instituted by your Word in his lowly state, whereas he was not ashamed of the impious rites devoted to those proud deities whom his own pride had led him to follow and accept.

But Victorinus preferred to declare his salvation in full sight of the assembled faithful. For there was no salvation in the rhetoric which he taught, and yet he had professed it in public.

God, who are so good, what is it that makes men rejoice more for the salvation of a soul for which all had despaired, or one that is delivered from great danger, than for one for which hope has never been lost or one which has been in less peril?

You too, merciful Father, rejoice more over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine souls that are justified and have no need of repentance.1

You rejoice in us and in your angels, who are sanctified by holy charity. For you are always the same, because all those things which are neither unchangeable nor endure for ever are for ever known to you and your knowledge of them is unchangeable.

The victorious general marches home in triumph, but there would have been no victory if he had not fought, and the greater the danger in the battle, the greater the joy of the triumph. Sailors are tossed in a storm which threatens to wreck their ship. They are terror-stricken at the thought of impending death, but when the sky clears and the sea is calmed, their fear gives place to joy no less profound. One whom we love is ill. His pulse tells us that he is in danger and all who long for him to get well suffer in sympathy, but once he is on the road to recovery, even though he has not yet the strength to walk as he used to do, we are happier at this than we were before, when he was quite well and could walk without effort.

There is no pleasure in eating and drinking unless it is preceded by the discomfort of hunger and thirst.

How can I hope to understand the height and the depth of you, from the greatest to the most lowly of your works? You never depart from us, yet it is hard for us to return to you.

They come to you and their darkness grows bright when they accept the light by which all who accept it are empowered to become the children of God.1

Moreover, when converts are well known, their example guides many others to salvation. Where they lead many are sure to follow, and this is why those who already have the faith are delighted at their conversion, because their joy is not reserved for the famous alone.

For you have chosen what the world holds weak, so as to abash the strong; you have chosen what the world holds base and contemptible, nay you have chosen what is nothing, so as to bring to nothing what is now in being.2 It was through the apostle Paul that you spoke these words and he too, the least of the apostles, chose to change his name from Saul to Paul to mark the great victory when Sergius Paulus, the proconsul, his pride laid low by the apostle's bold words, submitted to the gentle yoke of Christ and became a subject of the Great King.3

For the firmer our enemy the devil holds a man in his power, and the greater the number of others whom he holds captive through this man, the greater the victory when he is won back. The devil has a firmer hold on men in high places because of their pride in their rank, and through them he keeps hold on many more because of the influence they wield.

The enemy held my will in his power and from it he had made a chain and shackled me. For my will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became a necessity. These were the links which together formed what I have called my chain, and it held me fast in the duress of servitude.

From my own experience I now understood what I had read – that the impulses of nature and the impulses of the spirit are at war with one another.4

was in vain that inwardly I applauded your disposition, when that other disposition in my lower self raised war against the disposition of my conscience and handed me over as a captive to that disposition towards sin, which my lower self contained.2 For the rule of sin is the force of habit, by which the mind is swept along and held fast even against its will, yet deservedly, because it fell into the habit of its own accord. Pitiable creature that I was, who was to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death? Nothing else than the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.3

Lord, my Helper and my Redeemer, I shall now tell and confess to the glory of your name how you released me from the fetters of lust which held me so tightly shackled and from my slavery to the things of this world.

You were setting me before my own eyes so that I could see how sordid I was, how deformed and squalid, how tainted with ulcers and sores. I saw it all and stood aghast, but there was no place where I could escape from myself.

But now, the more my heart warmed to those two men as I heard how they had made the choice that was to save them by giving themselves up entirely to your care, the more bitterly I hated myself in comparison with them.

But I still postponed my renunciation of this world's joys, which would have left me free to look for that other happiness, the very search for which, let alone its discovery, I ought to have prized above the discovery of all human treasures and kingdoms or the ability to enjoy all the pleasures of the body at a mere nod of the head.

As a youth I had been woefully at fault, particularly in early adolesence. I had prayed to you for chastity and said ‘Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.’ For I was afraid that you would answer my prayer at once and cure me too soon of the disease of lust, which I wanted satisfied, not quelled.

had wandered on along the road of vice in the sacrilegious superstition of the Manichees, not because I thought that it was right, but because I preferred it to the Christian belief, which I d...

I cudgelled my soul and belaboured it with reasons why it should follow me now that I was trying so hard to follow you. But it fought back. It would not obey and yet could offer no excuse. All its old arguments were exhausted and had been shown to be false. It remained silent and afraid, for as much as the loss of life itself it feared the stanching of the flow of habit, by which it was wasting away to death.

My inner self was a house divided against itself. In the heat of the fierce conflict which I had stirred up against my soul in our common abode, my heart, I turned upon Alypius. My

‘What is the matter with us? What is the meaning of this story? These men have not had our schooling, yet they stand up and storm the gates of heaven while we, for all our learning, lie here grovelling in this world of flesh and blood! Is it because they have led the way that we are ashamed to follow? Is it not worse to hold back?’

Meanwhile I was beside myself with madness that would bring me sanity. I was dying a death that would bring me life. I knew the evil that was in me, but the good that was soon to be born in me I did not know.

need not even walk as far as I had come from the house to the place where we sat, for to make the journey, and to arrive safely, no more was required than an act of will. But it must be a resolute and whole-hearted act of the will, not some lame wish which I kept turning over and over in my mind, so that it had to wrestle with itself, part of it trying to rise, part falling to the ground.

My body responded to the slightest wish of my mind by moving its limbs at the least hint from me, and it did so more readily than my mind obeyed itself by assenting to its own great desire, which could be accomplished simply by an act of will.