Book III

To Carthage I Came

To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves.¹ I loved not yet, yet I loved to love; and out of a deep-seated need, I hated myself for not needing more. I sought what I might love — in love with loving — and I hated safety, and a way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food — Yourself, my God. Yet through that famine I was not hungry; I was without all longing for food that does not perish — not because I was filled with it, but the more empty I was, the more I loathed it.

For this reason my soul was sick and full of sores; it miserably cast itself outward, longing to be scratched by the touch of things of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me — but sweeter still when I came to enjoy the person I loved. I therefore defiled the spring of friendship with the filth of lust, and clouded its brightness with the darkness of desire. And yet, foul and dishonorable, I wanted — through exceeding vanity — to appear refined and sophisticated. I fell headlong into the love in which I longed to be ensnared.

My God, my Mercy, with how much bitterness did You, out of Your great goodness, season that sweetness for me? For I was both beloved and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was joyfully bound with sorrow-bringing chains, that I might be scourged with the burning rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and quarrels.

The Love of Grief

Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries and fuel for my fire. Why is it that a person desires to be made sad, watching doleful and tragic things, which he himself would by no means wish to suffer? Yet he desires as a spectator to feel sorrow at them — and this very sorrow is his pleasure. What is this but a miserable madness? For a person is the more affected by these performances the less free he is from such feelings. When he suffers in his own person, it is called misery; when he feels for others, it is called mercy. But what sort of mercy is this for imagined and acted-out sufferings? The audience is not called upon to help, but only to grieve; and the more he grieves, the more he applauds the actor.

Are griefs then also loved? Surely all desire joy. Or is it that while no one likes to be miserable, he is yet pleased to be merciful — and since mercy cannot exist without feeling, for this reason alone are such feelings loved? But I, in my misery, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve over. In another's suffering — imagined and performed — the acting that pleased me most and attracted me most powerfully was that which drew tears from me. What marvel that an unhappy sheep, straying from Your flock and impatient of Your keeping, became infected with a foul disease? And so came the love of griefs — not such as should sink deep into me, for I did not love to suffer what I loved to watch; but such as, upon hearing these fictions, should lightly scratch the surface, after which, as from poisoned nails, followed inflamed swelling and a festering sore.

My life being such — was it life, O my God?

A Vagrant Liberty

And Your faithful mercy hovered over me from afar. Upon how many grievous sins did I waste myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity — having forsaken You, it brought me to the treacherous abyss and the deceiving service of devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil actions. And in all these things You disciplined me!

Those studies also which were considered respectable aimed at excelling in the courts of law — the more praised, the more crafty. Such is the blindness of men, glorying even in their blindness. And now I was head of the rhetoric school, where I took proud delight and swelled with arrogance — though, Lord, You know, I was far quieter and altogether removed from the disruptions of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish name was the very badge of sophistication among them). I lived with them, and sometimes took pleasure in their friendship, while always abhorring their actions — their "subverting," by which they cruelly harassed the shyness of newcomers with gratuitous mockery, feeding on it for their malicious amusement. Nothing could be more like the very actions of devils than these.

Cicero Sets the Heart on Fire

Among such companions, in that unsettled age of mine, I studied books of eloquence, in which I desired to be distinguished — out of a damnable and vainglorious purpose, a delight in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I came upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire, though not so much his heart. This book contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called the Hortensius.

But this book changed my affections, and turned my prayers to You, O Lord, and made me have other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worthless to me; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to rise, that I might return to You. For I did not use that book to sharpen my tongue (which was what I seemed to be purchasing with my mother's money, in that my nineteenth year, my father having died two years before) — no, it was not the style of the book that moved me, but its substance.

How did I burn then, my God — how did I burn to fly upward from earthly things to You! Nor did I know what You would do with me, for with You is wisdom. But the love of wisdom is in Greek called "philosophy," and with this that book set me on fire. Some there are who seduce through philosophy, disguising their own errors under a great and smooth and honorable name; and nearly all who in that and earlier ages were such are in that book noted and exposed. There also is made plain that wholesome warning of Your Spirit, by Your good and devout servant: "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:8-9).

And since at that time, O light of my heart, You know that the Apostolic Scriptures were not known to me, I was delighted with that exhortation only so far as I was strongly roused and kindled and inflamed to love, and seek, and obtain, and hold, and embrace — not this or that school of thought, but wisdom itself, whatever it might be. And this alone held me back in that blaze of enthusiasm: that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according to Your mercy, O Lord — this name of my Savior, Your Son — my tender heart had, even with my mother's milk, devoutly drunk in and deeply treasured; and whatever was without that name, though ever so learned, polished, or true, did not take entire hold of me.²

Scripture Rejected

I resolved then to turn my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. But what I saw was a thing not understood by the proud, nor laid open to children — lowly in access, lofty in its depths, and veiled with mysteries. And I was not such as could enter into it, or stoop my neck to follow its steps. For I did not feel then as I speak now; rather, the Scriptures seemed to me unworthy to be compared with the stateliness of Cicero. For my swollen pride shrank from their humility, nor could my sharp wit pierce their inner meaning. Yet they were such as would grow up with a child. But I disdained to be a child; and, swollen with pride, took myself to be a great one.

The Manichees

Therefore I fell among men proudly raving, excessively worldly and full of talk, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil, baited with a mixture of the syllables of Your name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. These names never departed from their mouths, but only as far as the sound and noise of the tongue — for their hearts were empty of truth. Yet they cried out, "Truth, Truth!" and spoke much of it to me; yet it was not in them. They spoke falsehood — not of You only (who truly are the Truth), but even of the elements of this world, Your creatures.

O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the depths of my soul long after You, when they echoed Your name to me constantly, and in many great books — though it was but an echo! And these were the dishes in which, to me who hungered after You, they served up, instead of You, the sun and moon — beautiful works of Yours, but yet Your works, not Yourself, and not even Your highest works. For Your spiritual works are before these material works, heavenly though they be and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even after those higher works of Yours, but after You Yourself — the Truth, in whom is no variation or shadow of turning. Yet they still set before me in those dishes glittering fantasies.

Such empty husks was I then fed on; and I was not fed. But You, my soul's Love — in looking for whom I fail, that I may become strong — are not those bodies which we see, though in heaven; nor those which we see not there; for You have created them, nor do You count them among the chief of Your works. How far then are You from those fantasies of mine! You are the life of souls, the life of lives, having life in Yourself; and You do not change, O life of my soul.

Where then were You to me, and how far from me? Far indeed was I straying from You, barred even from the husks of the pigs whom with husks I fed. But You were more inward to me than my most inward part, and higher than my highest.³

The Questions That Trapped Me

I did not know that evil was nothing but a lack of good, until at last a thing ceases altogether to be. How could I see this, when the sight of my eyes reached only to bodies, and the sight of my mind to phantoms? And I did not know God to be a Spirit — not one who has parts extended in length and breadth, or whose being was mass.

Nor did I know that true inward righteousness judges not according to custom, but out of the most righteous law of God Almighty, by which the ways of places and times were ordered according to those times and places — itself remaining the same always and everywhere, not one thing in one place and another in another. According to this, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David were righteous — and all those commended by the mouth of God; but they were judged unrighteous by foolish men, measuring by their own petty habits the moral habits of the whole human race. As if someone in an armory, not knowing what was adapted to each part, should cover his head with leg armor and try to put a helmet on his feet, and complain that they did not fit.

Is justice therefore various or changeable? No — but the times over which it presides do not flow evenly, because they are times. But people whose days are few upon the earth, because by their limited senses they cannot harmonize the causes of things in former ages with things they experience now — while in one and the same body, day, or family, they easily see what is fitting for each member and season and person — to the distant they take exception, to the near they submit.

The Weeping Fig Tree

These things I was ignorant of, and I scoffed at those holy servants and prophets of Yours. And what did I gain by scoffing at them, but to be scoffed at by You? For I was insensibly, step by step, drawn on to such follies as to believe that a fig tree weeps when it is plucked, and the tree, its mother, sheds milky tears. And if some Manichaean "saint" should eat that fig (plucked by another's guilt, not his own) and mingle it with his body, he would breathe out of it angels — yes, there would burst forth particles of divinity at every groan in his prayer, which particles of the most high and true God had remained bound in that fig unless they had been set free by the teeth and stomach of some "elect" saint!

And I, miserable one, believed that more mercy was to be shown to the fruits of the earth than to people, for whom they were created.

Monica's Tears

And You sent Your hand from above, and drew my soul out of that deep darkness — my mother, Your faithful one, weeping to You for me more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children. For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from You, saw the death in which I lay; and You heard her, O Lord. You heard her, and did not despise her tears, when streaming down they watered the ground under her eyes in every place where she prayed. Yes, You heard her.

For from where came that dream by which You comforted her, so that she allowed me to live with her again, and to eat at the same table in the house — which she had begun to refuse, hating and detesting the blasphemies of my error? For she saw herself standing on a certain wooden rule, and a shining young man coming toward her, cheerful and smiling upon her, while she was grieving and overwhelmed with grief. And he, having asked her the causes of her grief and daily tears, and she answering that she was mourning my destruction — he told her to rest content, and to look and observe: "That where she was, there was I also." And when she looked, she saw me standing by her on the same rule.

From where was this, but that Your ears were turned toward her heart? O You, Good and Omnipotent, who care for every one of us as if You cared for him alone — and for all, as if they were but one!

The Son of These Tears

And from where came this also: that when she told me this vision, and I tried to twist it to mean that she rather should not despair of one day being what I was — she immediately, without any hesitation, replied: "No; for it was not told me, 'Where he is, there you will be also,' but 'Where you are, there he will be also'"?

I confess to You, O Lord, that to the best of my remembrance (and I have often spoken of this), Your answer through my watchful mother — that she was not confused by the cleverness of my false interpretation, and so quickly saw what was to be seen, which I certainly had not perceived before she spoke — even then moved me more than the dream itself. By that dream, a joy for the holy woman, to be fulfilled so long after, was — for the consolation of her present anguish — so long before foreshadowed.

For almost nine years passed, in which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit and the darkness of falsehood, often trying to rise but dashed down all the more heavily. All that time, that pure, godly, and sober widow (such as You love), now more encouraged with hope yet not at all relaxing in her weeping and mourning, never ceased at all hours of her devotions to weep for my case before You. And her prayers entered into Your presence; and yet You allowed me to be still involved and re-involved in that darkness.

You gave her meanwhile another answer, which I call to mind. A priest of Yours, a certain bishop brought up in Your Church and well versed in Your books — when this woman had begged him to agree to meet with me, refute my errors, unteach me wrong things, and teach me right things — he refused. Wisely, as I later came to see. For he answered that I was yet unteachable, being puffed up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already confused many inexperienced persons with clever questions, as she had told him. "But let him alone for a while," he said. "Only pray God for him; he will by himself, through reading, discover what that error is and how great its wickedness."

At the same time he told her how he himself, when a little child, had been handed over to the Manichees by his misled mother, and had not only read but frequently copied out almost all their books — and had, without any argument or proof from anyone, seen how much that sect was to be avoided, and had avoided it. When he had said this and she would not be satisfied, but pressed him further with pleas and many tears that he would see me and talk with me — he, a little annoyed at her persistence, said:

"Go your way, and God bless you; for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish."

Which answer she received, as she often mentioned in her conversations with me, as if it had sounded from heaven.

Footnotes

¹ "To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves" — one of the most famous opening lines in Western literature. T.S. Eliot borrowed it for The Waste Land. Augustine arrives in the great city and hears not music but a boiling pot. Pusey's "sang" and "cauldron" placed side by side is deliberate — beauty and destruction in one sentence.

² "This name of my Savior, Your Son, my tender heart had, even with my mother's milk, devoutly drunk in and deeply treasured" — Augustine could be set on fire by Cicero, dazzled by the Manichees, lost in philosophy for nine years — but the name of Christ, planted in him by Monica before he could speak, was the one thing that nothing could dislodge. This is the power of a mother's faith, deposited before the child can resist it.

³ "You were more inward to me than my most inward part, and higher than my highest" — among the most quoted lines in the Confessions. God is not far away. He is closer than Augustine is to himself. The Latin: interior intimo meo et superior summo meo.