Book IV

Seduced and Seducing

For the space of nine years — from my nineteenth year to my twenty-eighth — we lived seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in various lusts; openly, by arts which they call liberal; secretly, with a false-named religion; here proud, there superstitious, everywhere vain. On one hand, hunting after the emptiness of popular praise, down even to theatrical applause and poetic prizes, and competitions for worthless garlands, and the follies of shows, and the excess of desires. On the other hand, desiring to be cleansed from these defilements by carrying food to those who were called "elect" and "holy" among the Manichees, out of which, in the workshop of their stomachs, they were supposed to produce angels and gods by whom we might be set free.

These things I followed and practiced with my friends, deceived by me and with me. Let the arrogant mock me — those who have not been, for their soul's good, struck down and humbled by You, O my God. But I would still confess to You my own shame in Your praise. Allow me, I beg You, to trace in my present remembrance the wanderings of my former time, and to offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own ruin? Or what am I even at the best, but an infant nursing at the milk You give, and feeding upon You, the food that does not perish?

A Concubine, a Contest, and the Astrologers

In those years I taught rhetoric, and — overcome by greed — sold the skill of speaking well. Yet I preferred, Lord (You know), honest students; and these I taught without deceit, though I taught them the arts of persuasion — not to be used against the innocent, though sometimes for the defense of the guilty. And You, O God, from afar perceived me stumbling on that slippery path, and amid much smoke sending out some sparks of faithfulness.

In those years I had a companion — not in what is called lawful marriage, but one whom I had found in my wayward desire, without real understanding. Yet only one, remaining faithful to her; in whom I learned from my own experience the difference between the self-restraint of the marriage covenant, entered for the sake of children, and the bargain of a lustful love, where children are born against their parents' will — although, once born, they compel love.

I remember also that when I had decided to enter a theatrical competition, some sorcerer asked what I would give him to ensure my victory. But I, detesting such foul mysteries, answered: "Even if the garland were of imperishable gold, I would not allow a fly to be killed to win it for me." Yet I did not reject this out of a pure love for You, O God of my heart — for I did not know how to love You, since I did not know how to conceive of anything beyond material things.

The astrologers, however — whom they call "Mathematicians" — I consulted without scruple, because they seemed to use no sacrifice, nor to pray to any spirit for their predictions. Yet true Christian devotion rightly rejects and condemns this art. For it is a good thing to confess to You, and to say, "Have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against You" — and not to abuse Your mercy as a license to sin. All this wholesome counsel the astrologers labor to destroy, saying, "The cause of your sin is determined in the stars" — so that man, flesh and blood and proud corruption, might be blameless, while the Creator and Ruler of heaven and the stars bears the blame.

The Death of a Friend

In those years when I first began to teach rhetoric in my native town, I had gained a friend — too dear to me — from a shared love of learning, of my own age, and like myself in the first opening flower of youth. He had grown up with me as a child; we had been both schoolmates and playmates. But he was not yet my friend as he later became, nor even then as true friendship requires; for true friendship cannot exist unless You cement it together among those who cling to You, by that love which is "poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5). Yet it was too sweet, ripened by the warmth of our shared studies — for I had warped him also, from the true faith which he had not deeply absorbed as a young man, toward those superstitious and destructive fables for which my mother wept over me.

With me he now wandered in mind, nor could my soul be without him. But You were close on the steps of Your fugitives — at once God of justice and Fountain of mercies, turning us to Yourself by wonderful means. You took that man out of this life when he had scarcely filled one whole year of my friendship — sweet to me above all the sweetness of that life of mine.

For long, severely sick with a fever, he lay unconscious in a deathly sweat; and his recovery being despaired of, he was baptized while unknowing. I meanwhile thought little of it, presuming that his soul would retain what it had received from me rather than what was done to his unconscious body. But it proved far otherwise: for he was revived and restored. As soon as I could speak with him — and I could as soon as he was able, for I never left him, and we depended on each other far too much — I tried to joke with him about that baptism which he had received when utterly absent in mind and feeling, but now understood he had received. But he recoiled from me as from an enemy, and with a wonderful and sudden boldness told me that if I wished to remain his friend, I must stop speaking that way to him.

I was stunned and confused, and held back all my feelings until he should recover and be strong enough for me to deal with him as I wished. But he was taken away from my frenzy, that with You he might be kept safe for my comfort. A few days later, in my absence, the fever returned, and he died.

A Great Riddle to Myself

At this grief my heart was utterly darkened; and whatever I looked at was death. My native country was a torment to me, and my father's house a strange unhappiness; and whatever I had shared with him, without him became a crushing torture. My eyes searched for him everywhere, but he was not given to them; and I hated all places because he was not in them; nor could they now say to me, "Look, he is coming," as when he was alive and absent.

I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul why she was so sad, and why she so deeply disturbed me; but she knew not what to answer me.¹ And if I said, "Trust in God," she rightly would not obey me; because that most dear friend whom she had lost was, being a real man, both truer and better than the phantom she was being told to trust in. Only tears were sweet to me, for they had taken the place of my friend in my dearest affections.

Why Is Weeping Sweet?

And now, Lord, these things are past, and time has eased my wound. May I learn from You, who are Truth, and bring the ear of my heart close to Your mouth, that You may tell me why weeping is sweet to the miserable. Have You, although present everywhere, cast away our misery far from You? You abide in Yourself, but we are tossed about in various trials. And yet unless we mourned in Your ears, we would have no hope left. From where then is sweet fruit gathered from the bitterness of life — from groaning, tears, sighs, and complaints? Does this sweeten it: that we hope You hear?

Wretched I was; and wretched is every soul bound by the love of perishable things. He is torn apart when he loses them, and then he feels the wretchedness which he had even before he lost them. So it was with me. I wept most bitterly, and found my rest in bitterness. Thus I was wretched, and that wretched life I held dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have changed it, yet I was more unwilling to part with life than with him.

I loathed to live, and feared to die. I suppose the more I loved him, the more I hated and feared death — as a most cruel enemy — which had taken him from me; and I imagined it would speedily consume all people, since it had power over him. This is how it was with me, I remember. Behold my heart, O my God, behold and look into me — for well I remember it, O my Hope, who cleanse me from the stain of such attachments.

For I wondered that others, subject to death, went on living, since the one I loved — as if he would never die — was dead. And I wondered still more that I myself, who was to him a second self, could live when he was dead. Well said one of his friend: "You, half of my soul." For I felt that my soul and his soul were one soul in two bodies; and therefore life was a horror to me, because I would not live as half. And perhaps for this reason I feared to die — lest he whom I had loved so much should die entirely.²

A Shattered and Bleeding Soul

O madness, which does not know how to love people as people! O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently the common lot of humanity! I fretted, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor counsel. For I carried about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being carried by me, yet I found no place to set it down. Not in pleasant groves, not in games and music, nor in fragrant gardens, nor in elaborate feasts, nor in the pleasures of the bedroom, nor in books or poetry did it find rest. All things looked ghastly — even the light itself. Whatever was not what he was became revolting and hateful, except groaning and tears. For in those alone I found a little relief.

But when my soul was withdrawn from them, a huge weight of misery pressed me down. To You, O Lord, it should have been lifted, for You to lighten. I knew it; but neither could nor would — the more so because, when I thought of You, You were not to me anything solid or substantial. For You were not Yourself to me, but an empty phantom, and my error was my god. If I tried to place my burden there, that it might rest, it slipped through the emptiness and came crashing down again on me; and I had remained to myself a miserable place where I could neither stay nor leave.

For where should my heart flee from my heart? Where should I flee from myself? Where would I not follow myself?³ And yet I fled from my country — for so my eyes would less look for him where they were not used to seeing him. And so from Thagaste I came to Carthage.

Time and Other Friends

Time loses no time; nor does it roll idly by. Through our senses it works strange effects on the mind. Days came and went, and by coming and going introduced into my mind other thoughts and other memories, and little by little patched me up again with my old kind of pleasures, to which my sorrow gave way. And yet there succeeded not indeed other griefs, but the causes of other griefs. For why had that first grief so easily reached my very inmost soul, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust — in loving one who must die, as if he would never die?

What most restored and refreshed me was the comfort of other friends, with whom I loved what I loved instead of You — and this was a great fabrication and a drawn-out lie. There were other things in those friendships that took my mind more fully: to talk and laugh together, to do kind services for each other in turn; to read together enjoyable books; to joke around or be serious together; to disagree at times without ill feeling, as a person might with himself; and even with the rarity of those disagreements to season our more frequent agreement. Sometimes to teach, and sometimes to learn; to long impatiently for the absent, and to welcome them with joy when they returned. These and similar expressions, flowing from the hearts of those who loved and were loved in return — by the face, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures — were so much fuel to melt our souls together, and out of many to make but one.

Blessed Is He Who Loves You

This is what is loved in friends; and so loved that a person's conscience condemns itself if he does not love the one who loves him back, expecting nothing from that person but tokens of his love. From this comes that mourning when one dies — the darkening of sorrows, the steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness; and upon the loss of the life of the dying, the death of the living.

Blessed is he who loves You, and his friend in You, and his enemy for Your sake. For he alone loses no one dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God — the God who made heaven and earth, and fills them, because by filling them He created them?⁴

No one loses You, except the one who lets You go. And whoever lets You go — where does he go, where does he flee, except from You well-pleased to You displeased? For where does he not find Your law in his own punishment? And Your law is truth, and truth is You.

The Word Calls You to Return

"Turn us, O God of hosts; show us Your face, and we shall be saved." For wherever the soul of man turns itself — unless toward You — it is fastened upon sorrows, even though it is fastened on things beautiful. And yet those things, apart from You and apart from the soul, would not exist at all unless they were from You. They rise and set; and by rising they begin, as it were, to exist; they grow until they are perfected; and being perfected, they grow old and wither; and all things grow not old, but all things wither. So when they rise and reach toward being, the faster they grow, the faster they hasten toward not being. That is their law.

Do not be foolish, O my soul, nor let the ear of your heart become deaf with the noise of your folly. Listen — the Word Himself calls you to return, and there is the place of rest undisturbed, where love is not forsaken if it does not itself forsake. See — these things pass away so that others may replace them, and so this lower universe may be completed by all its parts. "But do I depart anywhere?" says the Word of God. There fix your dwelling. There entrust whatever you have from the Truth, and you shall lose nothing; and your decay shall bloom again, and all your diseases be healed.

If bodies please you, praise God for them, and turn your love back upon their Maker, so that in the things which please you, you do not displease Him. If souls please you, let them be loved in God; for they too are changeable, but in Him they are firmly established — otherwise they would pass and perish. In Him, then, let them be loved; and carry to Him along with you whatever souls you can, and say to them:

"Him let us love, Him let us love: He made these, and He is not far off. For He did not make them and then depart — they are from Him and in Him. See — there He is, wherever truth is loved. He is within the very heart, yet the heart has strayed from Him. Return to your heart, you who transgress, and cling fast to Him who made you. Stand with Him, and you shall stand firm. Rest in Him, and you shall be at rest. Where are you going, on these rough roads? Where are you going? The good that you love is from Him; but it is good and pleasant only in relation to Him, and rightly shall it become bitter when anything from Him is loved unjustly, if He Himself is forsaken for it. You seek a blessed life in the land of death; it is not there. For how should there be a blessed life where life itself is not?"

"But our true Life came down here, and bore our death, and slew it out of the abundance of His own life. And He thundered, calling aloud to us to return to Him in that secret place from which He came forth to us — first into the Virgin's womb, where He took on our human nature, our mortal flesh, that it might not be mortal forever; and from there like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing like a strong man to run his race. For He did not linger, but ran — calling aloud by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension; crying aloud to us to return to Him. And He departed from our eyes, that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and — look! — He is here. He would not be long with us, yet He did not leave us. For He departed to that place from which He never parted, because the world was made by Him. And in this world He was, and into this world He came to save sinners."

My Back to the Light

These things I then did not know, and I loved these lower beauties, and I was sinking to the very depths. And to my friends I said, "Do we love anything but the beautiful? What then is beauty? What is it that attracts and draws us to the things we love?" And I considered and perceived that in bodies themselves there was a beauty from their forming a sort of whole, and another from the fitting correspondence of parts — as of a part of the body with its whole, or a shoe with a foot, and the like. And this thought sprang up in my mind out of my deepest heart, and I wrote two or three books "On the Fair and the Fitting." You know, O Lord, for they are gone from me — I have them not, but they have strayed from me, I know not how.

But I pressed toward You, and was pushed back from You, that I might taste death; for You resist the proud. And what could be more proud than for me, with strange madness, to claim to be by nature what You are? For whereas I was subject to change (this much being plain to me, since my very desire to become wise was the wish to change from worse to better), yet I chose rather to imagine You subject to change, and myself not to be what You are. Therefore I was repelled by You, and You resisted my vain stubbornness; and I imagined material forms, and — myself flesh — I accused the flesh; and, a breath that passes away, I did not return to You, but passed on and on to things which have no being — neither in You, nor in me, nor in the body.

I had my back to the light, and my face toward the things enlightened; so my face, by which I perceived the things that were lit up, was itself not enlightened. Whatever was written on rhetoric, logic, geometry, music, and arithmetic, I understood by myself without much difficulty or any teacher. You know this, O Lord my God, because both quickness of understanding and sharpness of perception are Your gift. Yet I did not sacrifice them to You. So then they served not for my benefit but for my ruin, since I took so good a portion of my resources into my own keeping; and I did not keep my strength for You, but wandered from You into a far country, to spend it on harlotries. For what good were abilities not put to good use?

O Lord our God, under the shadow of Your wings let us hope; protect us, and carry us. You will carry us both when we are little, and even to gray hairs You will carry us; for our strength, when it is Yours, then it is strength; but when our own, it is weakness. Our good lives forever with You; from which when we turn away, we are turned aside. Let us now, O Lord, return, that we may not be overturned — because with You our good lives without any decay, and that good is You. Nor need we fear that there is no place to which to return, because we fell from it: for through our absence, our home did not fall — Your eternity.

Footnotes

¹ "I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul why she was so sad, and why she so deeply disturbed me; but she knew not what to answer me" — Augustine echoes Psalm 42:5 here ("Why are you cast down, O my soul?"), but with devastating honesty: the Psalmist at least had an answer. Augustine did not. His God was still a phantom.

² "I felt that my soul and his soul were one soul in two bodies" — Augustine is quoting a classical idea (attributed to Aristotle on friendship), but he fills it with his own grief. The fear is that if he dies, his friend dies completely — because half the soul that remembered his friend would be gone. This is grief not as sentiment but as metaphysics.

³ "For where should my heart flee from my heart? Where should I flee from myself? Where would I not follow myself?" — three questions, each shorter than the last, each more desperate. This is the voice Le recognizes from the Portuguese: Augustine cornered by his own existence, unable to escape himself. Only God is more inward than our inmost self.

⁴ "Blessed is he who loves You, and his friend in You, and his enemy for Your sake. For he alone loses no one dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who cannot be lost." — Smith's ecumenism ("let us love all who love Jesus"), Bowen's stripped-down clarity, and Augustine's grief — all arriving at the same place. If you love people in God, you cannot lose them. Because you cannot lose God.