THE FIFTH BOOK. S. Aug.'s twenty-ninth year. Faustus, a snare of Satan to many, made an instrument of deliverance to S. Aug., by shewing the ignorance of the Manichees on those things, wherein they professed to have divine knowledge. Aug. gives up all thought of going further among the Manichees is guided to Rome and Milan, where he hears S. Ambrose, leaves the Manichees, and becomes again a Catechumen in the Church Catholic. 20. 6. [I.] 1. Accept the sacrifice of my confessions from the ministry of my tongue, which Thou hast formed and stirred up to confess unto Thy name. Heal Thou all my bones, and let them Ps. 35, say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee? For he who confesses to Thee, doth not teach Thee what takes place within him; seeing a closed heart closes not out Thy eye, nor can man's hard-heartedness thrust back Thy hand: for Thou dissolvest it at Thy will in pity or in vengeance, and nothing can hide Ps. 19, itself from Thy heat. But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess Thy own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee. Thy whole creation ceaseth not, nor is silent in Thy praises; neither the spirit of man with voice directed unto Thee, nor creation animate or inanimate, by the voice of those who meditate thereon: that so our souls may from their weariness arise towards Thee, leaning on those things which Thou hast created, and passing on to Thyself, who madest them wonderfully; and there is refreshment and true strength. a [II.] 2. Let the restless, the godless, depart and flee from Thee; yet Thou seest them, and dividest the darkness. And a "On whatever place a man have fallen, thereon he must lean, that he may rise. Therefore we must lean on those sensible forms, whereby we are held back, that we may know those, which sense tells us not of. Sensible I call, what can be perceived through the senses, very F i. e. the eyes, ears, and other senses of c. 24. 66 The wicked, though they obey not, must serve God. CONF. behold, the universe with them is fair, though they are foul ". B. V. And how have they injured Thee? or how have they disgraced d 7. 14. old vers. 27. Thy government, which, from the heaven to this lowest earth, Ps. 139, is just and perfect? For whither fled they, when they fled from Thy presence? Or where dost not Thou find them? Gen. 16, But they fled, that they might not see Thee seeing them, Wisd. and, blinded, might stumble against Thee; (because Thou for11; 25. sakest nothing Thou hast made;) that the unjust, I say, might stumble upon Thee, and justly be hurt; withdrawing themselves from Thy gentleness, and stumbling at Thy uprightness, and falling upon their own ruggedness. Ignorant, in truth, that Thou art every where, Whom no place encompasseth! and Thou Ps. 73, alone art near, even to those that remove far from Thee. Let them then be turned, and seek Thee; because not as they have forsaken their Creator, hast Thou forsaken Thy creation. Let them be turned and seek Thee; and behold, Thou art there in their heart, in the heart of those that confess to Thee, and cast themselves upon Thee, and weep in Thy bosom, after all their rugged ways. Then dost Thou gently wipe away their tears, and they weep the more, and joy in weeping; even for that Thou, Lord,-not man of flesh and blood, but -Thou, Lord, who madest them, re-makest and comfortest them. But where was I, when I was seeking Thee? And Thou wert before me, but I had gone away from Thee; nor did I find myself, how much less Thee! [III.] 3. I would lay open before my God that nine and twentieth year of mine age. There had then come to Carthage, a certain Bishop of the Manichees, Faustuse by name, b"As a picture, wherein a black colouring occurs in its proper place, so is the universe beautiful, if any could survey it, notwithstanding the presence of sinners, although, taken by themselves, their proper deformity makes them hideous." Aug. de Civ. Dei, xi. 23. "Persons are in Scripture called the enemies of God, who, not by nature but by sins, oppose His government; able to injure, not Him, but, themselves. For they are enemies through the will to resist, not through the power to hurt." ib. xii. 3. dNor by their wickedness do they effect that under the rule, power, and wisdom of the All-ruling God, the beauty and order of the universe should in any way be deformed, since to their wills of whatever sort, though evil, certain fitting bounds are assigned to their power, and the due measure to their deservings, so that even with them, thus placed under the fitting and due order, the universe is fair." Aug. de Gen. ad Lit. 1. xi. c. 21. e ll Faustus, of African origin, born at Milevis, of a sweet discourse and clever wit." Aug. c. Faust. 1. i. init. S. Aug. speaks again of his talent, (whence Aug. the more suspected that he saw through the fallacy of his own arguments,) ib. xvi. 26. and (whereas he claimed exclusively for the Manichees the Evangelical blessings on poverty and self-denial,) Discoveries of science do not lead to God. 67 a great snare of the Devil, and many were entangled by him through that lure of his smooth language: which though I did commend, yet could I separate from the truth of the things which I was earnest to learn: nor did I so much regard the service of oratory, as the science which this Faustus, so praised among them, set before me to feed upon. Fame had before bespoken him most knowing in all valuable learning, and exquisitely skilled in the liberal sciences. And since I had read and well remembered much of the philosophers, I compared some things of theirs with those long fables of the Manichees, and found the former the more probable; even although they could only prevail so far as to make judgment Wisd. of this lower world, the Lord of it they could by no means find out. For Thou art great, O Lord, and hast respect unto Ps. 138, the humble, but the proud Thou beholdest afar off. Nor dost Thou draw near, but to the contrite in heart, nor art found by Ps. 34, the proud, no, not though by curious skill they could number the stars and the sand, and measure the starry heavens, and track the courses of the planets. 4. For with their understanding and wit, which Thou bestowedst on them, they search out these things; and much have they found out; and foretold, many years before, eclipses of those luminaries, the sun and moon,-what day and hour, and how many digits, nor did their calculation fail; and it came to pass as they foretold; and they wrote down the rules they had found out, and these are read at this day, and out of them do others foretell in what year, and month of the year, and what day of the month, and what hour of the day, and what part of its light, moon or sun is to be eclipsed, and so it shall be, as it is foreshewed. At these things men, that know not this art, marvel and are astonished, and they that know it, exult, and are puffed up; and by an ungodly pride departing from Thee, and failing of Thy light, they foresee a failure of the sun's light, which shall be, so long before, but see not their own, which is. For they search. not religiously whence they have the wit, wherewith they his luxury, as being notorious to all the "Hearers" of the Manichees, especially at Rome, (ib. v. 7.) while he despised the poverty of his parents. (ib. c. 5.) He was, as a Manichee, banished to an island by 13, 9. 6. 18. B. V. 68 Self must be sacrificed, that we may know God. CONF. search out this. And finding that Thou madest them, they give not themselves up to Thee, to preserve what Thou madest, nor sacrifice to Thee, what they have made themselves; nor slay their own soaring imaginations, as fowls of the air', nor Ps. 8, 7. their own diving curiosities, (wherewith, like the fishes of the 8. sea, they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss,) nor Deut. 4, their own luxuriousness, as beasts of the field, that Thou, Lord, a consuming fire, mayest burn up those dead cares of theirs, and re-create themselves immortally. 24. 5. 1 Cor. 1, 30. 27. 13. Joh.1,3. 5. But they knew not the way, Thy Word, by Whom Thou madest these things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense whereby they perceive what they number, and the understanding, out of which they number; or Ps. 147, that of Thy wisdom there is no number. But the Only Begotten is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and was numbered among us, and Mat. 17, paid tribute unto Cæsar. They knew not this Way whereby to descend to Him from themselves, and by Him ascend unto Is. 14, Him. They knew not this way, and deemed themselves exRev. 12, alted amongst the stars and shining; and behold, they fell upon the earth, and their foolish heart was darkened. They discourse many things truly concerning the creature; but Truth, Artificer of the creature, they seek not piously, and therefore find Him not; or if they find Him, knowing Him to be God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their imaginations, and profess themselves to be wise, attributing to themselves what is Thine; and thereby with most perverse blindness, study to impute to Thee what is their own, forging lies of Thee who art the Truth, and Ver. 23. changing the glory of the uncorruptible God, into an image 4. Rom. 1, 21. Ib. f "The beasts of the field are most aptly understood of men rejoicing in carnal pleasures, who mount up to nothing arduous, nothing laborious. The birds of the air, the proud, of whom it is said, "they have set their face in the heaven." Behold again the fishes of the sea, i. e. the carnally curious, who walk through the paths of the seas, i. e. in the depths of this world search out the things of time; which, like paths in the sea, vanish and perish as soon as the water is mingled together again, after yielding a passage to what has passed through. For these three sorts of sins, i. e. pleasure of the flesh and pride and curiosity, include all sins." Aug. ad loc. vid. sup. iii. 8. inf. x. 30 sqq. g" He is the home whither we go, He the way whereby we go; go we by Him to Him and we shall not go astray. Aug. Serm. 92. Christ, as God, is the home whither we go; Christ, as man, is the way whereby we go. Ib. 123. Christ carrieth us on, as a leader, carrieth us in Him, as the way, carrieth us up to Him, as our home." Aug. in Ps. 60. §. 4. Knowledge of God the happiness of all happiness. 69 made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, changing Thy truth into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator. 6. Yet many truths concerning the creature retained I from these men, and saw the reason thereof from calculations, the succession of times, and the visible testimonies of the stars; and compared them with the saying of Manichæus, which in his phrenzy he had written most largely on these subjects; but discovered not any account of the solstices, or equinoxes, or the eclipses of the greater lights, nor whatever of this sort I had learned in the books of secular philosophy. But I was commanded to believe; and yet it corresponded not with what had been established by calculations and my own sight, but was quite contrary. [IV.] 7. Doth then, O Lord God of truth, whoso knoweth these things, therefore please Thee? Surely unhappy is he who knoweth all these, and knoweth not Thee: but happy whoso knoweth Thee, though he know not these". And whoso knoweth both Thee and them, is not the happier for them, but for Thee only, if, knowing Thee, he glorifies Thee as Rom. 1, God, and is thankful, and becomes not vain in his imaginations. For as he is better off, who knows how to possess a tree, and returns thanks to Thee for the use thereof, although he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads, than he that can measure it, and count all its boughs, and neither owns it, nor knows or loves its Creator: so a believer, whose all this world of wealth is, and who having 2 Cor. nothing, yet possesseth all things, by cleaving unto Thee, whom all things serve, though he know not even the circles of the Great Bear, yet is it folly to doubt but he is in a better state than one who can measure the heavens, and number the h" More praiseworthy is the mind, which knoweth its very weakness, than that which, regarding it not, searches out the paths of the stars, yea though it shall, or doth already, know them, not knowing by what path he may enter upon his own salvation and abiding strength." Aug. de Trin. iv. 1. S. Aug. has the same train of thought, as in these sections, Serm. 68. §. 1, 2, which he closes, "Be not much concerned 6, 10. |