The Confessions

Saint Augustine

• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9788827802854
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Confessions (Latin: Confessiones) is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by St. Augustine of Hippo, written in Latin between AD 397 and 400. Modern English translations of it are sometimes published under the title The Confessions of St. Augustine in order to distinguish the book from other books with similar titles. Its original title was Confessions in Thirteen Books, and it was composed to be read out loud with each book being a complete unit. The work outlines St. Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1, 000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is generally considered one of Augustine's most important texts.

BOOK X

Let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest me: let me know Thee, as Iam known. Power of my soul, enter into it, and fit it for Thee,that Thou mayest have and hold it without spot or wrinkle. This ismy hope, therefore do I speak; and in this hope do I rejoice, whenI rejoice healthfully. Other things of this life are the less to besorrowed for, the more they are sorrowed for; and the more to besorrowed for, the less men sorrow for them. For behold, Thou lovestthe truth, and he that doth it, cometh to the light. This would Ido in my heart before Thee in confession: and in my writing, beforemany witnesses.

And from Thee, O Lord, unto whose eyes the abyss of man'sconscience is naked, what could be hidden in me though I would notconfess it? For I should hide Thee from me, not me from Thee. Butnow, for that my groaning is witness, that I am displeased withmyself, Thou shinest out, and art pleasing, and beloved, and longedfor; that I may be ashamed of myself, and renounce myself, andchoose Thee, and neither please Thee nor myself, but in Thee. ToThee therefore, O Lord, am I open, whatever I am; and with whatfruit I confess unto Thee, I have said. Nor do I it with words andsounds of the flesh, but with the words of my soul, and the cry ofthe thought which Thy ear knoweth. For when I am evil, then toconfess to Thee is nothing else than to be displeased with myself;but when holy, nothing else than not to ascribe it to myself:because Thou, O Lord, blessest the godly, but first Thou justifiethhim when ungodly. My confession then, O my God, in Thy sight, ismade silently, and not silently. For in sound, it is silent; inaffection, it cries aloud. For neither do I utter any thing rightunto men, which Thou hast not before heard from me; nor dost Thouhear any such thing from me, which Thou hast not first said untome.

What then have I to do with men, that they should hear myconfessions—as if they could heal all my infirmities—arace, curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend theirown? Why seek they to hear from me what I am; who will not hearfrom Thee what themselves are? And how know they, when from myselfthey hear of myself, whether I say true; seeing no man knows whatis in man, but the spirit of man which is in him? But if they hearfrom Thee of themselves, they cannot say, "The Lord lieth." Forwhat is it to hear from Thee of themselves, but to know themselves?and who knoweth and saith, "It is false," unless himself lieth? Butbecause charity believeth all things (that is, among those whomknitting unto itself it maketh one), I also, O Lord, will in suchwise confess unto Thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannotdemonstrate whether I confess truly; yet they believe me, whoseears charity openeth unto me.

But do Thou, my inmost Physician, make plain unto me what fruitI may reap by doing it. For the confessions of my past sins, whichThou hast forgiven and covered, that Thou mightest bless me inThee, changing my soul by Faith and Thy Sacrament, when read andheard, stir up the heart, that it sleep not in despair and say "Icannot," but awake in the love of Thy mercy and the sweetness ofThy grace, whereby whoso is weak, is strong, when by it he becameconscious of his own weakness. And the good delight to hear of thepast evils of such as are now freed from them, not because they areevils, but because they have been and are not. With what fruitthen, O Lord my God, to Whom my conscience dailyconfesseth,trusting more in the hope of Thy mercy than in her owninnocency, with what fruit, I pray, do I by this book confess tomen also in Thy presence what I now am, not what I have been? Forthat other fruit I have seen and spoken of. But what I now am, atthe very time of making these confessions, divers desire to know,who have or have not known me, who have heard from me or of me; buttheir ear is not at my heart where I am, whatever I am. They wishthen to hear me confess what I am within; whither neither theireye, nor ear, nor understanding can reach; they wish it, as readyto believe—but will they know? For charity, whereby they aregood, telleth them that in my confessions I lie not; and she inthem, believeth me.

But for what fruit would they hear this? Do they desire to joywith me, when they hear how near, by Thy gift, I approach untoThee? and to pray for me, when they shall hear how much I am heldback by my own weight? To such will I discover myself. For it is nomean fruit, O Lord my God, that by many thanks should be given toThee on our behalf, and Thou be by many entreated for us. Let thebrotherly mind love in me what Thou teachest is to be loved, andlament in me what Thou teachest is to be lamented. Let a brotherly,not a stranger, mind, not that of the strange children, whose mouthtalketh of vanity, and their right hand is a right hand ofiniquity, but that brotherly mind which when it approveth,rejoiceth for me, and when it disapproveth me, is sorry for me;because whether it approveth or disapproveth, it loveth me. To suchwill I discover myself: they will breathe freely at my good deeds,sigh for my ill. My good deeds are Thine appointments, and Thygifts; my evil ones are my offences, and Thy judgments. Let thembreathe freely at the one, sigh at the other; and let hymns andweeping go up into Thy sight, out of the hearts of my brethren, Thycensers. And do Thou, O Lord, be pleased with the incense of Thyholy temple, have mercy upon me according to Thy great mercy forThine own name's sake; and no ways forsaking what Thou hast begun,perfect my imperfections.

This is the fruit of my confessions of what I am, not of what Ihave been, to confess this, not before Thee only, in a secretexultation with trembling, and a secret sorrow with hope; but inthe ears also of the believing sons of men, sharers of my joy, andpartners in my mortality, my fellow-citizens, and fellow-pilgrims,who are gone before, or are to follow on, companions of my way.These are Thy servants, my brethren, whom Thou willest to be Thysons; my masters, whom Thou commandest me to serve, if I would livewith Thee, of Thee. But this Thy Word were little did it onlycommand by speaking, and not go before in performing. This then Ido in deed and word, this I do under Thy wings; in over greatperil, were not my soul subdued unto Thee under Thy wings, and myinfirmity known unto Thee. I am a little one, but my Father everliveth, and my Guardian is sufficient for me. For He is the samewho begat me, and defends me: and Thou Thyself art all my good;Thou, Almighty, Who are with me, yea, before I am with Thee. Tosuch then whom Thou commandest me to serve will I discover, notwhat I have been, but what I now am and what I yet am. But neitherdo I judge myself. Thus therefore I would be heard.

For Thou, Lord, dost judge me: because, although no man knoweththe things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him, yetis there something of man, which neither the spirit of man that isin him, itself knoweth. But Thou, Lord, knowest all of him, Whohast made him. Yet I, though in Thy sight I despise myself, andaccount myself dust and ashes; yet know I something of Thee, whichI know not of myself. And truly, now we see through aglass darkly,not face to face as yet. So long therefore as I be absent fromThee, I am more present with myself than with Thee; and yet know IThee that Thou art in no ways passible; but I, what temptations Ican resist, what I cannot, I know not. And there is hope, becauseThou art faithful, Who wilt not suffer us to be tempted above thatwe are able; but wilt with the temptation also make a way toescape, that we may be able to bear it. I will confess then what Iknow of myself, I will confess also what I know not of myself. Andthat because what I do know of myself, I know by Thy shining uponme; and what I know not of myself, so long know I not it, until mydarkness be made as the noon-day in Thy countenance.

Not with doubting, but with assured consciousness, do I loveThee, Lord. Thou hast stricken my heart with Thy word, and I lovedThee. Yea also heaven, and earth, and all that therein is, behold,on every side they bid me love Thee; nor cease to say so unto all,that they may be without excuse. But more deeply wilt Thou havemercy on whom Thou wilt have mercy, and wilt have compassion onwhom Thou hast had compassion: else in deaf ears do the heaven andthe earth speak Thy praises. But what do I love, when I love Thee?not beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor thebrightness of the light, so gladsome to our eyes, nor sweetmelodies of varied songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, andointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs acceptable toembracements of flesh. None of these I love, when I love my God;and yet I love a kind of light, and melody, and fragrance, andmeat, and embracement when I love my God, the light, melody,fragrance, meat, embracement of my inner man: where there shinethunto my soul what space cannot contain, and there soundeth whattime beareth not away, and there smelleth what breathing dispersethnot, and there tasteth what eating diminisheth not, and thereclingeth what satiety divorceth not. This is it which I love when Ilove my God.

And what is this? I asked the earth, and it answered me, "I amnot He"; and whatsoever are in it confessed the same. I asked thesea and the deeps, and the living creeping things, and theyanswered, "We are not thy God, seek above us." I asked the movingair; and the whole air with his inhabitants answered, "Anaximeneswas deceived, I am not God." I asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars,"Nor (say they) are we the God whom thou seekest." And I repliedunto all the things which encompass the door of my flesh: "Ye havetold me of my God, that ye are not He; tell me something of Him."And they cried out with a loud voice, "He made us." My questioningthem, was my thoughts on them: and their form of beauty gave theanswer. And I turned myself unto myself, and said to myself, "Whoart thou?" And I answered, "A man." And behold, in me there presentthemselves to me soul, and body, one without, the other within. Bywhich of these ought I to seek my God? I had sought Him in the bodyfrom earth to heaven, so far as I could send messengers, the beamsof mine eyes. But the better is the inner, for to it as presidingand judging, all the bodily messengers reported the answers ofheaven and earth, and all things therein, who said, "We are notGod, but He made us." These things did my inner man know by theministry of the outer: I the inner knew them; I, the mind, throughthe senses of my body. I asked the whole frame of the world aboutmy God; and it answered me, "I am not He, but He made me."

Is not this corporeal figure apparent to all whose senses areperfect? why then speaks it not the same to all? Animals small andgreat see it, but they cannot ask it: because no reason is set overtheir senses to judge on what they report. But men can ask, so thatthe invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood bythe things that are made; butby love of them, they are made subjectunto them: and subjects cannot judge. Nor yet do the creaturesanswer such as ask, unless they can judge; nor yet do they changetheir voice (i.e., their appearance), if one man only sees, anotherseeing asks, so as to appear one way to this man, another way tothat, but appearing the same way to both, it is dumb to this,speaks to that; yea rather it speaks to all; but they onlyunderstand, who compare its voice received from without, with thetruth within. For truth saith unto me, "Neither heaven, nor earth,nor any other body is thy God." This, their very nature saith tohim that seeth them: "They are a mass; a mass is less in a partthereof than in the whole." Now to thee I speak, O my soul, thouart my better part: for thou quickenest the mass of my body, givingit life, which no body can give to a body: but thy God is even untothee the Life of thy life.

What then do I love, when I love my God? who is He above thehead of my soul? By my very soul will I ascend to Him. I will passbeyond that power whereby I am united to my body, and fill itswhole frame with life. Nor can I by that power find my God; for sohorse and mule that have no understanding might find Him; seeing itis the same power, whereby even their bodies live. But anotherpower there is, not that only whereby I animate, but that toowhereby I imbue with sense my flesh, which the Lord hath framed forme: commanding the eye not to hear, and the ear not to see; but theeye, that through it I should see, and the ear, that through it Ishould hear; and to the other senses severally, what is to eachtheir own peculiar seats and offices; which, being divers, I theone mind, do through them enact. I will pass beyond this power ofmine also; for this also have the horse, and mule, for they alsoperceive through the body.

I will pass then beyond this power of my nature also, rising bydegrees unto Him Who made me. And I come to the fields and spaciouspalaces of my memory, where are the treasures of innumerableimages, brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by thesenses. There is stored up, whatsoever besides we think, either byenlarging or diminishing, or any other way varying those thingswhich the sense hath come to; and whatever else hath been committedand laid up, which forgetfulness hath not yet swallowed up andburied. When I enter there, I require what I will to be broughtforth, and something instantly comes; others must be longer soughtafter, which are fetched, as it were, out of some inner receptacle;others rush out in troops, and while one thing is desired andrequired, they start forth, as who should say, "Is it perchance I?"These I drive away with the hand of my heart, from the face of myremembrance; until what I wish for be unveiled, and appear insight, out of its secret place. Other things come up readily, inunbroken order, as they are called for; those in front making wayfor the following; and as they make way, they are hidden fromsight, ready to come when I will. All which takes place when Irepeat a thing by heart.

There are all things preserved distinctly and under generalheads, each having entered by its own avenue: as light, and allcolours and forms of bodies by the eyes; by the ears all sorts ofsounds; all smells by the avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by themouth; and by the sensation of the whole body, what is hard orsoft; hot or cold; or rugged; heavy or light; either outwardly orinwardly to the body. All these doth that great harbour of thememory receive in her numberless secret and inexpressible windings,to be forthcoming, and brought out at need; each entering in by hisown gate, and there laid up. Nor yet do the things themselves enterin; only the images of the things perceived are there inreadiness,for thought to recall. Which images, how they are formed,who can tell, though it doth plainly appear by which sense eachhath been brought in and stored up? For even while I dwell indarkness and silence, in my memory I can produce colours, if Iwill, and discern betwixt black and white, and what others I will:nor yet do sounds break in and disturb the image drawn in by myeyes, which I am reviewing, though they also are there, lyingdormant, and laid up, as it were, apart. For these too I call for,and forthwith they appear. And though my tongue be still, and mythroat mute, so can I sing as much as I will; nor do those imagesof colours, which notwithstanding be there, intrude themselves andinterrupt, when another store is called for, which flowed in by theears. So the other things, piled in and up by the other senses, Irecall at my pleasure. Yea, I discern the breath of lilies fromviolets, though smelling nothing; and I prefer honey to sweet wine,smooth before rugged, at the time neither tasting nor handling, butremembering only.

These things do I within, in that vast court of my memory. Forthere are present with me, heaven, earth, sea, and whatever I couldthink on therein, besides what I have forgotten. There also meet Iwith myself, and recall myself, and when, where, and what I havedone, and under what feelings. There be all which I remember,either on my own experience, or other's credit. Out of the samestore do I myself with the past continually combine fresh and freshlikenesses of things which I have experienced, or, from what I haveexperienced, have believed: and thence again infer future actions,events and hopes, and all these again I reflect on, as present. "Iwill do this or that," say I to myself, in that great receptacle ofmy mind, stored with the images of things so many and so great,"and this or that will follow." "O that this or that might be!""God avert this or that!" So speak I to myself: and when I speak,the images of all I speak of are present, out of the same treasuryof memory; nor would I speak of any thereof, were the imageswanting.

Great is this force of memory, excessive great, O my God; alarge and boundless chamber! who ever sounded the bottom thereof?yet is this a power of mine, and belongs unto my nature; nor do Imyself comprehend all that I am. Therefore is the mind too straitto contain itself. And where should that be, which it containethnot of itself? Is it without it, and not within? how then doth itnot comprehend itself? A wonderful admiration surprises me,amazement seizes me upon this. And men go abroad to admire theheights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broadtides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of thestars, and pass themselves by; nor wonder that when I spake of allthese things, I did not see them with mine eyes, yet could not havespoken of them, unless I then actually saw the mountains, billows,rivers, stars which I had seen, and that ocean which I believe tobe, inwardly in my memory, and that, with the same vast spacesbetween, as if I saw them abroad. Yet did not I by seeing draw theminto myself, when with mine eyes I beheld them; nor are theythemselves with me, but their images only. And I know by what senseof the body each was impressed upon me.

Yet not these alone does the unmeasurable capacity of my memoryretain. Here also is all, learnt of the liberal sciences and as yetunforgotten; removed as it were to some inner place, which is yetno place: nor are they the images thereof, but the thingsthemselves. For, what is literature, what the art of disputing, howmany kinds of questions there be, whatsoever of these I know, insuch manner exists in my memory, as that I have not taken in theimage, and left out the thing, or that it should have sounded andpassed away like avoice fixed on the ear by that impress, wherebyit might be recalled, as if it sounded, when it no longer sounded;or as a smell while it passes and evaporates into air affects thesense of smell, whence it conveys into the memory an image ofitself, which remembering, we renew, or as meat, which verily inthe belly hath now no taste, and yet in the memory still in amanner tasteth; or as any thing which the body by touch perceiveth,and which when removed from us, the memory still conceives. Forthose things are not transmitted into the memory, but their imagesonly are with an admirable swiftness caught up, and stored as itwere in wondrous cabinets, and thence wonderfully by the act ofremembering, brought forth.

But now when I hear that there be three kinds of questions,"Whether the thing be? what it is? of what kind it is?" I do indeedhold the images of the sounds of which those words be composed, andthat those sounds, with a noise passed through the air, and now arenot. But the things themselves which are signified by those sounds,I never reached with any sense of my body, nor ever discerned themotherwise than in my mind; yet in my memory have I laid up nottheir images, but themselves. Which how they entered into me, letthem say if they can; for I have gone over all the avenues of myflesh, but cannot find by which they entered. For the eyes say, "Ifthose images were coloured, we reported of them." The ears say, "Ifthey sound, we gave knowledge of them." The nostrils say, "If theysmell, they passed by us." The taste says, "Unless they have asavour, ask me not." The touch says, "If it have not size, Ihandled it not; if I handled it not, I gave no notice of it."Whence and how entered these things into my memory? I know not how.For when I learned them, I gave not credit to another man's mind,but recognised them in mine; and approving them for true, Icommended them to it, laying them up as it were, whence I mightbring them forth when I willed. In my heart then they were, evenbefore I learned them, but in my memory they were not. Where then?or wherefore, when they were spoken, did I acknowledge them, andsaid, "So is it, it is true," unless that they were already in thememory, but so thrown back and buried as it were in deeperrecesses, that had not the suggestion of another drawn them forth Ihad perchance been unable to conceive of them?

Wherefore we find, that to learn these things whereof we imbibenot the images by our senses, but perceive within by themselves,without images, as they are, is nothing else, but by conception, toreceive, and by marking to take heed that those things which thememory did before contain at random and unarranged, be laid up athand as it were in that same memory where before they lay unknown,scattered and neglected, and so readily occur to the mindfamiliarised to them. And how many things of this kind does mymemory bear which have been already found out, and as I said,placed as it were at hand, which we are said to have learned andcome to know which were I for some short space of time to cease tocall to mind, they are again so buried, and glide back, as it were,into the deeper recesses, that they must again, as if new, bethought out thence, for other abode they have none: but they mustbe drawn together again, that they may be known; that is to say,they must as it were be collected together from their dispersion:whence the word "cogitation" is derived. For cogo (collect) andcogito (re-collect) have the same relation to each other as ago andagito, facio and factito. But the mind hath appropriated to itselfthis word (cogitation), so that, not what is "collected" any how,but what is "recollected," i.e., brought together, in the mind, isproperly said to be cogitated, or thought upon.

The memory containeth also reasons and laws innumerable ofnumbers and dimensions, none of which hath any bodily senseimpressed; seeing they have neither colour, nor sound, nor taste,nor smell, nor touch. I have heard the sound of the words wherebywhen discussed they are denoted: but the sounds are other than thethings. For the sounds are other in Greek than in Latin; but thethings are neither Greek, nor Latin, nor any other language. I haveseen the lines of architects, the very finest, like a spider'sthread; but those are still different, they are not the images ofthose lines which the eye of flesh showed me: he knoweth them,whosoever without any conception whatsoever of a body, recognisesthem within himself. I have perceived also the numbers of thethings with which we number all the senses of my body; but thosenumbers wherewith we number are different, nor are they the imagesof these, and therefore they indeed are. Let him who seeth themnot, deride me for saying these things, and I will pity him, whilehe derides me.

All these things I remember, and how I learnt them I remember.Many things also most falsely objected against them have I heard,and remember; which though they be false, yet is it not false thatI remember them; and I remember also that I have discerned betwixtthose truths and these falsehoods objected to them. And I perceivethat the present discerning of these things is different fromremembering that I oftentimes discerned them, when I often thoughtupon them. I both remember then to have often understood thesethings; and what I now discern and understand, I lay up in mymemory, that hereafter I may remember that I understand it now. Sothen I remember also to have remembered; as if hereafter I shallcall to remembrance, that I have now been able to remember thesethings, by the force of memory shall I call it to remembrance.

The same memory contains also the affections of my mind, not inthe same manner that my mind itself contains them, when it feelsthem; but far otherwise, according to a power of its own. Forwithout rejoicing I remember myself to have joyed; and withoutsorrow do I recollect my past sorrow. And that I once feared, Ireview without fear; and without desire call to mind a past desire.Sometimes, on the contrary, with joy do I remember my fore-pastsorrow, and with sorrow, joy. Which is not wonderful, as to thebody; for mind is one thing, body another. If I therefore with joyremember some past pain of body, it is not so wonderful. But nowseeing this very memory itself is mind (for when we give a thing incharge, to be kept in memory, we say, "See that you keep it inmind"; and when we forget, we say, "It did not come to my mind,"and, "It slipped out of my mind," calling the memory itself themind); this being so, how is it that when with joy I remember mypast sorrow, the mind hath joy, the memory hath sorrow; the mindupon the joyfulness which is in it, is joyful, yet the memory uponthe sadness which is in it, is...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• BOOK I
• BOOK II
• BOOK III
• BOOK IV
• BOOK V
• BOOK VI
• BOOK VII
• BOOK VIII
• BOOK IX
• BOOK X
• BOOK XI
• BOOK XII
• BOOK XIII