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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

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All subjects (including unvalidated):
subject book bibliographic info
augustine Ando (2013) 53, 54, 121, 218, 219, 347, 348
Arthur-Montagne DiGiulio and Kuin (2022) 71, 240, 241
Bay (2022) 59, 63, 93, 122, 155, 179, 296
Binder (2012) 101, 150, 204
Boustan Janssen and Roetzel (2010) 74
Bryan (2018) 245
Cain (2013) 62, 70, 75, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 94, 95, 105, 107, 109, 114, 115, 117, 118, 121, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 133, 134, 136, 143, 145, 150, 160, 161, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 184, 185, 186, 190, 191, 193, 200, 204, 205, 208, 214, 217, 218, 230, 244, 246, 247, 252, 253, 256, 257, 259, 261, 262, 271
Cain (2016) 49, 94, 100, 101, 104, 108, 115, 187, 257
Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 29, 239, 344, 350, 361
Corrigan and Rasimus (2013) 195, 207, 325, 374, 377, 437, 574, 575, 587, 588
Cosgrove (2022) 224
Czajkowski et al (2020) 375, 376, 377, 378, 387, 388, 472
Del Lucchese (2019) 176, 219, 271, 273, 274, 286, 292, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319
Dignas Parker and Stroumsa (2013) 220
Dijkstra and Raschle (2020) 269, 271, 272, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283
Dillon and Timotin (2015) 3, 21, 98
Doble and Kloha (2014) 233, 234, 235, 284, 298
Edelmann-Singer et al (2020) 72, 208, 227, 262
Edmonds (2019) 30, 241, 330, 340, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 380, 381, 382, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390
Edmondson (2008) 184, 247, 255, 256
Ernst (2009) 210, 217, 221
Geljon and Runia (2019) 158
Graver (2007) 237
Gruen (2011) 138, 183
Gunderson (2022) 14, 86, 328
Hanghan (2019) 6, 13, 16, 35, 51, 55, 78, 139
Hidary (2017) 273, 275
Hitch (2017) 6, 13, 16, 35, 51, 55, 78, 139
Howley (2018) 20, 21
Inwood and Warren (2020) 200, 201, 211, 212, 214, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 224
Iricinschi et al. (2013) 128, 144, 146, 286
James (2021) 43, 44, 247
Janowitz (2002) 10, 13, 25, 27, 35
Janowitz (2002b) 9, 13, 14
Johnson and Parker (2009) 198
Joosse (2021) 41
Keeline (2018) 249, 339, 340
Kessler (2004) 155
Kitzler (2015) 1, 11, 39, 49, 62, 117
Konig (2022) 336
König (2012) 202, 204, 227
Lampe (2003) 112
Lavee (2017) 147
Legaspi (2018) 4, 50, 202
Levine (2005) 4, 45, 481
Levison (2009) 373
Long (2006) 102, 106, 133, 135, 139, 150, 151, 152
Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 17, 18, 19, 34, 50, 68, 74, 77, 80, 102, 121, 131, 144, 145, 149, 156
Mackey (2022) 14, 21, 48, 53, 56, 78, 79, 81, 82, 86, 117, 124, 245, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263, 281
Mcclellan (2019) 10
Moss (2010) 16, 169
Naiden (2013) 284
Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256
O, Daly (2012) 62, 306, 312
Osborne (2001) 28, 149, 212, 235
Peppard (2011) 167, 171
Poorthuis and Schwartz (2014) 177, 185, 186, 187, 190, 207, 316, 317, 330, 422, 436, 451
Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463
Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 51, 61, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210
Rubenstein (2018) 193
Rupke (2016) 50
Russell and Nesselrath (2014) 92, 117, 151
Rutledge (2012) 193
Schwartz (2008) 59
Secunda (2014) 136
Simmons(1995) 80, 114, 203, 209, 222, 253
Tanaseanu-Döbler and von Alvensleben (2020) 200, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219
Viglietti and Gildenhard (2020) 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 197, 243, 249
Wardy and Warren (2018) 245
d, Hoine and Martijn (2017) 256
de Ste. Croix et al. (2006) 75, 141, 143, 159, 162, 163, 164, 209, 221, 223, 226, 351, 352, 360, 363, 364
Čulík-Baird (2022) 67, 126, 152, 228
augustine's, cogito Harrison (2006) 1, 4, 75, 80, 85, 92, 98, 101, 102, 113, 125, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150
augustine's, creationism, “decade of preparation, ” Beatrice (2013) 53
augustine's, interlocutors, dialogue Harrison (2006) 33, 34, 35, 36
augustine's, main objection that lust and male member not subject to will, lust Sorabji (2000) 337, 380, 404, 405, 406
augustine's, synoptic vision Harrison (2006) 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62
augustine's, use of order, ordinary language Harrison (2006) 54, 68, 113, 114, 115
augustine, accepts that since we have only the gift of augustine, but moderation, god blames only excess Sorabji (2000) 406
augustine, acts of paul and thecla, and Bremmer (2017) 301
augustine, adeodatus, son of Conybeare (2006) 67, 75
Huebner and Laes (2019) 301, 305, 307
augustine, admission of postulants Dilley (2019) 37, 38, 58, 69
augustine, against faustus the manichaeian Hoenig (2018) 252, 253
augustine, albicerius, sorcerer known to Luck (2006) 75
augustine, alleged to be anti-marriage and still manichaean, pelagius and pelagianism Sorabji (2000) 403
augustine, allegory, allegorical interpretation Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 459, 463
augustine, allowing bad thoughts to linger and enjoying them Sorabji (2000) 373
augustine, also justice Sorabji (2000) 188
augustine, also rejects feeling pity, in favour of taking philo, clement of alexandria, basil, early pity, but later recants Sorabji (2000) 396, 397
augustine, alypius, associate of Huebner and Laes (2019) 298
augustine, ambrose, and Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 17, 18
augustine, ambrose, influence on Hoenig (2018) 218, 222
augustine, and apuleius Hoenig (2018) 273, 274
augustine, and baptism Sorabji (2000) 403
augustine, and calcidius’s descriptions of matter Hoenig (2018) 24
augustine, and christian faith Hoenig (2018) 218, 222
augustine, and cicero’s translation of timaeus Hoenig (2018) 22, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281
augustine, and confessiones, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 347
augustine, and divine impassibility Simmons(1995) 273
augustine, and early roman history Simmons(1995) 59
augustine, and for himself personally lust was a punishment for pride Sorabji (2000) 336
augustine, and gregory the great pride, per contra root of all other sins in ecclesiasticus Sorabji (2000) 336, 370, 399
augustine, and jerome Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 18
augustine, and manichaeism Hoenig (2018) 216, 217
augustine, and martyrdom of perputua and felicitas Moss (2012) 132, 196, 197
augustine, and of marriage as occupying attention Sorabji (2000) 413
augustine, and sceptics Hoenig (2018) 217, 218, 224
augustine, and the neoplatonic descent of the soul Simmons(1995) 288
augustine, and the saturn cult Simmons(1995) 186, 209
augustine, and timaean doctrine Hoenig (2018) 260, 281
augustine, and, allegory Hoenig (2018) 222, 237
augustine, and, apuleius Hoenig (2018) 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277
augustine, and, novum consilium Hoenig (2018) 230
augustine, and, plato, timaeus Hoenig (2018) 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278
augustine, and, sceptics Hoenig (2018) 217, 218, 223, 225
augustine, and, timaeus methodology passage Hoenig (2018) 22, 220, 227, 256, 265, 279
augustine, anger contrasted with lust as supposedly free of bodily insubordination Sorabji (2000) 380, 381
augustine, anti-jewish characterizations in writings of Kraemer (2020) 185, 212
augustine, anti-pelagianism Sorabji (2000) 373, 374, 399, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416
augustine, approves appetite for legitimate offspring Sorabji (2000) 407
augustine, as latin philosopher, philosophy, ch. Keeline (2018) 340
augustine, assent to appearance Sorabji (2000) 378, 379
augustine, at cassiciacum Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 6, 25, 26, 47, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 64
augustine, at first accepts only taking pity, later feeling pity Sorabji (2000) 397, 398
augustine, at milan Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 49
augustine, attack on stoic apatheia, misrepresents stoic acceptance of first movements as acceptance of emotion Sorabji (2000) 207, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 385
augustine, attribution, of ambrosiaster's quaestiones to Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 12, 28, 29
augustine, auerbach, erich, on Dawson (2001) 245
augustine, authority Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 103, 109, 141, 152, 154, 185, 203, 204, 298, 299
augustine, bad thoughts and suggestions Sorabji (2000) 346, 348, 355
augustine, beatitudes Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 432, 437, 438, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463
augustine, before the fall, no conflict of lust with will, first view, adam and eve had only spiritual bodies Sorabji (2000) 406, 407
augustine, belief that jews must remain unmolested, as testimony to christ, of Kraemer (2020) 6, 58
augustine, bishop Klein and Wienand (2022) 273, 275
augustine, bishop of hippo, understanding of josephus Cohen (2010) 192
augustine, but not consent to act in waking life Sorabji (2000) 414
augustine, but we need grace Sorabji (2000) 396, 414
augustine, by what mechanism can adam's act of will have resulted in genetic transmission of original sin?, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of Sorabji (2000) 416
augustine, calcidius, parallels with Hoenig (2018) 279
augustine, career and intellectual development, student at madaura Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 148
augustine, cassiciacum dialogues König (2012) 187, 188, 189
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 51, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128
augustine, catechetical tradition, jewish-christian, in O, Daly (2020) 303, 304
augustine, challenges in analyzing, confessions / confessiones Yates and Dupont (2020) 352
augustine, christian apologist Mueller (2002) 92, 162, 163
augustine, christian asceticism Huebner and Laes (2019) 305, 307, 308
augustine, christian faith, superiority of Hoenig (2018) 225, 271, 273
augustine, christianizes Hoenig (2018) 257, 282
augustine, christology, natures of christ Sorabji (2000) 398, 399
augustine, cicero, speeches cited by O, Daly (2020) 271, 272
augustine, cicero’s influence on Hoenig (2018) 216
augustine, city of god Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 250, 251, 252, 253
augustine, city of god, its themes in other works of O, Daly (2020) 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304
augustine, cogito in Sorabji (2000) 270
augustine, composes hermeneutical treatise Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 209
augustine, composition and collection of quaestiones of Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 29, 65, 66
augustine, composition date, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 321, 322
augustine, concubinage, of Huebner and Laes (2019) 301, 302
augustine, confessiones Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 13, 15, 27, 28, 109, 115, 117, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163
augustine, confessions Hoenig (2018) 24, 217, 227, 237
Johnson and Parker (2009) 211
Konig (2022) 288
Mackey (2022) 48, 251
augustine, consent of will is source of sin Sorabji (2000) 372, 414
augustine, consent to sex in dreams not sufficiently distinguished from nocturnal emissions Sorabji (2000) 381, 382, 415
augustine, consent vs. command of will, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of augustine, crucial reply to Sorabji (2000) 409, 412
augustine, consentius’s letters with Kraemer (2020) 53, 72
augustine, contra academicos Hoenig (2018) 218, 223, 224
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 115, 125, 126, 127, 151, 152
augustine, contra adimantum Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 113
augustine, contra cresconium Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 152
augustine, contraception better than procreation, which traps soul in matter Sorabji (2000) 277, 400
augustine, conversion Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 49, 141
augustine, conversion narrative, confessions / confessiones Yates and Dupont (2020) 215, 244, 245
augustine, conversion of Johnston (2008) 131
augustine, conversion, of Conybeare (2006) 6, 7, 13, 14, 98, 99, 100
Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 17, 65
augustine, creation narrative of Hoenig (2018) 227, 228, 229, 230, 237, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251
augustine, creation, consistent with creator’s eternity Hoenig (2018) 219
augustine, creation, in genesis, sceptics on Hoenig (2018) 218
augustine, criticism of porphyry Simmons(1995) 219, 220, 225, 230, 250, 260
augustine, criticizes theurgy Simmons(1995) 23, 177, 240
augustine, curiosity, not pleasure, drives us to look at corpses Sorabji (2000) 80
augustine, de catechizandis rudibus Simmons(1995) 124
augustine, de civitate dei Hoenig (2018) 225, 237
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 109, 116, 138, 152, 209
augustine, de consensu evangelistarum Hoenig (2018) 251, 252, 253
augustine, de dialectica Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 222
augustine, de doctrina christiana Hoenig (2018) 225
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 7, 13, 15, 72, 73, 79, 104, 105, 106, 110, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 142, 143, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231
augustine, de excidio urbis romae Bay (2022) 40, 54
augustine, de genesi ad litteram Hoenig (2018) 227, 237
augustine, de genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus Hoenig (2018) 227, 237
augustine, de genesi adversus manicheos Hoenig (2018) 227, 237
augustine, de genesi contra manichaeos Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 225
augustine, de immortalitate animae Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 139
augustine, de magistro Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 142
augustine, de musica Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 71, 72, 150
augustine, de ordine Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 6, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 64, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 97, 98, 105, 106, 107, 108, 126, 127, 128, 187, 188, 189, 190, 221
augustine, de quantitate animae Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 71, 72
augustine, de trinitate Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 203, 204
augustine, de trinitate dei Hoenig (2018) 233, 251, 252, 253
augustine, de utilitate credendi Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 15
augustine, de vera religione Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 15
augustine, defends christ’s divinity Hoenig (2018) 252, 258
augustine, degrees of sin Sorabji (2000) 353, 355, 356, 373, 374, 375
augustine, demonology, and Hoenig (2018) 270, 271, 275, 279
augustine, denial of need for forgiveness is pride or vanity, pride Sorabji (2000) 399
augustine, denial of need for forgiveness is vanity or pride, vanity Sorabji (2000) 399
augustine, develops incarnational theology Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 64, 138, 139, 140
augustine, direct citations and interpretations of scripture in confessions / confessiones Yates and Dupont (2020) 358, 359, 360, 361, 362
augustine, disagrees, eupatheiai, equanimous states Sorabji (2000) 398
augustine, distinguished assent to action Sorabji (2000) 374
augustine, distress at memory of pleasure lost, pleasure at memory of pain endured Sorabji (2000) 233
augustine, doctrine Hoenig (2018) 270
augustine, does sex require pleasure?, pleasure, clement and Sorabji (2000) 388, 407
augustine, dreams, sexual, in Sorabji (2000) 115, 381, 382, 413, 414, 415
augustine, early retirement from rhetoric in stoic manner Sorabji (2000) 401
augustine, effect of music on lust shows lust is not under control of the will Sorabji (2000) 84, 91, 131, 405, 406
augustine, emotion an act of will Sorabji (2000) 316, 382, 383, 399
augustine, emulation Dilley (2019) 237
augustine, ennarationes in psalmos Hoenig (2018) 220
augustine, ep. 101 ad memorium Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 72, 109
augustine, epistle Hoenig (2018) 118, 224, 226
augustine, epistle i to hermogenianus Hoenig (2018) 224
augustine, esp. insubordination of male member Sorabji (2000) 380, 404, 405
augustine, eternal recurrence makes crucifixion pointless Sorabji (2000) 242
augustine, evaluates porphyrys hecatean oracle Simmons(1995) 265
augustine, evodius, associate of Huebner and Laes (2019) 298
augustine, evodius, letter to Cosgrove (2022) 334
augustine, exceptions to metriopatheia, some emotions always bad, pride Sorabji (2000) 335, 336, 337
augustine, explain case of females?, augustine, can Sorabji (2000) 412, 415, 416
augustine, fall of man and angels Sorabji (2000) 336
augustine, fall of man and angels due to pride and disobedience Sorabji (2000) 336
augustine, favours plato's division of soul into reason and emotional parts Sorabji (2000) 382, 383
augustine, fear of god Dilley (2019) 149, 160
augustine, fear of god, rule Dilley (2019) 149, 150
augustine, fides, in Hoenig (2018) 257, 268
augustine, first movements Sorabji (2000) 344, 346, 355, 356, 372, 414
augustine, first movements or prepassion Sorabji (2000) 344, 346, 355, 356, 372
augustine, gellius, aulus, compiler of philosophical doctrines, report on stoic first movements misunderstood by Sorabji (2000) 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383
augustine, genre, confessions / confessiones Yates and Dupont (2020) 348, 349
augustine, hails stoic acceptance of eupatheia as acceptance of emotion, eupatheiai, equanimous states Sorabji (2000) 207
augustine, heaven, interpretations of Hoenig (2018) 242, 246
augustine, his tolle lege experience Brouwer (2013) 51, 91
augustine, hope in the resurrection Sorabji (2000) 394
augustine, imagery impedes mystical experience and knowledge of god Sorabji (2000) 115
augustine, importance for arnobius polemics Simmons(1995) 324
augustine, importunity of thirsty baby acknowledged Sorabji (2000) 410
augustine, in iohannis evangelium tractatus Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 211, 223
augustine, in latin western, church, but flourishes in apatheia, freedom from, eradication of emotion, search for apatheia attacked by lactantius, jerome, east, and restored in west by cassian Sorabji (2000) 397
augustine, in next life need love, gladness Sorabji (2000) 398
augustine, in sexual dreams consent is something that will subsequently bypass the will Sorabji (2000) 415
augustine, indirect allusions to scripture in confessions / confessiones Yates and Dupont (2020) 353, 355, 356, 357, 358, 363
augustine, influence of ambrose on Hoenig (2018) 218
augustine, influence of evagrius Sorabji (2000) 373
augustine, influence on arator Hillier (1993) 76, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 137, 138, 176, 177, 178
augustine, inspired by life of antony Sorabji (2000) 372
augustine, insubordinate to will as central objection to lust Sorabji (2000) 337, 380, 404, 405
augustine, is desire for privacy in sex universal?, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of Sorabji (2000) 411, 412
augustine, it is pelagians who say lust needs only metriopatheia Sorabji (2000) 404
augustine, it is pride and vanity to deny this Sorabji (2000) 399
augustine, jesus, platonists lack insights on Hoenig (2018) 226
augustine, joy, khara, latin gaudium, stoic eupatheia, retained by christians even in next life Sorabji (2000) 398
augustine, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of Sorabji (2000) 335, 399
augustine, knowledge of greek Hoenig (2018) 220, 221
augustine, law, in Beatrice (2013) 46, 47
augustine, less shameful than anger, lust, because body supposedly subject to will Sorabji (2000) 380, 381
augustine, letter from evodius Cosgrove (2022) 334
augustine, literary works, in chronological order, de pulchro et apto Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 151
augustine, loci coniecturae, stoic, and Hoenig (2018) 24
augustine, locutionum in heptateuchum Hoenig (2018) 220
augustine, loss of awareness of past and future by saints in next life would reduce range of emotions Sorabji (2000) 398
augustine, lust Sorabji (2000) 336, 337, 353, 380, 381, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416
augustine, lust disobedient to will was not cause of fall, but a fit punishment for man Sorabji (2000) 336, 404, 406
augustine, lust excludes thought and prayer Sorabji (2000) 405, 413
augustine, lust importunate and unruly Sorabji (2000) 405
augustine, lust in animals all right because they have no reason for lust to rebel against Sorabji (2000) 406
augustine, lust is said to differ from sleep by opposing will Sorabji (2000) 410, 414, 415
augustine, lust not necessary to avoid injury, death Sorabji (2000) 410
augustine, lust, lust and pleasure not necessary for sex in clement of alexandria and Sorabji (2000) 388, 406, 407, 408, 409
augustine, male member has consent of will, so lust no different from decision to eat or drink, salivation, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of digestion, sleep Sorabji (2000) 381, 409, 412
augustine, manichaean period, concubinage, not marriage Sorabji (2000) 400
augustine, manichee Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 27, 37, 39, 40, 142, 146, 160
augustine, marriage without sex praised if by mutual consent Sorabji (2000) 276
augustine, marriage without sex, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of Sorabji (2000) 276
augustine, martyr feasts Cosgrove (2022) 335, 336
augustine, metaphysics, influence on Hoenig (2018) 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270
augustine, metriopatheia favoured for many emotions Sorabji (2000) 380, 398
augustine, metriopatheia, moderate, moderation of emotion, accepted by Sorabji (2000) 380, 398
augustine, misrepresents stoic belief in apatheia as verbal difference Sorabji (2000) 206
augustine, mitigation of faithful concubinage Sorabji (2000) 402
augustine, monnica, mother of Harrison (2006) 107, 108, 109, 110
Huebner and Laes (2019) 302, 305, 307
augustine, more general distrust of sensory as distracting attention Sorabji (2000) 413
augustine, nebridius, associate of Huebner and Laes (2019) 298
augustine, need for daily forgiveness through lord's prayer Sorabji (2000) 362, 373, 375
augustine, need to look inwards Sorabji (2000) 252
augustine, neither sleep nor lust need oppose julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of will, if they have consent Sorabji (2000) 409, 410
augustine, neoplatonists, and Hoenig (2018) 227, 228, 279
augustine, none the less had a, much-loved, son Sorabji (2000) 400
augustine, not hunger or thirst Sorabji (2000) 188, 410
augustine, not two souls in humans Sorabji (2000) 315, 316
augustine, notes porphyrys purpose for the souls descent Simmons(1995) 289
augustine, novelty of shame after fall shows the insubordination to be a punishment Sorabji (2000) 411, 412
augustine, now need, and cannot avoid, fear, grief Sorabji (2000) 398
augustine, obscenity in pagan ritual Sorabji (2000) 287
augustine, of elders Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 141, 147
augustine, of hippo Geljon and Vos (2020) 46, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150
Gorain (2019) 12, 13
Gray (2021) 30, 74
Kahlos (2019) 8, 22, 34, 35, 42, 52, 53, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 89, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 108, 109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 123, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 139, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 163, 165, 166, 173, 179, 180, 182, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204, 205, 206, 209
Kaplan (2015) 23, 40
Langworthy (2019) 107
McGowan (1999) 95, 106, 123, 135, 172, 211, 216
Mendez (2022) 47, 48, 70, 71, 75, 77, 100
Motta and Petrucci (2022) 60, 61, 84
Nuno et al (2021) 44
Penniman (2017) 86, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 268
Rowland (2009) 48, 205, 211, 212
Tabbernee (2007) 65, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 278, 298, 299, 329, 349, 350, 351, 352, 357, 360, 365, 395
van , t Westeinde (2021) 22, 27, 33, 71, 75, 101, 116, 155, 168, 189, 205, 233
augustine, of hippo, and pseudo-cyprianic treatises Yates and Dupont (2020) 164, 165
augustine, of hippo, and the biblical canon Yates and Dupont (2020) 26, 323, 324, 325
augustine, of hippo, and vetus latina Yates and Dupont (2020) 18, 22, 44, 45, 219, 239, 240, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 340
augustine, of hippo, bishop Gygax and Zuiderhoek (2021) 320
augustine, of hippo, breviculus collationis cum donatistis Yates and Dupont (2020) 47
augustine, of hippo, confessions Nuno et al (2021) 10
augustine, of hippo, contra adimantum Yates and Dupont (2020) 276, 277
augustine, of hippo, contra epistulam parmeniani Yates and Dupont (2020) 291
augustine, of hippo, contra faustum manichaeum Yates and Dupont (2020) 277, 345
augustine, of hippo, conversion of Yates and Dupont (2020) 48, 244, 245
augustine, of hippo, de baptismo contra donatistas Yates and Dupont (2020) 22
augustine, of hippo, de civitate dei Nuno et al (2021) 138
augustine, of hippo, de diversis quaestionibus ad simplicianum Yates and Dupont (2020) 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 283, 284, 285, 286
augustine, of hippo, de diversis quaestionibus lxxxiii Yates and Dupont (2020) 251, 252, 253
augustine, of hippo, de genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber Yates and Dupont (2020) 275, 276
augustine, of hippo, de genesi contra manichaeos Yates and Dupont (2020) 270
augustine, of hippo, de moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus manichaeorum Yates and Dupont (2020) 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 345
augustine, of hippo, de sermone domini in monte Yates and Dupont (2020) 277
augustine, of hippo, de trinitate Yates and Dupont (2020) 46
augustine, of hippo, de utilitate credendi Yates and Dupont (2020) 215, 216, 219, 224
augustine, of hippo, de vera religione Yates and Dupont (2020) 215, 218, 219, 229
augustine, of hippo, depiction of jews as bookbearers Ashbrook Harvey et al (2015) 97, 98
augustine, of hippo, description of lucilla Ashbrook Harvey et al (2015) 157
augustine, of hippo, distinction between jews and hebrews Ashbrook Harvey et al (2015) 95, 96
augustine, of hippo, enarrationes in psalmos Yates and Dupont (2020) 47
augustine, of hippo, epistulae ad romanos inchoata expositio liber unus Yates and Dupont (2020) 253
augustine, of hippo, expositio in epistulam ad galatas Yates and Dupont (2020) 253, 254, 255, 256
augustine, of hippo, expositio quarundam quaestionum in epistula ad romanos Yates and Dupont (2020) 247, 248, 249, 250, 251
augustine, of hippo, four-stage teaching on salvation Yates and Dupont (2020) 248, 249, 250, 251, 255, 280, 281
augustine, of hippo, in evangelium johannis tractatus Yates and Dupont (2020) 47
augustine, of hippo, manuscripts and transcriptions of Yates and Dupont (2020) 46, 47
augustine, of hippo, on allegory of scripture Yates and Dupont (2020) 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 337, 338, 339, 361
augustine, of hippo, on antiochene incident Yates and Dupont (2020) 254, 255
augustine, of hippo, on dignatio Yates and Dupont (2020) 60, 61
augustine, of hippo, on dispensatio temporalis Yates and Dupont (2020) 229, 230, 231
augustine, of hippo, on divine pedagogy of scripture Yates and Dupont (2020) 224, 225, 226, 227, 228
augustine, of hippo, on free will and grace Yates and Dupont (2020) 249, 250, 252, 253, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 274, 279, 280, 283, 284, 285, 286
augustine, of hippo, on law and grace Yates and Dupont (2020) 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 277, 278, 281, 282, 283
augustine, of hippo, on manichaean literalism and old testament rejection Yates and Dupont (2020) 224, 225, 231, 232, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278
augustine, of hippo, on mixed church Yates and Dupont (2020) 129
augustine, of hippo, on tyconius Yates and Dupont (2020) 290, 291, 292, 293, 309, 318, 319
augustine, of hippo, on unity of scripture Yates and Dupont (2020) 216, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 276, 277, 278
augustine, of hippo, optatus’s influence on Yates and Dupont (2020) 205
augustine, of hippo, philosophical approach to hebrew scriptures Ashbrook Harvey et al (2015) 93
augustine, of hippo, retractationes Yates and Dupont (2020) 22
augustine, of hippo, saint Champion (2022) 129
Huebner and Laes (2019) 294, 298, 301, 302, 305, 307, 308
augustine, of hippo, scriptural interpretation in earliest treatises, overview Yates and Dupont (2020) 216, 217, 218, 219
augustine, of hippo, sermones ad populum Yates and Dupont (2020) 47
augustine, of hippo, speculum, quis ignorat Yates and Dupont (2020) 22
augustine, of hippo, st Liapis and Petrides (2019) 238
augustine, of hippo, tyconius’s influence on Yates and Dupont (2020) 280, 281, 283, 289, 292, 338
augustine, of living voice Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 68, 83, 86
augustine, of memory Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 82, 98, 140, 147, 155, 205
augustine, of poetry Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 11, 115
augustine, of sophists Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 201, 204
augustine, of writing Castagnoli and Ceccarelli (2019) 76, 82, 83, 84
augustine, on abrahams thigh Hillier (1993) 146
augustine, on arithmetic, mathematics Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 129, 135, 156, 157
augustine, on ark and baptism Hillier (1993) 76, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89
augustine, on ascension Hillier (1993) 62, 63, 64
augustine, on ascent to truth/god Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 6, 71, 81, 97, 98, 107, 108, 137, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 221, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231
augustine, on astrology Beck (2006) 168, 169
augustine, on astrology, astronomy Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 108, 128, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136
augustine, on attentive listening Dilley (2019) 122
augustine, on baptism as beginning of christian life Hillier (1993) 167
augustine, on bethesda paralytic Hillier (1993) 137, 138
augustine, on biblical scientia Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 129, 226
augustine, on bibliomancy Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 137
augustine, on blood and water from christs side Hillier (1993) 176, 177, 178, 179
augustine, on canon of liberal arts Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 72, 76, 98, 141
augustine, on canon of mantic arts Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 32, 121
augustine, on christian doctrine Dilley (2019) 127
augustine, on christians’ borrowing from platonist tradition Hoenig (2018) 222
augustine, on cicero Bua (2019) 124
augustine, on circumcision Hillier (1993) 129, 148
augustine, on coercion Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 142
augustine, on dialectic, logic Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 108, 117, 135, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 160, 161, 162, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 221
augustine, on divination Johnston (2008) 11, 12, 144
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140
augustine, on doctrina, e Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 178, 180, 225, 229
augustine, on dreams, oneiromancy Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 137
augustine, on eagle Hillier (1993) 187, 188, 189
augustine, on eschatological criterion of interpretation Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 225
augustine, on ethiopians Hillier (1993) 106, 107
augustine, on fine arts Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 132
augustine, on first six days in genesis Hoenig (2018) 237, 238, 239
augustine, on free will and grace, paul and pauline epistles, and Yates and Dupont (2020) 249, 250, 252, 253, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 274, 279, 280, 283, 284, 285, 286
augustine, on geometry Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 108, 135, 155, 156
augustine, on grammar Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 107, 108, 117, 145, 146, 147, 148, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182
augustine, on history Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 133
augustine, on incarnation, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 332, 333
augustine, on law and grace, paul and pauline epistles, and Yates and Dupont (2020) 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 277, 278, 281, 282, 283
augustine, on love, amor, caritas, and interpretation Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 170, 171, 172, 212, 213, 214, 220, 225
augustine, on love, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 220, 334, 335
augustine, on manufacturing arts Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 134
augustine, on medicine Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 132, 134
augustine, on memory Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 64, 149
augustine, on moses cushite wife Hillier (1993) 114
augustine, on muses Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 129, 130
augustine, on music Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 105, 109, 129, 150
augustine, on natural history Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 133
augustine, on nautical art Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 134
augustine, on parallels between platonism and christian faith Hoenig (2018) 223, 224, 225, 226
augustine, on partridge Hillier (1993) 191
augustine, on performance arts Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 134
augustine, on philosophy, sapientia Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 157, 158, 187, 188, 189, 226, 227, 229, 230
augustine, on pictura versus litterae Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 211, 212, 223
augustine, on plato vs. sceptics Hoenig (2018) 224, 225
augustine, on platonists’ views on, gods Hoenig (2018) 218, 219, 220
augustine, on praising monastic founders Dilley (2019) 250, 257, 258
augustine, on raven Hillier (1993) 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 86, 87, 89
augustine, on reading of acts Hillier (1993) 18
augustine, on rebecca Hillier (1993) 145
augustine, on red sea crossing Hillier (1993) 161, 166, 167
augustine, on rhetoric Dilley (2019) 125
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 108, 135, 149, 150, 151
augustine, on rule of faith Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 214
augustine, on signification and disambiguation, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 333, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339
augustine, on signs Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 129, 130, 132, 169, 170, 171, 172, 218, 221, 222, 223, 224, 230
augustine, on simon magus Hillier (1993) 76, 85, 86, 87
augustine, on suicide Moss (2012) 201
augustine, on the city of god, dreams, in late antique and medieval christian literature Renberg (2017) 786
augustine, on theurgy Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 138
augustine, on violence between jews and christians at calama Kraemer (2020) 207, 208
augustine, on “heaven and earth, ” Hoenig (2018) 238
augustine, on “use” of scripture, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 331, 332
augustine, on, angels Hoenig (2018) 238, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278
augustine, on, christianity Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256
augustine, on, demons Hoenig (2018) 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278
augustine, on, extensions, temporal Hoenig (2018) 232
augustine, on, memory Dawson (2001) 120
augustine, on, pythagoras, pythagoreans Hoenig (2018) 225
augustine, on, time Hoenig (2018) 23, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233
augustine, opposition to conversion through coercive violence of Kraemer (2020) 58, 72
augustine, opus of confluence of cicero and apuleius Hoenig (2018) 13
augustine, ordained bishop Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 113
augustine, ordained presbyter Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 15
augustine, origen, source for calcidius and Hoenig (2018) 241
augustine, original sin transmitted by lust Sorabji (2000) 353
augustine, orosius, and Van Nuffelen (2012) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 46, 52, 97, 118, 153, 162, 181, 182, 195, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203
augustine, overlooks seneca's treatment of lust, anger, and fear as all having involuntary first movements Sorabji (2000) 381, 405
augustine, overview, de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 330, 331
augustine, parallels of with calcidius Hoenig (2018) 279
augustine, parallels to Hoenig (2018) 248, 249, 250, 251
augustine, patricius, father of Conybeare (2006) 67, 68, 69
augustine, personal experience of lust Sorabji (2000) 401
augustine, perverted will and pride Sorabji (2000) 335, 336, 337
augustine, philosophers criticized in Hoenig (2018) 269
augustine, philosophy, neoplatonic, influence on Hoenig (2018) 222
augustine, pity aroused in theatre not genuine Sorabji (2000) 77
augustine, plato and platonism of Hoenig (2018) 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 229
augustine, plato quoted in Hoenig (2018) 269
augustine, plato, creationism of consistent with christians’ Hoenig (2018) 227, 228, 238
augustine, platonism, neoplatonism Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 64, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 137, 138, 139, 142, 145, 148, 150, 171, 187, 188, 189, 228, 229
augustine, platonists, and Hoenig (2018) 223, 261, 269, 271
augustine, pleasure of thinking preceding assent to action Sorabji (2000) 355, 356, 360, 373, 374
augustine, polemics of Simmons(1995) 263
augustine, porphyry, and Hoenig (2018) 221, 222, 226, 269
augustine, possidius, life of Joosse (2021) 41
augustine, pride, pride is reason for the fall of men and angels in Sorabji (2000) 335, 336, 337
augustine, property renunciation Dilley (2019) 81
augustine, psalm against the donatists Cosgrove (2022) 238
augustine, quaestiones in heptateuchum Hoenig (2018) 220
augustine, reads cicero's hortensius Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 37, 157
augustine, relation to stoics Sorabji (2000) 399, 401
augustine, responds to porphyrys via animae salutis liberandae universalis Simmons(1995) 274
augustine, retractationes Hoenig (2018) 252
Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 6, 71, 72, 73, 141, 143, 189, 209
augustine, rhetoric, omologia, on christian doctrine Dilley (2019) 127
augustine, rule Dilley (2019) 149, 150
augustine, saint Dawson (2001) 131
Luck (2006) 23, 75, 376, 378, 459, 465
augustine, saint, and porphyry Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 226
augustine, saint, and virgil Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 222
augustine, saint, auerbach on Dawson (2001) 245
augustine, saint, education of Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 221
augustine, saint, hidden significance of Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 224
augustine, saint, on angels Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 228
augustine, saint, on astrology Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 239
augustine, saint, on bible Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 223
augustine, saint, on causes Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251
augustine, saint, on eternal foot example Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 84
augustine, saint, on genesis Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 223
augustine, saint, on human will Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 8, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236
augustine, saint, on memory Dawson (2001) 120
augustine, saint, on neoplatonic philosophers Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 225
augustine, saint, on nothing Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 232
augustine, saint, on origin of evil Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 7, 8, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236
augustine, saint, on plato Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 236
augustine, saint, on scripture Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 222, 226
augustine, saint, on sin Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 230
augustine, saint, on trinity Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 231
augustine, saint, on will Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251
augustine, saint, on world as beginningless Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 80
augustine, saints Renberg (2017) 783, 786
augustine, says pagans believed in porphyrys oracles Simmons(1995) 281
augustine, says porphyry argued scripture if contradictory Simmons(1995) 275
augustine, says porphyry deviated from pure platonism Simmons(1995) 254
augustine, scriptural citations in de doctrina christiana Yates and Dupont (2020) 322, 323, 324, 328, 340, 341
augustine, scriptural exercises Dilley (2019) 141
augustine, second view, bodies usable for sex without lust or pleasure but unused Sorabji (2000) 406, 407
augustine, seeing god, beatitudes Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 460, 462
augustine, semiotics of Beck (2006) 191, 192
augustine, sermon Hoenig (2018) 68, 225
augustine, sermons of Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 73, 81
augustine, severus, associate of Huebner and Laes (2019) 298
augustine, sex in marriage is for procreation or health Sorabji (2000) 276
augustine, sex in marriage puts a bad thing to a good use Sorabji (2000) 402
augustine, sexual dreams involve consent of will Sorabji (2000) 115, 381, 382, 413, 414, 415
augustine, shock, shock without hurt Sorabji (2000) 204, 355
augustine, shocks Sorabji (2000) 204, 355
augustine, shows porphyrys purpose for the souls descent Simmons(1995) 289
augustine, similarly before fall Sorabji (2000) 407, 408
augustine, similarly for eupatheiai Sorabji (2000) 207
augustine, sin original, upheld by jerome and Sorabji (2000) 396
augustine, sleepeven parallels lust in extinguishing thought about its purpose, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of Sorabji (2000) 409, 415
augustine, so christ free from Sorabji (2000) 353
augustine, soliloquia Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 51, 107, 108, 142, 160
augustine, soliloquies König (2012) 187
augustine, soteriology of Hoenig (2018) 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259
augustine, soul is not bodily blend Sorabji (2000) 270
augustine, soul, ascent of Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 437, 461, 463
augustine, soul, beginning and end of according to Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 80
augustine, st Humfress (2007) 52, 53, 60, 111, 155, 179, 190, 191, 231
Van Nuffelen (2012) 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 51, 53, 64, 65, 68, 69, 74, 77, 148, 159, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203
augustine, st paul recommended and christ experienced emotions Sorabji (2000) 398
augustine, st, and cicero Humfress (2007) 110
augustine, st, as teacher of rhetoric Humfress (2007) 189, 190
augustine, st, city of god Van Nuffelen (2012) 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 46, 51, 52, 53, 56, 75, 80, 89, 90, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 113, 114, 153, 162, 164, 165, 166, 181, 182, 195, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203
augustine, st, confessions Van Nuffelen (2012) 28, 89
augustine, st, congregation Humfress (2007) 190, 191
augustine, st, conversion of Humfress (2007) 190
augustine, st, debate with felix Humfress (2007) 249, 250, 251
augustine, st, debate with fortunatus Humfress (2007) 249, 250
augustine, st, definition of orator Humfress (2007) 144
augustine, st, judging cases daily Humfress (2007) 168
augustine, st, manichaeans Humfress (2007) 246, 247, 248, 249
augustine, st, on advocates and iurisperiti Humfress (2007) 69, 70, 71, 72, 100
augustine, st, on heresy Humfress (2007) 193, 217, 218, 230
augustine, st, on naming of heretical sects Humfress (2007) 222
augustine, st, on pleas to the emperor Humfress (2007) 78, 79, 80
augustine, st, on prosecution of crispinus Humfress (2007) 263
augustine, st, on prosecution of faustus Humfress (2007) 246
augustine, st, on records of court at hippo Humfress (2007) 170
augustine, st, on rhetoric Van Nuffelen (2012) 11, 89
augustine, st, on rhetoric in service of church Humfress (2007) 144
augustine, st, on scepticism Humfress (2007) 54
augustine, st, on schism Humfress (2007) 267
augustine, st, use of forensic rhetoric in sermons Humfress (2007) 191, 192, 193
augustine, st, use of rescripts from gregorian code Humfress (2007) 126
augustine, st, use of roman legal principles Humfress (2007) 77, 202, 203, 204, 211
augustine, st. Damm (2018) 15
Kaster(2005) 180
Sneed (2022) 105
augustine, st., on meaning of golden ass Griffiths (1975) 6, 11
augustine, st., on meaning of golden ass, and punic Griffiths (1975) 61, 62
augustine, statements on disciplinary knowledge, on agriculture Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 134
augustine, student at carthage Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47
augustine, survey of ‘liberal arts’ in book Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 177, 178, 179, 180, 197
augustine, surveys own works Hoenig (2018) 252
augustine, teacher at thagaste Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 40, 41, 42, 43
augustine, the misrepresentation is part of his case for metriopatheia Sorabji (2000) 397, 398
augustine, theodicy, in Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 238, 239
augustine, theology, on demons and angels Hoenig (2018) 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278
augustine, third view, if there was lust and pleasure, it did not oppose will Sorabji (2000) 406, 407
augustine, this in turn explains shame at sex and need for privacy Sorabji (2000) 380, 406, 411, 412
augustine, this obscures stoic position that emotion necessarily has the assent of reason Sorabji (2000) 383
augustine, three goods of marriage Sorabji (2000) 403
augustine, three stages, suggestion, pleasure, assent to action Sorabji (2000) 374
augustine, time makes emotion fade because of new hopes Sorabji (2000) 241
augustine, titillation only a prepassion Sorabji (2000) 344, 372, 414
augustine, to platonists Sorabji (2000) 382, 383, 413
augustine, tractatus in ioannem Hoenig (2018) 220
augustine, two wills in humans Sorabji (2000) 315, 316, 336, 382, 383, 399
augustine, unfamiliar with plato's symposium König (2012) 188
augustine, use of stoic concepts Simmons(1995) 14
augustine, uses arguments adapted by descartes, cogito Sorabji (2000) 270
augustine, utility of emotions Sorabji (2000) 191
augustine, visits carthage, julian of eclanum, bishop, pelagian opponent of Sorabji (2000) 403
augustine, voluntary, belief, doxa, hence for stoics and Sorabji (2000) 47
augustine, will in belief, perception, memory, imagination, will, expansion of role in thought, faith Sorabji (2000) 47, 337
augustine, will involved in belief Sorabji (2000) 47
augustine, will's opposition cause or effect of thinking sex evil? Sorabji (2000) 412, 413
augustine, will, clustering of functions in Sorabji (2000) 335, 336
augustine, ‘disciplinarum libri’ Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 6, 47, 70, 71, 72, 141, 142
augustine, “macro” vs. “micro” usages of de doctrina christiana scripture, as concept Yates and Dupont (2020) 329, 330
augustines, abbey, canterbury, claims of incubation at st. Renberg (2017) 787
augustine’s, access to, christian faith Hoenig (2018) 218, 219
augustine’s, books, chapter-headings in O, Daly (2020) 311
augustine’s, conversion narrative, paul and pauline epistles, in Yates and Dupont (2020) 244, 245
augustine’s, creation theory, seeds, in Hoenig (2018) 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 283
augustine’s, definition of magic Janowitz (2002b) 13
augustine’s, dependence on, tyconius Yates and Dupont (2020) 280, 281, 283, 289, 292, 338
augustine’s, developing thought, confessions / confessiones, augustine, in context of Yates and Dupont (2020) 345, 347
augustine’s, earliest old testament, in treatises, overview Yates and Dupont (2020) 216, 217, 219
augustine’s, earliest paul and pauline epistles, in treatises, overview Yates and Dupont (2020) 217, 218
augustine’s, four-stage teaching on salvation, paul and pauline epistles, and Yates and Dupont (2020) 248, 249, 250, 251, 255, 280, 281
augustine’s, knowledge of classical literature Nisula (2012) 19
augustine’s, knowledge of greek Hoenig (2018) 220, 221
augustine’s, knowledge of manichaeism Nisula (2012) 152, 153
augustine’s, narrative of creation Hoenig (2018) 227, 228, 229, 230, 237, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 282
augustine’s, portrayal of matter Hoenig (2018) 241, 242
augustine’s, preaching, city of god, anticipation of its themes in O, Daly (2020) 29, 31, 32
augustine’s, references to, books O, Daly (2020) 36, 37, 77, 78, 311
augustine’s, residue of manichaeism Nisula (2012) 167, 303, 308, 317, 326, 344
augustine’s, seminal reasons, loci coniecturae, and Hoenig (2018) 25
augustine’s, sermon Berglund Crostini and Kelhoffer (2022) 427
augustine’s, theory of justification, justice, and Hoenig (2018) 266, 267
augustine’s, thought, constancy, development of discontinuity Nisula (2012) 77, 241, 268, 269
augustine’s, thought, constancy, discontinuity in development Nisula (2012) 269
augustine’s, thought, development, constancy of discontinuity Nisula (2012) 203, 269, 278
augustine’s, understanding and use of allegory see also typology Yates and Dupont (2020) 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 337, 338, 339, 361
augustine’s, understanding of literal interpretation Yates and Dupont (2020) 232, 233, 270, 271, 272, 337, 338, 339, 361
augustine’s, view of gods Hoenig (2018) 219
augustine’s, works, acad. Wilson (2018) 96, 97, 112, 283
augustine’s, works, adnot. job Wilson (2018) 123, 146
augustine’s, works, agon. Wilson (2018) 98, 122
augustine’s, works, bapt. Wilson (2018) 80, 119, 120, 121, 122, 128, 147, 172, 210
augustine’s, works, beat. Wilson (2018) 96
augustine’s, works, bon. conj. Wilson (2018) 118
augustine’s, works, brev. coll. Wilson (2018) 133, 134
augustine’s, works, c. adim. Wilson (2018) 101, 198
augustine’s, works, c. arian. Wilson (2018) 169
augustine’s, works, c. cresc. Wilson (2018) 119, 120, 268
augustine’s, works, c. don. Wilson (2018) 120, 268
augustine’s, works, c. du. ep. pel. Wilson (2018) 146, 170, 172, 173, 174, 188, 250, 251, 252, 254, 261, 265
augustine’s, works, c. ep. man. fund. Wilson (2018) 113, 114, 115, 146, 147, 284
augustine’s, works, c. faust. Wilson (2018) 1, 111, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 143, 233, 261, 269, 284
augustine’s, works, c. fel. Wilson (2018) 114, 115, 134, 135, 143, 146
augustine’s, works, c. fort. Wilson (2018) 36, 100, 101, 172, 262
augustine’s, works, c. jul. Wilson (2018) 4, 72, 146, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 189, 195, 207, 250, 251, 252, 260, 261, 263, 264, 265
augustine’s, works, c. jul. imp. Wilson (2018) 146, 189, 207, 210, 211, 250, 251, 254, 261, 265
augustine’s, works, c. litt. petil. Wilson (2018) 102, 113, 118, 119, 134, 147, 251, 268
augustine’s, works, c. mend. Wilson (2018) 160, 249, 280, 281
augustine’s, works, c. secund. Wilson (2018) 117
augustine’s, works, canon, in Yates and Dupont (2020) 26, 323, 324, 325
augustine’s, works, catech. rud. Wilson (2018) 107, 123, 124, 134, 147, 224, 274
augustine’s, works, civ. Wilson (2018) 146, 150, 151, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 199, 220, 263, 269
augustine’s, works, conf. Wilson (2018) 6, 113, 120, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 135, 143, 144, 254, 255, 264, 274, 277, 282, 283, 284, 285, 291, 293, 297
augustine’s, works, cons. Wilson (2018) 125
augustine’s, works, corrept. Wilson (2018) 146, 184, 185, 186, 189, 236, 237, 250, 252, 260, 262
augustine’s, works, cur. Wilson (2018) 261
augustine’s, works, de mag. Wilson (2018) 98, 101
augustine’s, works, de mend. Wilson (2018) 249, 280
augustine’s, works, div. quaest. Wilson (2018) 98, 109, 110, 111, 112, 120, 132, 143, 144, 146, 153, 198, 199, 291
augustine’s, works, divin. Wilson (2018) 132
augustine’s, works, doctr. chr. Wilson (2018) 4, 107, 112, 122, 129, 147, 187, 199, 212, 254
augustine’s, works, duab. an. Wilson (2018) 197, 288
augustine’s, works, emer. Wilson (2018) 169
augustine’s, works, enar. ps. Wilson (2018) 92, 95, 99, 120, 146, 209, 241, 246, 247, 248, 249, 251, 256, 257, 260, 264, 269
augustine’s, works, enchir. Wilson (2018) 95, 96, 146, 176, 177, 178, 189, 250, 255, 260, 261, 265, 269
augustine’s, works, ep. Wilson (2018) 201
augustine’s, works, exp. gal. Wilson (2018) 102, 103, 104, 144
augustine’s, works, exp. quaest. rom. Wilson (2018) 103, 107, 108, 109, 135, 144, 145, 198, 200, 249, 252, 257, 260
augustine’s, works, exp. rom. inch. Wilson (2018) 107, 108
augustine’s, works, fid. Wilson (2018) 101, 122, 134
augustine’s, works, fid. op. Wilson (2018) 164, 250, 254
augustine’s, works, fid. symb. Wilson (2018) 254, 261
augustine’s, works, fund. Wilson (2018) 113, 114, 115, 147, 284
augustine’s, works, gen. imp. Wilson (2018) 101
augustine’s, works, gen. litt. Wilson (2018) 95, 147, 148, 149, 150, 166, 167, 168, 196, 212, 225, 227, 228, 250, 251, 254, 261, 265, 290
augustine’s, works, gen. man. Wilson (2018) 95, 98, 99, 100, 111, 112, 144, 197, 278, 291
augustine’s, works, gest. pelag. Wilson (2018) 168
augustine’s, works, grat. Wilson (2018) 184, 189, 252, 254
augustine’s, works, grat. chr. Wilson (2018) 146, 169, 250, 251, 261, 265
augustine’s, works, immort. an. Wilson (2018) 97, 101
augustine’s, works, incomp. nupt. Wilson (2018) 174
augustine’s, works, leg. adv. Wilson (2018) 146, 174, 188
augustine’s, works, lib. arb. Wilson (2018) 98, 110, 111, 112, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 144, 146, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155, 165, 166, 192, 197, 199, 200, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 229, 237, 279, 292, 297
augustine’s, works, locut. hept. Wilson (2018) 169, 250
augustine’s, works, mor. eccl. Wilson (2018) 78, 98, 99, 197, 261
augustine’s, works, mor. man. Wilson (2018) 98, 99
augustine’s, works, mus. Wilson (2018) 98, 111, 112, 132, 133, 147, 212
augustine’s, works, nat. bon. Wilson (2018) 118, 134
augustine’s, works, nat. grat. Wilson (2018) 134, 146, 164, 165, 188, 251, 252, 253, 254, 261, 264
augustine’s, works, nat. orig. Wilson (2018) 160, 174, 175, 176, 188, 220, 246, 250, 269
augustine’s, works, nupt. et conc. Wilson (2018) 169, 170, 171, 188, 250, 251, 261, 265
augustine’s, works, ord. Wilson (2018) 96, 97, 111, 112, 133, 192, 293
augustine’s, works, parm. Wilson (2018) 4, 261
augustine’s, works, pat. Wilson (2018) 169
augustine’s, works, pecc. merit. Wilson (2018) 95, 144, 147, 148, 149, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 165, 166, 187, 188, 212, 213, 225, 227, 228, 231, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 268, 275, 277, 285, 294, 295
augustine’s, works, perf. Wilson (2018) 164, 250, 251, 254, 261
augustine’s, works, persev. Wilson (2018) 8, 95, 112, 143, 146, 152, 200, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 236, 250, 257, 277, 280
augustine’s, works, praed. Wilson (2018) 8, 95, 132, 147, 152, 200, 201, 202, 207, 208, 211, 212, 236, 250, 252, 256, 257, 260, 270, 271, 276, 280, 285, 290, 294
augustine’s, works, quaest. c. pag. Wilson (2018) 134
augustine’s, works, quaest. ev. Wilson (2018) 123, 134, 251
augustine’s, works, quaest. matt. Wilson (2018) 117, 125, 134
augustine’s, works, quant. an. Wilson (2018) 96, 97, 112, 265
augustine’s, works, retract. vii Wilson (2018) 96, 97, 109, 121, 131, 132, 141, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 166, 168, 187, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 207, 211, 212, 225, 252, 295, 298
augustine’s, works, s. Wilson (2018) 144, 146, 160, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 234, 249, 250, 251, 255, 260, 261, 264, 269
augustine’s, works, s. dom. m. Wilson (2018) 95, 100, 101, 111
augustine’s, works, simpl. Wilson (2018) 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 95, 113, 114, 115, 118, 120, 121, 122, 124, 128, 132, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 155, 159, 166, 168, 183, 185, 197, 198, 199, 200, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 224, 228, 238, 241, 242, 249, 256, 262, 268, 271, 274, 275, 276, 279, 280, 281, 286, 290, 291, 292, 294, 297
augustine’s, works, solil. Wilson (2018) 96, 97, 134
augustine’s, works, spir. et litt. Wilson (2018) 147, 163, 164, 186, 188, 209, 225, 228, 231, 250, 252, 254, 256, 260, 262, 264, 294
augustine’s, works, symb. Wilson (2018) 183, 184, 189
augustine’s, works, tract. ep. jo. Wilson (2018) 95, 241, 242, 248, 249, 261, 269
augustine’s, works, tract. ev. jo. Wilson (2018) 88, 146, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 249, 255, 269
augustine’s, works, trin. Wilson (2018) 95, 147, 151, 191, 208, 212, 225, 227, 250, 254, 257
augustine’s, works, unic. bapt. Wilson (2018) 133
augustine’s, works, unit. eccl. Wilson (2018) 130, 131, 134
augustine’s, works, util. cred. Wilson (2018) 99, 284
augustine’s, works, ver. rel. Wilson (2018) 96, 99, 100, 144, 197, 254, 261, 291
augustine’s, works, virginit. Wilson (2018) 124, 125, 250, 274

List of validated texts:
93 validated results for "augustine"
1. Hebrew Bible, Exodus, 20.5 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine of Hippo, City of God • Augustine, • Augustine, Saint, on causes • Augustine, Saint, on will • Augustine’s Works, Enchir. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. orig.

 Found in books: Bay (2022) 155; Conybeare (2000) 64; Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 245, 247; Wilson (2018) 176


20.5. לֹא־תִשְׁתַּחְוֶה לָהֶם וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם כִּי אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵל קַנָּא פֹּקֵד עֲוֺן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִים לְשֹׂנְאָי׃' '. None
20.5. thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;' '. None
2. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 1.1, 1.3-1.4, 1.14-1.18, 1.26 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine , Trinity • Augustine , birthplace (Thagaste) • Augustine , conversion • Augustine , doctrine • Augustine , generally • Augustine , preconversion life • Augustine, Saint, on Bible • Augustine, Saint, on Genesis • Augustine, Saint, on human will • Augustine, Saint, on origin of evil • Augustine, Saint, on sin • Augustine, and Cicero’s translation of Timaeus • Augustine, conversion of • Augustine, creation narrative of • Augustine, on “heaven and earth,” • Christianity, Augustine on • City of God (Augustine) • Genesis, Augustine on first six days in • Origen, source for Calcidius and Augustine • Plato, Timaeus, Augustine and • Plato, creationism of consistent with Christians’ (Augustine) • Trinity, Augustine’s De Trinitate • angels, Augustine on • creation, Augustine’s narrative of • heaven, interpretations of (Augustine) • matter, Augustine’s portrayal of

 Found in books: Corrigan and Rasimus (2013) 575; Esler (2000) 1206, 1223; Hoenig (2018) 235, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243; Legaspi (2018) 50; Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 223, 227, 230; Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 250; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 198, 203; Wiebe (2021) 54


1.1. בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃
1.1. וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לַיַּבָּשָׁה אֶרֶץ וּלְמִקְוֵה הַמַּיִם קָרָא יַמִּים וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים כִּי־טוֹב׃
1.3. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר׃
1.3. וּלְכָל־חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ וּלְכָל־עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּלְכֹל רוֹמֵשׂ עַל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה אֶת־כָּל־יֶרֶק עֵשֶׂב לְאָכְלָה וַיְהִי־כֵן׃ 1.4. וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאוֹר כִּי־טוֹב וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ׃

1.14. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי מְאֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם לְהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הַיּוֹם וּבֵין הַלָּיְלָה וְהָיוּ לְאֹתֹת וּלְמוֹעֲדִים וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִים׃
1.15. וְהָיוּ לִמְאוֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם לְהָאִיר עַל־הָאָרֶץ וַיְהִי־כֵן׃
1.16. וַיַּעַשׂ אֱלֹהִים אֶת־שְׁנֵי הַמְּאֹרֹת הַגְּדֹלִים אֶת־הַמָּאוֹר הַגָּדֹל לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת הַיּוֹם וְאֶת־הַמָּאוֹר הַקָּטֹן לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת הַלַּיְלָה וְאֵת הַכּוֹכָבִים׃
1.17. וַיִּתֵּן אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם לְהָאִיר עַל־הָאָרֶץ׃
1.18. וְלִמְשֹׁל בַּיּוֹם וּבַלַּיְלָה וּלֲהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים כִּי־טוֹב׃
1.26. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ וְיִרְדּוּ בִדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל־הָאָרֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶמֶשׂ הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל־הָאָרֶץ׃' '. None
1.1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
1.3. And God said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. 1.4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

1.14. And God said: ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;
1.15. and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so.
1.16. And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.
1.17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
1.18. and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
1.26. And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’' '. None
3. Hebrew Bible, Numbers, 24.17 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine of Hippo, on astrology/astronomy • Augustine, Saint,

 Found in books: Goldhill (2022) 298; Robbins et al (2017) 307


24.17. אֶרְאֶנּוּ וְלֹא עַתָּה אֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ וְלֹא קָרוֹב דָּרַךְ כּוֹכָב מִיַּעֲקֹב וְקָם שֵׁבֶט מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל וּמָחַץ פַּאֲתֵי מוֹאָב וְקַרְקַר כָּל־בְּנֵי־שֵׁת׃''. None
24.17. I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh; There shall step forth a star out of Jacob, And a scepter shall rise out of Israel, And shall smite through the corners of Moab, And break down all the sons of Seth.''. None
4. Hebrew Bible, Proverbs, 4.7 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 85; Legaspi (2018) 50


4.7. רֵאשִׁית חָכְמָה קְנֵה חָכְמָה וּבְכָל־קִנְיָנְךָ קְנֵה בִינָה׃''. None
4.7. The beginning of wisdom is: Get wisdom; Yea, with all thy getting get understanding.''. None
5. Hebrew Bible, Psalms, 36.6, 51.7, 104.24 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Allegory, Allegorical interpretation, Augustine • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine of Hippo, on Gods time • Augustine, Saint, on causes • Augustine, Saint, on will • Augustine’s Works, Bapt. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. imp. • Augustine’s Works, C. du. ep. Pel. • Augustine’s Works, C. litt. Petil. • Augustine’s Works, C. mend. • Augustine’s Works, Catech. rud. • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, Doctr. chr. • Augustine’s Works, Enar. Ps. • Augustine’s Works, Enchir. • Augustine’s Works, Fund. • Augustine’s Works, Gen. litt. • Augustine’s Works, Grat. Chr. • Augustine’s Works, Lib. arb. • Augustine’s Works, Mus. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. grat. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. orig. • Augustine’s Works, Nupt. et conc. • Augustine’s Works, Pecc. merit. • Augustine’s Works, Praed. • Augustine’s Works, Quant. an. • Augustine’s Works, Retract. VII • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl. • Augustine’s Works, Spir. et litt. • Augustine’s Works, Trin. • Augustine’s Works, c. Cresc. • Augustine’s Works, c. ep. Man. Fund. • Beatitudes, Augustine • eternity, Augustine of Hippo on

 Found in books: Corrigan and Rasimus (2013) 575; Goldhill (2022) 41; Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 247; Penniman (2017) 195; Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 459; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 202; Waldner et al (2016) 198; Wilson (2018) 80, 119, 126, 127, 128, 147, 148, 160, 161, 166, 176, 264, 265


36.6. יְהוָה בְּהַשָּׁמַיִם חַסְדֶּךָ אֱמוּנָתְךָ עַד־שְׁחָקִים׃
51.7. הֵן־בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִּי׃
104.24. מָה־רַבּוּ מַעֲשֶׂיךָ יְהוָה כֻּלָּם בְּחָכְמָה עָשִׂיתָ מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ קִנְיָנֶךָ׃' '. None
36.6. Thy lovingkindness, O LORD, is in the heavens; Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.
51.7. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
104.24. How manifold are Thy works, O LORD! In wisdom hast Thou made them all; The earth is full of Thy creatures.' '. None
6. Hebrew Bible, Isaiah, 7.9, 11.2-11.3 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Allegory, Allegorical interpretation, Augustine • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana • Augustine, Platonism, Neoplatonism • Augustine, on ascent to Truth/God • Augustine, on philosophy, sapientia • Augustine, on signs • Augustine’s Works, Div. quaest. • Augustine’s Works, Lib. arb. • Beatitudes, Augustine • Seeing God, Beatitudes, Augustine • Soul, ascent of, Augustine

 Found in books: Penniman (2017) 184; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 227, 228, 230; Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 437, 459, 461, 462, 463; Wilson (2018) 110


7.9. וְרֹאשׁ אֶפְרַיִם שֹׁמְרוֹן וְרֹאשׁ שֹׁמְרוֹן בֶּן־רְמַלְיָהוּ אִם לֹא תַאֲמִינוּ כִּי לֹא תֵאָמֵנוּ׃
11.2. וְנָחָה עָלָיו רוּחַ יְהוָה רוּחַ חָכְמָה וּבִינָה רוּחַ עֵצָה וּגְבוּרָה רוּחַ דַּעַת וְיִרְאַת יְהוָה׃ 11.3. וַהֲרִיחוֹ בְּיִרְאַת יְהוָה וְלֹא־לְמַרְאֵה עֵינָיו יִשְׁפּוֹט וְלֹא־לְמִשְׁמַע אָזְנָיו יוֹכִיחַ׃''. None
7.9. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, And the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not have faith, surely ye shall not be established.’
11.2. And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and might, The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. 11.3. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD; And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, Neither decide after the hearing of his ears;''. None
7. Plato, Timaeus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Apuleius, Augustine and • Augustine • Augustine, Saint, and Virgil • Augustine, Saint, on human will • Augustine, Saint, on origin of evil • Augustine, Saint, on scripture • Augustine, and Apuleius • Augustine, and Cicero’s translation of Timaeus • Plato, Timaeus, Augustine and • angels, Augustine on • demons, Augustine on • theology, on demons and angels (Augustine)

 Found in books: Corrigan and Rasimus (2013) 374; Hoenig (2018) 236, 274; Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 222


27d. δὲ ἡμῖν εἰπεῖν. καὶ τὰ μὲν περὶ θεῶν ταύτῃ παρακεκλήσθω· τὸ δʼ ἡμέτερον παρακλητέον, ᾗ ῥᾷστʼ ἂν ὑμεῖς μὲν μάθοιτε, ἐγὼ δὲ ᾗ διανοοῦμαι μάλιστʼ ἂν περὶ τῶν προκειμένων ἐνδειξαίμην. ΤΙ.'39e. ὡς ὁμοιότατον ᾖ τῷ τελέῳ καὶ νοητῷ ζῴῳ πρὸς τὴν τῆς διαιωνίας μίμησιν φύσεως. ΤΙ. εἰσὶν δὴ τέτταρες, μία μὲν οὐράνιον θεῶν γένος, ἄλλη δὲ '. None
27d. ourselves we must also invoke so to proceed, that you may most easily learn and I may most clearly expound my views regarding the subject before us. Tim.'39e. Nature thereof. Tim. And these Forms are four,—one the heavenly kind of gods; '. None
8. None, None, nan (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine of Hippo, • Augustine, Utility of emotions

 Found in books: Sorabji (2000) 191; Xenophontos and Marmodoro (2021) 129


9. None, None, nan (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine, Curiosity, not pleasure, drives us to look at corpses • Augustine, Time makes emotion fade because of new hopes • Orosius, and Augustine

 Found in books: Sorabji (2000) 80, 241; Van Nuffelen (2012) 3


10. Anon., 1 Enoch, 6-7 (3rd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo

 Found in books: Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 149; Rowland (2009) 48


6. And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto",them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: \'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men,and beget us children.\' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: \'I fear ye will not,indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.\' And they all answered him and said: \'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations,not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.\' Then sware they all together and bound themselves",by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn,and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their leaders: Samlazaz, their leader, Araklba, Rameel, Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel, Danel, Ezeqeel, Baraqijal,,Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ael, Zaq1el, Samsapeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, Sariel. These are their chiefs of tens.'7. And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms,and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they,became pregt, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed,all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against,them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and,fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones." '". None
11. Cicero, On The Nature of The Gods, 2.148 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Cicero, speeches cited by Augustine

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 173; O, Daly (2020) 272


2.148. it is by collating and comparing our precepts that we also create the arts that serve either practical necessities or the purpose of amusement. Then take the gift of speech, the queen of arts as you are fond of calling it — what a glorious, what a divine faculty it is! In the first place it enables us both to learn things we do not know and to teach things we do know to others; secondly it is our instrument for exhortation and persuasion, for consoling the afflicted and assuaging the fears of the terrified, for curbing passion and quenching appetite and anger; it is this that has united us in the bonds of justice, law and civil order, this that has sped us from savagery and barbarism. ''. None
12. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 11.21 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine, Confessiones • Augustine, Saint, on human will • Augustine, Saint, on nothing • Augustine, Saint, on origin of evil • Augustine, on arithmetic, mathematics • Augustine, on geometry

 Found in books: Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 232; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 156


11.21. For it is always in thy power to show great strength,and who can withstand the might of thy arm?''. None
13. None, None, nan (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine

 Found in books: Bryan (2018) 245; Wardy and Warren (2018) 245


14. None, None, nan (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 115; Edmondson (2008) 247


15. None, None, nan (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, Attack on Stoic apatheia, misrepresents Stoic acceptance of first movements as acceptance of emotion • Augustine, Similarly for eupatheiai • Augustine, Time makes emotion fade because of new hopes • Cicero, speeches cited by Augustine • Eupatheiai, equanimous states, Augustine hails Stoic acceptance of eupatheia as acceptance of emotion

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 87; O, Daly (2020) 272; Sorabji (2000) 207, 241


16. None, None, nan (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine,

 Found in books: Bay (2022) 179; Schwartz (2008) 59


17. Epictetus, Discourses, 3.5.7 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo,

 Found in books: Brouwer and Vimercati (2020) 23; Xenophontos and Marmodoro (2021) 122


3.5.7. I AM sick here, said one of the pupils, and I wish to return home.—At home, I suppose, you were free from sickness. Do you not consider whether you are doing any thing here which may be useful to the exercise of your will, that it may be corrected? For if you are doing nothing towards this end, it was to no purpose that you came. Go away. Look after your affairs at home. For if your ruling power cannot be maintained in a state conformable to nature, it is possible that your land can, that you will be able to increase your money, you will take care of your father in his old age, frequent the public place, hold magisterial office: being bad you will do badly any thing else that you have to do. But if you understand yourself, and know that you are casting away certain bad opinions and adopting others in their place, and if you have changed your state of life from things which are not within your will to things which are within your will, and if you ever say, Alas! you are not saying what you say on account of your father, or your brother, but on account of yourself, do you still allege your sickness? Do you not know that both disease and death must surprise us while we are doing something? the husbandman while he is tilling the ground, the sailor while he is on his voyage? what would you be doing when death surprises you, for you must be surprised when you are doing something? If you can be doing anything better than this when you are surprised, do it. For I wish to be surprised by disease or death when I am looking after nothing else than my own will, that I may be free from perturbation, that I may be free from hindrance, free from compulsion, and in a state of liberty. I wish to be found practising these things that I may be able to say to God, Have I in any respect transgressed thy commands? have I in any respect wrongly used the powers which thou gavest me? have I misused my perceptions or my preconceptions ( προλήψεσι )? have I ever blamed thee? have I ever found fault with thy administration? I have been sick, because it was thy will, and so have others, but I was content to be sick. I have been poor because it was thy will, but I was content also. I have not filled a magisterial office, because it was not thy pleasure that I should: I have never desired it Hast thou ever seen me for this reason discontented? have I not always approached thee with a cheerful countece, ready to do thy commands and to obey thy signals? Is it now thy will that I should depart from the assemblage of men? I depart. I give thee all thanks that thou hast allowed me to join in this thy assemblage of men and to see thy works, and to comprehend this thy administration. May death surprise me while I am thinking of these things, while I am thus writing and reading. But my mother will not hold my head when I am sick. Go to your mother then; for you are a fit person to have your head held when you are sick.—But at home I used to lie down on a delicious bed.—Go away to your bed: indeed you are fit to lie on such a bed even when you are in health: do not then lose what you can do there (at home). But what does Socrates say? As one man, he says, is pleased with improving his land, another with improving his horse, so I am daily pleased in observing that I am growing better. Better in what? in using nice little words? Man, do not say that. In little matters of speculation ( θεωρήματα )? what are you saying?—And indeed I do not see what else there is on which philosophers employ their time.—Does it seem nothing to you to have never found fault with any person, neither with God nor man? to have blamed nobody? to carry the same face always in going out and coming in? This is what Socrates knew, and yet he never said that he knew any thing or taught any thing. But if any man asked for nice little words or little speculations, he would carry him to Protagoras or to Hippias; and if any man came to ask for potherbs, he would carry him to the gardener. Who then among you has this purpose (motive to action)? for if indeed you had it, you would both be content in sickness, and in hunger, and in death. If any among you has been in love with a charming girl, he knows that I say what is true.''. None
18. New Testament, 1 John, 2.18 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine of Hippo

 Found in books: Penniman (2017) 188; Rowland (2009) 212


2.18. Παιδία, ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν, καὶ καθὼς ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἀντίχριστος ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἀντίχριστοι πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν· ὅθεν γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν.''. None
2.18. Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the end times. ''. None
19. New Testament, 1 Peter, 5.3 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 185; Kaplan (2015) 40


5.3. μηδʼ ὡς κατακυριεύοντες τῶν κλήρων ἀλλὰ τύποι γινόμενοι τοῦ ποιμνίου·''. None
5.3. neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock. ''. None
20. New Testament, 1 Corinthians, 2.14, 3.1-3.3, 10.11, 10.17, 12.12 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine , respect for the Donatist Tyconius • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana • Augustine, on dialectic, logic • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. • Augustine’s Works, Corrept. • Augustine’s Works, Enar. Ps. • Augustine’s Works, Enchir. • Augustine’s Works, Exp. quaest. Rom. • Augustine’s Works, Pecc. merit. • Augustine’s Works, Praed. • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl. • Augustine’s Works, Spir. et litt.

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 218; Esler (2000) 967; Gunderson (2022) 14; Penniman (2017) 187; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 199, 200; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 208; Rowland (2009) 211; Waldner et al (2016) 199, 200; Wilson (2018) 142, 260


2.14. ψυχικὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος οὐ δέχεται τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ θεοῦ, μωρία γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐστίν, καὶ οὐ δύναται γνῶναι, ὅτι πνευματικῶς ἀνακρίνεται·
3.1. Κἀγώ, ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἠδυνήθην λαλῆσαι ὑμῖν ὡς πνευματικοῖς ἀλλʼ ὡς σαρκίνοις, ὡς νηπίοις ἐν Χριστῷ. 3.2. γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα, οὐ βρῶμα, οὔπω γὰρ ἐδύνασθε. 3.3. Ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ ἔτι νῦν δύνασθε, ἔτι γὰρ σαρκικοί ἐστε. ὅπου γὰρ ἐν ὑμῖν ζῆλος καὶ ἔρις, οὐχὶ σαρκικοί ἐστε καὶ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον περιπατεῖτε;
10.11. ταῦτα δὲ τυπικῶς συνέβαινεν ἐκείνοις, ἐγράφη δὲ πρὸς νουθεσίαν ἡμῶν, εἰς οὓς τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων κατήντηκεν.
10.17. ὅτι εἷς ἄρτος, ἓν σῶμα οἱ πολλοί ἐσμεν, οἱ γὰρ πάντες ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἄρτου μετέχομεν. βλέπετε τὸν Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ σάρκα·
12.12. Καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα ἕν ἐστιν καὶ μέλη πολλὰ ἔχει, πάντα δὲ τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος πολλὰ ὄντα ἕν ἐστιν σῶμα, οὕτως καὶ ὁ χριστός·' '. None
2.14. Now thenatural man doesn't receive the things of God's Spirit, for they arefoolishness to him, and he can't know them, because they arespiritually discerned." "
3.1. Brothers, I couldn't speak to you as to spiritual, but as tofleshly, as to babies in Christ." "3.2. I fed you with milk, not withmeat; for you weren't yet ready. Indeed, not even now are you ready," "3.3. for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy,strife, and factions among you, aren't you fleshly, and don't you walkin the ways of men?" '
10.11. Now all these thingshappened to them by way of example, and they were written for ouradmonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
10.17. Because we, who are many, are one bread, one body; forwe all partake of the one bread.
12.12. For as the body is one, and has many members, and all themembers of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.' ". None
21. New Testament, 1 Timothy, 1.15, 2.5 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine, St, on advocates and iurisperiti • Augustine, biography of • Augustine’s Works, Nupt. et conc. • Trinity (Augustine), memory in • mysticism, Augustines experience of

 Found in books: Grove (2021) 6, 32; Humfress (2007) 100; Wiebe (2021) 31; Wilson (2018) 171


1.15. πιστὸς ὁ λόγος καὶ πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος, ὅτι Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἁμαρτωλοὺς σῶσαι· ὧν πρῶτός εἰμι ἐγώ,
2.5. Εἷς γὰρ θεός, εἷς καὶ μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς,''. None
1.15. The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
2.5. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, ''. None
22. New Testament, Acts, 1.1-1.11, 6.2, 8.12, 8.37, 24.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine, influence on Arator • Augustine, on Ethiopians • Augustine, on Moses Cushite wife • Augustine, on Simon Magus • Augustine, on ark and baptism • Augustine, on ascension • Augustine, on raven • Augustine’s Works, Acad. • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, Trin.

 Found in books: Doble and Kloha (2014) 298; Ernst (2009) 221; Hidary (2017) 275; Hillier (1993) 62, 63, 64, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 106, 107, 114; Mendez (2022) 70; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 201, 207; Wilson (2018) 191, 283


1.1. τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον ἐποιησάμην περὶ πάντων, ὦ Θεόφιλε, ὧν ἤρξατο Ἰησοῦς ποιεῖν τε καὶ διδάσκειν 1.2. ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας ἐντειλάμενος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου οὓς ἐξελέξατο ἀνελήμφθη· 1.3. οἷς καὶ παρέστησεν ἑαυτὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τὸ παθεῖν αὐτὸν ἐν πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις, διʼ ἡμερῶν τεσσεράκοντα ὀπτανόμενος αὐτοῖς καὶ λέγων τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ. 1.4. καὶ συναλιζόμενος παρήγγειλεν αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ Ἰεροσολύμων μὴ χωρίζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ περιμένειν τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ πατρὸς ἣν ἠκούσατέ μου· 1.5. ὅτι Ἰωάνης μὲν ἐβάπτισεν ὕδατι, ὑμεῖς δὲ ἐν πνεύματι βαπτισθήσεσθε ἁγίῳ οὐ μετὰ πολλὰς ταύτας ἡμέρας. 1.6. οἱ μὲν οὖν συνελθόντες ἠρώτων αὐτὸν λέγοντες Κύριε, εἰ ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ ἀποκαθιστάνεις τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ Ἰσραήλ; 1.7. εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς Οὐχ ὑμῶν ἐστὶν γνῶναι χρόνους ἢ καιροὺς οὓς ὁ πατὴρ ἔθετο ἐν τῇ ἰδίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ, 1.8. ἀλλὰ λήμψεσθε δύναμιν ἐπελθόντος τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἔσεσθέ μου μάρτυρες ἔν τε Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ ἐν πάσῃ τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ καὶ Σαμαρίᾳ καὶ ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς. 1.9. καὶ ταῦτα εἰπὼν βλεπόντων αὐτῶν ἐπήρθη, καὶ νεφέλη ὑπέλαβεν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν.
1.10. καὶ ὡς ἀτενίζοντες ἦσαν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν πορευομένου αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο παριστήκεισαν αὐτοῖς ἐν 1.11. οἳ καὶ εἶπαν Ἄνδρες Γαλιλαῖοι, τί ἑστήκατε βλέποντες εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν; οὗτος ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὁ ἀναλημφθεὶς ἀφʼ ὑμῶν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν οὕτως ἐλεύσεται ὃν τρόπον ἐθεάσασθε αὐτὸν πορευόμενον εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν.
6.2. προσκαλεσάμενοι δὲ οἱ δώδεκα τὸ πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν εἶπαν Οὐκ ἀρεστόν ἐστιν ἡμᾶς καταλείψαντας τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ διακονεῖν τραπέζαις·
8.12. ὅτε δὲ ἐπίστευσαν τῷ Φιλίππῳ εὐαγγελιζομένῳ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ὀνόματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἐβαπτίζοντο ἄνδρες τε καὶ γυναῖκες.
8.37.
24.2. κληθέντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἤρξατο κατηγορεῖν ὁ Τέρτυλλος λέγων Πολλῆς εἰρήνης τυγχάνοντες διὰ σοῦ καὶ διορθωμάτων γινομένων τῷ ἔθνει τούτῳ διὰ τῆς σῆς προνοίας''. None
1.1. The first book I wrote, Theophilus, concerned all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, 1.2. until the day in which he was received up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ' "1.3. To these he also showed himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and spoke about God's Kingdom. " '1.4. Being assembled together with them, he charged them, "Don\'t depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard from me. 1.5. For John indeed baptized in water, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 1.6. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?" 1.7. He said to them, "It isn\'t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within His own authority. 1.8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." 1.9. When he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.
1.10. While they were looking steadfastly into the sky as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white clothing,
1.11. who also said, "You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky will come back in the same way as you saw him going into the sky."
6.2. The twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not appropriate for us to forsake the word of God and serve tables.
8.12. But when they believed Philip preaching good news concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
8.37.
24.2. When he was called, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, "Seeing that by you we enjoy much peace, and that excellent measures are coming to this nation, ''. None
23. New Testament, Colossians, 1.18 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo, friendship with Paulinus

 Found in books: Conybeare (2000) 43; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 208


1.18. καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ σώματος, τῆς ἐκκλησίας· ὅς ἐστιν ἡ ἀρχή, πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων,''. None
1.18. He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. ''. None
24. New Testament, Ephesians, 4.2-4.3 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine’s Works, Persev. • Augustine’s Works, Praed.

 Found in books: Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 208; Wilson (2018) 202


4.2. μετὰ πάσης ταπεινοφροσύνης καὶ πραΰτητος, μετὰ μακροθυμίας, ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπῃ, 4.3. σπουδάζοντες τηρεῖν τὴν ἑνότητα τοῦ πνεύματος ἐν τῷ συνδέσμῳ τῆς εἰρήνης·''. None
4.2. with all lowliness and humility, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love; 4.3. being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ''. None
25. New Testament, Galatians, 2.11, 2.15-2.16, 2.19, 5.17 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Ambrose, and Augustine • Augustine • Augustine, Not two souls in humans • Augustine, Two wills in humans • Augustine, and Jerome • Augustine’s Works, Catech. rud. • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl.

 Found in books: Gunderson (2022) 14; Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 18; Sorabji (2000) 315; Wilson (2018) 6, 217, 224


2.11. Ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν Κηφᾶς εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν, κατὰ πρόσωπον αὐτῷ ἀντέστην, ὅτι κατεγνωσμένος ἦν·
2.15. Ἡμεῖς φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμαρτωλοί, 2.16. εἰδότες δὲ ὅτι οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐπιστεύσαμεν, ἵνα δικαιωθῶμεν ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, ὅτι ἐξ ἔργων νόμουοὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σάρξ.
2.19. ἐγὼ γὰρ διὰ νόμου νόμῳ ἀπέθανον ἵνα θεῷ ζήσω· Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι·
5.17. ἡ γὰρ σὰρξ ἐπιθυμεῖ κατὰ τοῦ πνεύματος, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα κατὰ τῆς σαρκός, ταῦτα γὰρ ἀλλήλοις ἀντίκειται, ἵνα μὴ ἃ ἐὰν θέλητε ταῦτα ποιῆτε.''. None
2.11. But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face,because he stood condemned.
2.15. "We, being Jews by nature, and not Gentile sinners, 2.16. yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law butthrough the faith of Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus,that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works ofthe law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law.
2.19. For I, through the law, died to the law,that I might live to God.
5.17. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and theSpirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one other, that youmay not do the things that you desire. ''. None
26. New Testament, Philippians, 2.6-2.7 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, Saint,

 Found in books: Robbins et al (2017) 7; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210


2.6. ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ, 2.7. ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος· καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος''. None
2.6. who, existing in the form of God, didn't consider it robbery to be equal with God, " '2.7. but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. '". None
27. New Testament, Romans, 1.20, 5.5, 5.12, 9.7, 9.22, 10.13, 11.26-11.27, 11.36, 13.13-13.14 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Ambrose, and Augustine • Augustine • Augustine , Incarnation • Augustine , conversion • Augustine , doctrine • Augustine , doctrine of the fall • Augustine , faith and reason • Augustine , generally • Augustine , life • Augustine , original sin • Augustine , rhapsodic vision • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine, and Jerome • Augustine, biography of • Augustine’s Works, Adnot. Job • Augustine’s Works, Bapt. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. imp. • Augustine’s Works, C. du. ep. Pel. • Augustine’s Works, C. mend. • Augustine’s Works, Catech. rud. • Augustine’s Works, Civ. • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, Corrept. • Augustine’s Works, De mend. • Augustine’s Works, Div. quaest. • Augustine’s Works, Doctr. chr. • Augustine’s Works, Duab. an. • Augustine’s Works, Emer. • Augustine’s Works, Enar. Ps. • Augustine’s Works, Enchir. • Augustine’s Works, Exp. Rom. inch. • Augustine’s Works, Exp. quaest. Rom. • Augustine’s Works, Fid. op. • Augustine’s Works, Fid. symb. • Augustine’s Works, Gen. Man. • Augustine’s Works, Gen. litt. • Augustine’s Works, Grat. • Augustine’s Works, Grat. Chr. • Augustine’s Works, Leg. adv. • Augustine’s Works, Lib. arb. • Augustine’s Works, Locut. Hept. • Augustine’s Works, Mor. eccl. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. grat. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. orig. • Augustine’s Works, Nupt. et conc. • Augustine’s Works, Ord. • Augustine’s Works, Pat. • Augustine’s Works, Pecc. merit. • Augustine’s Works, Perf. • Augustine’s Works, Persev. • Augustine’s Works, Praed. • Augustine’s Works, Quant. an. • Augustine’s Works, Retract. VII • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, S. Dom. m. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl. • Augustine’s Works, Spir. et litt. • Augustine’s Works, Symb. • Augustine’s Works, Tract. Ev. Jo. • Augustine’s Works, Tract. ep. Jo. • Augustine’s Works, Trin. • Augustine’s Works, Unit. eccl. • Augustine’s Works, Ver. rel. • Augustine’s Works, Virginit. • Augustine’s Works, c. Arian. • Augustine’s Works, c. Faust. • Augustine’s Works, c. Fel. • Augustine’s Works, c. Fort. • Augustine’s Works, c. ep. Man. Fund. • Beatitudes, Augustine • Christianity, Augustine on • Incarnation, for Augustine • Reception, Augustine • Seeing God, Beatitudes, Augustine • Trinity (Augustine), truth, God as

 Found in books: Doble and Kloha (2014) 298; Esler (2000) 621, 1208, 1209, 1210, 1222; Geljon and Vos (2020) 146; Grove (2021) 32, 38, 39, 41; Gunderson (2022) 86; Kaplan (2015) 40; Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 18, 19; Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 254; Pignot (2020) 320; Poorthuis and Schwartz (2014) 316; Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 462; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 198; Wilson (2018) 5, 92, 100, 107, 121, 127, 130, 142, 146, 148, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164, 166, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181, 183, 185, 187, 188, 189, 191, 193, 197, 204, 210, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225, 228, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 254, 262, 265, 269, 270, 271, 276, 279, 280, 285, 286, 293, 295, 297


1.20. τὰ γὰρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασιν νοούμενα καθορᾶται, ἥ τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἀναπολογήτους,
5.5. ἡ δὲἐλπὶς οὐ καταισχύνει.ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκέχυται ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου τοῦ δοθέντος ἡμῖν·
5.12. Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ διʼ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον-.
9.7. οὐδʼ ὅτι εἰσὶν σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ, πάντες τέκνα, ἀλλʼἘν Ἰσαὰκ κληθήσεταί σοι σπέρμα.
9.22. εἰ δὲ θέλων ὁ θεὸς ἐνδείξασθαι τὴν ὀργὴν καὶ γνωρίσαι τὸ δυνατὸν αὐτοῦἤνεγκενἐν πολλῇ μακροθυμίᾳσκεύη ὀργῆςκατηρτισμέναεἰς ἀπώλειαν,
10.13. Πᾶς γὰρὃς ἂν ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου σωθήσεται.
11.26. καθὼς γέγραπται 11.27.
11.36. ὅτι ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα· αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας· ἀμήν.
13.13. ὡς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ εὐσχημόνως περιπατήσωμεν, μὴ κώμοις καὶ μέθαις, μὴ κοίταις καὶ ἀσελγείαις, μὴ ἔριδι καὶ ζήλῳ. 13.14. ἀλλὰ ἐνδύσασθε τὸν κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, καὶ τῆς σαρκὸς πρόνοιαν μὴ ποιεῖσθε εἰς ἐπιθυμίας.' '. None
1.20. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. ' "
5.5. and hope doesn't disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. " '
5.12. Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.
9.7. Neither, because they are Abraham\'s seed, are they all children. But, "In Isaac will your seed be called."
9.22. What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,
10.13. For, "Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved."
11.26. and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, "There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, And he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 11.27. This is my covet to them, When I will take away their sins."
11.36. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
13.13. Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy. 13.14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts. ' '. None
28. New Testament, John, 1.1-1.3, 1.9-1.14, 7.39, 14.6, 20.15-20.17, 21.15-21.17 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine of Hippo, on Gods time • Augustine of Hippo, on John • Augustine, Saint, • Augustine’s Works, Bapt. • Augustine’s Works, Brev. coll. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. imp. • Augustine’s Works, C. du. ep. Pel. • Augustine’s Works, C. litt. Petil. • Augustine’s Works, Catech. rud. • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, Cons. • Augustine’s Works, Corrept. • Augustine’s Works, Div. quaest. • Augustine’s Works, Enar. Ps. • Augustine’s Works, Enchir. • Augustine’s Works, Exp. Rom. inch. • Augustine’s Works, Exp. quaest. Rom. • Augustine’s Works, Fid. • Augustine’s Works, Fund. • Augustine’s Works, Gen. Man. • Augustine’s Works, Gen. litt. • Augustine’s Works, Grat. • Augustine’s Works, Mor. Man. • Augustine’s Works, Mor. eccl. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. bon. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. grat. • Augustine’s Works, Pecc. merit. • Augustine’s Works, Quaest. Matt. • Augustine’s Works, Quaest. c. pag. • Augustine’s Works, Quaest. ev. • Augustine’s Works, Retract. VII • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, S. Dom. m. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl. • Augustine’s Works, Solil. • Augustine’s Works, Spir. et litt. • Augustine’s Works, Symb. • Augustine’s Works, Trin. • Augustine’s Works, Unit. eccl. • Augustine’s Works, Util. cred. • Augustine’s Works, Ver. rel. • Augustine’s Works, Virginit. • Augustine’s Works, c. Adim. • Augustine’s Works, c. Faust. • Augustine’s Works, c. Fel. • Augustine’s Works, c. Fort. • Augustine’s Works, c. ep. Man. Fund. • eternity, Augustine of Hippo on

 Found in books: Corrigan and Rasimus (2013) 377, 437; Doble and Kloha (2014) 233, 234, 235; Goldhill (2022) 41, 239; Legaspi (2018) 50; Levison (2009) 373; McGowan (1999) 95; Penniman (2017) 196; Robbins et al (2017) 120; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 195, 198, 201, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209; Wilson (2018) 99, 100, 108, 109, 114, 125, 134, 163, 172, 177, 189, 198, 215, 225


1.1. ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 1.2. Οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 1.3. πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν.
1.9. Ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον.
1.10. ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω.
1.11. Εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον.
1.12. ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ,
1.13. οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκὸς οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς ἀλλʼ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν.
1.14. Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας·?̔
7.39. Τοῦτο δὲ εἶπεν περὶ τοῦ πνεύματος οὗ ἔμελλον λαμβάνειν οἱ πιστεύσαντες εἰς αὐτόν· οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὔπω ἐδοξάσθη.
14.6. λέγει αὐτῷ Ἰησοῦς Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή· οὐδεὶς ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸν πατέρα εἰ μὴ διʼ ἐμοῦ.
20.15. λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; τίνα ζητεῖς; ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν λέγει αὐτῷ Κύριε, εἰ σὺ ἐβάστασας αὐτόν, εἰπέ μοι ποῦ ἔθηκας αὐτόν, κἀγὼ αὐτὸν ἀρῶ. 20.16. λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς Μαριάμ. στραφεῖσα ἐκείνη λέγει αὐτῷ Ἐβραϊστί Ῥαββουνεί ?̔ὃ λέγεται Διδάσκαλἐ. 20.17. λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς Μή μου ἅπτου, οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα· πορεύου δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου καὶ εἰπὲ αὐτοῖς Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν. 2
1.15. Ὅτε οὖν ἠρίστησαν λέγει τῷ Σίμωνι Πέτρῳ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Σίμων Ἰωάνου, ἀγαπᾷς με πλέον τούτων; λέγει αὐτῷ Ναί, κύριε, σὺ οἶδας ὅτι φιλῶ σε. λέγει αὐτῷ Βόσκε τὰ ἀρνία μου. 2
1.16. λέγει αὐτῷ πάλιν δεύτερον Σίμων Ἰωάνου, ἀγαπᾷς με; λέγει αὐτῷ Ναί, κύριε, σὺ οἶδας ὅτι φιλῶ σε. λέγει αὐτῷ Ποίμαινε τὰ προβάτιά μου. 2
1.17. λέγει αὐτῷ τὸ τρίτον Σίμων Ἰωάνου, φιλεῖς με; ἐλυπήθη ὁ Πέτρος ὅτι εἶπεν αὐτῷ τὸ τρίτον Φιλεῖς με; καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Κύριε, πάντα σὺ οἶδας, σὺ γινώσκεις ὅτι φιλῶ σε. λέγει αὐτῷ Ἰησοῦς Βόσκε τὰ προβάτιά μου.' '. None
1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 1.2. The same was in the beginning with God. 1.3. All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made.
1.9. The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world. ' "
1.10. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn't recognize him. " "
1.11. He came to his own, and those who were his own didn't receive him. " "
1.12. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God's children, to those who believe in his name: " '
1.13. who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
1.14. The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. ' "
7.39. But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus wasn't yet glorified. " '
14.6. Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
20.15. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 20.16. Jesus said to her, "Mary."She turned and said to him, "Rhabbouni!" which is to say, "Teacher!" 20.17. Jesus said to her, "Don\'t touch me, for I haven\'t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, \'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.\'" 2
1.15. So when they had eaten their breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?"He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I have affection for you."He said to him, "Feed my lambs." 2
1.16. He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?"He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I have affection for you."He said to him, "Tend my sheep." 2
1.17. He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you have affection for me?"Peter was grieved because he asked him the third time, "Do you have affection for me?" He said to him, "Lord, you know everything. You know that I have affection for you."Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. ' '. None
29. New Testament, Luke, 2.14, 14.21-14.23, 20.36, 24.32, 24.44 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, Saint, • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. • Augustine’s Works, Catech. rud. • Augustine’s Works, Civ. • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, Enar. Ps. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. grat. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. orig. • Augustine’s Works, Pecc. merit. • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl. • Augustine’s Works, Spir. et litt. • Christianity, Augustine on • City of God (Augustine) • Reception, Augustine • mysticism, Augustines experience of

 Found in books: Cain (2013) 107; Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 252; Pignot (2020) 250; Robbins et al (2017) 307; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 203; Schwartz (2008) 59; Wiebe (2021) 29; Wilson (2018) 142, 220, 221, 224, 231, 263, 264


2.14. Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.
14.21. καὶ παραγενόμενος ὁ δοῦλος ἀπήγγειλεν τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ ταῦτα. τότε ὀργισθεὶς ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης εἶπεν τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ Ἔξελθε ταχέως εἰς τὰς πλατείας καὶ ῥύμας τῆς πόλεως, καὶ τοὺς πτωχοὺς καὶ ἀναπείρους καὶ τυφλοὺς καὶ χωλοὺς εἰσάγαγε ὧδε. 14.22. καὶ εἶπεν ὁ δοῦλος Κύριε, γέγονεν ὃ ἐπέταξας, καὶ ἔτι τόπος ἐστίν. 14.23. καὶ εἶπεν ὁ κύριος πρὸς τὸν δοῦλον Ἔξελθε εἰς τὰς ὁδοὺς καὶ φραγμοὺς καὶ ἀνάγκασον εἰσελθεῖν, ἵνα γεμισθῇ μου ὁ οἶκος·
20.36. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται, ἰσάγγελοι γάρ εἰσιν, καὶ υἱοί εἰσιν θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες.
24.32. καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους Οὐχὶ ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν καιομένη ἦν ὡς ἐλάλει ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ, ὡς διήνοιγεν ἡμῖν τὰς γραφάς;
24.44. Εἶπεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτούς Οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι μου οὓς ἐλάλησα πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔτι ὢν σὺν ὑμῖν, ὅτι δεῖ πληρωθῆναι πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα ἐν τῷ νόμῳ Μωυσέως καὶ τοῖς προφήταις καὶ Ψαλμοῖς περὶ ἐμοῦ.''. None
2.14. "Glory to God in the highest, On earth peace, good will toward men."
14.21. "That servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, \'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.\ '14.22. "The servant said, \'Lord, it is done as you commanded, and there is still room.\ '14.23. "The lord said to the servant, \'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. ' "
20.36. For they can't die any more, for they are like the angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. " '
24.32. They said one to another, "Weren\'t our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way, and while he opened the Scriptures to us?"
24.44. He said to them, "This is what I told you, while I was still with you, that all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me must be fulfilled."''. None
30. New Testament, Mark, 16.2, 16.6 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, Saint,

 Found in books: Robbins et al (2017) 435, 436; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 203


16.2. καὶ λίαν πρωὶ τῇ μιᾷ των σαββάτων ἔρχονται ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου.
16.6. ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐταῖς Μὴ ἐκθαμβεῖσθε· Ἰησοῦν ζητεῖτε τὸν Ναζαρηνὸν τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον· ἠγέρθη, οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε· ἴδε ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν·''. None
16.2. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.
16.6. He said to them, "Don\'t be amazed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him! ''. None
31. New Testament, Matthew, 1.23, 2.6, 3.14-3.17, 4.1-4.11, 5.3-5.10, 6.7, 13.45-13.46, 17.20, 22.30 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Allegory, Allegorical interpretation, Augustine • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo, depiction of Jews as bookbearers • Augustine of Hippo, distinction between Jews and Hebrews • Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana • Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos • Augustine, Degrees of sin • Augustine, Lust • Augustine, Original Sin, transmitted by lust • Augustine, Saint, • Augustine, So Christ free from • Augustine, St • Augustine, St, City of God • Augustine, St, Confessions • Augustine, St, congregation • Augustine, St, use of forensic rhetoric in sermons • Augustine, criticism of Porphyry • Augustine, on ascent to Truth/God • Augustine, on biblical scientia • Augustine, on divination • Augustine, on doctrina(e) • Augustine, on eschatological criterion of interpretation • Augustine, on love (amor, caritas) and interpretation • Augustine, on philosophy, sapientia • Beatitudes, Augustine • Christianity, Augustine on • City of God (Augustine) • Orosius, and Augustine • Seeing God, Beatitudes, Augustine • Soul, ascent of, Augustine • mysticism, Augustines experience of

 Found in books: Ashbrook Harvey et al (2015) 96, 98; Cain (2013) 170; Cain (2016) 187; Doble and Kloha (2014) 298; Humfress (2007) 191; Neusner Green and Avery-Peck (2022) 252; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 114, 225, 226, 227; Potter Suh and Holladay (2021) 437, 438, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463; Robbins et al (2017) 7; Roskovec and Hušek (2021) 195, 197, 198, 202; Simmons(1995) 225; Sorabji (2000) 353; Van Nuffelen (2012) 27, 28, 29, 30; Wiebe (2021) 29


1.23. Ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσουσιν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ· ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Μεθʼ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός.
2.6. Καὶ σύ, Βηθλεὲμ γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα· ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος, ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ.
3.14. ὁ δὲ διεκώλυεν αὐτὸν λέγων Ἐγὼ χρείαν ἔχω ὑπὸ σοῦ βαπτισθῆναι, καὶ σὺ ἔρχῃ πρός με; 3.15. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ Ἄφες ἄρτι, οὕτω γὰρ πρέπον ἐστὶν ἡμῖν πληρῶσαι πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην. τότε ἀφίησιν αὐτόν. 3.16. βαπτισθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εὐθὺς ἀνέβη ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος· 3.17. καὶ ἰδοὺ ἠνεῴχθησαν οἱ οὐρανοί, καὶ εἶδεν πνεῦμα θεοῦ καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν ἐρχόμενον ἐπʼ αὐτόν· καὶ ἰδοὺ φωνὴ ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν λέγουσα Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα.
4.1. Τότε ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος, πειρασθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου. 4.2. καὶ νηστεύσας ἡμέρας τεσσεράκοντα καὶ νύκτας τεσσεράκοντα ὕστερον ἐπείνασεν. 4.3. Καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ πειράζων εἶπεν αὐτῷ Εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ, εἰπὸν ἵνα οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι ἄρτοι γένωνται. 4.4. ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν Γέγραπται Οὐκ ἐπʼ ἄρτῳ μόνῳ ζήσεται ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλʼ ἐπὶ παντὶ ῥήματι ἐκπορευομένῳ διὰ στόματος θεοῦ. 4.5. Τότε παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν, καὶ ἔστησεν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ, 4.6. καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ Εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ, βάλε σεαυτὸν κάτω· γέγραπται γὰρ ὅτι Τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ ἐντελεῖται περὶ σοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ χειρῶν ἀροῦσίν σε, μή ποτε προσκόψῃς πρὸς λίθον τὸν πόδα σου. 4.7. ἔφη αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Πάλιν γέγραπται Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις Κύριον τὸν θεόν σου. 4.8. Πάλιν παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος εἰς ὄρος ὑψηλὸν λίαν, καὶ δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ πάσας τὰς βασιλείας τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν, 4.9. καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Ταῦτά σοι πάντα δώσω ἐὰν πεσὼν προσκυνήσῃς μοι.
4.10. τότε λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Ὕπαγε, Σατανᾶ· γέγραπται γάρ Κύριον τὸν θεόν σου προσκυνήσεις καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις.
4.11. Τότε ἀφίησιν αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄγγελοι προσῆλθον καὶ διηκόνουν αὐτῷ.
5.3. ΜΑΚΑΡΙΟΙ οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι, ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. 5.4. μακάριοι οἱ πενθοῦντες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ παρακληθήσονται. 5.5. μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς, ὅτι αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσι τὴν γῆν. 5.6. μακάριοι οἱ πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες τὴν δικαιοσύνην, ὅτι αὐτοὶ χορτασθήσονται. 5.7. μακάριοι οἱ ἐλεήμονες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ ἐλεηθήσονται. 5.8. μακάριοι οἱ καθαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ, ὅτι αὐτοὶ τὸν θεὸν ὄψονται. 5.9. μακάριοι οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί, ὅτι αὐτοὶ υἱοὶ θεοῦ κληθήσονται. 5.10. μακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης, ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.
6.7. Προσευχόμενοι δὲ μὴ βατταλογήσητε ὥσπερ οἱ ἐθνικοί, δοκοῦσιν γὰρ ὅτι ἐν τῇ πολυλογίᾳ αὐτῶν εἰσακουσθήσονται·
13.45. Πάλιν ὁμοία ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἐμπόρῳ ζητοῦντι καλοὺς μαργαρίτας· 13.46. εὑρὼν δὲ ἕνα πολύτιμον μαργαρίτην ἀπελθὼν πέπρακεν πάντα ὅσα εἶχεν καὶ ἠγόρασεν αὐτόν.
17.20. ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐτοῖς Διὰ τὴν ὀλιγοπιστίαν ὑμῶν· ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, ἐρεῖτε τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ Μετάβα ἔνθεν ἐκεῖ, καὶ μεταβήσεται, καὶ οὐδὲν ἀδυνατήσει ὑμῖν.
22.30. ἐν γὰρ τῇ ἀναστάσει οὔτε γαμοῦσιν οὔτε γαμίζονται, ἀλλʼ ὡς ἄγγελοι ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ εἰσίν·''. None
1.23. "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, And shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Immanuel;" Which is, being interpreted, "God with us."
2.6. \'You Bethlehem, land of Judah, Are in no way least among the princes of Judah: For out of you shall come forth a governor, Who shall shepherd my people, Israel.\'"
3.14. But John would have hindered him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?" 3.15. But Jesus, answering, said to him, "Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed him. 3.16. Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. 3.17. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
4.1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 4.2. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. 4.3. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." 4.4. But he answered, "It is written, \'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.\'" 4.5. Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 4.6. and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, \'He will give his angels charge concerning you.\' and, \'On their hands they will bear you up, So that you don\'t dash your foot against a stone.\'" 4.7. Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, \'You shall not test the Lord, your God.\'" 4.8. Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. 4.9. He said to him, "I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me."
4.10. Then Jesus said to him, "Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, \'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.\'"
4.11. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.
5.3. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 5.4. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. 5.5. Blessed are the gentle, For they shall inherit the earth. 5.6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, For they shall be filled. 5.7. Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. 5.8. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. 5.9. Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. ' "5.10. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. " "
6.7. In praying, don't use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. " '
13.45. "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, 13.46. who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
17.20. He said to them, "Because of your unbelief. For most assuredly I tell you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, \'Move from here to there,\' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. ' "
22.30. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like God's angels in heaven. "'. None
32. None, None, nan (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, First movements or prepassion • Augustine, Pity aroused in theatre not genuine • Augustine, Titillation only a prepassion • Augustine, Utility of emotions • First movements, Augustine

 Found in books: Boustan Janssen and Roetzel (2010) 74; Brouwer and Vimercati (2020) 23; Sorabji (2000) 77, 191, 344


33. None, None, nan (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine, Confessiones • Augustine, Manichee • Augustine, on grammar • Augustine’s Works, Tract. Ev. Jo. • De doctrina Christiana, Augustine • biblical interpretation, Augustine’s programme for the interpreter

 Found in books: Esler (2000) 681; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 146; Wilson (2018) 245


34. Irenaeus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.3.6, 1.10.1, 1.22.1, 2.27.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine

 Found in books: Doble and Kloha (2014) 284; Iricinschi et al. (2013) 128, 144; Osborne (2001) 28, 149, 235


1.3.6. Such, then, is the account which they all give of their Pleroma, and of the formation of the universe, striving, as they do, to adapt the good words of revelation to their own wicked inventions. And it is not only from the writings of the evangelists and the apostles that they endeavour to derive proofs for their opinions by means of perverse interpretations and deceitful expositions: they deal in the same way with the law and the prophets, which contain many parables and allegories that can frequently be drawn into various senses, according to the kind of exegesis to which they are subjected. And others of them, with great craftiness, adapted such parts of Scripture to their own figments, lead away captive from the truth those who do not retain a stedfast faith in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
1.10.1. The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: She believes in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His future manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things in one," and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven,, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess" to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send "spiritual wickednesses," and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning of their Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.
1.22.1. The rule of truth which we hold, is, that there is one God Almighty, who made all things by His Word, and fashioned and formed, out of that which had no existence, all things which exist. Thus saith the Scripture, to that effect "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the might of them, by the spirit of His mouth." And again, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made." There is no exception or deduction stated; but the Father made all things by Him, whether visible or invisible, objects of sense or of intelligence, temporal, on account of a certain character given them, or eternal; and these eternal things He did not make by angels, or by any powers separated from His Ennoea. For God needs none of all these things, but is He who, by His Word and Spirit, makes, and disposes, and governs all things, and commands all things into existence,--He who formed the world (for the world is of all),--He who fashioned man,--He who is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, above whom there is no other God, nor initial principle, nor power, nor pleroma,--He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall prove. Holding, therefore, this rule, we shall easily show, notwithstanding the great variety and multitude of their opinions, that these men have deviated from the truth; for almost all the different sects of heretics admit that there is one God; but then, by their pernicious doctrines, they change this truth into error, even as the Gentiles do through idolatry,--thus proving themselves ungrateful to Him that created them. Moreover, they despise the workmanship of God, speaking against their own salvation, becoming their own bitterest accusers, and being false witnesses against themselves. Yet, reluctant as they may be, these men shall one day rise again in the flesh, to confess the power of Him who raises them from the dead; but they shall not be numbered among the righteous on account of their unbelief.' "
2.27.3. But since parables admit of many interpretations, what lover of truth will not acknowledge, that for them to assert God is to be searched out from these, while they desert what is certain, indubitable, and true, is the part of men who eagerly throw themselves into danger, and act as if destitute of reason? And is not such a course of conduct not to build one's house upon a rock which is firm, strong, and placed in an open position, but upon the shifting sand? Hence the overthrow of such a building is a matter of ease."'. None
35. Pliny The Younger, Letters, 7.27 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine

 Found in books: Hanghan (2019) 139; Hitch (2017) 139


7.27. To Sura. The leisure we are both of us enjoying gives you an opportunity of imparting, and me an opportunity of receiving, information. So I should very much like to know whether in your opinion there are such things as ghosts, whether you think they have a shape of their own and a touch of the supernatural in them, or whether you consider they are vain, empty shadows and mere creatures of our fears and imaginations. For my own part, I feel led to believe that they have a real existence, and this mainly from what I hear befell Curtius Rufus. * In the days when he was still poor and obscure, he had attached himself to the person of the governor of Africa. One evening at sundown he was walking in the portico, when the figure of a woman - but taller and more beautiful than mortal woman - presented itself before him and told Rufus, who was terrified with fright, that she was Africa and could foretell the future. She declared that he would go to Rome and hold high offices of state, and that he would also return with plenary powers as governor to that same province, and there meet his death. All these details were fulfilled. Moreover, when he was entering Carthage and just stepping out of his ship, the same figure is said to have met him on the beach. Certain it is that when he was attacked by illness, he interpreted the future by the past, and his coming adversity by his present prosperity, and, though none of his people were despairing of his recovery, he cast aside all hope of getting better. Now I want you to consider whether the following story, which I shall tell you just as I heard it, is not even more terrifying and no less wonderful than the other. There stood at Athens a spacious and roomy house, but it had an evil reputation of being fatal to those who lived in it. In the silence of the night the clank of iron and, if you listened with closer attention, the rattle of chains were heard, the sound coming first from a distance and afterwards quite close at hand. Then appeared the ghostly form of an old man, emaciated, filthy, decrepit, with a flowing beard and hair on end, with fetters round his legs and chains on his hands, which he kept shaking. The terrified inmates passed sleepless nights of fearful terror, and following upon their sleeplessness came disease and then death as their fears increased. For every now and again, though the ghost had vanished, memory conjured up the vision before their eyes, and their fright remained longer than the apparition which had caused it. Then the house was deserted and condemned to stand empty, and was wholly abandoned to the spectre, while the authorities forbade that it should be sold or let to anyone wishing to take it, not knowing under what a curse it lay. The philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens, read the notice board, and on hearing the price hesitated, because the low rent made him suspicious. Then he was told the whole story, and, so far from being deterred, he became the more eager to rent it When evening began to fall, he ordered his people to make him up a bed in the front of the house, and asked for his tablets, a pen, and a lamp. Dismissing all his servants to the inner rooms, he applied mind, eyes, and hand to the task of writing, lest by having nothing to think about he might begin to conjure up the apparition of which he had been told and other idle fears. At first the night was just as still there as elsewhere, then the iron was rattled and the chains clanked. Athenodorus did not raise his eyes, nor cease to write, but fortified his resolution and closed his ears. The noise became louder and drew nearer, and was heard now on the threshold and then within the room itself. He turned his head, and saw and recognised the ghost which had been described to him. It stood and beckoned with its finger, as if calling him; but Athenodorus merely motioned with his hand, as if to bid it wait a little, and once more bent over his tablets and plied his pen. As he wrote the spectre rattled its chains over his head, and looking round he saw that it was beckoning as before, so, without further delay, he took up the lamp and followed. The spectre walked with slow steps, as though burdened by the chains, then it turned off into the courtyard of the house and suddenly vanished, leaving its companion alone, who thereupon plucked some grass and foliage to mark the place. On the following day he went to the magistrates and advised them to give orders that the place should be dug up. Bones were found with chains wound round them. Time and the action of the soil had made the flesh moulder, and left the bones bare and eaten away by the chains, but the remains were collected and given a public burial. Ever afterwards the house was free of the ghost which had been thus laid with due ceremony. I quite believe those who vouch for these details, but the following story I can vouch for to others. I have a freedman who is a man of some education. A younger brother of his was sleeping with him in the same bed, and he thought he saw someone sitting upon the bed and applying a pair of shears to his head, and even cutting off some hair from his crown. When day broke, his hair actually was cut at the crown, and the locks were found lying close by. A little time elapsed, and a similar incident occurred to make people believe the other story was true. A young slave of mine was sleeping with a number of others in the dormitory, when, according to his story, two men clothed in white tunics entered by the window and cut his hair as he slept, retiring by the way they came. Daylight revealed that his hair had been cut and the locks lay scattered around. No incident of any note followed, unless it was that I escaped prosecution, as I should not have done if Domitian, in whose reign these incidents had taken place, had lived any longer than he did. For in his writing-desk there was discovered a document sent in by Carus which denounced me. This gives rise to the conjecture that, as it is the custom for accused persons to let their hair go untrimmed, the fact that the hair of my slaves was cut was a sign that the peril overhanging me had passed away. I beg of you to bring your erudition to bear on these stories. The matter is one which is worth long and careful, consideration, nor am I altogether undeserving of your imparting to me your plentiful knowledge. I will let you follow your usual habit of arguing on both sides of the case, but be sure that you take up one side more strongly than the other, so that I may not go away in suspense and uncertainty, when the reason I asked your advice was just this - that you should put an end to my doubts. Farewell. ''. None
36. Tertullian, On The Flesh of Christ, 11 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine

 Found in books: Hanghan (2019) 35; Hitch (2017) 35


11. But we meet another argument of theirs, when we raise the question why Christ, in assuming a flesh composed of soul, should seem to have had a soul that was made of flesh? For God, they say, desired to make the soul visible to men, by enduing it with a bodily nature, although it was before invisible; of its own nature, indeed, it was incapable of seeing anything, even its own self, by reason of the obstacle of this flesh, so that it was even a matter of doubt whether it was born or not. The soul, therefore (they further say), was made corporeal in Christ, in order that we might see it when undergoing birth, and death, and (what is more) resurrection. But yet, how was this possible, that by means of the flesh the soul should demonstrate itself to itself or to us, when it could not possibly be ascertained that it would offer this mode of exhibiting itself by the flesh, until the thing came into existence to which it was unknown, that is to say, the flesh? It received darkness, forsooth, in order to be able to shine! Now, let us first turn our attention to this point, whether it was requisite that the soul should exhibit itself in the manner contended for; and next consider whether their previous position be that the soul is wholly invisible (inquiring further) whether this invisibility is the result of its incorporeality, or whether it actually possesses some sort of body peculiar to itself. And yet, although they say that it is invisible, they determine it to be corporeal, but having somewhat that is invisible. For if it has nothing invisible how can it be said to be invisible? But even its existence is an impossibility, unless it has that which is instrumental to its existence. Since, however, it exists, it must needs have a something through which it exists. If it has this something, it must be its body. Everything which exists is a bodily existence sui generis. Nothing lacks bodily existence but that which is non-existent. If, then, the soul has an invisible body, He who had proposed to make it visible would certainly have done His work better if He had made that part of it which was accounted invisible, visible; because then there would have been no untruth or weakness in the case, and neither of these flaws is suitable to God. (But as the case stands in the hypothesis) there is untruth, since He has set forth the soul as being a different thing from what it really is; and there is weakness, since He was unable to make it appear to be that which it is. No one who wishes to exhibit a man covers him with a veil or a mask. This, however, is precisely what has been done to the soul, if it has been clothed with a covering belonging to something else, by being converted into flesh. But even if the soul is, on their hypothesis, supposed to be incorporeal, so that the soul, whatever it is, should by some mysterious force of the reason be quite unknown, only not be a body, then in that case it were not beyond the power of God - indeed it would be more consistent with His plan - if He displayed the soul in some new sort of body, different from that which we all have in common, one of which we should have quite a different notion, (being spared the idea that) He had set His mind on making, without an adequate cause, a visible soul instead of an invisible one - a fit incentive, no doubt, for such questions as they start, by their maintece of a human flesh for it. Christ, however, could not have appeared among men except as a man. Restore, therefore, to Christ, His faith; believe that He who willed to walk the earth as a man exhibited even a soul of a thoroughly human condition, not making it of flesh, but clothing it with flesh. ''. None
37. None, None, nan (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, St., on meaning of Golden Ass, and Punic

 Found in books: Czajkowski et al (2020) 375; Edmondson (2008) 255; Griffiths (1975) 61, 62


38. None, None, nan (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, St., on meaning of Golden Ass • Augustine, St., on meaning of Golden Ass, and Punic

 Found in books: Czajkowski et al (2020) 375; Griffiths (1975) 11, 62


39. None, None, nan (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, St., on meaning of Golden Ass

 Found in books: Czajkowski et al (2020) 378; Griffiths (1975) 11


40. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 4.33, 4.40, 7.149, 7.162 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, on divination

 Found in books: Bowen and Rochberg (2020) 617; Bryan (2018) 245; Johnston (2008) 12; Long (2006) 106; Wardy and Warren (2018) 245


4.33. Some represent him as emulous of Pyrrho as well. He was devoted to dialectic and adopted the methods of argument introduced by the Eretrian school. On account of this Ariston said of him:Plato the head of him, Pyrrho the tail, midway Diodorus.And Timon speaks of him thus:Having the lead of Menedemus at his heart, he will run either to that mass of flesh, Pyrrho, or to Diodorus.And a little farther on he introduces him as saying:I shall swim to Pyrrho and to crooked Diodorus.He was highly axiomatic and concise, and in his discourse fond of distinguishing the meaning of terms. He was satirical enough, and outspoken.
4.40. Once indeed, when at Athens, he stopped too long in the Piraeus, discussing themes, out of friendship for Hierocles, and for this he was censured by certain persons. He was very lavish, in short another Aristippus, and he was fond of dining well, but only with those who shared his tastes. He lived openly with Theodete and Phila, the Elean courtesans, and to those who censured him he quoted the maxims of Aristippus. He was also fond of boys and very susceptible. Hence he was accused by Ariston of Chios, the Stoic, and his followers, who called him a corrupter of youth and a shameless teacher of immorality.
7.149. Nature, they hold, aims both at utility and at pleasure, as is clear from the analogy of human craftsmanship. That all things happen by fate or destiny is maintained by Chrysippus in his treatise De fato, by Posidonius in his De fato, book ii., by Zeno and by Boethus in his De fato, book i. Fate is defined as an endless chain of causation, whereby things are, or as the reason or formula by which the world goes on. What is more, they say that divination in all its forms is a real and substantial fact, if there is really Providence. And they prove it to be actually a science on the evidence of certain results: so Zeno, Chrysippus in the second book of his De divinatione, Athenodorus, and Posidonius in the second book of his Physical Discourse and the fifth book of his De divinatione. But Panaetius denies that divination has any real existence.' "
7.162. After meeting Polemo, says Diocles of Magnesia, while Zeno was suffering from a protracted illness, he recanted his views. The Stoic doctrine to which he attached most importance was the wise man's refusal to hold mere opinions. And against this doctrine Persaeus was contending when he induced one of a pair of twins to deposit a certain sum with Ariston and afterwards got the other to reclaim it. Ariston being thus reduced to perplexity was refuted. He was at variance with Arcesilaus; and one day when he saw an abortion in the shape of a bull with a uterus, he said, Alas, here Arcesilaus has had given into his hand an argument against the evidence of the senses."'. None
41. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, 6.19.8 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, criticism of Porphyry

 Found in books: James (2021) 44; Simmons(1995) 219


6.19.8. For he was continually studying Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius and Cronius, Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus, and Nicomachus, and those famous among the Pythagoreans. And he used the books of Chaeremon the Stoic, and of Cornutus. Becoming acquainted through them with the figurative interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish Scriptures.''. None
42. Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 2.5, 2.16-2.17, 5.2 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine, sources of demonology

 Found in books: Dijkstra and Raschle (2020) 271; Fowler (2014) 112; Kahlos (2019) 63, 123; Mackey (2022) 124; Simmons(1995) 222; Wiebe (2021) 11


2.5. How much better, therefore, is it, leaving vain and insensible objects, to turn our eyes in that direction where is the seat and dwelling-place of the true God; who suspended the earth on a firm foundation, who bespangled the heaven with shining stars; who lighted up the sun, the most bright and matchless light for the affairs of men, in proof of His own single majesty; who girded the earth with seas, and ordered the rivers to flow with perpetual course! He also commanded the plains to extend themselves, the valleys to sink down, the woods to be covered with foliage, the stony mountains to rise. All these things truly were not the work of Jupiter, who was born seventeen hundred years ago; but of the same, that framer of all things, the origin of a better world, who is called God, whose beginning cannot be comprehended, and ought not to be made the subject of inquiry. It is sufficient for man, to his full and perfect wisdom, if he understands the existence of God: the force and sum of which understanding is this, that he look up to and honour the common Parent of the human race, and the Maker of wonderful things. Whence some persons of dull and obtuse mind adore as gods the elements, which are both created objects and are void of sensibility; who, when they admired the works of God, that is, the heaven with its various lights, the earth with its plains and mountains, the seas with their rivers and lakes and fountains, struck with admiration of these things, and forgetting the Maker Himself, whom they were unable to see, began to adore and worship His works. Nor were they able at all to understand how much greater and more wonderful He is, who made these things out of nothing. And when they see that these things, in obedience to divine laws, by a perpetual necessity are subservient to the uses and interests of men, they nevertheless regard them as gods, being ungrateful towards the divine bounty, so that they preferred their own works to their most indulgent God and Father. But what wonder is it if uncivilized or ignorant men err, since even philosophers of the Stoic sect are of the same opinion, so as to judge that all the heavenly bodies which have motion are to be reckoned in the number of gods; inasmuch as the Stoic Lucilius thus speaks in Cicero: This regularity, therefore, in the stars, this great agreement of the times in such various courses during all eternity, are unintelligible to me with out the exercise of mind, reason, and design; and when we see these things in the constellations, we cannot but place these very objects in the number of the gods. And he thus speaks a little before: It remains, he says, that the motion of the stars is voluntary; and he who sees these things, would act not only unlearnedly, but also impiously, if he should deny it. We in truth firmly deny it; and we prove that you, O philosophers, are not only unlearned and impious, but also blind, foolish, and senseless, who have surpassed in shallowness the ignorance of the uneducated. For they regard as gods only the sun and moon, but you the stars also. Make known to us, therefore, the mysteries of the stars, that we may erect altars and temples to each; that we may know with what rites and on what day to worship each, with what names and with what prayers we should call on them; unless perhaps we ought to worship gods so innumerable without any discrimination, and gods so minute in a mass. Why should I mention that the argument by which they infer that all the heavenly bodies are gods, tends to the opposite conclusion? For if they imagine that they are gods on this account, because they have their courses fixed and in accordance with reason, they are in error. For it is evident from this that they are not gods, because it is not permitted them to deviate from their prescribed orbits. But if they were gods, they would be borne here and there in all directions without any necessity, as living creatures on the earth, who wander here and there as they please, because their wills are unrestrained, and each is borne wherever inclination may have led it. Therefore the motion of the stars is not voluntary, but of necessity, because they obey the laws appointed for them. But when he was arguing about the courses of the stars, while he understood from the very harmony of things and times that they were not by chance, he judged that they were voluntary; as though they could not be moved with such order and arrangement, unless they contained within them an understanding acquainted with its own duty. Oh, how difficult is truth to those who are ignorant of it! How easy to those who know it! If, he says, the motions of the stars are not by chance, nothing else remains but that they are voluntary; nay, in truth, as it is plain that they are not by chance, so is it clear that they are not voluntary. Why, then, in completing their courses, do they preserve their regularity? Undoubtedly God, the framer of the universe, so arranged and contrived them, that they might run through their courses in the heaven with a divine and wonderful order, to accomplish the variations of the successive seasons. Was Archimedes of Sicily able to contrive a likeness and representation of the universe in hollow brass, in which he so arranged the sun and moon, that they effected, as it were every day, motions unequal and resembling the revolutions of the heavens, and that sphere, while it revolved, exhibited not only the approaches and withdrawings of the sun, or the increase and waning of the moon, but also the unequal courses of the stars, whether fixed or wandering? Was it then impossible for God to plan and create the originals, when the skill of man was able to represent them by imitation? Would the Stoic, therefore, if he should have seen the figures of the stars painted and fashioned in that brass, say that they moved by their own design, and not by the genius of the artificer? There is therefore in the stars design, adapted to the accomplishment of their courses; but it is the design of God, who both made and governs all things, not of the stars themselves, which are thus moved. For if it had been His will that the sun should remain fixed, it is plain that there would be perpetual day. Also if the stars had no motions, who doubts that there would have been eternal night? But that there might be vicissitudes of day and night, it was His will that the stars should move, and move with such variety that there might not only be mutual interchanges of light and darkness, by which alternate courses of labour and rest might be established, but also interchanges of cold and heat, that the power and influence of the different seasons might be adapted either to the production or the ripening of the crops. And because philosophers did not see this skill of the divine power in contriving the movements of the stars, they supposed them to be living, as though they moved with feet and of their own accord, and not by the divine intelligence. But who does not understand why God contrived them? Doubtless lest, as the light of the sun was withdrawn, a night of excessive darkness should become too oppressive with its foul and dreadful gloom, and should be injurious to the living. And so He both bespangled the heaven with wondrous variety, and tempered the darkness itself with many and minute lights. How much more wisely therefore does Naso judge, than they who think that they are devoting themselves to the pursuit of wisdom, in thinking that those lights were appointed by God to remove the gloom of darkness! He concludes the book, in which he briefly comprises the phenomena of nature, with these three verses:- These images, so many in number, and of such a figure, God placed in the heaven; and having scattered them through the gloomy darkness, He ordered them to give a bright light to the frosty night.But if it is impossible that the stars should be gods, it follows that the sun and moon cannot be gods, since they differ from the light of the stars in magnitude only, and not in their design. And if these are not gods, the same is true of the heaven, which contains them all.
2.16. And the nature of all these deceits is obscure to those who are without the truth. For they think that those demons profit them when they cease to injure, whereas they have no power except to injure. Some one may perchance say that they are therefore to be worshipped, that they may not injure, since they have the power to injure. They do indeed injure, but those only by whom they are feared, whom the powerful and lofty hand of God does not protect, who are uninitiated in the mystery of truth. But they fear the righteous, that is, the worshippers of God, adjured by whose name they depart from the bodies of the possessed: for, being lashed by their words as though by scourges, they not only confess themselves to be demons, but even utter their own names - those which are adored in the temples - which they generally do in the presence of their own worshippers; not, it is plain, to the disgrace of religion, but to the disgrace of their own honour, because they cannot speak falsely to God, by whom they are adjured, nor to the righteous, by whose voice they are tortured. Therefore ofttimes having uttered the greatest howlings, they cry out that they are beaten, and are on fire, and that they are just on the point of coming forth: so much power has the knowledge of God, and righteousness! Whom, therefore, can they injure, except those whom they have in their own power? In short, Hermes affirms that those who have known God are not only safe from the attacks of demons, but that they are not even bound by fate. The only protection, he says, is piety, for over a pious man neither evil demon nor fate has any power: for God rescues the pious man from all evil; for the one and only good thing among men is piety. And what piety is, he testifies in another place, in these words: For piety is the knowledge of God. Asclepius also, his disciple, more fully expressed the same sentiment in that finished discourse which he wrote to the king. Each of them, in truth, affirms that the demons are the enemies and harassers of men, and on this account Trismegistus calls them wicked angels; so far was he from being ignorant that from heavenly beings they were corrupted, and began to be earthly. ' "2.17. These were the inventors of astrology, and soothsaying, and divination, and those productions which are called oracles, and necromancy, and the art of magic, and whatever evil practices besides these men exercise, either openly or in secret. Now all these things are false of themselves, as the Erythr an Sibyl testifies: - Since all these things are erroneous, Which foolish men search after day by day.But these same authorities by their countece cause it to be believed that they are true. Thus they delude the credulity of men by lying divination, because it is not expedient for them to lay open the truth. These are they who taught men to make images and statues; who, in order that they might turn away the minds of men from the worship of the true God, cause the counteces of dead kings, fashioned and adorned with exquisite beauty, to be erected and consecrated, and assumed to themselves their names, as though they were assuming some characters. But the magicians, and those whom the people truly call enchanters, when they practice their detestable arts, call upon them by their true names, those heavenly names which are read in the sacred writings. Moreover, these impure and wandering spirits, that they may throw all things into confusion, and overspread the minds of men with errors, interweave and mingle false things with true. For they themselves feigned that there are many heavenly beings, and one king of all, Jupiter; because there are many spirits of angels in heaven, and one Parent and Lord of all, God. But they have concealed the truth under false names, and withdrawn it from sight. For God, as I have shown in the beginning, does not need a name, since He is alone; nor do the angels, inasmuch as they are immortal, either suffer or wish themselves to be called gods: for their one and only duty is to submit to the will of God, and not to do anything at all except at His command. For we say that the world is so governed by God, as a province is by its ruler; and no one would say that his attendants are his sharers in the administration of the province, although business is carried on by their service. And yet these can effect something contrary to the commands of the ruler, through his ignorance; which is the result of man's condition. But that guardian of the world and ruler of the universe, who knows all things, from whose divine eyes nothing is concealed, has alone with His Son the power over all things; nor is there anything in the angels except the necessity of obedience. Therefore they wish no honour to be paid to them, since all their honour is in God. But they who have revolted from the service of God, because they are enemies of the truth, and betrayers of God attempt to claim for themselves the name and worship of gods; not that they desire any honour (for what honour is there to the lost?), nor that they may injure God, who cannot be injured, but that they may injure men, whom they strive to turn away from the worship and knowledge of the true Majesty, that they may not be able to obtain immortality, which they themselves have lost through their wickedness. Therefore they draw on darkness, and overspread the truth with obscurity, that men may not know their Lord and Father. And that they may easily entice them, they conceal themselves in the temples, and are close at hand at all sacrifices; and they often give prodigies, that men, astonished by them, may attach to images a belief in their divine power and influence. Hence it is that the stone was cut by the augur with a razor; that Juno of Veii answered that she wished to remove to Rome; that Fortuna Muliebris announced the threatening danger; that the ship followed the hand of Claudia; that Juno when plundered, and the Locrian Proserpine, and the Milesian Ceres, punished the sacrilegious; that Hercules exacted vengeance from Appius, and Jupiter from Atinius, and Minerva from C sar. Hence it was that the serpent sent for from Epidaurus freed the city of Rome from pestilence. For the chief of the demons was himself carried there in his own form, without any dissembling; if indeed the ambassadors who were sent for that purpose brought with them a serpent of immense size. But they especially deceive in the case of oracles, the juggleries of which the profane cannot distinguish from the truth; and therefore they imagine that commands, and victories, and wealth, and prosperous issues of affairs, are bestowed by them - in short, that the state has often been freed from imminent dangers by their interposition; which dangers they have both announced, and when appeased with sacrifices, have averted. But all these things are deceits. For since they have a presentiment of the arrangements of God, inasmuch as they have been His ministers, they interpose themselves in these matters, that whatever things have been accomplished or are in the course of accomplishment by God, they themselves may especially appear to be doing or to have done; and as often as any advantage is hanging over any people or city, according to the purpose of God, either by prodigies, or dreams, or oracles, they promise that they will bring it to pass, if temples, honours, and sacrifices are given to them. And on the offering of these, when the necessary result comes to pass, they acquire for themselves the greatest veneration. Hence temples are vowed, and new images consecrated; herds of victims are slain; and when all these things are done, yet the life and safety of those who have performed them are not the less sacrificed. But as often as dangers threaten, they profess that they are angry on account of some light and trifling cause; as Juno was with Varro, because he had placed a beautiful boy on the carriage of Jupiter to guard the dress, and on this account the Roman name was almost destroyed at Cann . But if Juno feared a second Ganymede, why did the Roman youth suffer punishment? Or if the gods regard the leaders only, and neglect the rest of the multitude, why did Varro alone escape who acted thus, and why was Paulus, who was innocent, slain? Assuredly nothing then happened to the Romans by the fates of the hostile Juno, when Hannibal by craft and valour dispatched two armies of the Roman people. For Juno did not venture either to defend Carthage, where were her arms and chariot, or to injure the Romans; for She had heard that sons of Troy Were born her Carthage to destroy. But these are the delusions of those who, concealing themselves under the names of the dead, lay snares for the living. Therefore, whether the impending danger can be avoided, they wish it to appear that they averted it, having been appeased; or if it cannot be avoided, they contrive that it may appear to have happened through disregard of them. Thus they acquire to themselves authority and fear from men, who are ignorant of them. By this subtlety and by these arts they have caused the knowledge of the true and only God to fail among all nations. For, being destroyed by their own vices, they rage and use violence that they may destroy others. Therefore these enemies of the human race even devised human victims, to devour as many lives as possible. " '
5.2. Therefore, because there have been wanting among us suitable and skilful teachers, who might vigorously and sharply refute public errors, and who might defend the whole cause of truth with elegance and copiousness, this very want incited some to venture to write against the truth, which was unknown to them. I pass by those who in former times in vain assailed it. When I was teaching rhetorical learning in Bithynia, having been called there, and it had happened that at the same time the temple of God was overthrown, there were living at the same place two men who insulted the truth as it lay prostrate and overthrown, I know not whether with greater arrogance or harshness: the one of whom professed himself the high priest of philosophy; but he was so addicted to vice, that, though a teacher of abstinence, he was not less inflamed with avarice than with lusts; so extravagant in his manner of living, that though in his school he was the maintainer of virtue, the praiser of parsimony and poverty, he dined less sumptuously in a palace than at his own house. Nevertheless he sheltered his vices by his hair and his cloak, and (that which is the greatest screen ) by his riches; and that he might increase these, he used to penetrate with wonderful effort to the friendships of the judges; and he suddenly attached them to himself by the authority of a fictitious name, not only that he might make a traffic of their decisions, but also that he might by this influence hinder his neighbours, whom he was driving from their homes and lands, from the recovery of their property. This man, in truth, who overthrew his own arguments by his character, or censured his own character by his arguments, a weighty censor and most keen accuser against himself, at the very same time in which a righteous people were impiously assailed, vomited forth three books against the Christian religion and name; professing, above all things, that it was the office of a philosopher to remedy the errors of men, and to recall them to the true way, that is, to the worship of the gods, by whose power and majesty, as he said, the world is governed; and not to permit that inexperienced men should be enticed by the frauds of any, lest their simplicity should be a prey and sustece to crafty men. Therefore he said that he had undertaken this office, worthy of philosophy, that he might hold out to those who do not see the light of wisdom, not only that they may return to a healthy state of mind, having undertaken the worship of the gods, but also that, having laid aside their pertinacious obstinacy, they may avoid tortures of the body, nor wish in vain to endure cruel lacerations of their limbs. But that it might be evident on what account he had laboriously worked out that task, he broke out profusely into praises of the princes, whose piety and foresight, as he himself indeed said, had been distinguished both in other matters, and especially in defending the religious rites of the gods; that he had, in short, consulted the interests of men, in order that, impious and foolish superstition having been restrained, all men might have leisure for lawful sacred rites, and might experience the gods propitious to them. But when he wished to weaken the grounds of that religion against which he was pleading, he appeared senseless, vain, and ridiculous; because that weighty adviser of the advantage of others was ignorant not only what to oppose, but even what to speak. For if any of our religion were present, although they were silent on account of the time, nevertheless in their mind they derided him; since they saw a man professing that he would enlighten others, when he himself was blind; that he would recall others from error, when he himself was ignorant where to plant his feet; that he would instruct others to the truth, of which he himself had never seen even a spark at any time; inasmuch as he who was a professor of wisdom, endeavoured to overthrow wisdom. All, however, censured this, that he undertook this work at that time in particular, in which odious cruelty raged. O philosopher, a flatterer, and a time-server! But this man was despised, as his vanity deserved; for he did not gain the popularity which he hoped for, and the glory which he eagerly sought for was changed into censure and blame. Another wrote the same subject with more bitterness, who was then of the number of the judges, and who was especially the adviser of enacting persecution; and not contented with this crime, he also pursued with writings those whom he had persecuted. For he composed two books, not against the Christians, lest he might appear to assail them in a hostile manner but to the Christians, that he might be thought to consult for them with humanity and kindness. And in these writings he endeavoured so to prove the falsehood of sacred Scripture, as though it were altogether contradictory to itself; for he expounded some chapters which seemed to be at variance with themselves, enumerating so many and such secret things, that he sometimes appears to have been one of the same sect. But if this was so, what Demosthenes will be able to defend from the charge of impiety him who became the betrayer of the religion to which he had given his assent, and of the faith the name of which he had assumed, and of the mystery which he had received, unless it happened by chance that the sacred writings fell into his hands? What rashness was it, therefore, to dare to destroy that which no one explained to him! It was well that he either learned nothing or understood nothing. For contradiction is as far removed from the sacred writings as he was removed from faith and truth. He chiefly, however, assailed Paul and Peter, and the other disciples, as disseminators of deceit, whom at the same time he testified to have been unskilled and unlearned. For he says that some of them made gain by the craft of fishermen, as though he took it ill that some Aristophanes or Aristarchus did not devise that subject. ''. None
43. Porphyry, On Abstinence, 2.38-2.42 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, • Augustine, sources of demonology

 Found in books: Edmonds (2019) 373; Janowitz (2002) 35; Wiebe (2021) 13


2.38. 38.But the confused notion which is formed of these beings, and which has proceeded to great crimination, necessarily requires that the nature of them should be distinguished according to reason. For perhaps it will be said, that it is requisite to show whence the error concerning them originated among men. The distinction, therefore, must be made after the following manner. Such souls as are the progeny of the whole soul of the universe, and who govern the great parts of the region under the moon, these, being incumbent on a pneumatic substance or spirit, and ruling over it conformably to reason, are to be considered as good daemons, who are diligently employed in causing every thing to be beneficial to the subjects of their government, whether they preside over certain animals, or fruits, which are arranged under their inspective care, or over things which subsist for the sake of these, such as showers of rain, moderate winds, serene weather, and other things which co-operate with these, such as the good temperament of the seasons of the year. They are also our leaders in the attainment of music, and the whole of erudition, and likewise of medicine and gymnastic, and of every thing else similar to these. For it is impossible that these daemons should impart utility, and yet become, in the very same things, the causes of what is detrimental. Among these two, those transporters, as Plato calls them, in his Banquet are to be enumerated, who announce the affairs of men to the Gods, and the will of the Gods to men; carrying our prayers, indeed, to the Gods as judges, but oracularly unfolding to us the exhortations and admonitions of the Gods. But such souls as do not rule over the pneumatic substance with which they are connected, but for the most part are vanquished by it; these are vehemently agitated and borne along in a disorderly manner, when the irascible motions and the desires of the pneumatic substance, received an impetus. These souls, therefore, are indeed daemons, but are deservedly called malefic daemons.
44. None, None, nan (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine, on Rebecca

 Found in books: Hillier (1993) 145; Kaplan (2015) 23


45. None, None, nan (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, • Augustine, criticism of Porphyry • Augustine, says Porphyry argued scripture if contradictory

 Found in books: Bryan (2018) 245; Edmonds (2019) 340, 357; Simmons(1995) 230, 275; Wardy and Warren (2018) 245


46. None, None, nan (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine,

 Found in books: Edelmann-Singer et al (2020) 262; Edmonds (2019) 355, 366


47. None, None, nan (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine • Augustine, De Ordine • Augustine, Platonism, Neoplatonism • Augustine, conversion of • Augustine, notes Porphyrys purpose for the souls descent • Augustine, shows Porphyrys purpose for the souls descent

 Found in books: Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 78; Simmons(1995) 289; Tanaseanu-Döbler and von Alvensleben (2020) 216; Wiebe (2021) 55


48. Ammianus Marcellinus, History, 29.1.31 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Augustine, Saint, • Augustine, on divination

 Found in books: Luck (2006) 23; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 119


29.1.31. Then a man clad in linen garments, shod also in linen sandals and having a fillet wound about his head, carrying twigs from a tree of good omen, after propitiating in a set formula the divine power from whom predictions come, having full knowledge of the ceremonial, stood over the tripod as priest and set swinging a hanging ring fitted to a very fine linen Valesius read carbasio, which would correspond to the linen garments and sandals; the Thes. Ling. Lat. reads carpathio = linteo . thread and consecrated with mystic arts. This ring, passing over the designated intervals in a series of jumps, and falling upon this and that letter which detained it, made hexameters corresponding with the questions and completely finished in feet and rhythm, like the Pythian verses which we read, or those given out from the oracles of the Branchidae. The descendants of a certain Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who were at first in charge of the oracle at Branchidae, later called oraculum Apollinis Didymei (Mela, i. 17, 86), in the Milesian territory; cf. Hdt. i. 1 57. The rings had magic powers, cf. Cic., De off. iii. 9, 38; Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 8. Some writers give a different account of the method of divination used by the conspirators.''. None
49. Augustine, Confessions, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.6.7, 1.6.10, 1.7, 1.7.11, 1.8.13, 1.11, 1.16, 1.18.28, 2.3.5, 2.3.7, 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.2.2-3.2.3, 3.3.5, 3.4.7-3.4.8, 3.5.9, 3.6-3.7, 3.6.10-3.6.11, 3.12.21, 4.1.1, 4.2, 4.2.2, 4.3.5-4.3.6, 4.4.7, 4.6.11, 4.8.13, 4.16.28, 4.30, 5.3.5, 5.9, 5.10.20, 5.11, 5.14.24, 6.1.1, 6.2, 6.2.2, 6.4.5-6.4.6, 6.5.7-6.5.8, 6.7.12, 6.11.18, 6.11.20, 6.13.23, 6.14.24, 6.15.25, 7.3, 7.3.5, 7.5.7, 7.7.11, 7.9.13, 7.10.16, 7.12.18, 7.17.23, 7.18.24, 8.2.3, 8.5-8.6, 8.9-8.10, 8.12, 8.12.29-8.12.30, 8.29, 9.1-9.2, 9.4.7-9.4.8, 9.6.14, 9.8, 9.9.19, 9.10, 9.11.28, 10.6.9, 10.9.16, 10.21.30, 10.27.38, 10.35.55-10.35.56, 10.40, 10.42.67, 11.2.2, 11.2.4, 11.4, 11.6-11.7, 11.9-11.10, 11.12.14, 11.14.17, 11.29, 12.10.10, 12.26.36, 12.31.42, 13.1, 13.8, 13.18.23 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
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1.1. 1. Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Your creation, desires to praise You &
1.6.10. 7. Still suffer me to speak before Your mercy - me, dust and ashes. Genesis 18:27 Allow me to speak, for, behold, it is Your mercy I address, and not derisive man. Yet perhaps even You deride me; but when You are turned to me You will have compassion on me. Jeremiah 12:15 For what do I wish to say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came hither into this - shall I call it dying life or living death? Yet, as I have heard from my parents, from whose substance You formed me - for I myself cannot remember it - Your merciful comforts sustained me. Thus it was that the comforts of a woman's milk entertained me; for neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own breasts, but You by them gave me the nourishment of infancy according to Your ordice and that bounty of Yours which underlies all things. For You caused me not to want more than You gave, and those who nourished me willingly to give me what You gave them. For they, by an instinctive affection, were anxious to give me what You had abundantly supplied. It was, in truth, good for them that my good should come from them, though, indeed, it was not from them, but by them; for from You, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my safety. Proverbs 21:31 This is what I have since discovered, as You have declared Yourself to me by the blessings both within me and without me which You have bestowed upon me. For at that time I knew how to suck, to be satisfied when comfortable, and to cry when in pain - nothing beyond. 8. Afterwards I began to laugh - at first in sleep, then when waking. For this I have heard mentioned of myself, and I believe it (though I cannot remember it), for we see the same in other infants. And now little by little I realized where I was, and wished to tell my wishes to those who might satisfy them, but I could not; for my wants were within me, while they were without, and could not by any faculty of theirs enter into my soul. So I cast about limbs and voice, making the few and feeble signs I could, like, though indeed not much like, unto what I wished; and when I was not satisfied - either not being understood, or because it would have been injurious to me - I grew indigt that my elders were not subject unto me, and that those on whom I had no claim did not wait on me, and avenged myself on them by tears. That infants are such I have been able to learn by watching them; and they, though unknowing, have better shown me that I was such an one than my nurses who knew it. 9. And, behold, my infancy died long ago, and I live. But You, O Lord, who ever livest, and in whom nothing dies (since before the world was, and indeed before all that can be called before, You exist, and are the God and Lord of all Your creatures; and with You fixedly abide the causes of all unstable things, the unchanging sources of all things changeable, and the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal), tell me, Your suppliant, O God; tell, O merciful One, Your miserable servant - tell me whether my infancy succeeded another age of mine which had at that time perished. Was it that which I passed in my mother's womb? For of that something has been made known to me, and I have myself seen women with child. And what, O God, my joy, preceded that life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or anybody? For no one can tell me these things, neither father nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory. Do you laugh at me for asking such things, and command me to praise and confess You for what I know? 10. I give thanks to You, Lord of heaven and earth, giving praise to You for that my first being and infancy, of which I have no memory; for You have granted to man that from others he should come to conclusions as to himself, and that he should believe many things concerning himself on the authority of feeble women. Even then I had life and being; and as my infancy closed I was already seeking for signs by which my feelings might be made known to others. Whence could such a creature come but from You, O Lord? Or shall any man be skilful enough to fashion himself? Or is there any other vein by which being and life runs into us save this, that You, O Lord, hast made us, with whom being and life are one, because You Yourself art being and life in the highest? You are the highest, You change not, Malachi 3:6 neither in You does this present day come to an end, though it does end in You, since in You all such things are; for they would have no way of passing away unless You sustained them. And since Your years shall have no end, Your years are an ever present day. And how many of ours and our fathers' days have passed through this Your day, and received from it their measure and fashion of being, and others yet to come shall so receive and pass away! But You are the same; and all the things of tomorrow and the days yet to come, and all of yesterday and the days that are past, You will do today, You have done today. What is it to me if any understand not? Let him still rejoice and say, What is this? Let him rejoice even so, and rather love to discover in failing to discover, than in discovering not to discover You. " "

1.7.11. 11. Hearken, O God! Alas for the sins of men! Man says this, and You have compassion on him; for You created him, but did not create the sin that is in him. Who brings to my remembrance the sin of my infancy? For before You none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth. Who brings this to my remembrance? Does not each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of myself? In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the breast? If I should now so cry - not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years - I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked. For as we grow we root out and cast from us such habits. I have not seen any one who is wise, when purging John 15:2 anything cast away the good. Or was it good, even for a time, to strive to get by crying that which, if given, would be hurtful - to be bitterly indigt that those who were free and its elders, and those to whom it owed its being, besides many others wiser than it, who would not give way to the nod of its good pleasure, were not subject unto it - to endeavour to harm, by struggling as much as it could, because those commands were not obeyed which only could have been obeyed to its hurt? Then, in the weakness of the infant's limbs, and not in its will, lies its innocency. I myself have seen and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that they appease these things by I know not what remedies; and may this be taken for innocence, that when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and abundant, one who has need should not be allowed to share it, though needing that nourishment to sustain life? Yet we look leniently on these things, not because they are not faults, nor because the faults are small, but because they will vanish as age increases. For although you may allow these things now, you could not bear them with equanimity if found in an older person. 12. You, therefore, O Lord my God, who gave life to the infant, and a frame which, as we see, You have endowed with senses, compacted with limbs, beautified with form, and, for its general good and safety, hast introduced all vital energies - You command me to praise You for these things, to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praise unto Your name, O Most High; for You are a God omnipotent and good, though You had done nought but these things, which none other can do but You, who alone made all things, O You most fair, who made all things fair, and orders all according to Your law. This period, then, of my life, O Lord, of which I have no remembrance, which I believe in the word of others, and which I guess from other infants, it chagrins me - true though the guess be - to reckon in this life of mine which I lead in this world; inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is like to that which I passed in my mother's womb. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where, I pray you, O my God, where, Lord, or when was I, Your servant, innocent? But behold, I pass by that time, for what have I to do with that, the memories of which I cannot recall? " '
1.7. 11. Hearken, O God! Alas for the sins of men! Man says this, and You have compassion on him; for You created him, but did not create the sin that is in him. Who brings to my remembrance the sin of my infancy? For before You none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth. Who brings this to my remembrance? Does not each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of myself? In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the breast? If I should now so cry - not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years - I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked. For as we grow we root out and cast from us such habits. I have not seen any one who is wise, when purging John 15:2 anything cast away the good. Or was it good, even for a time, to strive to get by crying that which, if given, would be hurtful - to be bitterly indigt that those who were free and its elders, and those to whom it owed its being, besides many others wiser than it, who would not give way to the nod of its good pleasure, were not subject unto it - to endeavour to harm, by struggling as much as it could, because those commands were not obeyed which only could have been obeyed to its hurt? Then, in the weakness of the infant's limbs, and not in its will, lies its innocency. I myself have seen and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that they appease these things by I know not what remedies; and may this be taken for innocence, that when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and abundant, one who has need should not be allowed to share it, though needing that nourishment to sustain life? Yet we look leniently on these things, not because they are not faults, nor because the faults are small, but because they will vanish as age increases. For although you may allow these things now, you could not bear them with equanimity if found in an older person. 12. You, therefore, O Lord my God, who gave life to the infant, and a frame which, as we see, You have endowed with senses, compacted with limbs, beautified with form, and, for its general good and safety, hast introduced all vital energies - You command me to praise You for these things, to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praise unto Your name, O Most High; for You are a God omnipotent and good, though You had done nought but these things, which none other can do but You, who alone made all things, O You most fair, who made all things fair, and orders all according to Your law. This period, then, of my life, O Lord, of which I have no remembrance, which I believe in the word of others, and which I guess from other infants, it chagrins me - true though the guess be - to reckon in this life of mine which I lead in this world; inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is like to that which I passed in my mother's womb. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where, I pray you, O my God, where, Lord, or when was I, Your servant, innocent? But behold, I pass by that time, for what have I to do with that, the memories of which I cannot recall? " "
1.8.13. 13. Did I not, then, growing out of the state of infancy, come to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me, and succeed to infancy? Nor did my infancy depart (for whither went it?); and yet it did no longer abide, for I was no longer an infant that could not speak, but a chattering boy. I remember this, and I afterwards observed how I first learned to speak, for my elders did not teach me words in any set method, as they did letters afterwards; but myself, when I was unable to say all I wished and to whomsoever I desired, by means of the whimperings and broken utterances and various motions of my limbs, which I used to enforce my wishes, repeated the sounds in my memory by the mind, O my God, which You gave me. When they called anything by name, and moved the body towards it while they spoke, I saw and gathered that the thing they wished to point out was called by the name they then uttered; and that they did mean this was made plain by the motion of the body, even by the natural language of all nations expressed by the countece, glance of the eye, movement of other members, and by the sound of the voice indicating the affections of the mind, as it seeks, possesses, rejects, or avoids. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in duly placed sentences, I gradually gathered what things they were the signs of; and having formed my mouth to the utterance of these signs, I thereby expressed my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the signs by which we express our wishes, and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending the while on the authority of parents, and the beck of elders.

1.11. 17. Even as a boy I had heard of eternal life promised to us through the humility of the Lord our God condescending to our pride, and I was signed with the sign of the cross, and was seasoned with His salt even from the womb of my mother, who greatly trusted in You. You saw, O Lord, how at one time, while yet a boy, being suddenly seized with pains in the stomach, and being at the point of death - You saw, O my God, for even then You were my keeper, with what emotion of mind and with what faith I solicited from the piety of my mother, and of Your Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of Your Christ, my Lord and my God. On which, the mother of my flesh being much troubled - since she, with a heart pure in Your faith, travailed in birth Galatians 4:19 more lovingly for my eternal salvation - would, had I not quickly recovered, have without delay provided for my initiation and washing by Your life-giving sacraments, confessing You, O Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins. So my cleansing was deferred, as if I must needs, should I live, be further polluted; because, indeed, the guilt contracted by sin would, after baptism, be greater and more perilous. Thus I at that time believed with my mother and the whole house, except my father; yet he did not overcome the influence of my mother's piety in me so as to prevent my believing in Christ, as he had not yet believed in Him. For she was desirous that You, O my God, should be my Father rather than he; and in this You aided her to overcome her husband, to whom, though the better of the two, she yielded obedience, because in this she yielded obedience to You, who so commands. 18. I beseech You, my God, I would gladly know, if it be Your will, to what end my baptism was then deferred? Was it for my good that the reins were slackened, as it were, upon me for me to sin? Or were they not slackened? If not, whence comes it that it is still dinned into our ears on all sides, Let him alone, let him act as he likes, for he is not yet baptized? But as regards bodily health, no one exclaims, Let him be more seriously wounded, for he is not yet cured! How much better, then, had it been for me to have been cured at once; and then, by my own and my friends' diligence, my soul's restored health had been kept safe in Your keeping, who gave it! Better, in truth. But how numerous and great waves of temptation appeared to hang over me after my childhood! These were foreseen by my mother; and she preferred that the unformed clay should be exposed to them rather than the image itself. " "

1.16. 25. But woe unto you, you stream of human custom! Who shall stay your course? How long shall it be before you are dried up? How long will you carry down the sons of Eve into that huge and formidable ocean, which even they who are embarked on the cross (lignum) can scarce pass over? Do I not read in you of Jove the thunderer and adulterer? And the two verily he could not be; but it was that, while the fictitious thunder served as a cloak, he might have warrant to imitate real adultery. Yet which of our gowned masters can lend a temperate ear to a man of his school who cries out and says: These were Homer's fictions; he transfers things human to the gods. I could have wished him to transfer divine things to us. But it would have been more true had he said: These are, indeed, his fictions, but he attributed divine attributes to sinful men, that crimes might not be accounted crimes, and that whosoever committed any might appear to imitate the celestial gods and not abandoned men. 26. And yet, you stream of hell, into you are cast the sons of men, with rewards for learning these things; and much is made of it when this is going on in the forum in the sight of laws which grant a salary over and above the rewards. And you beat against your rocks and roar, saying, Hence words are learned; hence eloquence is to be attained, most necessary to persuade people to your way of thinking, and to unfold your opinions. So, in truth, we should never have understood these words, golden shower, bosom, intrigue, highest heavens, and other words written in the same place, unless Terence had introduced a good-for-nothing youth upon the stage, setting up Jove as his example of lewdness:- Viewing a picture, where the tale was drawn, of Jove's descending in a golden shower To Danaë's bosom . . . with a woman to intrigue. And see how he excites himself to lust, as if by celestial authority, when he says:- Great Jove, Who shakes the highest heavens with his thunder, And I, poor mortal man, not do the same! I did it, and with all my heart I did it. Not one whit more easily are the words learned for this vileness, but by their means is the vileness perpetrated with more confidence. I do not blame the words, they being, as it were, choice and precious vessels, but the wine of error which was drunk in them to us by inebriated teachers; and unless we drank, we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to any sober judge. And yet, O my God - in whose presence I can now with security recall this - did I, unhappy one, learn these things willingly, and with delight, and for this was I called a boy of good promise. " "

1.18.28. 28. But what matter of surprise is it that I was thus carried towards vanity, and went forth from You, O my God, when men were proposed to me to imitate, who, should they in relating any acts of theirs - not in themselves evil- be guilty of a barbarism or solecism, when censured for it became confounded; but when they made a full and ornate oration, in well-chosen words, concerning their own licentiousness, and were applauded for it, they boasted? You see this, O Lord, and keepest silence, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth, as You are. Will You keep silence for ever? And even now You draw out of this vast deep the soul that seeks You and thirsts after Your delights, whose heart said to You, I have sought Your face, Your face, Lord, will I seek. For I was far from Your face, through my darkened Romans 1:21 affections. For it is not by our feet, nor by change of place, that we either turn from You or return to You. Or, indeed, did that younger son look out for horses, or chariots, or ships, or fly away with visible wings, or journey by the motion of his limbs, that he might, in a far country, prodigally waste all that You gave him when he set out? A kind Father when You gave, and kinder still when he returned destitute! Luke 15:11-32 So, then, in wanton, that is to say, in darkened affections, lies distance from Your face. 29. Behold, O Lord God, and behold patiently, as You are wont to do, how diligently the sons of men observe the conventional rules of letters and syllables, received from those who spoke prior to them, and yet neglect the eternal rules of everlasting salvation received from You, insomuch that he who practises or teaches the hereditary rules of pronunciation, if, contrary to grammatical usage, he should say, without aspirating the first letter, a uman being, will offend men more than if, in opposition to Your commandments, he, a human being, were to hate a human being. As if, indeed, any man should feel that an enemy could be more destructive to him than that hatred with which he is excited against him, or that he could destroy more utterly him whom he persecutes than he destroys his own soul by his enmity. And of a truth, there is no science of letters more innate than the writing of conscience- that he is doing unto another what he himself would not suffer. How mysterious are You, who in silence dwellest on high, Isaiah 33:5 Thou God, the only great, who by an unwearied law dealest out the punishment of blindness to illicit desires! When a man seeking for the reputation of eloquence stands before a human judge while a thronging multitude surrounds him, inveighs against his enemy with the most fierce hatred, he takes most vigilant heed that his tongue slips not into grammatical error, but takes no heed lest through the fury of his spirit he cut off a man from his fellow-men. 30. These were the customs in the midst of which I, unhappy boy, was cast, and on that arena it was that I was more fearful of perpetrating a barbarism than, having done so, of envying those who had not. These things I declare and confess unto You, my God, for which I was applauded by them whom I then thought it my whole duty to please, for I did not perceive the gulf of infamy wherein I was cast away from Your eyes. For in Your eyes what was more infamous than I was already, displeasing even those like myself, deceiving with innumerable lies both tutor, and masters, and parents, from love of play, a desire to see frivolous spectacles, and a stage-stuck restlessness, to imitate them? Pilferings I committed from my parents' cellar and table, either enslaved by gluttony, or that I might have something to give to boys who sold me their play, who, though they sold it, liked it as well as I In this play, likewise, I often sought dishonest victories, I myself being conquered by the vain desire of pre-eminence. And what could I so little endure, or, if I detected it, censured I so violently, as the very things I did to others, and, when myself detected I was censured, preferred rather to quarrel than to yield? Is this the innocence of childhood? Nay, Lord, nay, Lord; I entreat Your mercy, O my God. For these same sins, as we grow older, are transferred from governors and masters, from nuts, and balls, and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold, and lands, and slaves, just as the rod is succeeded by more severe chastisements. It was, then, the stature of childhood that You, O our King, approved of as an emblem of humility when You said: of such is the kingdom of heaven. 31. But yet, O Lord, to You, most excellent and most good, Thou Architect and Governor of the universe, thanks had been due unto You, our God, even had You willed that I should not survive my boyhood. For I existed even then; I lived, and felt, and was solicitous about my own well-being - a trace of that most mysterious unity from whence I had my being; I kept watch by my inner sense over the wholeness of my senses, and in these insignificant pursuits, and also in my thoughts on things insignificant, I learned to take pleasure in truth. I was averse to being deceived, I had a vigorous memory, was provided with the power of speech, was softened by friendship, shunned sorrow, meanness, ignorance. In such a being what was not wonderful and praiseworthy? But all these are gifts of my God; I did not give them to myself; and they are good, and all these constitute myself. Good, then, is He that made me, and He is my God; and before Him will I rejoice exceedingly for every good gift which, as a boy, I had. For in this lay my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures - myself and the rest - I sought for pleasures, honours, and truths, falling thereby into sorrows, troubles, and errors. Thanks be to You, my joy, my pride, my confidence, my God - thanks be to You for Your gifts; but preserve them to me. For thus will You preserve me; and those things which You have given me shall be developed and perfected, and I myself shall be with You, for from You is my being. <" "
2.3.5. 5. And for that year my studies were intermitted, while after my return from Madaura (a neighbouring city, whither I had begun to go in order to learn grammar and rhetoric), the expenses for a further residence at Carthage were provided for me; and that was rather by the determination than the means of my father, who was but a poor freeman of Thagaste. To whom do I narrate this? Not unto You, my God; but before You unto my own kind, even to that small part of the human race who may chance to light upon these my writings. And to what end? That I and all who read the same may reflect out of what depths we are to cry unto You. For what comes nearer to Your ears than a confessing heart and a life of faith? For who did not extol and praise my father, in that he went even beyond his means to supply his son with all the necessaries for a far journey for the sake of his studies? For many far richer citizens did not the like for their children. But yet this same father did not trouble himself how I grew towards You, nor how chaste I was, so long as I was skilful in speaking - however barren I was to Your tilling, O God, who art the sole true and good Lord of my heart, which is Your field. 6. But while, in that sixteenth year of my age, I resided with my parents, having holiday from school for a time (this idleness being imposed upon me by my parents' necessitous circumstances), the thorns of lust grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to pluck them out. Moreover when my father, seeing me at the baths, perceived that I was becoming a man, and was stirred with a restless youthfulness, he, as if from this anticipating future descendants, joyfully told it to my mother; rejoicing in that intoxication wherein the world so often forgets You, its Creator, and falls in love with Your creature instead of You, from the invisible wine of its own perversity turning and bowing down to the most infamous things. But in my mother's breast You had even now begun Your temple, and the commencement of Your holy habitation, whereas my father was only a catechumen as yet, and that but recently. She then started up with a pious fear and trembling; and, although I had not yet been baptized, she feared those crooked ways in which they walk who turn their back to You, and not their face. Jeremiah 2:27 7. Woe is me! And dare I affirm that You held Your peace, O my God, while I strayed farther from You? Did You then hold Your peace to me? And whose words were they but Yours which by my mother, Your faithful handmaid, You poured into my ears, none of which sank into my heart to make me do it? For she desired, and I remember privately warned me, with great solicitude, not to commit fornication; but above all things never to defile another man's wife. These appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I should blush to obey. But they were Yours, and I knew it not, and I thought that You held Your peace, and that it was she who spoke, through whom You held not Your peace to me, and in her person wast despised by me, her son, the son of Your handmaid, Your servant. But this I knew not; and rushed on headlong with such blindness, that among my equals I was ashamed to be less shameless, when I heard them pluming themselves upon their disgraceful acts, yea, and glorying all the more in proportion to the greatness of their baseness; and I took pleasure in doing it, not for the pleasure's sake only, but for the praise. What is worthy of dispraise but vice? But I made myself out worse than I was, in order that I might not be dispraised; and when in anything I had not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would affirm that I had done what I had not, that I might not appear abject for being more innocent, or of less esteem for being more chaste. 8. Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, in whose filth I was rolled, as if in cinnamon and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the more tenaciously to its very centre, my invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, I being easily seduced. Nor did the mother of my flesh, although she herself had ere this fled out of the midst of Babylon, Jeremiah 51:6 - progressing, however, but slowly in the skirts of it - in counselling me to chastity, so bear in mind what she had been told about me by her husband as to restrain in the limits of conjugal affection (if it could not be cut away to the quick) what she knew to be destructive in the present and dangerous in the future. But she took no heed of this, for she was afraid lest a wife should prove a hindrance and a clog to my hopes. Not those hopes of the future world, which my mother had in You; but the hope of learning, which both my parents were too anxious that I should acquire - he, because he had little or no thought of You, and but vain thoughts for me - she, because she calculated that those usual courses of learning would not only be no drawback, but rather a furtherance towards my attaining You. For thus I conjecture, recalling as well as I can the dispositions of my parents. The reins, meantime, were slackened towards me beyond the restraint of due severity, that I might play, yea, even to dissoluteness, in whatsoever I fancied. And in all there was a mist, shutting out from my sight the brightness of Your truth, O my God; and my iniquity displayed itself as from very fatness. " "
2.3.7. 5. And for that year my studies were intermitted, while after my return from Madaura (a neighbouring city, whither I had begun to go in order to learn grammar and rhetoric), the expenses for a further residence at Carthage were provided for me; and that was rather by the determination than the means of my father, who was but a poor freeman of Thagaste. To whom do I narrate this? Not unto You, my God; but before You unto my own kind, even to that small part of the human race who may chance to light upon these my writings. And to what end? That I and all who read the same may reflect out of what depths we are to cry unto You. For what comes nearer to Your ears than a confessing heart and a life of faith? For who did not extol and praise my father, in that he went even beyond his means to supply his son with all the necessaries for a far journey for the sake of his studies? For many far richer citizens did not the like for their children. But yet this same father did not trouble himself how I grew towards You, nor how chaste I was, so long as I was skilful in speaking - however barren I was to Your tilling, O God, who art the sole true and good Lord of my heart, which is Your field. 6. But while, in that sixteenth year of my age, I resided with my parents, having holiday from school for a time (this idleness being imposed upon me by my parents' necessitous circumstances), the thorns of lust grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to pluck them out. Moreover when my father, seeing me at the baths, perceived that I was becoming a man, and was stirred with a restless youthfulness, he, as if from this anticipating future descendants, joyfully told it to my mother; rejoicing in that intoxication wherein the world so often forgets You, its Creator, and falls in love with Your creature instead of You, from the invisible wine of its own perversity turning and bowing down to the most infamous things. But in my mother's breast You had even now begun Your temple, and the commencement of Your holy habitation, whereas my father was only a catechumen as yet, and that but recently. She then started up with a pious fear and trembling; and, although I had not yet been baptized, she feared those crooked ways in which they walk who turn their back to You, and not their face. Jeremiah 2:27 7. Woe is me! And dare I affirm that You held Your peace, O my God, while I strayed farther from You? Did You then hold Your peace to me? And whose words were they but Yours which by my mother, Your faithful handmaid, You poured into my ears, none of which sank into my heart to make me do it? For she desired, and I remember privately warned me, with great solicitude, not to commit fornication; but above all things never to defile another man's wife. These appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I should blush to obey. But they were Yours, and I knew it not, and I thought that You held Your peace, and that it was she who spoke, through whom You held not Your peace to me, and in her person wast despised by me, her son, the son of Your handmaid, Your servant. But this I knew not; and rushed on headlong with such blindness, that among my equals I was ashamed to be less shameless, when I heard them pluming themselves upon their disgraceful acts, yea, and glorying all the more in proportion to the greatness of their baseness; and I took pleasure in doing it, not for the pleasure's sake only, but for the praise. What is worthy of dispraise but vice? But I made myself out worse than I was, in order that I might not be dispraised; and when in anything I had not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would affirm that I had done what I had not, that I might not appear abject for being more innocent, or of less esteem for being more chaste. 8. Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, in whose filth I was rolled, as if in cinnamon and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the more tenaciously to its very centre, my invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, I being easily seduced. Nor did the mother of my flesh, although she herself had ere this fled out of the midst of Babylon, Jeremiah 51:6 - progressing, however, but slowly in the skirts of it - in counselling me to chastity, so bear in mind what she had been told about me by her husband as to restrain in the limits of conjugal affection (if it could not be cut away to the quick) what she knew to be destructive in the present and dangerous in the future. But she took no heed of this, for she was afraid lest a wife should prove a hindrance and a clog to my hopes. Not those hopes of the future world, which my mother had in You; but the hope of learning, which both my parents were too anxious that I should acquire - he, because he had little or no thought of You, and but vain thoughts for me - she, because she calculated that those usual courses of learning would not only be no drawback, but rather a furtherance towards my attaining You. For thus I conjecture, recalling as well as I can the dispositions of my parents. The reins, meantime, were slackened towards me beyond the restraint of due severity, that I might play, yea, even to dissoluteness, in whatsoever I fancied. And in all there was a mist, shutting out from my sight the brightness of Your truth, O my God; and my iniquity displayed itself as from very fatness. " '
3.1. 1. To Carthage I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me. I loved not as yet, yet I loved to love; and with a hidden want, I abhorred myself that I wanted not. I searched about for something to love, in love with loving, and hating security, and a way not beset with snares. For within me I had a dearth of that inward food, Yourself, my God, though that dearth caused me no hunger; but I remained without all desire for incorruptible food, not because I was already filled thereby, but the more empty I was the more I loathed it. For this reason my soul was far from well, and, full of ulcers, it miserably cast itself forth, craving to be excited by contact with objects of sense. Yet, had these no soul, they would not surely inspire love. To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved. I befouled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I dimmed its lustre with the hell of lustfulness; and yet, foul and dishonourable as I was, I craved, through an excess of vanity, to be thought elegant and urbane. I fell precipitately, then, into the love in which I longed to be ensnared. My God, my mercy, with how much bitterness did You, out of Your infinite goodness, besprinkle for me that sweetness! For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was joyfully bound with troublesome ties, that I might be scourged with the burning iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and strife.
3.2.2. 2. Stage-plays also drew me away, full of representations of my miseries and of fuel to my fire. Why does man like to be made sad when viewing doleful and tragical scenes, which yet he himself would by no means suffer? And yet he wishes, as a spectator, to experience from them a sense of grief, and in this very grief his pleasure consists. What is this but wretched insanity? For a man is more affected with these actions, the less free he is from such affections. Howsoever, when he suffers in his own person, it is the custom to style it misery but when he compassionates others, then it is styled mercy. But what kind of mercy is it that arises from fictitious and scenic passions? The hearer is not expected to relieve, but merely invited to grieve; and the more he grieves, the more he applauds the actor of these fictions. And if the misfortunes of the characters (whether of olden times or merely imaginary) be so represented as not to touch the feelings of the spectator, he goes away disgusted and censorious; but if his feelings be touched, he sits it out attentively, and sheds tears of joy. 3. Are sorrows, then, also loved? Surely all men desire to rejoice? Or, as man wishes to be miserable, is he, nevertheless, glad to be merciful, which, because it cannot exist without passion, for this cause alone are passions loved? This also is from that vein of friendship. But where does it go? Where does it flow? Wherefore runs it into that torrent of pitch, seething forth those huge tides of loathsome lusts into which it is changed and transformed, being of its own will cast away and corrupted from its celestial clearness? Shall, then, mercy be repudiated? By no means. Let us, therefore, love sorrows sometimes. But beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the protection of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased to have compassion; but then in the theatres I sympathized with lovers when they sinfully enjoyed one another, although this was done fictitiously in the play. And when they lost one another, I grieved with them, as if pitying them, and yet had delight in both. But now-a-days I feel much more pity for him that delights in his wickedness, than for him who is counted as enduring hardships by failing to obtain some pernicious pleasure, and the loss of some miserable felicity. This, surely, is the truer mercy, but grief has no delight in it. For though he that condoles with the unhappy be approved for his office of charity, yet would he who had real compassion rather there were nothing for him to grieve about. For if goodwill be ill-willed (which it cannot), then can he who is truly and sincerely commiserating wish that there should be some unhappy ones, that he might commiserate them. Some grief may then be justified, none loved. For thus do You, O Lord God, who loves souls far more purely than do we, and art more incorruptibly compassionate, although You are wounded by no sorrow. And who is sufficient for these things? 2 Corinthians 2:16 4. But I, wretched one, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at, as when, in another man's misery, though reigned and counterfeited, that delivery of the actor best pleased me, and attracted me the most powerfully, which moved me to tears. What marvel was it that an unhappy sheep, straying from Your flock, and impatient of Your care, I became infected with a foul disease? And hence came my love of griefs - not such as should probe me too deeply, for I loved not to suffer such things as I loved to look upon, but such as, when hearing their fictions, should lightly affect the surface; upon which, like as with poisoned nails, followed burning, swelling, putrefaction, and horrible corruption. Such was my life! But was it life, O my God? " "3.2.3. 2. Stage-plays also drew me away, full of representations of my miseries and of fuel to my fire. Why does man like to be made sad when viewing doleful and tragical scenes, which yet he himself would by no means suffer? And yet he wishes, as a spectator, to experience from them a sense of grief, and in this very grief his pleasure consists. What is this but wretched insanity? For a man is more affected with these actions, the less free he is from such affections. Howsoever, when he suffers in his own person, it is the custom to style it misery but when he compassionates others, then it is styled mercy. But what kind of mercy is it that arises from fictitious and scenic passions? The hearer is not expected to relieve, but merely invited to grieve; and the more he grieves, the more he applauds the actor of these fictions. And if the misfortunes of the characters (whether of olden times or merely imaginary) be so represented as not to touch the feelings of the spectator, he goes away disgusted and censorious; but if his feelings be touched, he sits it out attentively, and sheds tears of joy. 3. Are sorrows, then, also loved? Surely all men desire to rejoice? Or, as man wishes to be miserable, is he, nevertheless, glad to be merciful, which, because it cannot exist without passion, for this cause alone are passions loved? This also is from that vein of friendship. But where does it go? Where does it flow? Wherefore runs it into that torrent of pitch, seething forth those huge tides of loathsome lusts into which it is changed and transformed, being of its own will cast away and corrupted from its celestial clearness? Shall, then, mercy be repudiated? By no means. Let us, therefore, love sorrows sometimes. But beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the protection of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased to have compassion; but then in the theatres I sympathized with lovers when they sinfully enjoyed one another, although this was done fictitiously in the play. And when they lost one another, I grieved with them, as if pitying them, and yet had delight in both. But now-a-days I feel much more pity for him that delights in his wickedness, than for him who is counted as enduring hardships by failing to obtain some pernicious pleasure, and the loss of some miserable felicity. This, surely, is the truer mercy, but grief has no delight in it. For though he that condoles with the unhappy be approved for his office of charity, yet would he who had real compassion rather there were nothing for him to grieve about. For if goodwill be ill-willed (which it cannot), then can he who is truly and sincerely commiserating wish that there should be some unhappy ones, that he might commiserate them. Some grief may then be justified, none loved. For thus do You, O Lord God, who loves souls far more purely than do we, and art more incorruptibly compassionate, although You are wounded by no sorrow. And who is sufficient for these things? 2 Corinthians 2:16 4. But I, wretched one, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at, as when, in another man's misery, though reigned and counterfeited, that delivery of the actor best pleased me, and attracted me the most powerfully, which moved me to tears. What marvel was it that an unhappy sheep, straying from Your flock, and impatient of Your care, I became infected with a foul disease? And hence came my love of griefs - not such as should probe me too deeply, for I loved not to suffer such things as I loved to look upon, but such as, when hearing their fictions, should lightly affect the surface; upon which, like as with poisoned nails, followed burning, swelling, putrefaction, and horrible corruption. Such was my life! But was it life, O my God? " '
3.3.5. 5. And Your faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon what unseemly iniquities did I wear myself out, following a sacrilegious curiosity, that, having deserted You, it might drag me into the treacherous abyss, and to the beguiling obedience of devils, unto whom I immolated my wicked deeds, and in all which You scourged me! I dared, even while Your solemn rites were being celebrated within the walls of Your church, to desire, and to plan a business sufficient to procure me the fruits of death; for which You chastised me with grievous punishments, but nothing in comparison with my fault, O Thou my greatest mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible hurts, among which I wandered with presumptuous neck, receding farther from You, loving my own ways, and not Yours - loving a vagrant liberty. 6. Those studies, also, which were accounted honourable, were directed towards the courts of law; to excel in which, the more crafty I was, the more I should be praised. Such is the blindness of men, that they even glory in their blindness. And now I was head in the School of Rhetoric, whereat I rejoiced proudly, and became inflated with arrogance, though more sedate, O Lord, as You know, and altogether removed from the subvertings of those subverters (for this stupid and diabolical name was held to be the very brand of gallantry) among whom I lived, with an impudent shamefacedness that I was not even as they were. And with them I was, and at times I was delighted with their friendship whose acts I ever abhorred, that is, their subverting, wherewith they insolently attacked the modesty of strangers, which they disturbed by uncalled for jeers, gratifying thereby their mischievous mirth. Nothing can more nearly resemble the actions of devils than these. By what name, therefore, could they be more truly called than subverters?- being themselves subverted first, and altogether perverted - being secretly mocked at and seduced by the deceiving spirits, in what they themselves delight to jeer at and deceive others. ' "
3.4.7. 7. Among such as these, at that unstable period of my life, I studied books of eloquence, wherein I was eager to be eminent from a damnable and inflated purpose, even a delight in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I lighted upon a certain book of Cicero, whose language, though not his heart, almost all admire. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius. This book, in truth, changed my affections, and turned my prayers to Yourself, O Lord, and made me have other hopes and desires. Worthless suddenly became every vain hope to me; and, with an incredible warmth of heart, I yearned for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise Luke 15:18 that I might return to You. Not, then, to improve my language - which I appeared to be purchasing with my mother's means, in that my nineteenth year, my father having died two years before - not to improve my language did I have recourse to that book; nor did it persuade me by its style, but its matter. 8. How ardent was I then, my God, how ardent to fly from earthly things to You! Nor did I know how You would deal with me. For with You is wisdom. In Greek the love of wisdom is called philosophy, with which that book inflamed me. There be some who seduce through philosophy, under a great, and alluring, and honourable name coloring and adorning their own errors. And almost all who in that and former times were such, are in that book censured and pointed out. There is also disclosed that most salutary admonition of Your Spirit, by Your good and pious servant: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:8-9 And since at that time (as Thou, O Light of my heart, know) the words of the apostle were unknown to me, I was delighted with that exhortation, in so far only as I was thereby stimulated, and enkindled, and inflamed to love, seek, obtain, hold, and embrace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, whatever it were; and this alone checked me thus ardent, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according to Your mercy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Your Son, had my tender heart piously drunk in, deeply treasured even with my mother's milk; and whatsoever was without that name, though never so erudite, polished, and truthful, took not complete hold of me. " "3.4.8. 7. Among such as these, at that unstable period of my life, I studied books of eloquence, wherein I was eager to be eminent from a damnable and inflated purpose, even a delight in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I lighted upon a certain book of Cicero, whose language, though not his heart, almost all admire. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius. This book, in truth, changed my affections, and turned my prayers to Yourself, O Lord, and made me have other hopes and desires. Worthless suddenly became every vain hope to me; and, with an incredible warmth of heart, I yearned for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise Luke 15:18 that I might return to You. Not, then, to improve my language - which I appeared to be purchasing with my mother's means, in that my nineteenth year, my father having died two years before - not to improve my language did I have recourse to that book; nor did it persuade me by its style, but its matter. 8. How ardent was I then, my God, how ardent to fly from earthly things to You! Nor did I know how You would deal with me. For with You is wisdom. In Greek the love of wisdom is called philosophy, with which that book inflamed me. There be some who seduce through philosophy, under a great, and alluring, and honourable name coloring and adorning their own errors. And almost all who in that and former times were such, are in that book censured and pointed out. There is also disclosed that most salutary admonition of Your Spirit, by Your good and pious servant: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:8-9 And since at that time (as Thou, O Light of my heart, know) the words of the apostle were unknown to me, I was delighted with that exhortation, in so far only as I was thereby stimulated, and enkindled, and inflamed to love, seek, obtain, hold, and embrace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, whatever it were; and this alone checked me thus ardent, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according to Your mercy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Your Son, had my tender heart piously drunk in, deeply treasured even with my mother's milk; and whatsoever was without that name, though never so erudite, polished, and truthful, took not complete hold of me. " '3.
5.9. 9. I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. And behold, I perceive something not comprehended by the proud, not disclosed to children, but lowly as you approach, sublime as you advance, and veiled in mysteries; and I was not of the number of those who could enter into it, or bend my neck to follow its steps. For not as when now I speak did I feel when I tuned towards those Scriptures, but they appeared to me to be unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully; for my inflated pride shunned their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit pierce their inner meaning. Yet, truly, were they such as would develope in little ones; but I scorned to be a little one, and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as a great one. ' "
3.6. 10. Therefore I fell among men proudly raving, very carnal, and voluble, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil- the birdlime being composed of a mixture of the syllables of Your name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. These names departed not out of their mouths, but so far forth as the sound only and the clatter of the tongue, for the heart was empty of truth. Still they cried, Truth, Truth, and spoke much about it to me, yet was it not in them; 1 John 2:4 but they spoke falsely not of You only - who, verily, art the Truth - but also of these elements of this world, Your creatures. And I, in truth, should have passed by philosophers, even when speaking truth concerning them, for love of You, my Father, supremely good, beauty of all things beautiful. O Truth, Truth! How inwardly even then did the marrow of my soul pant after You, when they frequently, and in a multiplicity of ways, and in numerous and huge books, sounded out Your name to me, though it was but a voice! And these were the dishes in which to me, hungering for You, they, instead of You, served up the sun and moon, Your beauteous works - but yet Your works, not Yourself, nay, nor Your first works. For before these corporeal works are Your spiritual ones, celestial and shining though they be. But I hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Yours, but after You Yourself, the Truth, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning; James 1:17 yet they still served up to me in those dishes glowing phantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun (which, at least, is true to our sight), than those illusions which deceive the mind through the eye. And yet, because I supposed them to be You, I fed upon them; not with avidity, for You did not taste to my mouth as You are, for You were not these empty fictions; neither was I nourished by them, but the rather exhausted. Food in our sleep appears like our food awake; yet the sleepers are not nourished by it, for they are asleep. But those things were not in any way like You as You have now spoken unto me, in that those were corporeal phantasies, false bodies, than which these true bodies, whether celestial or terrestrial, which we perceive with our fleshly sight, are much more certain. These things the very beasts and birds perceive as well as we, and they are more certain than when we imagine them. And again, we do with more certainty imagine them, than by them conceive of other greater and infinite bodies which have no existence. With such empty husks was I then fed, and was not fed. But You, my Love, in looking for whom I fail that I may be strong, art neither those bodies that we see, although in heaven, nor are You those which we see not there; for You have created them, nor do You reckon them among Your greatest works. How far, then, are You from those phantasies of mine, phantasies of bodies which are not at all, than which the images of those bodies which are, are more certain, and still more certain the bodies themselves, which yet You are not; nay, nor yet the soul, which is the life of the bodies. Better, then, and more certain is the life of bodies than the bodies themselves. But You are the life of souls, the life of lives, having life in Yourself; and You change not, O Life of my soul. 11. Where, then, were You then to me, and how far from me? Far, indeed, was I wandering away from You, being even shut out from the very husks of the swine, whom with husks I fed. For how much better, then, are the fables of the grammarians and poets than these snares! For verses, and poems, and Medea flying, are more profitable truly than these men's five elements, variously painted, to answer to the five caves of darkness, none of which exist, and which slay the believer. For verses and poems I can turn into true food, but the Medea flying, though I sang, I maintained it not; though I heard it sung, I believed it not; but those things I did believe. Woe, woe, by what steps was I dragged down to the depths of hell! Proverbs 9:18 - toiling and turmoiling through want of Truth, when I sought after You, my God - to You I confess it, who had mercy on me when I had not yet confessed, - sought after You not according to the understanding of the mind, in which You desired that I should excel the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh! You were more inward to me than my most inward part; and higher than my highest. I came upon that bold woman, who is simple, and knows nothing, Proverbs 9:13 the enigma of Solomon, sitting at the door of the house on a seat, and saying, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. This woman seduced me, because she found my soul beyond its portals, dwelling in the eye of my flesh, and thinking on such food as through it I had devoured. " "3.7. 12. For I was ignorant as to that which really is, and was, as it were, violently moved to give my support to foolish deceivers, when they asked me, Whence is evil? - and, Is God limited by a bodily shape, and has He hairs and nails?- and, Are they to be esteemed righteous who had many wives at once and did kill men, and sacrificed living creatures? 1 Kings 18:40 At which things I, in my ignorance, was much disturbed, and, retreating from the truth, I appeared to myself to be going towards it; because as yet I knew not that evil was naught but a privation of good, until in the end it ceases altogether to be; which how should I see, the sight of whose eyes saw no further than bodies, and of my mind no further than a phantasm? And I knew not God to be a Spirit, John 4:24 not one who has parts extended in length and breadth, nor whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the whole, and, if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is limited by a certain space than in its infinity; and cannot be wholly everywhere, as Spirit, as God is. And what that should be in us, by which we were like God, and might rightly in Scripture be said to be after the image of God, I was entirely ignorant. 13. Nor had I knowledge of that true inner righteousness, which does not judge according to custom, but out of the most perfect law of God Almighty, by which the manners of places and times were adapted to those places and times - being itself the while the same always and everywhere, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and all those commended by the mouth of God were righteous, Hebrews 11:8-40 but were judged unrighteous by foolish men, judging out of man's judgment, 1 Corinthians 4:3 and gauging by the petty standard of their own manners the manners of the whole human race. Like as if in an armoury, one knowing not what were adapted to the several members should put greaves on his head, or boot himself with a helmet, and then complain because they would not fit. Or as if, on some day when in the afternoon business was forbidden, one were to fume at not being allowed to sell as it was lawful to him in the forenoon. Or when in some house he sees a servant take something in his hand which the butler is not permitted to touch, or something done behind a stable which would be prohibited in the dining-room, and should be indigt that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not distributed everywhere to all. Such are they who cannot endure to hear something to have been lawful for righteous men in former times which is not so now; or that God, for certain temporal reasons, commanded them one thing, and these another, but both obeying the same righteousness; though they see, in one man, one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and a thing which was formerly lawful after a time unlawful - that permitted or commanded in one corner, which done in another is justly prohibited and punished. Is justice, then, various and changeable? Nay, but the times over which she presides are not all alike, because they are times. But men, whose days upon the earth are few, Job 14:1 because by their own perception they cannot harmonize the causes of former ages and other nations, of which they had no experience, with these of which they have experience, though in one and the same body, day, or family, they can readily see what is suitable for each member, season, part, and person - to the one they take exception, to the other they submit. 14. These things I then knew not, nor observed. They met my eyes on every side, and I saw them not. I composed poems, in which it was not permitted me to place every foot everywhere, but in one metre one way, and in another, nor even in any one verse the same foot in all places. Yet the art itself by which I composed had not different principles for these different cases, but comprised all in one. Still I saw not how that righteousness, which good and holy men submitted to, far more excellently and sublimely comprehended in one all those things which God commanded, and in no part varied, though in varying times it did not prescribe all things at once, but distributed and enjoined what was proper for each. And I, being blind, blamed those pious fathers, not only for making use of present things as God commanded and inspired them to do, but also for foreshowing things to come as God was revealing them. " '

3.12.21. 21. And meanwhile You granted her another answer, which I recall; for much I pass over, hastening on to those things which the more strongly impel me to confess unto You, and much I do not remember. You granted her then another answer, by a priest of Yours, a certain bishop, reared in Your Church and well versed in Your books. He, when this woman had entreated that he would vouchsafe to have some talk with me, refute my errors, unteach me evil things, and teach me good (for this he was in the habit of doing when he found people fitted to receive it), refused, very prudently, as I afterwards came to see. For he answered that I was still unteachable, being inflated with the novelty of that heresy, and that I had already perplexed various inexperienced persons with vexatious questions, as she had informed him. But leave him alone for a time, says he, only pray God for him; he will of himself, by reading, discover what that error is, and how great its impiety. He disclosed to her at the same time how he himself, when a little one, had, by his misguided mother, been given over to the Manich ans, and had not only read, but even written out almost all their books, and had come to see (without argument or proof from any one) how much that sect was to be shunned, and had shunned it. Which when he had said, and she would not be satisfied, but repeated more earnestly her entreaties, shedding copious tears, that he would see and discourse with me, he, a little vexed at her importunity, exclaimed, Go your way, and God bless you, for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish. Which answer (as she often mentioned in her conversations with me) she accepted as though it were a voice from heaven. <' "4.
1.1. 1. During this space of nine years, then, from my nineteenth to my eight and twentieth year, we went on seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in various lusts; publicly, by sciences which they style liberal- secretly, with a falsity called religion. Here proud, there superstitious, everywhere vain! Here, striving after the emptiness of popular fame, even to theatrical applauses, and poetic contests, and strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies of shows and the intemperance of desire. There, seeking to be purged from these our corruptions by carrying food to those who were called elect and holy, out of which, in the laboratory of their stomachs, they should make for us angels and gods, by whom we might be delivered. These things did I follow eagerly, and practise with my friends - by me and with me deceived. Let the arrogant, and such as have not been yet savingly cast down and stricken by You, O my God, laugh at me; but notwithstanding I would confess to You my own shame in Your praise. Bear with me, I beseech You, and give me grace to retrace in my present remembrance the circlings of my past errors, and to offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own downfall? Or what am I even at the best, but one sucking Your milk, 1 Peter 2:2 and feeding upon You, the meat that perishes not? John 6:27 But what kind of man is any man, seeing that he is but a man? Let, then, the strong and the mighty laugh at us, but let us who are poor and needy confess unto You. ' "
4.2. 2. In those years I taught the art of rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, put to sale a loquacity by which to overcome. Yet I preferred - Lord, You know- to have honest scholars (as they are esteemed); and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not to be put in practise against the life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And You, O God, from afar saw me stumbling in that slippery path, and amid much smoke sending out some flashes of fidelity, which I exhibited in that my guidance of such as loved vanity and sought after leasing, I being their companion. In those years I had one (whom I knew not in what is called lawful wedlock, but whom my wayward passion, void of understanding, had discovered), yet one only, remaining faithful even to her; in whom I found out truly by my own experience what difference there is between the restraints of the marriage bonds, contracted for the sake of issue, and the compact of a lustful love, where children are born against the parents will, although, being born, they compel love. 3. I remember, too, that when I decided to compete for a theatrical prize, a soothsayer demanded of me what I would give him to win; but I, detesting and abominating such foul mysteries, answered, That if the garland were of imperishable gold, I would not suffer a fly to be destroyed to secure it for me. For he was to slay certain living creatures in his sacrifices, and by those honours to invite the devils to give me their support. But this ill thing I also refused, not out of a pure love for You, O God of my heart; for I knew not how to love You, knowing not how to conceive anything beyond corporeal brightness. And does not a soul, sighing after such-like fictions, commit fornication against You, trust in false things, and nourish the wind? Hosea 12:1 But I would not, forsooth, have sacrifices offered to devils on my behalf, though I myself was offering sacrifices to them by that superstition. For what else is nourishing the wind but nourishing them, that is, by our wanderings to become their enjoyment and derision?
4.3.5. 4. Those impostors, then, whom they designate Mathematicians, I consulted without hesitation, because they used no sacrifices, and invoked the aid of no spirit for their divinations, which art Christian and true piety fitly rejects and condemns. For good it is to confess unto You, and to say, Be merciful unto me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against You; and not to abuse Your goodness for a license to sin, but to remember the words of the Lord, Behold, you are made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you. John 5:14 All of which salutary advice they endeavour to destroy when they say, The cause of your sin is inevitably determined in heaven; and, This did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars; in order that man, forsooth, flesh and blood, and proud corruption, may be blameless, while the Creator and Ordainer of heaven and stars is to bear the blame. And who is this but You, our God, the sweetness and well-spring of righteousness, who renderest to every man according to his deeds, and despisest not a broken and a contrite heart! 5. There was in those days a wise man, very skilful in medicine, and much renowned therein, who had with his own proconsular hand put the Agonistic garland upon my distempered head, not, though, as a physician; for this disease You alone heal, who resistest the proud, and givest grace to the humble. But did You fail me even by that old man, or forbear from healing my soul? For when I had become more familiar with him, and hung assiduously and fixedly on his conversation (for though couched in simple language, it was replete with vivacity, life, and earnestness), when he had perceived from my discourse that I was given to books of the horoscope-casters, he, in a kind and fatherly manner, advised me to throw them away, and not vainly bestow the care and labour necessary for useful things upon these vanities; saying that he himself in his earlier years had studied that art with a view to gaining his living by following it as a profession, and that, as he had understood Hippocrates, he would soon have understood this, and yet he had given it up, and followed medicine, for no other reason than that he discovered it to be utterly false, and he, being a man of character, would not gain his living by beguiling people. But you, says he, who hast rhetoric to support yourself by, so that you follow this of free will, not of necessity - all the more, then, ought you to give me credit herein, who laboured to attain it so perfectly, as I wished to gain my living by it alone. When I asked him to account for so many true things being foretold by it, he answered me (as he could) that the force of chance, diffused throughout the whole order of nature, brought this about. For if when a man by accident opens the leaves of some poet, who sang and intended something far different, a verse oftentimes fell out wondrously apposite to the present business, it were not to be wondered at, he continued, if out of the soul of man, by some higher instinct, not knowing what goes on within itself, an answer should be given by chance, not art, which should coincide with the business and actions of the questioner. 6. And thus truly, either by or through him, You looked after me. And You delineated in my memory what I might afterwards search out for myself. But at that time neither he, nor my most dear Nebridius, a youth most good and most circumspect, who scoffed at that whole stock of divination, could persuade me to forsake it, the authority of the authors influencing me still more; and as yet I had lighted upon no certain proof- such as I sought - whereby it might without doubt appear that what had been truly foretold by those consulted was by accident or chance, not by the art of the star-gazers. 4.
3.6. 4. Those impostors, then, whom they designate Mathematicians, I consulted without hesitation, because they used no sacrifices, and invoked the aid of no spirit for their divinations, which art Christian and true piety fitly rejects and condemns. For good it is to confess unto You, and to say, Be merciful unto me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against You; and not to abuse Your goodness for a license to sin, but to remember the words of the Lord, Behold, you are made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you. John 5:14 All of which salutary advice they endeavour to destroy when they say, The cause of your sin is inevitably determined in heaven; and, This did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars; in order that man, forsooth, flesh and blood, and proud corruption, may be blameless, while the Creator and Ordainer of heaven and stars is to bear the blame. And who is this but You, our God, the sweetness and well-spring of righteousness, who renderest to every man according to his deeds, and despisest not a broken and a contrite heart! 5. There was in those days a wise man, very skilful in medicine, and much renowned therein, who had with his own proconsular hand put the Agonistic garland upon my distempered head, not, though, as a physician; for this disease You alone heal, who resistest the proud, and givest grace to the humble. But did You fail me even by that old man, or forbear from healing my soul? For when I had become more familiar with him, and hung assiduously and fixedly on his conversation (for though couched in simple language, it was replete with vivacity, life, and earnestness), when he had perceived from my discourse that I was given to books of the horoscope-casters, he, in a kind and fatherly manner, advised me to throw them away, and not vainly bestow the care and labour necessary for useful things upon these vanities; saying that he himself in his earlier years had studied that art with a view to gaining his living by following it as a profession, and that, as he had understood Hippocrates, he would soon have understood this, and yet he had given it up, and followed medicine, for no other reason than that he discovered it to be utterly false, and he, being a man of character, would not gain his living by beguiling people. But you, says he, who hast rhetoric to support yourself by, so that you follow this of free will, not of necessity - all the more, then, ought you to give me credit herein, who laboured to attain it so perfectly, as I wished to gain my living by it alone. When I asked him to account for so many true things being foretold by it, he answered me (as he could) that the force of chance, diffused throughout the whole order of nature, brought this about. For if when a man by accident opens the leaves of some poet, who sang and intended something far different, a verse oftentimes fell out wondrously apposite to the present business, it were not to be wondered at, he continued, if out of the soul of man, by some higher instinct, not knowing what goes on within itself, an answer should be given by chance, not art, which should coincide with the business and actions of the questioner. 6. And thus truly, either by or through him, You looked after me. And You delineated in my memory what I might afterwards search out for myself. But at that time neither he, nor my most dear Nebridius, a youth most good and most circumspect, who scoffed at that whole stock of divination, could persuade me to forsake it, the authority of the authors influencing me still more; and as yet I had lighted upon no certain proof- such as I sought - whereby it might without doubt appear that what had been truly foretold by those consulted was by accident or chance, not by the art of the star-gazers. ' "
4.4.7. 7. In those years, when I first began to teach rhetoric in my native town, I had acquired a very dear friend, from association in our studies, of my own age, and, like myself, just rising up into the flower of youth. He had grown up with me from childhood, and we had been both classmates and playmates. But he was not then my friend, nor, indeed, afterwards, as true friendship is; for true it is not but in such as You bind together, cleaving unto You by that love which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Romans 5:5 But yet it was too sweet, being ripened by the fervour of similar studies. For, from the true faith (which he, as a youth, had not soundly and thoroughly become master of), I had turned him aside towards those superstitious and pernicious fables which my mother mourned in me. With me this man's mind now erred, nor could my soul exist without him. But behold, You were close behind Your fugitives - at once God of vengeance and Fountain of mercies, who turnest us to Yourself by wondrous means. You removed that man from this life when he had scarce completed one whole year of my friendship, sweet to me above all the sweetness of that my life. 8. Who can show forth all Your praise which he has experienced in himself alone? What was it that Thou did then, O my God, and how unsearchable are the depths of Your judgments! For when, sore sick of a fever, he long lay unconscious in a death-sweat, and all despaired of his recovery, he was baptized without his knowledge; myself meanwhile little caring, presuming that his soul would retain rather what it had imbibed from me, than what was done to his unconscious body. Far different, however, was it, for he was revived and restored. Straightway, as soon as I could talk to him (which I could as soon as he was able, for I never left him, and we hung too much upon each other), I attempted to jest with him, as if he also would jest with me at that baptism which he had received when mind and senses were in abeyance, but had now learned that he had received. But he shuddered at me, as if I were his enemy; and, with a remarkable and unexpected freedom, admonished me, if I desired to continue his friend, to desist from speaking to him in such a way. I, confounded and confused, concealed all my emotions, till he should get well, and his health be strong enough to allow me to deal with him as I wished. But he was withdrawn from my frenzy, that with You he might be preserved for my comfort. A few days after, during my absence, he had a return of the fever, and died. 9. At this sorrow my heart was utterly darkened, and whatever I looked upon was death. My native country was a torture to me, and my father's house a wondrous unhappiness; and whatsoever I had participated in with him, wanting him, turned into a frightful torture. My eyes sought him everywhere, but he was not granted them; and I hated all places because he was not in them; nor could they now say to me, Behold; he is coming, as they did when he was alive and absent. I became a great puzzle to myself, and asked my soul why she was so sad, and why she so exceedingly disquieted me; but she knew not what to answer me. And if I said, Hope in God, she very properly obeyed me not; because that most dear friend whom she had lost was, being man, both truer and better than that phantasm she was bid to hope in. Naught but tears were sweet to me, and they succeeded my friend in the dearest of my affections. " '
4.6.11. 11. But why do I speak of these things? For this is not the time to question, but rather to confess unto You. Miserable I was, and miserable is every soul fettered by the friendship of perishable things - he is torn to pieces when he loses them, and then is sensible of the misery which he had before ever he lost them. Thus was it at that time with me; I wept most bitterly, and found rest in bitterness. Thus was I miserable, and that life of misery I accounted dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have changed it, yet I was even more unwilling to lose it than him; yea, I knew not whether I was willing to lose it even for him, as is handed down to us (if not an invention) of Pylades and Orestes, that they would gladly have died one for another, or both together, it being worse than death to them not to live together. But there had sprung up in me some kind of feeling, too, contrary to this, for both exceedingly wearisome was it to me to live, and dreadful to die, I suppose, the more I loved him, so much the more did I hate and fear, as a most cruel enemy, that death which had robbed me of him; and I imagined it would suddenly annihilate all men, as it had power over him. Thus, I remember, it was with me. Behold my heart, O my God! Behold and look into me, for I remember it well, O my Hope! Who cleansest me from the uncleanness of such affections, directing my eyes towards You, and plucking my feet out of the net. For I was astonished that other mortals lived, since he whom I loved, as if he would never die, was dead; and I wondered still more that I, who was to him a second self, could live when he was dead. Well did one say of his friend, Thou half of my soul, for I felt that my soul and his soul were but one soul in two bodies; and, consequently, my life was a horror to me, because I would not live in half. And therefore, perchance, was I afraid to die, lest he should die wholly whom I had so greatly loved.
4.8.13. 13. Times lose no time, nor do they idly roll through our senses. They work strange operations on the mind. Behold, they came and went from day to day, and by coming and going they disseminated in my mind other ideas and other remembrances, and little by little patched me up again with the former kind of delights, unto which that sorrow of mine yielded. But yet there succeeded, not certainly other sorrows, yet the causes of other sorrows. For whence had that former sorrow so easily penetrated to the quick, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust, in loving one who must die as if he were never to die? But what revived and refreshed me especially was the consolations of other friends, with whom I did love what instead of You I loved. And this was a monstrous fable and protracted lie, by whose adulterous contact our soul, which lay itching in our ears, was being polluted. But that fable would not die to me so oft as any of my friends died. There were other things in them which did more lay hold of my mind - to discourse and jest with them; to indulge in an interchange of kindnesses; to read together pleasant books; together to trifle, and together to be earnest; to differ at times without ill-humour, as a man would do with his own self; and even by the infrequency of these differences to give zest to our more frequent consentings; sometimes teaching, sometimes being taught; longing for the absent with impatience, and welcoming the coming with joy. These and similar expressions, emanating from the hearts of those who loved and were beloved in return, by the countece, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleasing movements, were so much fuel to melt our souls together, and out of many to make but one. 4.1
6.28. 28. And what did it profit me that, when scarce twenty years old, a book of Aristotle's, entitled The Ten Predicaments, fell into my hands - on whose very name I hung as on something great and divine, when my rhetoric master of Carthage, and others who were esteemed learned, referred to it with cheeks swelling with pride - I read it alone and understood it? And on my conferring with others, who said that with the assistance of very able masters - who not only explained it orally, but drew many things in the dust - they scarcely understood it, and could tell me no more about it than I had acquired in reading it by myself alone? And the book appeared to me to speak plainly enough of substances, such as man is, and of their qualities, - such as the figure of a man, of what kind it is; and his stature, how many feet high; and his relationship, whose brother he is; or where placed, or when born; or whether he stands or sits, or is shod or armed, or does or suffers anything; and whatever innumerable things might be classed under these nine categories, - of which I have given some examples - or under that chief category of substance. 29. What did all this profit me, seeing it even hindered me, when, imagining that whatsoever existed was comprehended in those ten categories, I tried so to understand, O my God, Your wonderful and unchangeable unity as if Thou also had been subjected to Your own greatness or beauty, so that they should exist in You as their subject, like as in bodies, whereas You Yourself art Your greatness and beauty? But a body is not great or fair because it is a body, seeing that, though it were less great or fair, it should nevertheless be a body. But that which I had conceived of You was falsehood, not truth - fictions of my misery, not the supports of Your blessedness. For You had commanded, and it was done in me, that the earth should bring forth briars and thorns to me, Isaiah 32:13 and that with labour I should get my bread. Genesis 3:19 30. And what did it profit me that I, the base slave of vile affections, read unaided, and understood, all the books that I could get of the so-called liberal arts? And I took delight in them, but knew not whence came whatever in them was true and certain. For my back then was to the light, and my face towards the things enlightened; whence my face, with which I discerned the things enlightened, was not itself enlightened. Whatever was written either on rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, or arithmetic, did I, without any great difficulty, and without the teaching of any man, understand, as You know, O Lord my God, because both quickness of comprehension and acuteness of perception are Your gifts. Yet did I not thereupon sacrifice to You. So, then, it served not to my use, but rather to my destruction, since I went about to get so good a portion of my substance Luke 15:12 into my own power; and I kept not my strength for You, but went away from You into a far country, to waste it upon harlotries. Luke 15:13 For what did good abilities profit me, if I did not employ them to good uses? For I did not perceive that those arts were acquired with great difficulty, even by the studious and those gifted with genius, until I endeavoured to explain them to such; and he was the most proficient in them who followed my explanations not too slowly. 31. But what did this profit me, supposing that Thou, O Lord God, the Truth, were a bright and vast body, and I a piece of that body? Perverseness too great! But such was I. Nor do I blush, O my God, to confess to You Your mercies towards me, and to call upon You - I, who blushed not then to avow before men my blasphemies, and to bark against You. What profited me then my nimble wit in those sciences and all those knotty volumes, disentangled by me without help from a human master, seeing that I erred so odiously, and with such sacrilegious baseness, in the doctrine of piety? Or what impediment was it to Your little ones to have a far slower wit, seeing that they departed not far from You, that in the nest of Your Church they might safely become fledged, and nourish the wings of charity by the food of a sound faith? O Lord our God, under the shadow of Your wings let us hope, defend us, and carry us. You will carry us both when little, and even to grey hairs will You carry us; Isaiah 46:4 for our firmness, when it is Thou, then is it firmness; but when it is our own, then it is infirmity. Our good lives always with You, from which when we are averted we are perverted. Let us now, O Lord, return, that we be not overturned, because with You our good lives without any eclipse, which good You Yourself art. And we need not fear lest we should find no place unto which to return because we fell away from it; for when we were absent, our home - Your Eternity - fell not. <" '
5.3.5. 3. Let me lay bare before my God that twenty-ninth year of my age. There had at this time come to Carthage a certain bishop of the Manich ans, by name Faustus, a great snare of the devil, and in any were entangled by him through the allurement of his smooth speech; the which, although I did commend, yet could I separate from the truth of those things which I was eager to learn. Nor did I esteem the small dish of oratory so much as the science, which this their so praised Faustus placed before me to feed upon. Fame, indeed, had before spoken of him to me, as most skilled in all becoming learning, and pre-eminently skilled in the liberal sciences. And as I had read and retained in memory many injunctions of the philosophers, I used to compare some teachings of theirs with those long fables of the Manich ans and the former things which they declared, who could only prevail so far as to estimate this lower world, while its lord they could by no means find out, Wisdom 13:9 seemed to me the more probable. For You are great, O Lord, and hast respect unto the lowly, but the proud You know afar off. Nor do You draw near but to the contrite heart, nor are You found by the proud, - not even could they number by cunning skill the stars and the sand, and measure the starry regions, and trace the courses of the planets. 4. For with their understanding and the capacity which You have bestowed upon them they search out these things; and much have they found out, and foretold many years before - the eclipses of those luminaries, the sun and moon, on what day, at what hour, and from how many particular points they were likely to come. Nor did their calculation fail them; and it came to pass even as they foretold. And they wrote down the rules found out, which are read at this day; and from these others foretell in what year and in what month of the year, and on what day of the month, and at what hour of the day, and at what quarter of its light, either moon or sun is to be eclipsed, and thus it shall be even as it is foretold. And men who are ignorant of these things marvel and are amazed, and they that know them exult and are exalted; and by an impious pride, departing from You, and forsaking Your light, they foretell a failure of the sun's light which is likely to occur so long before, but see not their own, which is now present. For they seek not religiously whence they have the ability where-with they seek out these things. And finding that You have made them, they give not themselves up to You, that You may preserve what You have made, nor sacrifice themselves to You, even such as they have made themselves to be; nor do they slay their own pride, as fowls of the air, nor their own curiosities, by which (like the fishes of the sea) they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss, nor their own extravagance, as the beasts of the field, that Thou, Lord, a consuming fire, Deuteronomy 4:24 may burn up their lifeless cares and renew them immortally. 5. But the way - Your Word, John 1:3 by whom Thou made these things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense by which they perceive what they number, and the judgment out of which they number - they knew not, and that of Your wisdom there is no number. But the Only-begotten has been made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 1 Corinthians 1:30 and has been numbered among us, and paid tribute to C sar. Matthew 17:27 This way, by which they might descend to Him from themselves, they knew not; nor that through Him they might ascend unto Him. This way they knew not, and they think themselves exalted with the stars Isaiah 14:13 and shining, and lo! They fell upon the earth, Revelation 12:4 and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1:21 They say many true things concerning the creature; but Truth, the Artificer of the creature, they seek not with devotion, and hence they find Him not. Or if they find Him, knowing that He is God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are they thankful, Romans 1:21 but become vain in their imaginations, and say that they themselves are wise, Romans 1:22 attributing to themselves what is Yours; and by this, with most perverse blindness, they desire to impute to You what is their own, forging lies against You who art the Truth, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, Romans 1:23 - changing Your truth into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator. Romans 1:25 6. Many truths, however, concerning the creature did I retain from these men, and the cause appeared to me from calculations, the succession of seasons, and the visible manifestations of the stars; and I compared them with the sayings of Manich us, who in his frenzy has written most extensively on these subjects, but discovered not any account either of the solstices, or the equinoxes, the eclipses of the luminaries, or anything of the kind I had learned in the books of secular philosophy. But therein I was ordered to believe, and yet it corresponded not with those rules acknowledged by calculation and my own sight, but was far different. " "
5.9. 16. And behold, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was descending into hell burdened with all the sins that I had committed, both against You, myself, and others, many and grievous, over and above that bond of original sin whereby we all die in Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:22 For none of these things had Thou forgiven me in Christ, neither had He abolished by His cross the enmity which, by my sins, I had incurred with You. For how could He, by the crucifixion of a phantasm, which I supposed Him to be? As true, then, was the death of my soul, as that of His flesh appeared to me to be untrue; and as true the death of His flesh as the life of my soul, which believed it not, was false. The fever increasing, I was now passing away and perishing. For had I then gone hence, whither should I have gone but into the fiery torments meet for my misdeeds, in the truth of Your ordice? She was ignorant of this, yet, while absent, prayed for me. But You, everywhere present, hearkened to her where she was, and had pity upon me where I was, that I should regain my bodily health, although still frenzied in my sacrilegious heart. For all that peril did not make me wish to be baptized, and I was better when, as a lad, I entreated it of my mother's piety, as I have already related and confessed. But I had grown up to my own dishonour, and all the purposes of Your medicine I madly derided, who would not suffer me, though such a one, to die a double death. Had my mother's heart been smitten with this wound, it never could have been cured. For I cannot sufficiently express the love she had for me, nor how she now travailed for me in the spirit with a far keener anguish than when she bore me in the flesh. 17. I cannot conceive, therefore, how she could have been healed if such a death of mine had transfixed the bowels of her love. Where then would have been her so earnest, frequent, and unintermitted prayers to You alone? But could Thou, most merciful God, despise the contrite and humble heart of that pure and prudent widow, so constant in almsdeeds, so gracious and attentive to Your saints, not permitting one day to pass without oblation at Your altar, twice a day, at morning and even-tide, coming to Your church without intermission - not for vain gossiping, nor old wives' fables, 1 Timothy 5:10 but in order that she might listen to You in Your sermons, and Thou to her in her prayers? Could You- You by whose gift she was such - despise and disregard without succouring the tears of such a one, wherewith she entreated You not for gold or silver, nor for any changing or fleeting good, but for the salvation of the soul of her son? By no means, Lord. Assuredly You were near, and were hearing and doing in that method in which You had predetermined that it should be done. Far be it from You that Thou should delude her in those visions and the answers she had from You - some of which I have spoken of, and others not, - which she kept Luke 2:19 in her faithful breast, and, always petitioning, pressed upon You as Your autograph. For Thou, because Your mercy endures for ever, condescendest to those whose debts You have pardoned, to become likewise a debtor by Your promises. " "
5.10.20. 18. You restored me then from that illness, and made sound the son of Your hand-maid meanwhile in body, that he might live for You, to endow him with a higher and more enduring health. And even then at Rome I joined those deluding and deluded saints; not their hearers only - of the number of whom was he in whose house I had fallen ill, and had recovered - but those also whom they designate The Elect. For it still seemed to me that it was not we that sin, but that I know not what other nature sinned in us. And it gratified my pride to be free from blame and, after I had committed any fault, not to acknowledge that I had done any -that You might heal my soul because it had sinned against You; but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse something else (I know not what) which was with me, but was not I. But assuredly it was wholly I, and my impiety had divided me against myself; and that sin was all the more incurable in that I did not deem myself a sinner. And execrable iniquity it was, O God omnipotent, that I would rather have You to be overcome in me to my destruction, than myself of You to salvation! Not yet, therefore, had Thou set a watch before my mouth, and kept the door of my lips, that my heart might not incline to wicked speeches, to make excuses of sins, with men that work iniquity - and, therefore, was I still united with their Elect. 19. But now, hopeless of making proficiency in that false doctrine, even those things with which I had decided upon contenting myself, providing that I could find nothing better, I now held more loosely and negligently. For I was half inclined to believe that those philosophers whom they call Academics were more sagacious than the rest, in that they held that we ought to doubt everything, and ruled that man had not the power of comprehending any truth; for so, not yet realizing their meaning, I also was fully persuaded that they thought just as they are commonly held to do. And I did not fail frankly to restrain in my host that assurance which I observed him to have in those fictions of which the works of Manich us are full. Notwithstanding, I was on terms of more intimate friendship with them than with others who were not of this heresy. Nor did I defend it with my former ardour; still my familiarity with that sect (many of them being concealed in Rome) made me slower to seek any other way - particularly since I was hopeless of finding the truth, from which in Your Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and invisible, they had turned me aside - and it seemed to me most unbecoming to believe You to have the form of human flesh, and to be bounded by the bodily lineaments of our members. And because, when I desired to meditate on my God, I knew not what to think of but a mass of bodies (for what was not such did not seem to me to be), this was the greatest and almost sole cause of my inevitable error. 20. For hence I also believed evil to be a similar sort of substance, and to be possessed of its own foul and misshapen mass - whether dense, which they denominated earth, or thin and subtle, as is the body of the air, which they fancy some maligt spirit crawling through that earth. And because a piety- such as it was - compelled me to believe that the good God never created any evil nature, I conceived two masses, the one opposed to the other, both infinite, but the evil the more contracted, the good the more expansive. And from this mischievous commencement the other profanities followed on me. For when my mind tried to revert to the Catholic faith, I was cast back, since what I had held to be the Catholic faith was not so. And it appeared to me more devout to look upon You, my God - to whom I make confession of Your mercies - as infinite, at least, on other sides, although on that side where the mass of evil was in opposition to You I was compelled to confess You finite, that if on every side I should conceive You to be confined by the form of a human body. And better did it seem to me to believe that no evil had been created by You - which to me in my ignorance appeared not only some substance, but a bodily one, because I had no conception of the mind excepting as a subtle body, and that diffused in local spaces - than to believe that anything could emanate from You of such a kind as I considered the nature of evil to be. And our very Saviour Himself, also, Your only-begotten, I believed to have been reached forth, as it were, for our salvation out of the lump of Your most effulgent mass, so as to believe nothing of Him but what I was able to imagine in my vanity. Such a nature, then, I thought could not be born of the Virgin Mary without being mingled with the flesh; and how that which I had thus figured to myself could be mingled without being contaminated, I saw not. I was afraid, therefore, to believe Him to be born in the flesh, lest I should be compelled to believe Him contaminated by the flesh. Now will Your spiritual ones blandly and lovingly smile at me if they shall read these my confessions; yet such was I.
5.11. 21. Furthermore, whatever they had censured in Your Scriptures I thought impossible to be defended; and yet sometimes, indeed, I desired to confer on these several points with some one well learned in those books, and to try what he thought of them. For at this time the words of one Helpidius, speaking and disputing face to face against the said Manich ans, had begun to move me even at Carthage, in that he brought forth things from the Scriptures not easily withstood, to which their answer appeared to me feeble. And this answer they did not give forth publicly, but only to us in private - when they said that the writings of the New Testament had been tampered with by I know not whom, who were desirous of ingrafting the Jewish law upon the Christian faith; but they themselves did not bring forward any uncorrupted copies. But I, thinking of corporeal things, very much ensnared and in a measure stifled, was oppressed by those masses; panting under which for the breath of Your Truth, I was not able to breathe it pure and undefiled. 5.1
4.24. 24. For although I took no trouble to learn what he spoke, but only to hear how he spoke (for that empty care alone remained to me, despairing of a way accessible for man to You), yet, together with the words which I prized, there came into my mind also the things about which I was careless; for I could not separate them. And while I opened my heart to admit how skilfully he spoke, there also entered with it, but gradually, and how truly he spoke! For first, these things also had begun to appear to me to be defensible; and the Catholic faith, for which I had fancied nothing could be said against the attacks of the Manich ans, I now conceived might be maintained without presumption; especially after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained, and often allegorically - which when I accepted literally, I was killed spiritually. Many places, then, of those books having been expounded to me, I now blamed my despair in having believed that no reply could be made to those who hated and derided the Law and the Prophets. Yet I did not then see that for that reason the Catholic way was to be held because it had its learned advocates, who could at length, and not irrationally, answer objections; nor that what I held ought therefore to be condemned because both sides were equally defensible. For that way did not appear to me to be vanquished; nor yet did it seem to me to be victorious. 25. Hereupon did I earnestly bend my mind to see if in any way I could possibly prove the Manich ans guilty of falsehood. Could I have realized a spiritual substance, all their strongholds would have been beaten down, and cast utterly out of my mind; but I could not. But yet, concerning the body of this world, and the whole of nature, which the senses of the flesh can attain unto, I, now more and more considering and comparing things, judged that the greater part of the philosophers held much the more probable opinions. So, then, after the manner of the Academics (as they are supposed), doubting of everything and fluctuating between all, I decided that the Manich ans were to be abandoned; judging that, even while in that period of doubt, I could not remain in a sect to which I preferred some of the philosophers; to which philosophers, however, because they were without the saving name of Christ, I utterly refused to commit the cure of my fainting soul. I resolved, therefore, to be a catechumen in the Catholic Church, which my parents had commended to me, until something settled should manifest itself to me whither I might steer my course. <' "6.
1.1. 1. O Thou, my hope from my youth, where were Thou to me, and whither had Thou gone? For in truth, had Thou not created me, and made a difference between me and the beasts of the field and fowls of the air? You had made me wiser than they, yet did I wander about in dark and slippery places, and sought You abroad out of myself, and found not the God of my heart; and had entered the depths of the sea, and distrusted and despaired finding out the truth. By this time my mother, made strong by her piety, had come to me, following me over sea and land, in all perils feeling secure in You. For in the dangers of the sea she comforted the very sailors (to whom the inexperienced passengers, when alarmed, were wont rather to go for comfort), assuring them of a safe arrival, because she had been so assured by You in a vision. She found me in grievous danger, through despair of ever finding truth. But when I had disclosed to her that I was now no longer a Manich an, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she did not leap for joy as at what was unexpected; although she was now reassured as to that part of my misery for which she had mourned me as one dead, but who would be raised to You, carrying me forth upon the bier of her thoughts, that You might say unto the widow's son, Young man, I say unto You, arise, and he should revive, and begin to speak, and You should deliver him to his mother. Luke 7:12-l5 Her heart, then, was not agitated with any violent exultation, when she had heard that to be already in so great a part accomplished which she daily, with tears, entreated of You might be done - that though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from falsehood. Yea, rather, for that she was fully confident that Thou, who had promised the whole, would give the rest, most calmly, and with a breast full of confidence, she replied to me, She believed in Christ, that before she departed this life, she would see me a Catholic believer. And thus much said she to me; but to You, O Fountain of mercies, poured she out more frequent prayers and tears, that You would hasten Your aid, and enlighten my darkness; and she hurried all the more assiduously to the church, and hung upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the fountain of water that springs up into everlasting life. John 4:14 For she loved that man as an angel of God, because she knew that it was by him that I had been brought, for the present, to that perplexing state of agitation I was now in, through which she was fully persuaded that I should pass from sickness unto health, after an excess, as it were, of a sharper fit, which doctors term the crisis. " "

6.2.2. 2. When, therefore, my mother had at one time - as was her custom in Africa - brought to the oratories built in the memory of the saints certain cakes, and bread, and wine, and was forbidden by the doorkeeper, so soon as she learned that it was the bishop who had forbidden it, she so piously and obediently acceded to it, that I myself marvelled how readily she could bring herself to accuse her own custom, rather than question his prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not take possession of her spirit, nor did the love of wine stimulate her to hatred of the truth, as it does too many, both male and female, who nauseate at a song of sobriety, as men well drunk at a draught of water. But she, when she had brought her basket with the festive meats, of which she would taste herself first and give the rest away, would never allow herself more than one little cup of wine, diluted according to her own temperate palate, which, out of courtesy, she would taste. And if there were many oratories of departed saints that ought to be honoured in the same way, she still carried round with her the selfsame cup, to be used everywhere; and this, which was not only very much watered, but was also very tepid with carrying about, she would distribute by small sips to those around; for she sought their devotion, not pleasure. As soon, therefore, as she found this custom to be forbidden by that famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those who would use it with moderation, lest thereby an occasion of excess might be given to such as were drunken, and because these, so to say, festivals in honour of the dead were very like the superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly abstained from it. And in lieu of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full of more purified petitions, and to give all that she could to the poor; that so the communion of the Lord's body might be rightly celebrated there, where, after the example of His passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God, and thus my heart thinks of it in your sight, that my mother perhaps would not so easily have given way to the relinquishment of this custom had it been forbidden by another whom she loved not as Ambrose, whom, out of regard for my salvation, she loved most dearly; and he loved her truly, on account of her most religious conversation, whereby, in good works so fervent in spirit, Romans 12:11 she frequented the church; so that he would often, when he saw me, burst forth into her praises, congratulating me that I had such a mother - little knowing what a son she had in me, who was in doubt as to all these things, and did not imagine the way of life could be found out. " '
6.2. 2. When, therefore, my mother had at one time - as was her custom in Africa - brought to the oratories built in the memory of the saints certain cakes, and bread, and wine, and was forbidden by the doorkeeper, so soon as she learned that it was the bishop who had forbidden it, she so piously and obediently acceded to it, that I myself marvelled how readily she could bring herself to accuse her own custom, rather than question his prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not take possession of her spirit, nor did the love of wine stimulate her to hatred of the truth, as it does too many, both male and female, who nauseate at a song of sobriety, as men well drunk at a draught of water. But she, when she had brought her basket with the festive meats, of which she would taste herself first and give the rest away, would never allow herself more than one little cup of wine, diluted according to her own temperate palate, which, out of courtesy, she would taste. And if there were many oratories of departed saints that ought to be honoured in the same way, she still carried round with her the selfsame cup, to be used everywhere; and this, which was not only very much watered, but was also very tepid with carrying about, she would distribute by small sips to those around; for she sought their devotion, not pleasure. As soon, therefore, as she found this custom to be forbidden by that famous preacher and most pious prelate, even to those who would use it with moderation, lest thereby an occasion of excess might be given to such as were drunken, and because these, so to say, festivals in honour of the dead were very like the superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly abstained from it. And in lieu of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full of more purified petitions, and to give all that she could to the poor; that so the communion of the Lord's body might be rightly celebrated there, where, after the example of His passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God, and thus my heart thinks of it in your sight, that my mother perhaps would not so easily have given way to the relinquishment of this custom had it been forbidden by another whom she loved not as Ambrose, whom, out of regard for my salvation, she loved most dearly; and he loved her truly, on account of her most religious conversation, whereby, in good works so fervent in spirit, Romans 12:11 she frequented the church; so that he would often, when he saw me, burst forth into her praises, congratulating me that I had such a mother - little knowing what a son she had in me, who was in doubt as to all these things, and did not imagine the way of life could be found out. " "
6.4.5. 5. As, then, I knew not how this image of Yours should subsist, I should have knocked and propounded the doubt how it was to be believed, and not have insultingly opposed it, as if it were believed. Anxiety, therefore, as to what to retain as certain, did all the more sharply gnaw into my soul, the more shame I felt that, having been so long deluded and deceived by the promise of certainties, I had, with puerile error and petulance, prated of so many uncertainties as if they were certainties. For that they were falsehoods became apparent to me afterwards. However, I was certain that they were uncertain, and that I had formerly held them as certain when with a blind contentiousness I accused Your Catholic Church, which though I had not yet discovered to teach truly, yet not to teach that of which I had so vehemently accused her. In this manner was I confounded and converted, and I rejoiced, O my God, that the one Church, the body of Your only Son (wherein the name of Christ had been set upon me when an infant), did not appreciate these infantile trifles, nor maintained, in her sound doctrine, any tenet that would confine You, the Creator of all, in space - though ever so great and wide, yet bounded on all sides by the restraints of a human form. 6. I rejoiced also that the old Scriptures of the law and the prophets were laid before me, to be perused, not now with that eye to which they seemed most absurd before, when I censured Your holy ones for so thinking, whereas in truth they thought not so; and with delight I heard Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently recommend this text as a rule -The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life; while, drawing aside the mystic veil, he spiritually laid open that which, accepted according to the letter, seemed to teach perverse doctrines - teaching herein nothing that offended me, though he taught such things as I knew not as yet whether they were true. For all this time I restrained my heart from assenting to anything, fearing to fall headlong; but by hanging in suspense I was the worse killed. For my desire was to be as well assured of those things that I saw not, as I was that seven and three are ten. For I was not so insane as to believe that this could not be comprehended; but I desired to have other things as clear as this, whether corporeal things, which were not present to my senses, or spiritual, whereof I knew not how to conceive except corporeally. And by believing I might have been cured, that so the sight of my soul being cleared, it might in some way be directed towards Your truth, which abides always, and fails in naught. But as it happens that he who has tried a bad physician fears to trust himself with a good one, so was it with the health of my soul, which could not be healed but by believing, and, lest it should believe falsehoods, refused to be cured - resisting Your hands, who hast prepared for us the medicaments of faith, and hast applied them to the maladies of the whole world, and hast bestowed upon them so great authority.
6.5.7. 7. From this, however, being led to prefer the Catholic doctrine, I felt that it was with more moderation and honesty that it commanded things to be believed that were not demonstrated (whether it was that they could be demonstrated, but not to any one, or could not be demonstrated at all), than was the method of the Manich ans, where our credulity was mocked by audacious promise of knowledge, and then so many most fabulous and absurd things were forced upon belief because they were not capable of demonstration. After that, O Lord, You, little by little, with most gentle and most merciful hand, drawing and calming my heart, persuaded taking into consideration what a multiplicity of things which I had never seen, nor was present when they were enacted, like so many of the things in secular history, and so many accounts of places and cities which I had not seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so many now of these men, now of those, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unalterable an assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which it would have been impossible for me to know otherwise than by hearsay - taking into consideration all this, You persuade me that not they who believed Your books (which, with so great authority, You have established among nearly all nations), but those who believed them not were to be blamed; and that those men were not to be listened unto who should say to me, How do you know that those Scriptures were imparted unto mankind by the Spirit of the one true and most true God? For it was the same thing that was most of all to be believed, since no wranglings of blasphemous questions, whereof I had read so many among the self-contradicting philosophers, could once wring the belief from me that You are - whatsoever You were, though what I knew not - or that the government of human affairs belongs to You. 8. Thus much I believed, at one time more strongly than another, yet did I ever believe both that You were, and had a care of us, although I was ignorant both what was to be thought of Your substance, and what way led, or led back to You. Seeing, then, that we were too weak by unaided reason to find out the truth, and for this cause needed the authority of the holy writings, I had now begun to believe that You would by no means have given such excellency of authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands, had it not been Your will thereby to be believed in, and thereby sought. For now those things which heretofore appeared incongruous to me in the Scripture, and used to offend me, having heard various of them expounded reasonably, I referred to the depth of the mysteries, and its authority seemed to me all the more venerable and worthy of religious belief, in that, while it was visible for all to read it, it reserved the majesty of its secret within its profound significance, stooping to all in the great plainness of its language and lowliness of its style, yet exercising the application of such as are not light of heart; that it might receive all into its common bosom, and through narrow passages waft over some few towards You, yet many more than if it did not stand upon such a height of authority, nor allured multitudes within its bosom by its holy humility. These things I meditated upon, and You were with me; I sighed, and You heard me; I vacillated, and You guided me; I roamed through the broad way Matthew 7:13 of the world, and You did not desert me. 6.5.8. 7. From this, however, being led to prefer the Catholic doctrine, I felt that it was with more moderation and honesty that it commanded things to be believed that were not demonstrated (whether it was that they could be demonstrated, but not to any one, or could not be demonstrated at all), than was the method of the Manich ans, where our credulity was mocked by audacious promise of knowledge, and then so many most fabulous and absurd things were forced upon belief because they were not capable of demonstration. After that, O Lord, You, little by little, with most gentle and most merciful hand, drawing and calming my heart, persuaded taking into consideration what a multiplicity of things which I had never seen, nor was present when they were enacted, like so many of the things in secular history, and so many accounts of places and cities which I had not seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so many now of these men, now of those, which unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unalterable an assurance I believed of what parents I was born, which it would have been impossible for me to know otherwise than by hearsay - taking into consideration all this, You persuade me that not they who believed Your books (which, with so great authority, You have established among nearly all nations), but those who believed them not were to be blamed; and that those men were not to be listened unto who should say to me, How do you know that those Scriptures were imparted unto mankind by the Spirit of the one true and most true God? For it was the same thing that was most of all to be believed, since no wranglings of blasphemous questions, whereof I had read so many among the self-contradicting philosophers, could once wring the belief from me that You are - whatsoever You were, though what I knew not - or that the government of human affairs belongs to You. 8. Thus much I believed, at one time more strongly than another, yet did I ever believe both that You were, and had a care of us, although I was ignorant both what was to be thought of Your substance, and what way led, or led back to You. Seeing, then, that we were too weak by unaided reason to find out the truth, and for this cause needed the authority of the holy writings, I had now begun to believe that You would by no means have given such excellency of authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands, had it not been Your will thereby to be believed in, and thereby sought. For now those things which heretofore appeared incongruous to me in the Scripture, and used to offend me, having heard various of them expounded reasonably, I referred to the depth of the mysteries, and its authority seemed to me all the more venerable and worthy of religious belief, in that, while it was visible for all to read it, it reserved the majesty of its secret within its profound significance, stooping to all in the great plainness of its language and lowliness of its style, yet exercising the application of such as are not light of heart; that it might receive all into its common bosom, and through narrow passages waft over some few towards You, yet many more than if it did not stand upon such a height of authority, nor allured multitudes within its bosom by its holy humility. These things I meditated upon, and You were with me; I sighed, and You heard me; I vacillated, and You guided me; I roamed through the broad way Matthew 7:13 of the world, and You did not desert me. ' "
6.7.12. 11. These things we, who lived like friends together, jointly deplored, but chiefly and most familiarly did I discuss them with Alypius and Nebridius, of whom Alypius was born in the same town as myself, his parents being of the highest rank there, but he being younger than I. For he had studied under me, first, when I taught in our own town, and afterwards at Carthage, and esteemed me highly, because I appeared to him good and learned; and I esteemed him for his innate love of virtue, which, in one of no great age, was sufficiently eminent. But the vortex of Carthaginian customs (among whom these frivolous spectacles are hotly followed) had inveigled him into the madness of the Circensian games. But while he was miserably tossed about therein, I was professing rhetoric there, and had a public school. As yet he did not give ear to my teaching, on account of some ill-feeling that had arisen between me and his father. I had then found how fatally he doted upon the circus, and was deeply grieved that he seemed likely - if, indeed, he had not already done so - to cast away his so great promise. Yet had I no means of advising, or by a sort of restraint reclaiming him, either by the kindness of a friend or by the authority of a master. For I imagined that his sentiments towards me were the same as his father's; but he was not such. Disregarding, therefore, his father's will in that matter, he commenced to salute me, and, coming into my lecture-room, to listen for a little and depart. 12. But it slipped my memory to deal with him, so that he should not, through a blind and headstrong desire of empty pastimes, undo so great a wit. But You, O Lord, who governest the helm of all You have created, had not forgotten him, who was one day to be among Your sons, the President of Your sacrament; and that his amendment might plainly be attributed to Yourself, You brought it about through me, but I knowing nothing of it. For one day, when I was sitting in my accustomed place, with my scholars before me, he came in, saluted me, sat himself down, and fixed his attention on the subject I was then handling. It so happened that I had a passage in hand, which while I was explaining, a simile borrowed from the Circensian games occurred to me, as likely to make what I wished to convey pleasanter and plainer, imbued with a biting jibe at those whom that madness had enthralled. You know, O our God, that I had no thought at that time of curing Alypius of that plague. But he took it to himself, and thought that I would not have said it but for his sake. And what any other man would have made a ground of offense against me, this worthy young man took as a reason for being offended at himself, and for loving me more fervently. For You have said it long ago, and written in Your book, Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Proverbs 9:8 But I had not rebuked him, but Thou, who makest use of all consciously or unconsciously, in that order which Yourself know (and that order is right), wroughtest out of my heart and tongue burning coals, by which You might set on fire and cure the hopeful mind thus languishing. Let him be silent in Your praises who meditates not on Your mercies, which from my inmost parts confess unto You. For he upon that speech rushed out from that so deep pit, wherein he was wilfully plunged, and was blinded by its miserable pastimes; and he roused his mind with a resolute moderation; whereupon all the filth of the Circensian pastimes flew off from him, and he did not approach them further. Upon this, he prevailed with his reluctant father to let him be my pupil. He gave in and consented. And Alypius, beginning again to hear me, was involved in the same superstition as I was, loving in the Manich ans that ostentation of continency which he believed to be true and unfeigned. It was, however, a senseless and seducing continency, ensnaring precious souls, not able as yet to reach the height of virtue, and easily beguiled with the veneer of what was but a shadowy and feigned virtue. " "6.1
1.18. 18. And I, puzzling over and reviewing these things, most marvelled at the length of time from that my nineteenth year, wherein I began to be inflamed with the desire of wisdom, resolving, when I had found her, to forsake all the empty hopes and lying insanities of vain desires. And behold, I was now getting on to my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, eager for the enjoyment of things present, which fly away and destroy me, while I say, Tomorrow I shall discover it; behold, it will appear plainly, and I shall seize it; behold, Faustus will come and explain everything! O you great men, you Academicians, it is then true that nothing certain for the ordering of life can be attained! Nay, let us search the more diligently, and let us not despair. Lo, the things in the ecclesiastical books, which appeared to us absurd aforetime, do not appear so now, and may be otherwise and honestly interpreted. I will set my feet upon that step, where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be discovered. But where and when shall it be sought? Ambrose has no leisure - we have no leisure to read. Where are we to find the books? Whence or when procure them? From whom borrow them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be set apart for the health of the soul. Great hope has risen upon us, the Catholic faith does not teach what we conceived, and vainly accused it of. Her learned ones hold it as an abomination to believe that God is limited by the form of a human body. And do we doubt to 'knock,' in order that the rest may be 'opened'? Matthew 7:7 The mornings are taken up by our scholars; how do we employ the rest of the day? Why do we not set about this? But when, then, pay our respects to our great friends, of whose favours we stand in need? When prepare what our scholars buy from us? When recreate ourselves, relaxing our minds from the pressure of care? 19. Perish everything, and let us dismiss these empty vanities, and betake ourselves solely to the search after truth! Life is miserable, death uncertain. If it creeps upon us suddenly, in what state shall we depart hence, and where shall we learn what we have neglected here? Or rather shall we not suffer the punishment of this negligence? What if death itself should cut off and put an end to all care and feeling? This also, then, must be inquired into. But God forbid that it should be so. It is not without reason, it is no empty thing, that the so eminent height of the authority of the Christian faith is diffused throughout the entire world. Never would such and so great things be wrought for us, if, by the death of the body, the life of the soul were destroyed. Why, therefore, do we delay to abandon our hopes of this world, and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the blessed life? But stay! Even those things are enjoyable; and they possess some and no little sweetness. We must not abandon them lightly, for it would be a shame to return to them again. Behold, now is it a great matter to obtain some post of honour! And what more could we desire? We have crowds of influential friends, though we have nothing else, and if we make haste a presidentship may be offered us; and a wife with some money, that she increase not our expenses; and this shall be the height of desire. Many men, who are great and worthy of imitation, have applied themselves to the study of wisdom in the marriage state. 20. Whilst I talked of these things, and these winds veered about and tossed my heart hither and there, the time passed on; but I was slow to turn to the Lord, and from day to day deferred to live in You, and deferred not daily to die in myself. Being enamoured of a happy life, I yet feared it in its own abode, and, fleeing from it, sought after it. I conceived that I should be too unhappy were I deprived of the embracements of a woman; and of Your merciful medicine to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it. As regards continency, I imagined it to be under the control of our own strength (though in myself I found it not), being so foolish as not to know what is written, that none can be continent unless Thou give it; and that You would give it, if with heartfelt groaning I should knock at Your ears, and should with firm faith cast my care upon You. " "
6.11.20. 18. And I, puzzling over and reviewing these things, most marvelled at the length of time from that my nineteenth year, wherein I began to be inflamed with the desire of wisdom, resolving, when I had found her, to forsake all the empty hopes and lying insanities of vain desires. And behold, I was now getting on to my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire, eager for the enjoyment of things present, which fly away and destroy me, while I say, Tomorrow I shall discover it; behold, it will appear plainly, and I shall seize it; behold, Faustus will come and explain everything! O you great men, you Academicians, it is then true that nothing certain for the ordering of life can be attained! Nay, let us search the more diligently, and let us not despair. Lo, the things in the ecclesiastical books, which appeared to us absurd aforetime, do not appear so now, and may be otherwise and honestly interpreted. I will set my feet upon that step, where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be discovered. But where and when shall it be sought? Ambrose has no leisure - we have no leisure to read. Where are we to find the books? Whence or when procure them? From whom borrow them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be set apart for the health of the soul. Great hope has risen upon us, the Catholic faith does not teach what we conceived, and vainly accused it of. Her learned ones hold it as an abomination to believe that God is limited by the form of a human body. And do we doubt to 'knock,' in order that the rest may be 'opened'? Matthew 7:7 The mornings are taken up by our scholars; how do we employ the rest of the day? Why do we not set about this? But when, then, pay our respects to our great friends, of whose favours we stand in need? When prepare what our scholars buy from us? When recreate ourselves, relaxing our minds from the pressure of care? 19. Perish everything, and let us dismiss these empty vanities, and betake ourselves solely to the search after truth! Life is miserable, death uncertain. If it creeps upon us suddenly, in what state shall we depart hence, and where shall we learn what we have neglected here? Or rather shall we not suffer the punishment of this negligence? What if death itself should cut off and put an end to all care and feeling? This also, then, must be inquired into. But God forbid that it should be so. It is not without reason, it is no empty thing, that the so eminent height of the authority of the Christian faith is diffused throughout the entire world. Never would such and so great things be wrought for us, if, by the death of the body, the life of the soul were destroyed. Why, therefore, do we delay to abandon our hopes of this world, and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the blessed life? But stay! Even those things are enjoyable; and they possess some and no little sweetness. We must not abandon them lightly, for it would be a shame to return to them again. Behold, now is it a great matter to obtain some post of honour! And what more could we desire? We have crowds of influential friends, though we have nothing else, and if we make haste a presidentship may be offered us; and a wife with some money, that she increase not our expenses; and this shall be the height of desire. Many men, who are great and worthy of imitation, have applied themselves to the study of wisdom in the marriage state. 20. Whilst I talked of these things, and these winds veered about and tossed my heart hither and there, the time passed on; but I was slow to turn to the Lord, and from day to day deferred to live in You, and deferred not daily to die in myself. Being enamoured of a happy life, I yet feared it in its own abode, and, fleeing from it, sought after it. I conceived that I should be too unhappy were I deprived of the embracements of a woman; and of Your merciful medicine to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it. As regards continency, I imagined it to be under the control of our own strength (though in myself I found it not), being so foolish as not to know what is written, that none can be continent unless Thou give it; and that You would give it, if with heartfelt groaning I should knock at Your ears, and should with firm faith cast my care upon You. " '
6.13.23. 23. Active efforts were made to get me a wife. I wooed, I was engaged, my mother taking the greatest pains in the matter, that when I was once married, the health-giving baptism might cleanse me; for which she rejoiced that I was being daily fitted, remarking that her desires and Your promises were being fulfilled in my faith. At which time, verily, both at my request and her own desire, with strong heartfelt cries did we daily beg of You that You would by a vision disclose unto her something concerning my future marriage; but You would not. She saw indeed certain vain and fantastic things, such as the earnestness of a human spirit, bent thereon, conjured up; and these she told me of, not with her usual confidence when You had shown her anything, but slighting them. For she could, she declared, through some feeling which she could not express in words, discern the difference between Your revelations and the dreams of her own spirit. Yet the affair was pressed on, and a maiden sued who wanted two years of the marriageable age; and, as she was pleasing, she was waited for. 6.1
4.24. 24. And many of us friends, consulting on and abhorring the turbulent vexations of human life, had considered and now almost determined upon living at ease and separate from the turmoil of men. And this was to be obtained in this way; we were to bring whatever we could severally procure, and make a common household, so that, through the sincerity of our friendship, nothing should belong more to one than the other; but the whole, being derived from all, should as a whole belong to each, and the whole unto all. It seemed to us that this society might consist of ten persons, some of whom were very rich, especially Romanianus, our townsman, an intimate friend of mine from his childhood, whom grave business matters had then brought up to Court; who was the most earnest of us all for this project, and whose voice was of great weight in commending it, because his estate was far more ample than that of the rest. We had arranged, too, that two officers should be chosen yearly, for the providing of all necessary things, while the rest were left undisturbed. But when we began to reflect whether the wives which some of us had already, and others hoped to have, would permit this, all that plan, which was being so well framed, broke to pieces in our hands, and was utterly wrecked and cast aside. Thence we fell again to sighs and groans, and our steps to follow the broad and beaten ways Matthew 7:13 of the world; for many thoughts were in our heart, but Your counsel stands forever. Out of which counsel You mocked ours, and prepared Your own, purposing to give us meat in due season, and to open Your hand, and to fill our souls with blessing. ' "
6.15.25. 25. Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding. And she went back to Africa, making a vow unto You never to know another man, leaving with me my natural son by her. But I, unhappy one, who could not imitate a woman, impatient of delay, since it was not until two years' time I was to obtain her I sought - being not so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust - procured another (not a wife, though), that so by the bondage of a lasting habit the disease of my soul might be nursed up, and kept up in its vigour, or even increased, into the kingdom of marriage. Nor was that wound of mine as yet cured which had been caused by the separation from my former mistress, but after inflammation and most acute anguish it mortified, and the pain became numbed, but more desperate. " "
7.3. 4. But I also, as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded, that Thou our Lord, the true God, who made not only our souls but our bodies, and not our souls and bodies alone, but all creatures and all things, were uncontaminable and inconvertible, and in no part mutable: yet understood I not readily and clearly what was the cause of evil. And yet, whatever it was, I perceived that it must be so sought out as not to constrain me by it to believe that the immutable God was mutable, lest I myself should become the thing that I was seeking out. I sought, therefore, for it free from care, certain of the untruthfulness of what these asserted, whom I shunned with my whole heart; for I perceived that through seeking after the origin of evil, they were filled with malice, in that they liked better to think that Your Substance did suffer evil than that their own did commit it. 5. And I directed my attention to discern what I now heard, that free will was the cause of our doing evil, and Your righteous judgment of our suffering it. But I was unable clearly to discern it. So, then, trying to draw the eye of my mind from that pit, I was plunged again therein, and trying often, was as often plunged back again. But this raised me towards Your light, that I knew as well that I had a will as that I had life: when, therefore, I was willing or unwilling to do anything, I was most certain that it was none but myself that was willing and unwilling; and immediately I perceived that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will I saw that I suffered rather than did, and that judged I not to be my fault, but my punishment; whereby, believing You to be most just, I quickly confessed myself to be not unjustly punished. But again I said: Who made me? Was it not my God, who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence came I then to will to do evil, and to be unwilling to do good, that there might be cause for my just punishment? Who was it that put this in me, and implanted in me the root of bitterness, seeing I was altogether made by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, whence is that devil? And if he also, by his own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence also was the evil will in him whereby he became a devil, seeing that the angel was made altogether good by that most Good Creator? By these reflections was I again cast down and stifled; yet not plunged into that hell of error (where no man confesses unto You), to think that You allow evil, rather than that man does it.
7.5.7. 7. And I sought whence is evil? And sought in an evil way; nor saw I the evil in my very search. And I set in order before the view of my spirit the whole creation, and whatever we can discern in it, such as earth, sea, air, stars, trees, living creatures; yea, and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, all the angels, too, and all the spiritual inhabitants thereof. But these very beings, as though they were bodies, did my fancy dispose in such and such places, and I made one huge mass of all Your creatures, distinguished according to the kinds of bodies - some of them being real bodies, some what I myself had feigned for spirits. And this mass I made huge - not as it was, which I could not know, but as large as I thought well, yet every way finite. But You, O Lord, I imagined on every part environing and penetrating it, though every way infinite; as if there were a sea everywhere, and on every side through immensity nothing but an infinite sea; and it contained within itself some sponge, huge, though finite, so that the sponge would in all its parts be filled from the immeasurable sea. So conceived I Your Creation to be itself finite, and filled by You, the Infinite. And I said, Behold God, and behold what God has created; and God is good, yea, most mightily and incomparably better than all these; but yet He, who is good, has created them good, and behold how He encircles and fills them. Where, then, is evil, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed? Or has it no being at all? Why, then, do we fear and shun that which has no being? Or if we fear it needlessly, then surely is that fear evil whereby the heart is unnecessarily pricked and tormented - and so much a greater evil, as we have naught to fear, and yet do fear. Therefore either that is evil which we fear, or the act of fearing is in itself evil. Whence, therefore, is it, seeing that God, who is good, has made all these things good? He, indeed, the greatest and chiefest Good, has created these lesser goods; but both Creator and created are all good. Whence is evil? Or was there some evil matter of which He made and formed and ordered it, but left something in it which He did not convert into good? But why was this? Was He powerless to change the whole lump, so that no evil should remain in it, seeing that He is omnipotent? Lastly, why would He make anything at all of it, and not rather by the same omnipotency cause it not to be at all? Or could it indeed exist contrary to His will? Or if it were from eternity, why did He permit it so to be for infinite spaces of times in the past, and was pleased so long after to make something out of it? Or if He wished now all of a sudden to do something, this rather should the Omnipotent have accomplished, that this evil matter should not be at all, and that He only should be the whole, true, chief, and infinite Good. Or if it were not good that He, who was good, should not also be the framer and creator of what was good, then that matter which was evil being removed, and brought to nothing, He might form good matter, whereof He might create all things. For He would not be omnipotent were He not able to create something good without being assisted by that matter which had not been created by Himself. Such like things did I revolve in my miserable breast, overwhelmed with most gnawing cares lest I should die ere I discovered the truth; yet was the faith of Your Christ, our Lord and Saviour, as held in the Catholic Church, fixed firmly in my heart, unformed, indeed, as yet upon many points, and diverging from doctrinal rules, but yet my mind did not utterly leave it, but every day rather drank in more and more of it. ' "
7.7.11. 11. And now, O my Helper, had Thou freed me from those fetters; and I inquired, Whence is evil? and found no result. But You suffered me not to be carried away from the faith by any fluctuations of thought, whereby I believed You both to exist, and Your substance to be unchangeable, and that You had a care of and would judge men; and that in Christ, Your Son, our Lord, and the Holy Scriptures, which the authority of Your Catholic Church pressed upon me, You had planned the way of man's salvation to that life which is to come after this death. These things being safe and immoveably settled in my mind, I eagerly inquired, Whence is evil? What torments did my travailing heart then endure! What sighs, O my God! Yet even there were Your ears open, and I knew it not; and when in stillness I sought earnestly, those silent contritions of my soul were strong cries unto Your mercy. No man knows, but only Thou, what I endured. For what was that which was thence through my tongue poured into the ears of my most familiar friends? Did the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor speech was sufficient, reach them? Yet went the whole into Your ears, all of which I bellowed out from the sightings of my heart; and my desire was before You, and the light of my eyes was not with me; for that was within, I without. Nor was that in place, but my attention was directed to things contained in place; but there did I find no resting-place, nor did they receive me in such a way as that I could say, It is sufficient, it is well; nor did they let me turn back, where it might be well enough with me. For to these things was I superior, but inferior to You; and You are my true joy when I am subjected to You, and You had subjected to me what You created beneath me. And this was the true temperature and middle region of my safety, to continue in Your image, and by serving You to have dominion over the body. But when I lifted myself proudly against You, and ran against the Lord, even on His neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, Job 15:26 even these inferior things were placed above me, and pressed upon me, and nowhere was there alleviation or breathing space. They encountered my sight on every side in crowds and troops, and in thought the images of bodies obtruded themselves as I was returning to You, as if they would say unto me, Where are you going, unworthy and base one? And these things had sprung forth out of my wound; for you humble the proud like one that is wounded, and through my own swelling was I separated from You; yea, my too much swollen face closed up my eyes. " '7.
9.13. 13. And You, willing first to show me how You resist the proud, but give grace to the humble and by how great art act of mercy You had pointed out to men the path of humility, in that Your Word was made flesh and dwelt among men - You procured for me, by the instrumentality of one inflated with most monstrous pride, certain books of the Platonists, translated from Greek into Latin. And therein I read, not indeed in the same words, but to the selfsame effect, enforced by many and various reasons, that, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. That which was made by Him is life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehends it not. John 1:1-5 And that the soul of man, though it bears witness of the light, yet itself is not that light; but the Word of God, being God, is that true light that lights every man that comes into the world. John 1:9 And that He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. But that He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name. This I did not read there. 14. In like manner, I read there that God the Word was born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. But that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, I read not there. For I discovered in those books that it was in many and various ways said, that the Son was in the form of the Father, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, for that naturally He was the same substance. But that He emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him from the dead, and given Him a name above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father; Philippians 2:6-11 those books have not. For that before all times, and above all times, Your only-begotten Son remains unchangeably co-eternal with You; and that of His fullness souls receive, John 1:16 that they may be blessed; and that by participation of the wisdom remaining in them they are renewed, that they may be wise, is there. But that in due time Christ died for the ungodly, Romans 5:6 and that You spared not Your only Son, but delivered Him up for us all, Romans 8:32 is not there. Because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; Matthew 11:25 that they that labour and are heavy laden might come unto Him and He might refresh them, because He is meek and lowly in heart. The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will He teach His way; looking upon our humility and our distress, and forgiving all our sins. But such as are puffed up with the elation of would-be sublimer learning, do not hear Him saying, Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. Matthew 11:29 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:21-22 15. And therefore also did I read there, that they had changed the glory of Your incorruptible nature into idols and various forms - into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, namely, into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright; Genesis 25:33-34 for that Your first-born people worshipped the head of a four-footed beast instead of You, turning back in heart towards Egypt, and prostrating Your image - their own soul- before the image of an ox that eats grass. These things found I there; but I fed not on them. For it pleased You, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger; Romans 9:12 and You have called the Gentiles into Your inheritance. And I had come unto You from among the Gentiles, and I strained after that gold which You willed Your people to take from Egypt, seeing that wheresoever it was it was Yours. And to the Athenians Thou said by Your apostle, that in You we live, and move, and have our being; as one of their own poets has said. Acts 17:28 And verily these books came from thence. But I set not my mind on the idols of Egypt, whom they ministered to with Your gold, Hosea 2:8 who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. Romans 1:25 ' "
7.10.16. 16. And being thence warned to return to myself, I entered into my inward self, Thou leading me on; and I was able to do it, for You had become my helper. And I entered, and with the eye of my soul (such as it was) saw above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Unchangeable Light. Not this common light, which all flesh may look upon, nor, as it were, a greater one of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be much more resplendent, and with its greatness fill up all things. Not like this was that light, but different, yea, very different from all these. Nor was it above my mind as oil is above water, nor as heaven above earth; but above it was, because it made me, and I below it, because I was made by it. He who knows the Truth knows that Light; and he that knows it knows eternity. Love knows it. O Eternal Truth, and true Love, and loved Eternity! You are my God; to You do I sigh both night and day. When I first knew You, You lifted me up, that I might see there was that which I might see, and that yet it was not I that did see. And Thou beat back the infirmity of my sight, pouring forth upon me most strongly Your beams of light, and I trembled with love and fear; and I found myself to be far off from You, in the region of dissimilarity, as if I heard this voice of Yours from on high: I am the food of strong men; grow, and you shall feed upon me; nor shall you convert me, like the food of your flesh, into you, but you shall be converted into me. And I learned that You correct man for iniquity, and You make my soul consume away like a spider. And I said, Is Truth, therefore, nothing because it is neither diffused through space, finite, nor infinite? And You cried to me from afar, Yea, verily, 'I Am that I Am.' And I heard this, as things are heard in the heart, nor was there room for doubt; and I should more readily doubt that I live than that Truth is not, which is clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Romans 1:20 " '
7.12.18. 18. And it was made clear unto me that those things are good which yet are corrupted, which, neither were they supremely good, nor unless they were good, could be corrupted; because if supremely good, they were incorruptible, and if not good at all, there was nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption harms, but, less it could diminish goodness, it could not harm. Either, then, corruption harms not, which cannot be; or, what is most certain, all which is corrupted is deprived of good. But if they be deprived of all good, they will cease to be. For if they be, and cannot be at all corrupted, they will become better, because they shall remain incorruptibly. And what more monstrous than to assert that those things which have lost all their goodness are made better? Therefore, if they shall be deprived of all good, they shall no longer be. So long, therefore, as they are, they are good; therefore whatsoever is, is good. That evil, then, which I sought whence it was, is not any substance; for were it a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance, and so a chief good, or a corruptible substance, which unless it were good it could not be corrupted. I perceived, therefore, and it was made clear to me, that Thou made all things good, nor is there any substance at all that was not made by You; and because all that You have made are not equal, therefore all things are; because individually they are good, and altogether very good, because our God made all things very good.
7.17.23. 23. And I marvelled that I now loved You, and no phantasm instead of You. And yet I did not merit to enjoy my God, but was transported to You by Your beauty, and presently torn away from You by my own weight, sinking with grief into these inferior things. This weight was carnal custom. Yet was there a remembrance of You with me; nor did I any way doubt that there was one to whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet one who could cleave unto You; for that the body which is corrupted presses down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind which thinks upon many things. Wisdom 9:15 And most certain I was that Your invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Your eternal power and Godhead. Romans 1:20 For, inquiring whence it was that I admired the beauty of bodies whether celestial or terrestrial, and what supported me in judging correctly on things mutable, and pronouncing, This should be thus, this not,- inquiring, then, whence I so judged, seeing I did so judge, I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of Truth, above my changeable mind. And thus, by degrees, I passed from bodies to the soul, which makes use of the senses of the body to perceive; and thence to its inward faculty, to which the bodily senses represent outward things, and up to which reach the capabilities of beasts; and thence, again, I passed on to the reasoning faculty, unto which whatever is received from the senses of the body is referred to be judged, which also, finding itself to be variable in me, raised itself up to its own intelligence, and from habit drew away my thoughts, withdrawing itself from the crowds of contradictory phantasms; that so it might find out that light by which it was besprinkled, when, without all doubting, it cried out, that the unchangeable was to be preferred before the changeable; whence also it knew that unchangeable, which, unless it had in some way known, it could have had no sure ground for preferring it to the changeable. And thus, with the flash of a trembling glance, it arrived at that which is. And then I saw Your invisible things understood by the things that are made. Romans 1:20 But I was not able to fix my gaze thereon; and my infirmity being beaten back, I was thrown again on my accustomed habits, carrying along with me naught but a loving memory thereof, and an appetite for what I had, as it were, smelt the odour of, but was not yet able to eat.
7.18.24. 24. And I sought a way of acquiring strength sufficient to enjoy You; but I found it not until I embraced that Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5 who is over all, God blessed for ever, Romans 9:5 calling unto me, and saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life, John 14:6 and mingling that food which I was unable to receive with our flesh. For the Word was made flesh, John 1:14 that Your wisdom, by which You created all things, might provide milk for our infancy. For I did not grasp my Lord Jesus, - I, though humbled, grasped not the humble One; nor did I know what lesson that infirmity of His would teach us. For Your Word, the Eternal Truth, pre-eminent above the higher parts of Your creation, raises up those that are subject unto Itself; but in this lower world built for Itself a humble habitation of our clay, whereby He intended to abase from themselves such as would be subjected and bring them over unto Himself, allaying their swelling, and fostering their love; to the end that they might go on no further in self-confidence, but rather should become weak, seeing before their feet the Divinity weak by taking our coats of skins; and wearied, might cast themselves down upon It, and It rising, might lift them up.
8.2.3. 3. To Simplicianus then I went - the father of Ambrose (at that time a bishop) in receiving Your grace, and whom he truly loved as a father. To him I narrated the windings of my error. But when I mentioned to him that I had read certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, sometime Professor of Rhetoric at Rome (who died a Christian, as I had been told), had translated into Latin, he congratulated me that I had not fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, which were full of fallacies and deceit, after the rudiments of the world, Colossians 2:8 whereas they, in many ways, led to the belief in God and His word. Then, to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones, Matthew 11:25 he spoke of Victorinus himself, whom, while he was at Rome, he had known very intimately; and of him he related that about which I will not be silent. For it contains great praise of Your grace, which ought to be confessed unto You, how that most learned old man, highly skilled in all the liberal sciences, who had read, criticised, and explained so many works of the philosophers; the teacher of so many noble senators; who also, as a mark of his excellent discharge of his duties, had (which men of this world esteem a great honour) both merited and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum, he - even to that age a worshipper of idols, and a participator in the sacrilegious rites to which almost all the nobility of Rome were wedded, and had inspired the people with the love of The dog Anubis, and a medley crew of monster gods who 'gainst Neptune stand in arms, 'Gainst Venus and Minerva, steel-clad Mars, whom Rome once conquered, now worshipped, all which old Victorinus had with thundering eloquence defended so many years - he now blushed not to be the child of Your Christ, and an infant at Your fountain, submitting his neck to the yoke of humility, and subduing his forehead to the reproach of the Cross. 4. O Lord, Lord, who has bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains and they did smoke, by what means did You convey Yourself into that bosom? He used to read, as Simplicianus said, the Holy Scripture, most studiously sought after and searched into all the Christian writings, and said to Simplicianus, - not openly, but secretly, and as a friend -Know that I am a Christian. To which he replied, I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among the Christians unless I see you in the Church of Christ. Whereupon he replied derisively, Is it then the walls that make Christians? And this he often said, that he already was a Christian; and Simplidanus making the same answer, the conceit of the walls was by the other as often renewed. For he was fearful of offending his friends, proud demon-worshippers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from cedars of Lebanon which had not yet been broken by the Lord, he thought a storm of enmity would descend upon him. But after that, from reading and inquiry, he had derived strength, and feared lest he should be denied by Christ before the holy angels if he now was afraid to confess Him before men, Luke 9:26 and appeared to himself guilty of a great fault in being ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of Your word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons, whose pride he had imitated and their rites adopted, he became bold-faced against vanity, and shame-faced toward the truth, and suddenly and unexpectedly said to Simplicianus, - as he himself informed me -Let us go to the church; I wish to be made a Christian. But he, not containing himself for joy, accompanied him. And having been admitted to the first sacraments of instruction, he not long after gave in his name, that he might be regenerated by baptism - Rome marvelling, and the Church rejoicing. The proud saw, and were enraged; they gnashed with their teeth, and melted away! But the Lord God was the hope of Your servant, and He regarded not vanities and lying madness. 5. Finally, when the hour arrived for him to make profession of his faith (which at Rome they who are about to approach Your grace are wont to deliver from an elevated place, in view of the faithful people, in a set form of words learned by heart), the presbyters, he said, offered Victorinus to make his profession more privately, as the custom was to do to those who were likely, through bashfulness, to be afraid; but he chose rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy assembly. For it was not salvation that he taught in rhetoric, and yet he had publicly professed that. How much less, therefore, ought he, when pronouncing Your word, to dread Your meek flock, who, in the delivery of his own words, had not feared the mad multitudes! So, then, when he ascended to make his profession, all, as they recognised him, whispered his name one to the other, with a voice of congratulation. And who was there among them that did not know him? And there ran a low murmur through the mouths of all the rejoicing multitude, Victorinus! Victorinus! Sudden was the burst of exultation at the sight of him; and suddenly were they hushed, that they might hear him. He pronounced the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all desired to take him to their very heart - yea, by their love and joy they took him there; such were the hands with which they took him. " '
8.5. 10. But when that man of Yours, Simplicianus, related this to me about Victorinus, I burned to imitate him; and it was for this end he had related it. But when he had added this also, that in the time of the Emperor Julian, there was a law made by which Christians were forbidden to teach grammar and oratory, and he, in obedience to this law, chose rather to abandon the wordy school than Your word, by which You make eloquent the tongues of the dumb, Wisdom 10:21 - he appeared to me not more brave than happy, in having thus discovered an opportunity of waiting on You only, which thing I was sighing for, thus bound, not with the irons of another, but my own iron will. My will was the enemy master of, and thence had made a chain for me and bound me. Because of a perverse will was lust made; and lust indulged in became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together (whence I term it a chain), did a hard bondage hold me enthralled. givest away thy strength to resist him in the rest; when the hem is worn, the whole garment will ravel out, if it be not mended by timely repentance. See Müller, Lehre von der Sünde, book v., where the beginnings and alarming progress of evil in the soul are graphically described. See 9JKLJKLsec. 18, note, below}-- But that new will which had begun to develope in me, freely to worship You, and to wish to enjoy You, O God, the only sure enjoyment, was not able as yet to overcome my former wilfulness, made strong by long indulgence. Thus did my two wills, one old and the other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, contend within me; and by their discord they unstrung my soul. 11. Thus came I to understand, from my own experience, what I had read, how that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Galatians 5:17 I verily lusted both ways; yet more in that which I approved in myself, than in that which I disapproved in myself. For in this last it was now rather not I, Romans 7:20 because in much I rather suffered against my will than did it willingly. And yet it was through me that custom became more combative against me, because I had come willingly whither I willed not. And who, then, can with any justice speak against it, when just punishment follows the sinner? Nor had I now any longer my wonted excuse, that as yet I hesitated to be above the world and serve You, because my perception of the truth was uncertain; for now it was certain. But I, still bound to the earth, refused to be Your soldier; and was as much afraid of being freed from all embarrassments, as we ought to fear to be embarrassed. 12. Thus with the baggage of the world was I sweetly burdened, as when in slumber; and the thoughts wherein I meditated upon You were like the efforts of those desiring to awake, who, still overpowered with a heavy drowsiness, are again steeped therein. And as no one desires to sleep always, and in the sober judgment of all waking is better, yet does a man generally defer to shake off drowsiness, when there is a heavy lethargy in all his limbs, and, though displeased, yet even after it is time to rise with pleasure yields to it, so was I assured that it were much better for me to give up myself to Your charity, than to yield myself to my own cupidity; but the former course satisfied and vanquished me, the latter pleased me and fettered me. Nor had I anything to answer You calling to me, Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. Ephesians 5:14 And to You showing me on every side, that what Thou said was true, I, convicted by the truth, had nothing at all to reply, but the drawling and drowsy words: Presently, lo, presently; Leave me a little while. But presently, presently, had no present; and my leave me a little while went on for a long while. In vain did I delight in Your law after the inner man, when another law in my members warred against the law of my mind, and brought me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. For the law of sin is the violence of custom, whereby the mind is drawn and held, even against its will; deserving to be so held in that it so willingly falls into it. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death but Your grace only, through Jesus Christ our Lord? ' "8.6. 13. And how, then, Thou delivered me out of the bonds of carnal desire, wherewith I was most firmly fettered, and out of the drudgery of worldly business, will I now declare and confess unto Your name, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amid increasing anxiety, I was transacting my usual affairs, and daily sighing unto You. I resorted as frequently to Your church as the business, under the burden of which I groaned, left me free to do. Alypius was with me, being after the third sitting disengaged from his legal occupation, and awaiting further opportunity of selling his counsel, as I was wont to sell the power of speaking, if it can be supplied by teaching. But Nebridius had, on account of our friendship, consented to teach under Verecundus, a citizen and a grammarian of Milan, and a very intimate friend of us all; who vehemently desired, and by the right of friendship demanded from our company, the faithful aid he greatly stood in need of. Nebridius, then, was not drawn to this by any desire of gain (for he could have made much more of his learning had he been so inclined), but, as a most sweet and kindly friend, he would not be wanting in an office of friendliness, and slight our request. But in this he acted very discreetly, taking care not to become known to those personages whom the world esteems great; thus avoiding distraction of mind, which he desired to have free and at leisure as many hours as possible, to search, or read, or hear something concerning wisdom. 14. Upon a certain day, then, Nebridius being away (why, I do not remember), lo, there came to the house to see Alypius and me, Pontitianus, a countryman of ours, in so far as he was an African, who held high office in the emperor's court. What he wanted with us I know not, but we sat down to talk together, and it fell out that upon a table before us, used for games, he noticed a book; he took it up, opened it, and, contrary to his expectation, found it to be the Apostle Paul - for he imagined it to be one of those books which I was wearing myself out in teaching. At this he looked up at me smilingly, and expressed his delight and wonder that he had so unexpectedly found this book, and this only, before my eyes. For he was both a Christian and baptized, and often prostrated himself before You our God in the church, in constant and daily prayers. When, then, I had told him that I bestowed much pains upon these writings, a conversation ensued on his speaking of Antony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was in high repute among Your servants, though up to that time not familiar to us. When he came to know this, he lingered on that topic, imparting to us a knowledge of this man so eminent, and marvelling at our ignorance. But we were amazed, hearing Your wonderful works most fully manifested in times so recent, and almost in our own, wrought in the true faith and the Catholic Church. We all wondered - we, that they were so great, and he, that we had never heard of them. 15. From this his conversation turned to the companies in the monasteries, and their manners so fragrant unto You, and of the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, of which we knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan full of good brethren, without the walls of the city, under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we were ignorant of it. He went on with his relation, and we listened intently and in silence. He then related to us how on a certain afternoon, at Triers, when the emperor was taken up with seeing the Circensian games, he and three others, his comrades, went out for a walk in the gardens close to the city walls, and there, as they chanced to walk two and two, one strolled away with him, while the other two went by themselves; and these, in their rambling, came upon a certain cottage inhabited by some of Your servants, poor in spirit, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, where they found a book in which was written the life of Antony. This one of them began to read, marvel at, and be inflamed by it; and in the reading, to meditate on embracing such a life, and giving up his worldly employments to serve You. And these were of the body called Agents for Public Affairs. Then, suddenly being overwhelmed with a holy love and a sober sense of shame, in anger with himself, he cast his eyes upon his friend, exclaiming, Tell me, I entreat you, what end we are striving for by all these labours of ours. What is our aim? What is our motive in doing service? Can our hopes in court rise higher than to be ministers of the emperor? And in such a position, what is there not brittle, and fraught with danger, and by how many dangers arrive we at greater danger? And when arrive we there? But if I desire to become a friend of God, behold, I am even now made it. Thus spoke he, and in the pangs of the travail of the new life, he turned his eyes again upon the page and continued reading, and was inwardly changed where Thou saw, and his mind was divested of the world, as soon became evident; for as he read, and the surging of his heart rolled along, he raged awhile, discerned and resolved on a better course, and now, having become Yours, he said to his friend, Now have I broken loose from those hopes of ours, and am determined to serve God; and this, from this hour, in this place, I enter upon. If you are reluctant to imitate me, hinder me not. The other replied that he would cleave to him, to share in so great a reward and so great a service. Thus both of them, being now Yours, were building a tower at the necessary cost, Luke 14:26-35 - of forsaking all that they had and following You. Then Pontitianus, and he that had walked with him through other parts of the garden, came in search of them to the same place, and having found them, reminded them to return as the day had declined. But they, making known to him their resolution and purpose, and how such a resolve had sprung up and become confirmed in them, entreated them not to molest them, if they refused to join themselves unto them. But the others, no whit changed from their former selves, did yet (as he said) bewail themselves, and piously congratulated them, recommending themselves to their prayers; and with their hearts inclining towards earthly things, returned to the palace. But the other two, setting their affections upon heavenly things, remained in the cottage. And both of them had affianced brides, who, when they heard of this, dedicated also their virginity unto God. " "
8.9. 21. Whence is this monstrous thing? And why is it? Let Your mercy shine on me, that I may inquire, if so be the hiding-places of man's punishment, and the darkest contritions of the sons of Adam, may perhaps answer me. Whence is this monstrous thing? And why is it? The mind commands the body, and it obeys immediately; the mind commands itself, and is resisted. The mind commands the hand to be moved, and such readiness is there that the command is scarce to be distinguished from the obedience. Yet the mind is mind, and the hand is body. The mind commands the mind to will, and yet, though it be itself, it obeys not. Whence this monstrous thing? And why is it? I repeat, it commands itself to will, and would not give the command unless it willed; yet is not that done which it commands. But it wills not entirely; therefore it commands not entirely. For so far forth it commands, as it wills; and so far forth is the thing commanded not done, as it wills not. For the will commands that there be a will;- not another, but itself. But it does not command entirely, therefore that is not which it commands. For were it entire, it would not even command it to be, because it would already be. It is, therefore, no monstrous thing partly to will, partly to be unwilling, but an infirmity of the mind, that it does not wholly rise, sustained by truth, pressed down by custom. And so there are two wills, because one of them is not entire; and the one is supplied with what the other needs. " '8.10. 22. Let them perish from Your presence, O God, as vain talkers and deceivers Titus 1:10 of the soul do perish, who, observing that there were two wills in deliberating, affirm that there are two kinds of minds in us - one good, the other evil. They themselves verily are evil when they hold these evil opinions; and they shall become good when they hold the truth, and shall consent unto the truth, that Your apostle may say unto them, You were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Ephesians 5:8 But, they, desiring to be light, not in the Lord, but in themselves, conceiving the nature of the soul to be the same as that which God is, are made more gross darkness; for that through a shocking arrogancy they went farther from You, the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world. John 1:9 Take heed what you say, and blush for shame; draw near unto Him and be lightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed. I, when I was deliberating upon serving the Lord my God now, as I had long purposed - I it was who willed, I who was unwilling. It was I, even I myself. I neither willed entirely, nor was entirely unwilling. Therefore was I at war with myself, and destroyed by myself. And this destruction overtook me against my will, and yet showed not the presence of another mind, but the punishment of my own. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me, Romans 7:17 - the punishment of a more unconfined sin, in that I was a son of Adam. 23. For if there be as many contrary natures as there are conflicting wills, there will not now be two natures only, but many. If any one deliberate whether he should go to their conventicle, or to the theatre, those men at once cry out, Behold, here are two natures - one good, drawing this way, another bad, drawing back that way; for whence else is this indecision between conflicting wills? But I reply that both are bad - that which draws to them, and that which draws back to the theatre. But they believe not that will to be other than good which draws to them. Supposing, then, one of us should deliberate, and through the conflict of his two wills should waver whether he should go to the theatre or to our church, would not these also waver what to answer? For either they must confess, which they are not willing to do, that the will which leads to our church is good, as well as that of those who have received and are held by the mysteries of theirs, or they must imagine that there are two evil natures and two evil minds in one man, at war one with the other; and that will not be true which they say, that there is one good and another bad; or they must be converted to the truth, and no longer deny that where any one deliberates, there is one soul fluctuating between conflicting wills. 24. Let them no more say, then, when they perceive two wills to be antagonistic to each other in the same man, that the contest is between two opposing minds, of two opposing substances, from two opposing principles, the one good and the other bad. For Thou, O true God, disprove, check, and convince them; like as when both wills are bad, one deliberates whether he should kill a man by poison, or by the sword; whether he should take possession of this or that estate of another's, when he cannot both; whether he should purchase pleasure by prodigality, or retain his money by covetousness; whether he should go to the circus or the theatre, if both are open on the same day; or, thirdly, whether he should rob another man's house, if he have the opportunity; or, fourthly, whether he should commit adultery, if at the same time he have the means of doing so - all these things concurring in the same point of time, and all being equally longed for, although impossible to be enacted at one time. For they rend the mind amid four, or even (among the vast variety of things men desire) more antagonistic wills, nor do they yet affirm that there are so many different substances. Thus also is it in wills which are good. For I ask them, is it a good thing to have delight in reading the apostle, or good to have delight in a sober psalm, or good to discourse on the gospel? To each of these they will answer, It is good. What, then, if all equally delight us, and all at the same time? Do not different wills distract the mind, when a man is deliberating which he should rather choose? Yet are they all good, and are at variance until one be fixed upon, whither the whole united will may be borne, which before was divided into many. Thus, also, when above eternity delights us, and the pleasure of temporal good holds us down below, it is the same soul which wills not that or this with an entire will, and is therefore torn asunder with grievous perplexities, while out of truth it prefers that, but out of custom forbears not this. " "
8.12. 28. But when a profound reflection had, from the secret depths of my soul, drawn together and heaped up all my misery before the sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm, accompanied by as mighty a shower of tears. Which, that I might pour forth fully, with its natural expressions, I stole away from Alypius; for it suggested itself to me that solitude was fitter for the business of weeping. So I retired to such a distance that even his presence could not be oppressive to me. Thus was it with me at that time, and he perceived it; for something, I believe, I had spoken, wherein the sound of my voice appeared choked with weeping, and in that state had I risen up. He then remained where we had been sitting, most completely astonished. I flung myself down, how, I know not, under a certain fig-tree, giving free course to my tears, and the streams of my eyes gushed out, an acceptable sacrifice unto You. 1 Peter 2:5 And, not indeed in these words, yet to this effect, spoke I much unto You -But You, O Lord, how long? How long, Lord? Will You be angry for ever? Oh, remember not against us former iniquities; for I felt that I was enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries -How long, how long? Tomorrow, and tomorrow? Why not now? Why is there not this hour an end to my uncleanness? 29. I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo, I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring house, chanting, and oft repeating, Take up and read; take up and read. Immediately my countece was changed, and I began most earnestly to consider whether it was usual for children in any kind of game to sing such words; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So, restraining the torrent of my tears, I rose up, interpreting it no other way than as a command to me from Heaven to open the book, and to read the first chapter I should light upon. For I had heard of Antony, that, accidentally coming in while the gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if what was read were addressed to him, Go and sell that you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me. Matthew 19:2l And by such oracle was he immediately converted unto You. So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles, when I rose thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes first fell -Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. Romans 13:13-14 No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended - by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart - all the gloom of doubt vanished away. 30. Closing the book, then, and putting either my finger between, or some other mark, I now with a tranquil countece made it known to Alypius. And he thus disclosed to me what was wrought in him, which I knew not. He asked to look at what I had read. I showed him; and he looked even further than I had read, and I knew not what followed. This it was, verily, Him that is weak in the faith, receive; Romans 14:1 which he applied to himself, and discovered to me. By this admonition was he strengthened; and by a good resolution and purpose, very much in accord with his character (wherein, for the better, he was always far different from me), without any restless delay he joined me. Thence we go in to my mother. We make it known to her - she rejoices. We relate how it came to pass - she leaps for joy, and triumphs, and blesses You, who art able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think; Ephesians 3:20 for she perceived You to have given her more for me than she used to ask by her pitiful and most doleful groanings. For Thou so converted me unto Yourself, that I sought neither a wife, nor any other of this world's hopes, - standing in that rule of faith in which Thou, so many years before, had showed me unto her in a vision. And you turned her grief into a gladness, much more plentiful than she had desired, and much dearer and chaster than she used to crave, by having grandchildren of my body. <" "
9.1. 1. O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of Your handmaid: You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Let my heart and my tongue praise You, and let all my bones say, Lord, who is like You? Let them so say, and answer Thou me, and say unto my soul, I am Your salvation. Who am I, and what is my nature? How evil have not my deeds been; or if not my deeds, my words; or if not my words, my will? But You, O Lord, art good and merciful, and Your right hand had respect unto the profoundness of my death, and removed from the bottom of my heart that abyss of corruption. And this was the result, that I willed not to do what I willed, and willed to do what you willed. But where, during all those years, and out of what deep and secret retreat was my free will summoned forth in a moment, whereby I gave my neck to Your easy yoke, and my shoulders to Your light burden, Matthew 11:30 O Christ Jesus, my strength and my Redeemer? How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the delights of trifles! And what at one time I feared to lose, it was now a joy to me to put away. For Thou cast them away from me, Thou true and highest sweetness. Thou cast them away, and instead of them entered in Yourself, - sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mysteries; more exalted than all honour, but not to the exalted in their own conceits. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, and of wallowing and exciting the itch of lust. And I babbled unto You my brightness, my riches, and my health, the Lord my God. 9.2. 2. And it seemed good to me, as before You, not tumultuously to snatch away, but gently to withdraw the service of my tongue from the talker's trade; that the young, who thought not on Your law, nor on Your peace, but on mendacious follies and forensic strifes, might no longer purchase at my mouth equipments for their vehemence. And opportunely there wanted but a few days unto the Vacation of the Vintage; and I determined to endure them, in order to leave in the usual way, and, being redeemed by You, no more to return for sale. Our intention then was known to You; but to men - excepting our own friends - was it not known. For we had determined among ourselves not to let it get abroad to any; although You had given to us, ascending from the valley of tears, and singing the song of degrees, sharp arrows, and destroying coals, against the deceitful tongue, which in giving counsel opposes, and in showing love consumes, as it is wont to do with its food. 3. You had penetrated our hearts with Your charity, and we carried Your words fixed, as it were, in our bowels; and the examples of Your servant, whom of black You had made bright, and of dead, alive, crowded in the bosom of our thoughts, burned and consumed our heavy torpor, that we might not topple into the abyss; and they enkindled us exceedingly, that every breath of the deceitful tongue of the gainsayer might inflame us the more, not extinguish us. Nevertheless, because for Your name's sake which You have sanctified throughout the earth, this, our vow and purpose, might also find commenders, it looked like a vaunting of oneself not to wait for the vacation, now so near, but to leave beforehand a public profession, and one, too, under general observation; so that all who looked on this act of mine, and saw how near was the vintage-time I desired to anticipate, would talk of me a great deal as if I were trying to appear to be a great person. And what purpose would it serve that people should consider and dispute about my intention, and that our good should be evil spoken of? Romans 14:16 4. Furthermore, this very summer, from too great literary labour, my lungs began to be weak, and with difficulty to draw deep breaths; showing by the pains in my chest that they were affected, and refusing too loud or prolonged speaking. This had at first been a trial to me, for it compelled me almost of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching; or, if I could be cured and become strong again, at least to leave it off for a while. But when the full desire for leisure, that I might see that You are the Lord, arose, and was confirmed in me, my God, You know I even began to rejoice that I had this excuse ready - and that not a feigned one - which might somewhat temper the offense taken by those who for their sons' good wished me never to have the freedom of sons. Full, therefore, with such joy, I bore it till that period of time had passed - perhaps it was some twenty days - yet they were bravely borne; for the cupidity which was wont to sustain part of this weighty business had departed, and I had remained overwhelmed had not its place been supplied by patience. Some of Your servants, my brethren, may perchance say that I sinned in this, in that having once fully, and from my heart, entered on Your warfare, I permitted myself to sit a single hour in the seat of falsehood. I will not contend. But hast not Thou, O most merciful Lord, pardoned and remitted this sin also, with my others, so horrible and deadly, in the holy water? " "
9.4.7. 7. And the day arrived on which, in very deed, I was to be released from the Professorship of Rhetoric, from which in intention I had been already released. And done it was; and Thou delivered my tongue whence You had already delivered my heart; and full of joy I blessed You for it, and retired with all mine to the villa. What I accomplished here in writing, which was now wholly devoted to Your service, though still, in this pause as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books testify, - those in which I disputed with my friends, and those with myself alone before You; and what with the absent Nebridius, my letters testify. And when can I find time to recount all Your great benefits which You bestowed upon us at that time, especially as I am hasting on to still greater mercies? For my memory calls upon me, and pleasant it is to me, O Lord, to confess unto You, by what inward goads You subdued me, and how Thou made me low, bringing down the mountains and hills of my imaginations, and straightened my crookedness, and smooth my rough ways; Luke 3:5 and by what means Thou also subdued that brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Your only-begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he at first refused to have inserted in our writings. For he rather desired that they should savour of the cedars of the schools, which the Lord has now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, hostile to serpents. 8. What utterances sent I up unto You, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion which exclude all swelling of spirit, when new to Your true love, at rest in the villa with Alypius, a catechumen like myself, my mother cleaving unto us - in woman's garb truly, but with a man's faith, with the peacefulness of age, full of motherly love and Christian piety! What utterances used I to send up unto You in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards You by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it were possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race! And yet they are sung throughout the whole world, and none can hide himself from Your heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I indigt at the Manich ans; whom yet again I pitied, for that they were ignorant of those sacraments, those medicaments, and were mad against the antidote which might have made them sane! I wished that they had been somewhere near me then, and, without my being aware of their presence, could have beheld my face, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my leisure - how that Psalm wrought upon me. When I called upon You, Thou heard me, O God of my righteousness; You have enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. Oh that they might have heard what I uttered on these words, without my knowing whether they heard or no, lest they should think that I spoke it because of them! For, of a truth, neither should I have said the same things, nor in the way I said them, if I had perceived that I was heard and seen by them; and had I spoken them, they would not so have received them as when I spoke by and for myself before You, out of the private feelings of my soul. 9. I alternately quaked with fear, and warmed with hope, and with rejoicing in Your mercy, O Father. And all these passed forth, both by my eyes and voice, when Your good Spirit, turning unto us, said, O you sons of men, how long will you be slow of heart? How long will you love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And You, O Lord, had already magnified Your Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Your right hand, Ephesians 1:20 whence from on high He should send His promise, Luke 24:49 the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth. John 14:16-17 And He had already sent Him, Acts 2:1-4 but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:39 And the prophet cries out, How long will you be slow of heart? How long will you love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord has magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this, and I, so long ignorant, loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And therefore I heard and trembled, because these words were spoken unto such as I remembered that I myself had been. For in those phantasms which I once held for truths was there vanity and leasing. And I spoke many things loudly and earnestly, in the sorrow of my remembrance, which, would that they who yet love vanity and seek after leasing had heard! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it forth, and You would hear them when they cried unto You; for by a true death in the flesh He died for us, who now makes intercession for us Romans 8:34 with You. 10. I read further, Be angry, and sin not. Ephesians 4:26 And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry with myself for the things past, so that in the future I might not sin! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of the race of darkness which sinned for me, as they affirm it to be who are not angry with themselves, and who treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Your righteous judgment. Romans 2:5 Nor were my good things now without, nor were they sought after with eyes of flesh in that sun; for they that would have joy from without easily sink into oblivion, and are wasted upon those things which are seen and temporal, and in their starving thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh, if only they were wearied out with their fasting, and said, Who will show us any good? And we would answer, and they hear, O Lord. The light of Your countece is lifted up upon us. For we are not that Light, which lights every man, John 1:9 but we are enlightened by You, that we, who were sometimes darkness, may be light in You. Ephesians 5:8 Oh that they could behold the internal Eternal, which having tasted I gnashed my teeth that I could not show It to them, while they brought me their heart in their eyes, roaming abroad from You, and said, Who will show us any good? But there, where I was angry with myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and beginning the resolution of a new life, putting my trust in You, - there had Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and to put gladness in my heart. And I cried out as I read this outwardly, and felt it inwardly. Nor would I be increased with worldly goods, wasting time and being wasted by time; whereas I possessed in Your eternal simplicity other grain, and wine, and oil. 11. And with a loud cry from my heart, I called out in the following verse, Oh, in peace! and the self-same! Oh, what said he, I will lay me down and sleep! For who shall hinder us, when shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? 1 Corinthians 15:54 And You are in the highest degree the self-same, who changest not; and in You is the rest which forgets all labour, for there is no other beside You, nor ought we to seek after those many other things which are not what You are; but Thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in hope. These things I read, and was inflamed; but discovered not what to do with those deaf and dead, of whom I had been a pestilent member - a bitter and a blind declaimer against the writings be-honied with the honey of heaven and luminous with Your own light; and I was consumed on account of the enemies of this Scripture. 12. When shall I call to mind all that took place in those holidays? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I be silent about the severity of Your scourge, and the amazing quickness of Your mercy. Thou at that time tortured me with toothache; and when it had become so exceeding great that I was not able to speak, it came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray for me to You, the God of all manner of health. And I wrote it down on wax, and gave it to them to read. Presently, as with submissive desire we bowed our knees, that pain departed. But what pain? Or how did it depart? I confess to being much afraid, my Lord my God, seeing that from my earliest years I had not experienced such pain. And Your purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and, rejoicing in faith, I praised Your name. And that faith suffered me not to be at rest in regard to my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Your baptism. " "9.4.8. 7. And the day arrived on which, in very deed, I was to be released from the Professorship of Rhetoric, from which in intention I had been already released. And done it was; and Thou delivered my tongue whence You had already delivered my heart; and full of joy I blessed You for it, and retired with all mine to the villa. What I accomplished here in writing, which was now wholly devoted to Your service, though still, in this pause as it were, panting from the school of pride, my books testify, - those in which I disputed with my friends, and those with myself alone before You; and what with the absent Nebridius, my letters testify. And when can I find time to recount all Your great benefits which You bestowed upon us at that time, especially as I am hasting on to still greater mercies? For my memory calls upon me, and pleasant it is to me, O Lord, to confess unto You, by what inward goads You subdued me, and how Thou made me low, bringing down the mountains and hills of my imaginations, and straightened my crookedness, and smooth my rough ways; Luke 3:5 and by what means Thou also subdued that brother of my heart, Alypius, unto the name of Your only-begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he at first refused to have inserted in our writings. For he rather desired that they should savour of the cedars of the schools, which the Lord has now broken down, than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, hostile to serpents. 8. What utterances sent I up unto You, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion which exclude all swelling of spirit, when new to Your true love, at rest in the villa with Alypius, a catechumen like myself, my mother cleaving unto us - in woman's garb truly, but with a man's faith, with the peacefulness of age, full of motherly love and Christian piety! What utterances used I to send up unto You in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards You by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it were possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race! And yet they are sung throughout the whole world, and none can hide himself from Your heat. With what vehement and bitter sorrow was I indigt at the Manich ans; whom yet again I pitied, for that they were ignorant of those sacraments, those medicaments, and were mad against the antidote which might have made them sane! I wished that they had been somewhere near me then, and, without my being aware of their presence, could have beheld my face, and heard my words, when I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my leisure - how that Psalm wrought upon me. When I called upon You, Thou heard me, O God of my righteousness; You have enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. Oh that they might have heard what I uttered on these words, without my knowing whether they heard or no, lest they should think that I spoke it because of them! For, of a truth, neither should I have said the same things, nor in the way I said them, if I had perceived that I was heard and seen by them; and had I spoken them, they would not so have received them as when I spoke by and for myself before You, out of the private feelings of my soul. 9. I alternately quaked with fear, and warmed with hope, and with rejoicing in Your mercy, O Father. And all these passed forth, both by my eyes and voice, when Your good Spirit, turning unto us, said, O you sons of men, how long will you be slow of heart? How long will you love vanity, and seek after leasing? For I had loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And You, O Lord, had already magnified Your Holy One, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at Your right hand, Ephesians 1:20 whence from on high He should send His promise, Luke 24:49 the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth. John 14:16-17 And He had already sent Him, Acts 2:1-4 but I knew it not; He had sent Him, because He was now magnified, rising again from the dead, and ascending into heaven. For till then the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:39 And the prophet cries out, How long will you be slow of heart? How long will you love vanity, and seek after leasing? Know this, that the Lord has magnified His Holy One. He cries out, How long? He cries out, Know this, and I, so long ignorant, loved vanity, and sought after leasing. And therefore I heard and trembled, because these words were spoken unto such as I remembered that I myself had been. For in those phantasms which I once held for truths was there vanity and leasing. And I spoke many things loudly and earnestly, in the sorrow of my remembrance, which, would that they who yet love vanity and seek after leasing had heard! They would perchance have been troubled, and have vomited it forth, and You would hear them when they cried unto You; for by a true death in the flesh He died for us, who now makes intercession for us Romans 8:34 with You. 10. I read further, Be angry, and sin not. Ephesians 4:26 And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to be angry with myself for the things past, so that in the future I might not sin! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of the race of darkness which sinned for me, as they affirm it to be who are not angry with themselves, and who treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Your righteous judgment. Romans 2:5 Nor were my good things now without, nor were they sought after with eyes of flesh in that sun; for they that would have joy from without easily sink into oblivion, and are wasted upon those things which are seen and temporal, and in their starving thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh, if only they were wearied out with their fasting, and said, Who will show us any good? And we would answer, and they hear, O Lord. The light of Your countece is lifted up upon us. For we are not that Light, which lights every man, John 1:9 but we are enlightened by You, that we, who were sometimes darkness, may be light in You. Ephesians 5:8 Oh that they could behold the internal Eternal, which having tasted I gnashed my teeth that I could not show It to them, while they brought me their heart in their eyes, roaming abroad from You, and said, Who will show us any good? But there, where I was angry with myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and beginning the resolution of a new life, putting my trust in You, - there had Thou begun to grow sweet unto me, and to put gladness in my heart. And I cried out as I read this outwardly, and felt it inwardly. Nor would I be increased with worldly goods, wasting time and being wasted by time; whereas I possessed in Your eternal simplicity other grain, and wine, and oil. 11. And with a loud cry from my heart, I called out in the following verse, Oh, in peace! and the self-same! Oh, what said he, I will lay me down and sleep! For who shall hinder us, when shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory? 1 Corinthians 15:54 And You are in the highest degree the self-same, who changest not; and in You is the rest which forgets all labour, for there is no other beside You, nor ought we to seek after those many other things which are not what You are; but Thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in hope. These things I read, and was inflamed; but discovered not what to do with those deaf and dead, of whom I had been a pestilent member - a bitter and a blind declaimer against the writings be-honied with the honey of heaven and luminous with Your own light; and I was consumed on account of the enemies of this Scripture. 12. When shall I call to mind all that took place in those holidays? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I be silent about the severity of Your scourge, and the amazing quickness of Your mercy. Thou at that time tortured me with toothache; and when it had become so exceeding great that I was not able to speak, it came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray for me to You, the God of all manner of health. And I wrote it down on wax, and gave it to them to read. Presently, as with submissive desire we bowed our knees, that pain departed. But what pain? Or how did it depart? I confess to being much afraid, my Lord my God, seeing that from my earliest years I had not experienced such pain. And Your purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and, rejoicing in faith, I praised Your name. And that faith suffered me not to be at rest in regard to my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Your baptism. " '
9.6.14. 14. Thence, when the time had arrived at which I was to give in my name, having left the country, we returned to Milan. Alypius also was pleased to be born again with me in You, being now clothed with the humility appropriate to Your sacraments, and being so brave a tamer of the body, as with unusual fortitude to tread the frozen soil of Italy with his naked feet. We took into our company the boy Adeodatus, born of me carnally, of my sin. Well had Thou made him. He was barely fifteen years, yet in wit excelled many grave and learned men. I confess unto You Your gifts, O Lord my God, Creator of all, and of exceeding power to reform our deformities; for of me was there naught in that boy but the sin. For that we fostered him in Your discipline, You inspired us, none other - Your gifts I confess unto You. There is a book of ours, which is entitled The Master. It is a dialogue between him and me. You know that all things there put into the mouth of the person in argument with me were his thoughts in his sixteenth year. Many others more wonderful did I find in him. That talent was a source of awe to me. And who but Thou could be the worker of such marvels? Quickly did You remove his life from the earth; and now I recall him to mind with a sense of security, in that I fear nothing for his childhood or youth, or for his whole self. We took him coeval with us in Your grace, to be educated in Your discipline; and we were baptized, and solicitude about our past life left us. Nor was I satiated in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Your counsels concerning the salvation of the human race. How greatly did I weep in Your hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of Your sweet-speaking Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the truth was poured forth into my heart, whence the agitation of my piety overflowed, and my tears ran over, and blessed was I therein. ' "
9.8. 17. You, who makest men to dwell of one mind in a house, associated with us Evodius also, a young man of our city, who, when serving as an agent for Public Affairs, was converted unto You and baptized prior to us; and relinquishing his secular service, prepared himself for Yours. We were together, and together were we about to dwell with a holy purpose. We sought for some place where we might be most useful in our service to You, and were going back together to Africa. And when we were at the Tiberine Ostia my mother died. Much I omit, having much to hasten. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things concerning which I am silent. But I will not omit anything that my soul has brought forth as to that Your handmaid who brought me forth - in her flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in her heart, that I might be born to life eternal. I will speak not of her gifts, but Yours in her; for she neither made herself nor educated herself. You created her, nor did her father nor her mother know what a being was to proceed from them. And it was the rod of Your Christ, the discipline of Your only Son, that trained her in Your fear, in the house of one of Your faithful ones, who was a sound member of Your Church. Yet this good discipline did she not so much attribute to the diligence of her mother, as that of a certain decrepid maid-servant, who had carried about her father when an infant, as little ones are wont to be carried on the backs of elder girls. For which reason, and on account of her extreme age and very good character, was she much respected by the heads of that Christian house. Whence also was committed to her the care of her master's daughters, which she with diligence performed, and was earnest in restraining them when necessary, with a holy severity, and instructing them with a sober sagacity. For, excepting at the hours in which they were very temperately fed at their parents' table, she used not to permit them, though parched with thirst, to drink even water; thereby taking precautions against an evil custom, and adding the wholesome advice, You drink water only because you have not control of wine; but when you have come to be married, and made mistresses of storeroom and cellar, you will despise water, but the habit of drinking will remain. By this method of instruction, and power of command, she restrained the longing of their tender age, and regulated the very thirst of the girls to such a becoming limit, as that what was not seemly they did not long for. 18. And yet - as Your handmaid related to me, her son - there had stolen upon her a love of wine. For when she, as being a sober maiden, was as usual bidden by her parents to draw wine from the cask, the vessel being held under the opening, before she poured the wine into the bottle, she would wet the tips of her lips with a little, for more than that her inclination refused. For this she did not from any craving for drink, but out of the overflowing buoyancy of her time of life, which bubbles up with sportiveness, and is, in youthful spirits, wont to be repressed by the gravity of elders. And so unto that little, adding daily littles (for he that despises small things shall fall little by little), she contracted such a habit as, to drink off eagerly her little cup nearly full of wine. Where, then, was the sagacious old woman with her earnest restraint? Could anything prevail against a secret disease if Your medicine, O Lord, did not watch over us? Father, mother, and nurturers absent, Thou present, who hast created, who callest, who also by those who are set over us work some good for the salvation of our souls, what did Thou do at that time, O my God? How did You heal her? How did You make her whole? Did You not out of another woman's soul evoke a hard and bitter insult, as a surgeon's knife from Your secret store, and with one thrust remove all that putrefaction? For the maidservant who used to accompany her to the cellar, falling out, as it happens, with her little mistress, when she was alone with her, cast in her teeth this vice, with very bitter insult, calling her a wine-bibber. Stung by this taunt, she perceived her foulness, and immediately condemned and renounced it. Even as friends by their flattery pervert, so do enemies by their taunts often correct us. Yet You render not unto them what You do by them, but what was proposed by them. For she, being angry, desired to irritate her young mistress, not to cure her; and did it in secret, either because the time and place of the dispute found them thus, or perhaps lest she herself should be exposed to danger for disclosing it so late. But You, Lord, Governor of heavenly and earthly things, who convertest to Your purposes the deepest torrents, and disposest the turbulent current of the ages, healest one soul by the unsoundness of another; lest any man, when he remarks this, should attribute it unto his own power if another, whom he wishes to be reformed, is so through a word of his. " "9.
9.19. 19. Being thus modestly and soberly trained, and rather made subject by You to her parents, than by her parents to You, when she had arrived at a marriageable age, she was given to a husband whom she served as her lord. And she busied herself to gain him to You, preaching You unto him by her behaviour; by which You made her fair, and reverently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. For she so bore the wronging of her bed as never to have any dissension with her husband on account of it. For she waited for Your mercy upon him, that by believing in You he might become chaste. And besides this, as he was earnest in friendship, so was he violent in anger; but she had learned that an angry husband should not be resisted, neither in deed, nor even in word. But so soon as he was grown calm and tranquil, and she saw a fitting moment, she would give him a reason for her conduct, should he have been excited without cause. In short, while many matrons, whose husbands were more gentle, carried the marks of blows on their dishonoured faces, and would in private conversation blame the lives of their husbands, she would blame their tongues, monishing them gravely, as if in jest: That from the hour they heard what are called the matrimonial tablets read to them, they should think of them as instruments whereby they were made servants; so, being always mindful of their condition, they ought not to set themselves in opposition to their lords. And when they, knowing what a furious husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been reported, nor appeared by any indication, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic strife between them, even for a day, and asked her in confidence the reason of this, she taught them her rule, which I have mentioned above. They who observed it experienced the wisdom of it, and rejoiced; those who observed it not were kept in subjection, and suffered. 20. Her mother-in-law, also, being at first prejudiced against her by the whisperings of evil-disposed servants, she so conquered by submission, persevering in it with patience and meekness, that she voluntarily disclosed to her son the tongues of the meddling servants, whereby the domestic peace between herself and her daughter-in-law had been agitated, begging him to punish them for it. When, therefore, he had - in conformity with his mother's wish, and with a view to the discipline of his family, and to ensure the future harmony of its members - corrected with stripes those discovered, according to the will of her who had discovered them, she promised a similar reward to any who, to please her, should say anything evil to her of her daughter-in-law. And, none now daring to do so, they lived together with a wonderful sweetness of mutual good-will. 21. This great gift You bestowed also, my God, my mercy, upon that good handmaid of Yours, out of whose womb You created me, even that, whenever she could, she showed herself such a peacemaker between any differing and discordant spirits, that when she had heard on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and undigested discord is wont to give vent to, when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in bitter speeches to a present friend against an absent enemy, she would disclose nothing about the one unto the other, save what might avail to their reconcilement. A small good this might seem to me, did I not know to my sorrow countless persons, who, through some horrible and far-spreading infection of sin, not only disclose to enemies mutually enraged the things said in passion against each other, but add some things that were never spoken at all; whereas, to a generous man, it ought to seem a small thing not to incite or increase the enmities of men by ill-speaking, unless he endeavour likewise by kind words to extinguish them. Such a one was she - Thou, her most intimate Instructor, teaching her in the school of her heart. 22. Finally, her own husband, now towards the end of his earthly existence, did she gain over unto You; and she had not to complain of that in him, as one of the faithful, which, before he became so, she had endured. She was also the servant of Your servants. Whosoever of them knew her, did in her much magnify, honour, and love You; for that through the testimony of the fruits of a holy conversation, they perceived You to be present in her heart. For she had been the wife of one man, had requited her parents, had guided her house piously, was well-reported of for good works, had brought up children, as often travailing in birth of them Galatians 4:19 as she saw them swerving from You. Lastly, to all of us, O Lord (since of Your favour Thou sufferest Your servants to speak), who, before her sleeping in You, 1 Thessalonians 4:14 lived associated together, having received the grace of Your baptism, did she devote, care such as she might if she had been mother of us all; served us as if she had been child of all. "

9.10. 23. As the day now approached on which she was to depart this life (which day Thou knew, we did not), it fell out - Thou, as I believe, by Your secret ways arranging it - that she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window, from which the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen; at which place, removed from the crowd, we were resting ourselves for the voyage, after the fatigues of a long journey. We then were conversing alone very pleasantly; and, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, Philippians 3:13 we were seeking between ourselves in the presence of the Truth, which You are, of what nature the eternal life of the saints would be, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man. But yet we opened wide the mouth of our heart, after those supernal streams of Your fountain, the fountain of life, which is with You; that being sprinkled with it according to our capacity, we might in some measure weigh so high a mystery. 24. And when our conversation had arrived at that point, that the very highest pleasure of the carnal senses, and that in the very brightest material light, seemed by reason of the sweetness of that life not only not worthy of comparison, but not even of mention, we, lifting ourselves with a more ardent affection towards the Selfsame, did gradually pass through all corporeal things, and even the heaven itself, whence sun, and moon, and stars shine upon the earth; yea, we soared higher yet by inward musing, and discoursing, and admiring Your works; and we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might advance as high as that region of unfailing plenty, where You feed Israel for ever with the food of truth, and where life is that Wisdom by whom all these things are made, both which have been, and which are to come; and she is not made, but is as she has been, and so shall ever be; yea, rather, to have been, and to be hereafter, are not in her, but only to be, seeing she is eternal, for to have been and to be hereafter are not eternal. And while we were thus speaking, and straining after her, we slightly touched her with the whole effort of our heart; and we sighed, and there left bound the first-fruits of the Spirit; Romans 8:23 and returned to the noise of our own mouth, where the word uttered has both beginning and end. And what is like Your Word, our Lord, who remains in Himself without becoming old, and makes all things new? Wisdom 7:27 25. We were saying, then, If to any man the tumult of the flesh were silenced - silenced the phantasies of earth, waters, and air - silenced, too, the poles; yea, the very soul be silenced to herself, and go beyond herself by not thinking of herself - silenced fancies and imaginary revelations, every tongue, and every sign, and whatsoever exists by passing away, since, if any could hearken, all these say, We created not ourselves, but were created by Him who abides for ever: If, having uttered this, they now should be silenced, having only quickened our ears to Him who created them, and He alone speak not by them, but by Himself, that we may hear His word, not by fleshly tongue, nor angelic voice, nor sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a similitude, but might hear Him - Him whom in these we love- without these, like as we two now strained ourselves, and with rapid thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom which remains over all. If this could be sustained, and other visions of a far different kind be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and absorb, and envelope its beholder amid these inward joys, so that his life might be eternally like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after, were not this Enter into the joy of Your Lord? Matthew 25:21 And when shall that be? When we shall all rise again; but all shall not be changed. 26. Such things was I saying; and if not after this manner, and in these words, yet, Lord, You know, that in that day when we were talking thus, this world with all its delights grew contemptible to us, even while we spoke. Then said my mother, Son, for myself, I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this life. What I want here further, and why I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are satisfied. There was indeed one thing for which I wished to tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has exceeded this abundantly, so that I see you despising all earthly felicity, made His servant - what do I here? ' "

9.11.28. 27. What reply I made unto her to these things I do not well remember. However, scarcely five days after, or not much more, she was prostrated by fever; and while she was sick, she one day sank into a swoon, and was for a short time unconscious of visible things. We hurried up to her; but she soon regained her senses, and gazing on me and my brother as we stood by her, she said to us inquiringly, Where was I? Then looking intently at us stupefied with grief, Here, says she, shall you bury your mother. I was silent, and refrained from weeping; but my brother said something, wishing her, as the happier lot, to die in her own country and not abroad. She, when she heard this, with anxious countece arrested him with her eye, as savouring of such things, and then gazing at me, Behold, says she, what he says; and soon after to us both she says, Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask, that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be. And when she had given forth this opinion in such words as she could, she was silent, being in pain with her increasing sickness. 28. But, as I reflected on Your gifts, O you invisible God, which Thou instillest into the hearts of Your faithful ones, whence such marvellous fruits do spring, I did rejoice and give thanks unto You, calling to mind what I knew before, how she had ever burned with anxiety respecting her burial-place, which she had provided and prepared for herself by the body of her husband. For as they had lived very peacefully together, her desire had also been (so little is the human mind capable of grasping things divine) that this should be added to that happiness, and be talked of among men, that after her wandering beyond the sea, it had been granted her that they both, so united on earth, should lie in the same grave. But when this uselessness had, through the bounty of Your goodness, begun to be no longer in her heart, I knew not, and I was full of joy admiring what she had thus disclosed to me; though indeed in that our conversation in the window also, when she said, What do I here any longer? she appeared not to desire to die in her own country. I heard afterwards, too, that at the time we were at Ostia, with a maternal confidence she one day, when I was absent, was speaking with certain of my friends on the contemning of this life, and the blessing of death; and when they - amazed at the courage which You had given to her, a woman- asked her whether she did not dread leaving her body at such a distance from her own city, she replied, Nothing is far to God; nor need I fear lest He should be ignorant at the end of the world of the place whence He is to raise me up. On the ninth day, then, of her sickness, the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the thirty-third of mine, was that religious and devout soul set free from the body. " "
10.6.9. 8. Not with uncertain, but with assured consciousness do I love You, O Lord. You have stricken my heart with Your word, and I loved You. And also the heaven, and earth, and all that is therein, behold, on every side they say that I should love You; nor do they cease to speak unto all, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20 But more profoundly will You have mercy on whom You will have mercy, and compassion on whom You will have compassion, Romans 9:15 otherwise do both heaven and earth tell forth Your praises to deaf ears. But what is it that I love in loving You? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man - where that light shines unto my soul which no place can contain, where that sounds which time snatches not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperses, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clings which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God. 9. And what is this? I asked the earth; and it answered, I am not He; and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, We are not your God, seek higher than we. I asked the breezy air, and the universal air with its inhabitants answered, Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God. I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars: Neither, say they, are we the God whom you seek? And I answered unto all these things which stand about the door of my flesh, You have told me concerning my God, that you are not He; tell me something about Him. And with a loud voice they exclaimed, He made us. My questioning was my observing of them; and their beauty was their reply. And I directed my thoughts to myself, and said, Who are you? And I answered, A man. And lo, in me there appear both body and soul, the one without, the other within. By which of these should I seek my God, whom I had sought through the body from earth to heaven, as far as I was able to send messengers - the beams of my eyes? But the better part is that which is inner; for to it, as both president and judge, did all these my corporeal messengers render the answers of heaven and earth and all things therein, who said, We are not God, but He made us. These things was my inner man cognizant of by the ministry of the outer; I, the inner man, knew all this - I, the soul, through the senses of my body. I asked the vast bulk of the earth of my God, and it answered me, I am not He, but He made me. 10. Is not this beauty visible to all whose senses are unimpaired? Why then does it not speak the same things unto all? Animals, the very small and the great, see it, but they are unable to question it, because their senses are not endowed with reason to enable them to judge on what they report. But men can question it, so that the invisible things of Him . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; Romans 1:20 but by loving them, they are brought into subjection to them; and subjects are not able to judge. Neither do the creatures reply to such as question them, unless they can judge; nor will they alter their voice (that is, their beauty), if so be one man only sees, another both sees and questions, so as to appear one way to this man, and another to that; but appearing the same way to both, it is mute to this, it speaks to that - yea, verily, it speaks unto all but they only understand it who compare that voice received from without with the truth within. For the truth declares unto me, Neither heaven, nor earth, nor any body is your God. This, their nature declares unto him that beholds them. They are a mass; a mass is less in part than in the whole. Now, O my soul, you are my better part, unto you I speak; for you animate the mass of your body, giving it life, which no body furnishes to a body but your God is even unto you the Life of life. 10.
9.16. 16. And yet are not these all that the illimitable capacity of my memory retains. Here also is all that is apprehended of the liberal sciences, and not yet forgotten - removed as it were into an inner place, which is not a place; nor are they the images which are retained, but the things themselves. For what is literature, what skill in disputation, whatsoever I know of all the many kinds of questions there are, is so in my memory, as that I have not taken in the image and left the thing without, or that it should have sounded and passed away like a voice imprinted on the ear by that trace, whereby it might be recorded, as though it sounded when it no longer did so; or as an odour while it passes away, and vanishes into wind, affects the sense of smell, whence it conveys the image of itself into the memory, which we realize in recollecting; or like food, which assuredly in the belly has now no taste, and yet has a kind of taste in the memory, or like anything that is by touching felt by the body, and which even when removed from us is imagined by the memory. For these things themselves are not put into it, but the images of them only are caught up, with a marvellous quickness, and laid up, as it were, in most wonderful garners, and wonderfully brought forth when we remember.
10.21.30. 30. But is it so as one who has seen Carthage remembers it? No. For a happy life is not visible to the eye, because it is not a body. Is it, then, as we remember numbers? No. For he that has these in his knowledge strives not to attain further; but a happy life we have in our knowledge, and, therefore, do we love it, while yet we wish further to attain it that we may be happy. Is it, then, as we remember eloquence? No. For although some, when they hear this name, call the thing to mind, who, indeed, are not yet eloquent, and many who wish to be so, whence it appears to be in their knowledge; yet have these by their bodily perceptions noticed that others are eloquent, and been delighted with it, and long to be so - although they would not be delighted save for some interior knowledge, nor desire to be so unless they were delighted - but a happy life we can by no bodily perception make experience of in others. Is it, then, as we remember joy? It may be so; for my joy I remember, even when sad, like as I do a happy life when I am miserable. Nor did I ever with perception of the body either see, hear, smell, taste, or touch my joy; but I experienced it in my mind when I rejoiced; and the knowledge of it clung to my memory, so that I can call it to mind sometimes with disdain and at others with desire, according to the difference of the things wherein I now remember that I rejoiced. For even from unclean things have I been bathed with a certain joy, which now calling to mind, I detest and execrate; at other times, from good and honest things, which, with longing, I call to mind, though perchance they be not near at hand, and then with sadness do I call to mind a former joy. 31. Where and when, then, did I experience my happy life, that I should call it to mind, and love and long for it? Nor is it I alone or a few others who wish to be happy, but truly all; which, unless by certain knowledge we knew, we should not wish with so certain a will. But how is this, that if two men be asked whether they would wish to serve as soldiers one, it may be, would reply that he would, the other that he would not; but if they were asked whether they would wish to be happy, both of them would unhesitatingly say that they would; and this one would wish to serve, and the other not, from no other motive but to be happy? Is it, perchance, that as one joys in this, and another in that, so do all men agree in their wish for happiness, as they would agree, were they asked, in wishing to have joy - and this joy they call a happy life? Although, then, one pursues joy in this way, and another in that, all have one goal, which they strive to attain, namely, to have joy. This life, being a thing which no one can say he has not experienced, it is on that account found in the memory, and recognised whenever the name of a happy life is heard. 10.2
7.38. 38. Too late did I love You, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Those things kept me far from You, which, unless they were in You, were not. You called, and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shine, and chase away my blindness. You exhaled odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after You. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace. ' "
10.35.55. 54. In addition to this there is another form of temptation, more complex in its peril. For besides that concupiscence of the flesh which lies in the gratification of all senses and pleasures, wherein its slaves who are far from You perish, there pertains to the soul, through the same senses of the body, a certain vain and curious longing, cloaked under the name of knowledge and learning, not of having pleasure in the flesh, but of making experiments through the flesh. This longing, since it originates in an appetite for knowledge, and the sight being the chief among the senses in the acquisition of knowledge, is called in divine language, the lust of the eyes. 1 John 2:16 For seeing belongs properly to the eyes; yet we apply this word to the other senses also, when we exercise them in the search after knowledge. For we do not say, Listen how it glows, smell how it glistens, taste how it shines, or feel how it flashes, since all these are said to be seen. And yet we say not only, See how it shines, which the eyes alone can perceive; but also, See how it sounds, see how it smells, see how it tastes, see how hard it is. And thus the general experience of the senses, as was said before, is termed the lust of the eyes, because the function of seeing, wherein the eyes hold the pre-eminence, the other senses by way of similitude take possession of, whenever they seek out any knowledge. 55. But by this is it more clearly discerned, when pleasure and when curiosity is pursued by the senses; for pleasure follows after objects that are beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savoury, soft; but curiosity, for experiment's sake, seeks the contrary of these - not with a view of undergoing uneasiness, but from the passion of experimenting upon and knowing them. For what pleasure is there to see, in a lacerated corpse, that which makes you shudder? And yet if it lie near, we flock there, to be made sad, and to turn pale. Even in sleep they fear lest they should see it. Just as if when awake any one compelled them to go and see it, or any report of its beauty had attracted them! Thus also is it with the other senses, which it were tedious to pursue. From this malady of curiosity are all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. Hence do we proceed to search out the secret powers of nature (which is beside our end), which to know profits not, and wherein men desire nothing but to know. Hence, too, with that same end of perverted knowledge we consult magical arts. Hence, again, even in religion itself, is God tempted, when signs and wonders are eagerly asked of Him - not desired for any saving end, but to make trial only. 56. In this so vast a wilderness, replete with snares and dangers, lo, many of them have I lopped off, and expelled from my heart, as Thou, O God of my salvation, hast enabled me to do. And yet when dare I say, since so many things of this kind buzz around our daily life - when dare I say that no such thing makes me intent to see it, or creates in me vain solicitude? It is true that the theatres never now carry me away, nor do I now care to know the courses of the stars, nor has my soul at any time consulted departed spirits; all sacrilegious oaths I abhor. O Lord my God, to whom I owe all humble and single-hearted service, with what subtlety of suggestion does the enemy influence me to require some sign from You! But by our King, and by our pure land chaste country Jerusalem, I beseech You, that as any consenting unto such thoughts is far from me, so may it always be farther and farther. But when I entreat You for the salvation of any, the end I aim at is far otherwise, and You who do what You will, givest and will give me willingly to follow You. John 21:22 57. Nevertheless, in how many most minute and contemptible things is our curiosity daily tempted, and who can number how often we succumb? How often, when people are narrating idle tales, do we begin by tolerating them, lest we should give offense unto the weak; and then gradually we listen willingly! I do not now-a-days go to the circus to see a dog chasing a hare; but if by chance I pass such a coursing in the fields, it possibly distracts me even from some serious thought, and draws me after it - not that I turn the body of my beast aside, but the inclination of my mind. And unless You, by demonstrating to me my weakness, speedily warns me, either through the sight itself, by some reflection to rise to You, or wholly to despise and pass it by, I, vain one, am absorbed by it. How is it, when sitting at home, a lizard catching flies, or a spider entangling them as they rush into her nets, oftentimes arrests me? Is the feeling of curiosity not the same because these are such tiny creatures? From them I proceed to praise You, the wonderful Creator and Disposer of all things; but it is not this that first attracts my attention. It is one thing to get up quickly, and another not to fall, and of such things is my life full; and my only hope is in Your exceeding great mercy. For when this heart of ours is made the receptacle of such things, and bears crowds of this abounding vanity, then are our prayers often interrupted and disturbed thereby; and while in Your presence we direct the voice of our heart to Your ears, this so great a matter is broken off by the influx of I know not what idle thoughts. " "10.35.56. 54. In addition to this there is another form of temptation, more complex in its peril. For besides that concupiscence of the flesh which lies in the gratification of all senses and pleasures, wherein its slaves who are far from You perish, there pertains to the soul, through the same senses of the body, a certain vain and curious longing, cloaked under the name of knowledge and learning, not of having pleasure in the flesh, but of making experiments through the flesh. This longing, since it originates in an appetite for knowledge, and the sight being the chief among the senses in the acquisition of knowledge, is called in divine language, the lust of the eyes. 1 John 2:16 For seeing belongs properly to the eyes; yet we apply this word to the other senses also, when we exercise them in the search after knowledge. For we do not say, Listen how it glows, smell how it glistens, taste how it shines, or feel how it flashes, since all these are said to be seen. And yet we say not only, See how it shines, which the eyes alone can perceive; but also, See how it sounds, see how it smells, see how it tastes, see how hard it is. And thus the general experience of the senses, as was said before, is termed the lust of the eyes, because the function of seeing, wherein the eyes hold the pre-eminence, the other senses by way of similitude take possession of, whenever they seek out any knowledge. 55. But by this is it more clearly discerned, when pleasure and when curiosity is pursued by the senses; for pleasure follows after objects that are beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savoury, soft; but curiosity, for experiment's sake, seeks the contrary of these - not with a view of undergoing uneasiness, but from the passion of experimenting upon and knowing them. For what pleasure is there to see, in a lacerated corpse, that which makes you shudder? And yet if it lie near, we flock there, to be made sad, and to turn pale. Even in sleep they fear lest they should see it. Just as if when awake any one compelled them to go and see it, or any report of its beauty had attracted them! Thus also is it with the other senses, which it were tedious to pursue. From this malady of curiosity are all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. Hence do we proceed to search out the secret powers of nature (which is beside our end), which to know profits not, and wherein men desire nothing but to know. Hence, too, with that same end of perverted knowledge we consult magical arts. Hence, again, even in religion itself, is God tempted, when signs and wonders are eagerly asked of Him - not desired for any saving end, but to make trial only. 56. In this so vast a wilderness, replete with snares and dangers, lo, many of them have I lopped off, and expelled from my heart, as Thou, O God of my salvation, hast enabled me to do. And yet when dare I say, since so many things of this kind buzz around our daily life - when dare I say that no such thing makes me intent to see it, or creates in me vain solicitude? It is true that the theatres never now carry me away, nor do I now care to know the courses of the stars, nor has my soul at any time consulted departed spirits; all sacrilegious oaths I abhor. O Lord my God, to whom I owe all humble and single-hearted service, with what subtlety of suggestion does the enemy influence me to require some sign from You! But by our King, and by our pure land chaste country Jerusalem, I beseech You, that as any consenting unto such thoughts is far from me, so may it always be farther and farther. But when I entreat You for the salvation of any, the end I aim at is far otherwise, and You who do what You will, givest and will give me willingly to follow You. John 21:22 57. Nevertheless, in how many most minute and contemptible things is our curiosity daily tempted, and who can number how often we succumb? How often, when people are narrating idle tales, do we begin by tolerating them, lest we should give offense unto the weak; and then gradually we listen willingly! I do not now-a-days go to the circus to see a dog chasing a hare; but if by chance I pass such a coursing in the fields, it possibly distracts me even from some serious thought, and draws me after it - not that I turn the body of my beast aside, but the inclination of my mind. And unless You, by demonstrating to me my weakness, speedily warns me, either through the sight itself, by some reflection to rise to You, or wholly to despise and pass it by, I, vain one, am absorbed by it. How is it, when sitting at home, a lizard catching flies, or a spider entangling them as they rush into her nets, oftentimes arrests me? Is the feeling of curiosity not the same because these are such tiny creatures? From them I proceed to praise You, the wonderful Creator and Disposer of all things; but it is not this that first attracts my attention. It is one thing to get up quickly, and another not to fall, and of such things is my life full; and my only hope is in Your exceeding great mercy. For when this heart of ours is made the receptacle of such things, and bears crowds of this abounding vanity, then are our prayers often interrupted and disturbed thereby; and while in Your presence we direct the voice of our heart to Your ears, this so great a matter is broken off by the influx of I know not what idle thoughts. " '
10.40. 65. Where have You not accompanied me, O Truth, teaching me both what to avoid and what to desire, when I submitted to You what I could perceive of sublunary things, and asked Your counsel? With my external senses, as I could, I viewed the world, and noted the life which my body derives from me, and these my senses. Thence I advanced inwardly into the recesses of my memory, - the manifold rooms, wondrously full of multitudinous wealth; and I considered and was afraid, and could discern none of these things without You, and found none of them to be You. Nor was I myself the discoverer of these things - I, who went over them all, and laboured to distinguish and to value everything according to its dignity, accepting some things upon the report of my senses, and questioning about others which I felt to be mixed up with myself, distinguishing and numbering the reporters themselves, and in the vast storehouse of my memory investigating some things, laying up others, taking out others. Neither was I myself when I did this (that is, that ability of mine whereby I did it), nor was it Thou, for You are that never-failing light which I took counsel of as to them all, whether they were what they were, and what was their worth; and I heard You teaching and commanding me. And this I do often; this is a delight to me, and, as far as I can get relief from necessary duties, to this gratification do I resort. Nor in all these which I review when consulting You, find I a secure place for my soul, save in You, into whom my scattered members may be gathered together, and nothing of me depart from You. And sometimes Thou dost introduce me to a most rare affection, inwardly, to an inexplicable sweetness, which, if it should be perfected in me, I know not to what point that life might not arrive. But by these wretched weights Hebrews 12:1 of mine do I relapse into these things, and am sucked in by my old customs, and am held, and sorrow much, yet am much held. To such an extent does the burden of habit press us down. In this way I can be, but will not; in that I will, but cannot - on both ways miserable.
10.42.67. 67. Whom could I find to reconcile me to You? Was I to solicit the angels? By what prayer? By what sacraments? Many striving to return unto You, and not able of themselves, have, as I am told, tried this, and have fallen into a longing for curious visions, and were held worthy to be deceived. For they, being exalted, sought You by the pride of learning, thrusting themselves forward rather than beating their breasts, and so by correspondence of heart drew unto themselves the princes of the air, Ephesians 2:2 the conspirators and companions in pride, by whom, through the power of magic, they were deceived, seeking a mediator by whom they might be cleansed; but none was there. For the devil it was, transforming himself into an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11:14 And he much allured proud flesh, in that he had no fleshly body. For they were mortal, and sinful; but Thou, O Lord, to whom they arrogantly sought to be reconciled, art immortal, and sinless. But a mediator between God and man ought to have something like God, and something like man; lest being in both like man, he should be far from God; or if in both like God, he should be far from man, and so should not be a mediator. That deceitful mediator, then, by whom in Your secret judgments pride deserved to be deceived, has one thing in common with man, that is, sin; another he would appear to have with God, and, not being clothed with mortality of flesh, would boast that he was immortal. But since the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23 this has he in common with men, that together with them he should be condemned to death.
11.2.2. 2. But when shall I suffice with the tongue of my pen to express all Your exhortations, and all Your terrors, and comforts, and guidances, whereby You have led me to preach Your Word and to dispense Your Sacrament unto Your people? And if I suffice to utter these things in order, the drops of time are dear to me. Long time have I burned to meditate in Your law, and in it to confess to You my knowledge and ignorance, the beginning of Your enlightening, and the remains of my darkness, until infirmity be swallowed up by strength. And I would not that to anything else those hours should flow away, which I find free from the necessities of refreshing my body, and the care of my mind, and of the service which we owe to men, and which, though we owe not, even yet we pay. 3. O Lord my God, hear my prayer, and let Your mercy regard my longing, since it burns not for myself alone, but because it desires to benefit brotherly charity; and You see into my heart, that so it is. I would sacrifice to You the service of my thought and tongue; and do Thou give what I may offer unto You. For I am poor and needy, Thou rich unto all that call upon You, Romans 10:12 who free from care carest for us. Circumcise from all rashness and from all lying my inward and outward lips. Exodus 6:12 Let Your Scriptures be my chaste delights. Neither let me be deceived in them, nor deceive out of them. Lord, hear and pity, O Lord my God, light of the blind, and strength of the weak; even also light of those that see, and strength of the strong, hearken unto my soul, and hear it crying out of the depths. For unless Your ears be present in the depths also, whither shall we go? Whither shall we cry? The day is Yours, and the night also is Yours. At Your nod the moments flee by. Grant thereof space for our meditations among the hidden things of Your law, nor close it against us who knock. For not in vain have You willed that the obscure secret of so many pages should be written. Nor is it that those forests have not their harts, betaking themselves therein, and ranging, and walking, and feeding, lying down, and ruminating. Perfect me, O Lord, and reveal them unto me. Behold, Your voice is my joy, Your voice surpasses the abundance of pleasures. Give that which I love, for I do love; and this have You given. Abandon not Your own gifts, nor despise Your grass that thirsts. Let me confess unto You whatsoever I shall have found in Your books, and let me hear the voice of praise, and let me imbibe You, and reflect on the wonderful things of Your law; even from the beginning, wherein You made the heaven and the earth, unto the everlasting kingdom of Your holy city that is with You. 4. Lord, have mercy on me and hear my desire. For I think that it is not of the earth, nor of gold and silver, and precious stones, nor gorgeous apparel, nor honours and powers, nor the pleasures of the flesh, nor necessaries for the body, and this life of our pilgrimage; all which are added to those that seek Your kingdom and Your righteousness. Matthew 6:33 Behold, O Lord my God, whence is my desire. The unrighteous have told me of delights, but not such as Your law, O Lord. Behold whence is my desire. Behold, Father, look and see, and approve; and let it be pleasing in the sight of Your mercy, that I may find grace before You, that the secret things of Your Word may be opened unto me when I knock. I beseech, by our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, the Man of Your right hand, the Son of man, whom You made strong for Yourself, as Your Mediator and ours, through whom You have sought us, although not seeking You, but sought us that we might seek You, - Your Word through whom You have made all things, John 1:3 and among them me also, Your Only-begotten, through whom You have called to adoption the believing people, and therein me also. I beseech You through Him, who sits at Your right hand, and makes intercession for us, Romans 8:34 in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:3 Him do I seek in Your books. of Him did Moses write; John 5:4-6 this says Himself; this says the Truth.
11.4. 6. Behold, the heaven and earth are; they proclaim that they were made, for they are changed and varied. Whereas whatsoever has not been made, and yet has being, has nothing in it which there was not before; this is what it is to be changed and varied. They also proclaim that they made not themselves; therefore we are, because we have been made; we were not therefore before we were, so that we could have made ourselves. And the voice of those that speak is in itself an evidence. You, therefore, Lord, made these things; Thou who art beautiful, for they are beautiful; Thou who art good, for they are good; Thou who art, for they are. Nor even so are they beautiful, nor good, nor are they, as Thou their Creator art; compared with whom they are neither beautiful, nor good, nor are at all. These things we know, thanks be to You. And our knowledge, compared with Your knowledge, is ignorance.
11.6. 8. But how did Thou speak? Was it in that manner in which the voice came from the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son? Matthew 17:5 For that voice was uttered and passed away, began and ended. The syllables sounded and passed by, the second after the first, the third after the second, and thence in order, until the last after the rest, and silence after the last. Hence it is clear and plain that the motion of a creature expressed it, itself temporal, obeying Your Eternal will. And these your words formed at the time, the outer ear conveyed to the intelligent mind, whose inner ear lay attentive to Your eternal word. But it compared these words sounding in time with Your eternal word in silence, and said, It is different, very different. These words are far beneath me, nor are they, since they flee and pass away; but the Word of my Lord remains above me forever. If, then, in sounding and fleeting words Thou said that heaven and earth should be made, and thus made heaven and earth, there was already a corporeal creature before heaven and earth by whose temporal motions that voice might take its course in time. But there was nothing corporeal before heaven and earth; or if there were, certainly Thou without a transitory voice had created that whence You would make the passing voice, by which to say that the heaven and the earth should be made. For whatsoever that were of which such a voice was made, unless it were made by You, it could not be at all. By what word of Yours was it decreed that a body might be made, whereby these words might be made? 1
1.7. 9. You call us, therefore, to understand the Word, God with You, God, John 1:1 which is spoken eternally, and by it are all things spoken eternally. For what was spoken was not finished, and another spoken until all were spoken; but all things at once and forever. For otherwise have we time and change, and not a true eternity, nor a true immortality. This I know, O my God, and give thanks. I know, I confess to You, O Lord, and whosoever is not unthankful to certain truth, knows and blesses You with me. We know, O Lord, we know; since in proportion as anything is not what it was, and is what it was not, in that proportion does it die and arise. Not anything, therefore, of Your Word gives place and comes into place again, because it is truly immortal and eternal. And, therefore, unto the Word co-eternal with You, You at once and for ever say all that You say; and whatever You say shall be made, is made; nor do You make otherwise than by speaking; yet all things are not made both together and everlasting which You make by speaking. ' "
11.9. 11. In this Beginning, O God, have You made heaven and earth - in Your Word, in Your Son, in Your Power, in Your Wisdom, in Your Truth, wondrously speaking and wondrously making. Who shall comprehend? Who shall relate it? What is that which shines through me, and strikes my heart without injury, and I both shudder and burn? I shudder inasmuch as I am unlike it; and I burn inasmuch as I am like it. It is Wisdom itself that shines through me, clearing my cloudiness, which again overwhelms me, fainting from it, in the darkness and amount of my punishment. For my strength is brought down in need, so that I cannot endure my blessings, until Thou, O Lord, who hast been gracious to all mine iniquities, heal also all mine infirmities; because You shall also redeem my life from corruption, and crown me with Your loving-kindness and mercy, and shall satisfy my desire with good things, because my youth shall be renewed like the eagle's. For by hope we are saved; and through patience we await Your promises. Romans 8:24-25 Let him that is able hear You discoursing within. I will with confidence cry out from Your oracle, How wonderful are Your works, O Lord, in Wisdom have You made them all. And this Wisdom is the Beginning, and in that Beginning have You made heaven and earth. " '1
1.10. 12. Lo, are they not full of their ancient way, who say to us, What was God doing before He made heaven and earth? For if, say they, He were unoccupied, and did nothing, why does He not for ever also, and from henceforth, cease from working, as in times past He did? For if any new motion has arisen in God, and a new will, to form a creature which He had never before formed, however can that be a true eternity where there arises a will which was not before? For the will of God is not a creature, but before the creature; because nothing could be created unless the will of the Creator were before it. The will of God, therefore, pertains to His very Substance. But if anything has arisen in the Substance of God which was not before, that Substance is not truly called eternal. But if it was the eternal will of God that the creature should be, why was not the creature also from eternity? 1
1.12.14. 14. Behold, I answer to him who asks, What was God doing before He made heaven and earth? I answer not, as a certain person is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question), He was preparing hell, says he, for those who pry into mysteries. It is one thing to perceive, another to laugh - these things I answer not. For more willingly would I have answered, I know not what I know not, than that I should make him a laughing-stock who asks deep things, and gain praise as one who answers false things. But I say that Thou, our God, art the Creator of every creature; and if by the term heaven and earth every creature is understood, I boldly say, That before God made heaven and earth, He made not anything. For if He did, what did He make unless the creature? And would that I knew whatever I desire to know to my advantage, as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made. 1
1.14.17. 17. At no time, therefore, had Thou not made anything, because You had made time itself. And no times are co-eternal with You, because You remain for ever; but should these continue, they would not be times. For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present - if it be time - only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be - namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?
11.29. 39. But because Your loving-kindness is better than life, behold, my life is but a distraction, and Your right hand upheld me in my Lord, the Son of man, the Mediator between You, 1 Timothy 2:5 The One, and us the many - in many distractions amid many things - that through Him I may apprehend in whom I have been apprehended, and may be recollected from my old days, following The One, forgetting the things that are past; and not distracted, but drawn on, not to those things which shall be and shall pass away, but to those things which are before, Philippians 3:13 not distractedly, but intently, I follow on for the prize of my heavenly calling, where I may hear the voice of Your praise, and contemplate Your delights, neither coming nor passing away. But now are my years spent in mourning. And You, O Lord, art my comfort, my Father everlasting. But I have been divided amid times, the order of which I know not; and my thoughts, even the inmost bowels of my soul, are mangled with tumultuous varieties, until I flow together unto You, purged and molten in the fire of Your love.
12.10.10. 10. Oh, let Truth, the light of my heart, not my own darkness, speak unto me! I have descended to that, and am darkened. But thence, even thence, did I love You. I went astray, and remembered You. I heard Your voice behind me bidding me return, and scarcely did I hear it for the tumults of the unquiet ones. And now, behold, I return burning and panting after Your fountain. Let no one prohibit me; of this will I drink, and so have life. Let me not be my own life; from myself have I badly lived - death was I unto myself; in You do I revive. Speak unto me; discourse unto me. In Your books have I believed, and their words are very deep.
12.26.36. 36. And yet, O my God, Thou exaltation of my humility, and rest of my labour, who hear my confessions, and forgivest my sins, since You command me that I should love my neighbour as myself, I cannot believe that You gave to Moses, Your most faithful servant, a less gift than I should wish and desire for myself from You, had I been born in his time, and had Thou placed me in that position that through the service of my heart and of my tongue those books might be distributed, which so long after were to profit all nations, and through the whole world, from so great a pinnacle of authority, were to surmount the words of all false and proud teachings. I should have wished truly had I then been Moses (for we all come from the same mass; and what is man, saving that You are mindful of him? ). I should then, had I been at that time what he was, and enjoined by You to write the book of Genesis, have wished that such a power of expression and such a method of arrangement should be given me, that they who cannot as yet understand how God creates might not reject the words as surpassing their powers; and they who are already able to do this, would find, in whatever true opinion they had by thought arrived at, that it was not passed over in the few words of Your servant; and should another man by the light of truth have discovered another, neither should that fail to be found in those same words.
12.31.42. 42. Thus, when one shall say, He Moses meant as I do, and another, Nay, but as I do, I suppose that I am speaking more religiously when I say, Why not rather as both, if both be true? And if there be a third truth, or a fourth, and if any one seek any truth altogether different in those words, why may not he be believed to have seen all these, through whom one God has tempered the Holy Scriptures to the senses of many, about to see therein things true but different? I certainly - and I fearlessly declare it from my heart - were I to write anything to have the highest authority, should prefer so to write, that whatever of truth any one might apprehend concerning these matters, my words should re-echo, rather than that I should set down one true opinion so clearly on this as that I should exclude the rest, that which was false in which could not offend me. Therefore am I unwilling, O my God, to be so headstrong as not to believe that from You this man Moses has received so much. He, surely, when he wrote those words, perceived and thought whatever of truth we have been able to discover, yea, and whatever we have not been able, nor yet are able, though still it may be found in them.
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3.1. 1. I Call upon You, my God, my mercy, who made me, and who did not forget me, though forgetful of You. I call You into my soul, which by the desire which Thou inspirest in it Thou preparest for Your reception. Do not Thou forsake me calling upon You, who anticipated me before I called, and importunately urged with manifold calls that I should hear You from afar, and be converted, and call upon You who called me. For Thou, O Lord, have blotted out all my evil deserts, that You might not repay into my hands wherewith I have fallen from You, and You have anticipated all my good deserts, that You might repay into Your hands wherewith You made me; because before I was, You were, nor was I anything to which You might grant being. And yet behold, I am, out of Your goodness, anticipating all this which You have made me, and of which You have made me. For neither had Thou stood in need of me, nor am I such a good as to be helpful unto You, my Lord and God; not that I may so serve You as though You were fatigued in working, or lest Your power may be less if lacking my assistance nor that, like the land, I may so cultivate You that You would be uncultivated did I cultivate You not but that I may serve and worship You, to the end that I may have well-being from You; from whom it is that I am one susceptible of well-being.
13.8. 9. The angels fell, the soul of man fell and they have thus indicated the abyss in that dark deep, ready for the whole spiritual creation, unless You had said from the beginning, Let there be light, and there had been light, and every obedient intelligence of Your celestial City had cleaved to You, and rested in Your Spirit, which unchangeably is borne over everything changeable. Otherwise, even the heaven of heavens itself would have been a darksome deep, whereas now it is light in the Lord. For even in that wretched restlessness of the spirits who fell away, and, when unclothed of the garments of Your light, discovered their own darkness, dost Thou sufficiently disclose how noble You have made the rational creature; to which nought which is inferior to You will suffice to yield a happy rest, and so not even herself. For Thou, O our God, shall enlighten our darkness; from You are derived our garments of light, and then shall our darkness be as the noonday. Give Yourself unto me, O my God, restore Yourself unto me; behold, I love You, and if it be too little, let me love You more strongly. I cannot measure my love, so that I may come to know how much there is yet wanting in me, ere my life run into Your embracements, and not be turned away until it be hidden in the secret place of Your Presence. This only I know, that woe is me except in You - not only without, but even also within myself; and all plenty which is not my God is poverty to me. ' "
1
3.18.23. 22. Thus, O Lord, thus, I beseech You, let there arise, as You make, as You give joy and ability - let truth spring out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven, and let there be lights in the firmament. Genesis 1:14 Let us break our bread to the hungry, and let us bring the houseless poor to our house. Isaiah 58:7 Let us clothe the naked, and despise not those of our own flesh. The which fruits having sprung forth from the earth, behold, because it is good; Genesis 1:12 and let our temporary light burst forth; Isaiah 58:8 and let us, from this inferior fruit of action, possessing the delights of contemplation and of the Word of Life above, let us appear as lights in the world, Philippians 2:15 clinging to the firmament of Your Scripture. For therein You make it plain unto us, that we may distinguish between things intelligible and things of sense, as if between the day and the night; or between souls, given, some to things intellectual, others to things of sense; so that now not Thou only in the secret of Your judgment, as before the firmament was made, dividest between the light and the darkness, but Your spiritual children also, placed and ranked in the same firmament (Your grace being manifest throughout the world), may give light upon the earth, and divide between the day and night, and be for signs of times; because old things have passed away, and behold all things have become new; 2 Corinthians 5:17 and because our salvation is nearer than when we believed; Romans 13:11-12 and because the night is far spent, the day is at hand; Romans 13:11-12 and because You will crown Your year with blessing, sending the labourers of Your goodness into Your harvest, Matthew 9:38 in the sowing of which others have laboured, sending also into another field, whose harvest shall be in the end. Matthew 13:39 Thus Thou grantest the prayers of him that asks, and blessest the years of the just; Proverbs 10:6 but You are the same, and in Your years which fail not Thou preparest a garner for our passing years. For by an eternal counsel Thou dost in their proper seasons bestow upon the earth heavenly blessings. 23. For, indeed, to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, as if the greater light, on account of those who are delighted with the light of manifest truth, as in the beginning of the day; but to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit, as if the lesser light; to another faith; to another the gift of healing; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another various kinds of tongues. And all these as stars. For all these works the one and self-same Spirit, dividing to every man his own as He wills; 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 and making stars appear manifestly, to profit withal. 1 Corinthians 12:7 But the word of knowledge, wherein are contained all sacraments, which are varied in their periods like the moon, and the other conceptions of gifts, which are successively reckoned up as stars, inasmuch as they come short of that splendour of wisdom in which the fore-mentioned day rejoices, are only for the beginning of the night. For they are necessary to such as he Your most prudent servant could not speak unto as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal 1 Corinthians 3:1 - even he who speaks wisdom among those that are perfect. 1 Corinthians 2:6 But the natural man, as a babe in Christ - and a drinker of milk - until he be strengthened for solid meat, and his eye be enabled to look upon the Sun, let him not dwell in his own deserted night, but let him be contented with the light of the moon and the stars. Thou reasonest these things with us, our All-wise God, in Your Book, Your firmament, that we may discern all things in an admirable contemplation, although as yet in signs, and in times, and in days, and in years. '. None
50. Augustine, Contra Duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, 2.15, 2.21, 4.4.7 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Ambrose, and Augustine • Augustine • Augustine , generally • Augustine , response to Pelagianism • Augustine of Hippo, City of God • Augustine of Hippo, on astrology/astronomy • Augustine, and Jerome • Augustine’s Works, Adnot. Job • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. • Augustine’s Works, C. Jul. imp. • Augustine’s Works, C. du. ep. Pel. • Augustine’s Works, Civ. • Augustine’s Works, Corrept. • Augustine’s Works, Div. quaest. • Augustine’s Works, Enar. Ps. • Augustine’s Works, Enchir. • Augustine’s Works, Grat. Chr. • Augustine’s Works, Leg. adv. • Augustine’s Works, Lib. arb. • Augustine’s Works, Nat. grat. • Augustine’s Works, Persev. • Augustine’s Works, S. • Augustine’s Works, Simpl. • Augustine’s Works, Tract. Ev. Jo. • Augustine’s Works, c. Fel. • Augustine’s Works, c. ep. Man. Fund. • Pelagianism, and Augustine

 Found in books: Cain (2016) 49; Esler (2000) 1219; Goldhill (2022) 297; Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 18, 34; Wilson (2018) 146, 173


2.15. Since in the case of those two twins we have without a doubt one and the same case, the difficulty of the question why the one died in one way, and the other in another, is solved by the apostle as it were by not solving it; for, when he had proposed something of the same kind about two twins, seeing that it was said (not of works, since they had not as yet done anything either of good or of evil, but of Him that calls), The older shall serve the younger, Romans 9:11 and, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated; Romans 9:11 and he had prolonged the horror of this deep thing even to the point of saying, Therefore has He mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardens: Romans 9:18 he perceived at once what the trouble was, and opposed to himself the words of a gainsayer which he was to check by apostolic authority. For he says, You say, then, unto me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will? And to him who says this he answered, O man, who are you that repliest against God? Does the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Hath not the potter power of the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? Romans 9:19 Then, following on, he opened up this great and hidden secret as far as he judged it fit that it should be disclosed to men, saying, But if God, willing to show His wrath and to demonstrate His power, endured in much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, even that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory. Romans 9:22-23 This is not only the assistance, but, moreover, the proof of God's grace- the assistance, namely, in the vessels of mercy, but the proof in the vessels of wrath; for in these He shows His anger and makes known His power, because His goodness is so mighty that He even uses the evil well; and in those He makes known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, because what the justice of a punisher requires from the vessels of wrath, the grace of the Deliverer remits to the vessels of mercy. Nor would the kindness which is bestowed on some freely appear, unless to other equally guilty and from the same mass God showed what was really due to both, and condemned them with a righteous judgment. For who makes you to differ? 1 Corinthians 4:7 says the same apostle to a man as it were boasting concerning himself and his own benefits. For who makes you to differ from the vessels of wrath; of course, from the mass of perdition which has sent all by one into damnation? Who makes you to differ? And as if he had answered, My faith makes me to differ - my purpose, my merit, - he says, For what have you which you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you boast as if you received it not?- that is, as if that by which you are made to differ were of your own. Therefore He makes you to differ who bestows that whence you are made to differ, by removing the penalty that is due, by conferring the grace which is not due. He makes to differ, who, when the darkness was upon the face of the abyss, said, Let there be light; and there was light, and divided - that is, made to differ - between the light and the darkness. Genesis 1:2 For when there was only darkness, He did not find what He should make to differ; but by making the light, He made to differ; so that it may be said to the justified wicked, For you were sometime darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Ephesians 5:8 And thus he who glories must glory not in himself, but in the Lord. He makes to differ who - of those who are not yet born, and who have not yet done any good or evil, that His purpose, according to the election, might stand not of works, but of Himself that calls - said, The older shall serve the younger, and commending that very purpose afterwards by the mouth of the prophet, said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Malachi 1:2 Because he said the election, and in this God does not find made by another what He may choose, but Himself makes what He may find; just as it is written of the remt of Israel: There is made a remt by the election of grace; but if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. Romans 11:5 On which account you are certainly foolish who, when the Truth declares, Not of works, but of Him that calls, it was said, say that Jacob was loved on account of future works which God foreknew that he would do, and thus contradict the apostle when he says, Not of works; as if he could not have said, Not of present, but of future works. But he says, Not of works, that He might commend grace; but if of grace, now is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. For grace, not due, but free, precedes, that by it good works may be done; but if good works should precede, grace should be repaid, as it were, to works, and thus grace should be no more grace. " "
2.21. Wherefore God does many good things in man which man does not do; but man does none which God does not cause man to do. Accordingly, there would be no desire of good in man from the Lord if it were not a good; but if it is a good, we have it not save from Him who is supremely and incommunicably good. For what is the desire for good but love, of which John the apostle speaks without any ambiguity, and says, Love is of God? 1 John 4:7 Nor is its beginning of ourselves, and its perfection of God; but if love is of God, we have the whole of it from God. May God by all means turn away this folly of making ourselves first in His gifts, Himself last - because His mercy shall prevent me. And it is He to whom is faithfully and truthfully sung, For You have prevented him with the blessings of sweetness. And what is here more fitly understood than that very desire of good of which we are speaking? For good begins then to be longed for when it has begun to grow sweet. But when good is done by the fear of penalty, not by the love of righteousness, good is not yet well done. Nor is that done in the heart which seems to be done in the act when a man would rather not do it if he could evade it with impunity. Therefore the blessing of sweetness is God's grace, by which is caused in us that what He prescribes to us delights us, and we desire it - that is, we love it; in which if God does not precede us, not only is it not perfected, but it is not even begun, from us. For, if without Him we are able to do nothing actually, we are able neither to begin nor to perfect, - because to begin, it is said His mercy shall prevent me; to finish, it is said, His mercy shall follow me. " "
4.4.7. These things being so, what advantage is it to new heretics, enemies of the cross of Christ and opposers of divine grace, that they seem sound from the error of the Manicheans, if they are dying by another pestilence of their own? What advantage is it to them, that in the praise of the creature they say that the good God is the maker of those that are born, by whom all things were made, and that the children of men are His work, whom the Manicheans say are the work of the prince of darkness; when between them both, or among them both, God's creation, which is in infants, is perishing? For both of them refuse to have it delivered by Christ's flesh and blood, - the one, because they destroy that very flesh and blood, as if He did not take upon Him these at all in man or of man; and the other, because they assert that there is no evil in infants from which they should be delivered by the sacrament of this flesh and blood. Between them lies the human creature in infants, with a good origination, with a corrupted propagation, confessing for its goods a most excellent Creator, seeking for its evils a most merciful Redeemer, having the Manicheans as disparagers of its benefits, having the Pelagians as deniers of its evils, and both as persecutors. And although in infancy there is no power to speak, yet with its silent look and its hidden weakness it addresses the impious vanity of both, saying to the one, Believe that I am created by Him who creates good things; and saying to the other, Allow me to be healed by Him who created me. The Manicheans say, There is nothing of this infant save the good soul to be delivered; the rest, which belongs not to the good God, but to the prince of darkness, is to be rejected. The Pelagians say, Certainly there is nothing of this infant to be delivered, because we have shown the whole to be safe. Both lie; but now the accuser of the flesh alone is more bearable than the praiser, who is convicted of cruelty against the whole. But neither does the Manichean help the human soul by blaspheming God, the Author of the entire man; nor does the Pelagian permit the divine grace to come to the help of human infancy by denying original sin. Therefore it is by the catholic faith that God has mercy, seeing that by condemning both mischievous doctrines it comes to the help of the infant for salvation. It says to the Manicheans, Hear the apostle crying, 'Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you?' 1 Corinthians 6:19 and believe that the good God is the Creator of bodies, because the temple of the Holy Ghost cannot be the work of the prince of darkness. It says to the Pelagians, The infant that you look upon 'was conceived in iniquity, and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.' Why, as if in defending it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. Allow the wretched creatures to receive remission of sins, through Him who alone neither as small nor great could have any sin. "". None
51. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, None (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
 Tagged with subjects: • Ambrose, influence on Augustine • Augustine • Augustine , generally • Augustine , respect for the Donatist Tyconius • Augustine of Hippo • Augustine of Hippo, City of God • Augustine of Hippo, De moribus ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum • Augustine of Hippo, Tyconius’s influence on • Augustine of Hippo, and Pseudo-Cyprianic treatises • Augustine of Hippo, and Vetus Latina • Augustine of Hippo, and the biblical canon • Augustine of Hippo, on allegory of Scripture • Augustine of Hippo, on astrology/astronomy • Augustine of Hippo, on divine pedagogy of Scripture • Augustine of Hippo, on unity of Scripture • Augustine of Hippo, philosophical approach to Hebrew Scriptures • Augustine on astrology • Augustine, Confessiones • Augustine, De Dialectica • Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana • Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos • Augustine, De Magistro • Augustine, De Ordine • Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus • Augustine, Manichee • Augustine, Plato and Platonism of • Augustine, Platonism, Neoplatonism • Augustine, Retractationes • Augustine, Saint, and Virgil • Augustine, Saint, on astrology • Augustine, Saint, on causes • Augustine, Saint, on human will • Augustine, Saint, on origin of evil • Augustine, Saint, on scripture • Augustine, Saint, on will • Augustine, Soliloquia • Augustine, St, definition of orator • Augustine, St, on rhetoric in service of Church • Augustine, and Christian faith • Augustine, on Christians’ borrowing from Platonist tradition • Augustine, on Muses • Augustine, on arithmetic, mathematics • Augustine, on ascent to Truth/God • Augustine, on astrology, astronomy • Augustine, on biblical scientia • Augustine, on canon of liberal arts • Augustine, on dialectic, logic • Augustine, on divination • Augustine, on doctrina(e) • Augustine, on eschatological criterion of interpretation • Augustine, on fine arts • Augustine, on geometry • Augustine, on grammar • Augustine, on history • Augustine, on love (amor, caritas) and interpretation • Augustine, on manufacturing arts • Augustine, on medicine • Augustine, on memory • Augustine, on music • Augustine, on natural history • Augustine, on nautical art • Augustine, on performance arts • Augustine, on philosophy, sapientia • Augustine, on pictura versus litterae • Augustine, on rhetoric • Augustine, on rule of faith • Augustine, on signs • Augustine, reads Cicero's Hortensius • Augustine, semiotics of • Augustine, statements on disciplinary knowledge, on agriculture • Augustine, survey of ‘liberal arts’ in Book • Augustine, ‘disciplinarum libri’ • Augustine’s Works, Conf. • Augustine’s Works, Doctr. chr. • De doctrina Christiana, Augustine • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), composition date • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), on incarnation • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), on love • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), on signification and disambiguation • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), on “use” of Scripture • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), overview • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), scriptural citations in • De doctrina christiana (Augustine), “macro” vs. “micro” usages of Scripture, as concept • De musica, Augustine • Orosius, and Augustine • Porphyry, and Augustine • Reception, Augustine • Tyconius, Augustine’s dependence on • allegory see also typology, Augustine’s understanding and use of • allegory, Augustine and • biblical interpretation, Augustine’s programme for the interpreter • canon, in Augustine’s works • literal interpretation, Augustine’s understanding of • philosophy, Neoplatonic, influence on Augustine • theodicy, in Augustine

 Found in books: Ando (2013) 219; Ashbrook Harvey et al (2015) 93; Beck (2006) 168, 191; Conybeare (2000) 56; Esler (2000) 682, 780, 967, 1224; Goldhill (2022) 297; Hanghan (2019) 51; Hitch (2017) 51; Hoenig (2018) 222; Humfress (2007) 144; Lunn-Rockliffe (2007) 80; Mackey (2022) 254; Marmodoro and Prince (2015) 222, 239; Penniman (2017) 183, 184; Pignot (2020) 251; Pollmann and Vessey (2007) 13, 73, 98, 105, 107, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 142, 149, 157, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 213, 214, 216, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 228, 230, 231; Van Nuffelen (2012) 4; Wilson (2018) 129; Yates and Dupont (2020) 164, 220, 228, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340


1.1.1. 1. There are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends: the mode of ascertaining the proper meaning, and the mode of making known the meaning when it is ascertained. We shall treat first of the mode of ascertaining, next of the mode of making known, the meaning - a great and arduous undertaking, and one that, if difficult to carry out, it is, I fear, presumptuous to enter upon. And presumptuous it would undoubtedly be, if I were counting on my own strength; but since my hope of accomplishing the work rests on Him who has already supplied me with many thoughts on this subject, I do not fear but that He will go on to supply what is yet wanting when once I have begun to use what He has already given. For a possession which is not diminished by being shared with others, if it is possessed and not shared, is not yet possessed as it ought to be possessed. The Lord says Whosoever has, to him shall be given. Matthew 13:12 He will give, then, to those who have; that is to say, if they use freely and cheerfully what they have received, He will add to and perfect His gifts. The loaves in the miracle were only five and seven in number before the disciples began to divide them among the hungry people. But when once they began to distribute them, though the wants of so many thousands were satisfied, they filled baskets with the fragments that were left. Now, just as that bread increased in the very act of breaking it, so those thoughts which the Lord has already vouchsafed to me with a view to undertaking this work will, as soon as I begin to impart them to others, be multiplied by His grace, so that, in this very work of distribution in which I have engaged, so far from incurring loss and poverty, I shall be made to rejoice in a marvellous increase of wealth. 1.2.2. 2. All instruction is either about things or about signs; but things are learned by means of signs. I now use the word thing in a strict sense, to signify that which is never employed as a sign of anything else: for example, wood, stone, cattle, and other things of that kind. Not, however, the wood which we read Moses cast into the bitter waters to make them sweet, Exodus 15:25 nor the stone which Jacob used as a pillow, Genesis 28:11 nor the ram which Abraham offered up instead of his son; Genesis 22:13 for these, though they are things, are also signs of other things. There are signs of another kind, those which are never employed except as signs: for example, words. No one uses words except as signs of something else; and hence may be understood what I call signs: those things, to wit, which are used to indicate something else. Accordingly, every sign is also a thing; for what is not a thing is nothing at all. Every thing, however, is not also a sign. And so, in regard to this distinction between things and signs, I shall, when I speak of things, speak in such a way that even if some of them may be used as signs also, that will not interfere with the division of the subject according to which I am to discuss things first and signs afterwards. But we must carefully remember that what we have now to consider about things is what they are in themselves, not what other things they are signs of. ' "1.3. 3. There are some things, then, which are to be enjoyed, others which are to be used, others still which are to be enjoyed and used. Those things which are objects of enjoyment make us happy. Those things which are objects of use assist, and (so to speak) support us in our efforts after happiness, so that we can attain the things that make us happy and rest in them. We ourselves, again, who enjoy and use these things, being placed among both kinds of objects, if we set ourselves to enjoy those which we ought to use, are hindered in our course, and sometimes even led away from it; so that, getting entangled in the love of lower gratifications, we lag behind in, or even altogether turn back from, the pursuit of the real and proper objects of enjoyment. 1.4.4. 4. For to enjoy a thing is to rest with satisfaction in it for its own sake. To use, on the other hand, is to employ whatever means are at one's disposal to obtain what one desires, if it is a proper object of desire; for an unlawful use ought rather to be called an abuse. Suppose, then, we were wanderers in a strange country, and could not live happily away from our fatherland, and that we felt wretched in our wandering, and wishing to put an end to our misery, determined to return home. We find, however, that we must make use of some mode of conveyance, either by land or water, in order to reach that fatherland where our enjoyment is to commence. But the beauty of the country through which we pass, and the very pleasure of the motion, charm our hearts, and turning these things which we ought to use into objects of enjoyment, we become unwilling to hasten the end of our journey; and becoming engrossed in a factitious delight, our thoughts are diverted from that home whose delights would make us truly happy. Such is a picture of our condition in this life of mortality. We have wandered far from God; and if we wish to return to our Father's home, this world must be used, not enjoyed, that so the invisible things of God may be clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, Romans 1:20 - that is, that by means of what is material and temporary we may lay hold upon that which is spiritual and eternal. " '1.5.5. 5. The true objects of enjoyment, then, are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are at the same time the Trinity, one Being, supreme above all, and common to all who enjoy Him, if He is an object, and not rather the cause of all objects, or indeed even if He is the cause of all. For it is not easy to find a name that will suitably express so great excellence, unless it is better to speak in this way: The Trinity, one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. Romans 11:36 Thus the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and each of these by Himself, is God, and at the same time they are all one God; and each of them by Himself is a complete substance, and yet they are all one substance. The Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son: but the Father is only Father, the Son is only Son, and the Holy Spirit is only Holy Spirit. To all three belong the same eternity, the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, the same power. In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality; and these three attributes are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all harmonious because of the Holy Spirit. 1.10.10. 10. Wherefore, since it is our duty fully to enjoy the truth which lives unchangeably, and since the triune God takes counsel in this truth for the things which He has made, the soul must be purified that it may have power to perceive that light, and to rest in it when it is perceived. And let us look upon this purification as a kind of journey or voyage to our native land. For it is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits. 1.11.11. 11. But of this we should have been wholly incapable, had not Wisdom condescended to adapt Himself to our weakness, and to show us a pattern of holy life in the form of our own humanity. Yet, since we when we come to Him do wisely, He when He came to us was considered by proud men to have done very foolishly. And since we when we come to Him become strong, He when He came to us was looked upon as weak. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:25 And thus, though Wisdom was Himself our home, He made Himself also the way by which we should reach our home. 1.13.12. In what way did He come but this, The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us? John 1:14 Just as when we speak, in order that what we have in our minds may enter through the ear into the mind of the hearer, the word which we have in our hearts becomes an outward sound and is called speech; and yet our thought does not lose itself in the sound, but remains complete in itself, and takes the form of speech without being modified in its own nature by the change: so the Divine Word, though suffering no change of nature, yet became flesh, that He might dwell among us. 1.22.20. 20. Among all these things, then, those only are the true objects of enjoyment which we have spoken of as eternal and unchangeable. The rest are for use, that we may be able to arrive at the full enjoyment of the former. We, however, who enjoy and use other things are things ourselves. For a great thing truly is man, made after the image and similitude of God, not as respects the mortal body in which he is clothed, but as respects the rational soul by which he is exalted in honor above the beasts. And so it becomes an important question, whether men ought to enjoy, or to use, themselves, or to do both. For we are commanded to love one another: but it is a question whether man is to be loved by man for his own sake, or for the sake of something else. If it is for his own sake, we enjoy him; if it is for the sake of something else, we use him. It seems to me, then, that he is to be loved for the sake of something else. For if a thing is to be loved for its own sake, then in the enjoyment of it consists a happy life, the hope of which at least, if not yet the reality, is our comfort in the present time. But a curse is pronounced on him who places his hope in man. Jeremiah 17:5 21. Neither ought any one to have joy in himself, if you look at the matter clearly, because no one ought to love even himself for his own sake, but for the sake of Him who is the true object of enjoyment. For a man is never in so good a state as when his whole life is a journey towards the unchangeable life, and his affections are entirely fixed upon that. If, however, he loves himself for his own sake, he does not look at himself in relation to God, but turns his mind in upon him self, and so is not occupied with anything that is unchangeable. And thus he does not enjoy himself at his best, because he is better when his mind is fully fixed upon, and his affections wrapped up in, the unchangeable good, than when he turns from that to enjoy even himself. Wherefore if you ought not to love even yourself for your own sake, but for His in whom your love finds its most worthy object, no other man has a right to be angry if you love him too for God's sake. For this is the law of love that has been laid down by Divine authority: You shall love your neighbor as yourself; but, You shall love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind: so that you are to concentrate all your thoughts, your whole life and your whole intelligence upon Him from whom you derive all that you bring. For when He says, With all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, He means that no part of our life is to be unoccupied, and to afford room, as it were, for the wish to enjoy some other object, but that whatever else may suggest itself to us as an object worthy of love is to be borne into the same channel in which the whole current of our affections flows. Whoever, then, loves his neighbor aright, ought to urge upon him that he too should love God with his whole heart, and soul, and mind. For in this way, loving his neighbor as himself, a man turns the whole current of his love both for himself and his neighbor into the channel of the love of God, which suffers no stream to be drawn off from itself by whose diversion its own volume would be diminished. " '1.26.27. 27. Seeing, then, that there is no need of a command that every man should love himself and his own body - seeing, that is, that we love ourselves, and what is beneath us but connected with us, through a law of nature which has never been violated, and which is common to us with the beasts (for even the beasts love themselves and their own bodies) - it only remained necessary to lay injunctions upon us in regard to God above us, and our neighbor beside us. You shall love, He says, the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:37-40 Thus the end of the commandment is love, and that twofold, the love of God and the love of our neighbor. Now, if you take yourself in your entirety - that is, soul and body together - and your neighbor in his entirety, soul and body together (for man is made up of soul and body), you will find that none of the classes of things that are to be loved is overlooked in these two commandments. For though, when the love of God comes first, and the measure of our love for Him is prescribed in such terms that it is evident all other things are to find their centre in Him, nothing seems to be said about our love for ourselves; yet when it is said, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, it at once becomes evident that our love for ourselves has not been overlooked. 1.35.39. 39. of all, then, that has been said since we entered upon the discussion about things, this is the sum: that we should clearly understand that the fulfillment and the end of the Law, and of all Holy Scripture, is the love of an object which is to be enjoyed, and the love of an object which can enjoy that other in fellowship with ourselves. For there is no need of a command that each man should love himself. The whole temporal dispensation for our salvation, therefore, was framed by the providence of God that we might know this truth and be able to act upon it; and we ought to use that dispensation, not with such love and delight as if it were a good to rest in, but with a transient feeling rather, such as we have towards the road, or carriages, or other things that are merely means. Perhaps some other comparison can be found that will more suitably express the idea that we are to love the things by which we are borne only for the sake of that towards which we are borne. 1.36.40. 40. Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought. If, on the other hand, a man draws a meaning from them that may be used for the building up of love, even though he does not happen upon the precise meaning which the author whom he reads intended to express in that place, his error is not pernicious, and he is wholly clear from the charge of deception. For there is involved in deception the intention to say what is false; and we find plenty of people who intend to deceive, but nobody who wishes to be deceived. Since, then, the man who knows practises deceit, and the ignorant man is practised upon, it is quite clear that in any particular case the man who is deceived is a better man than he who deceives, seeing that it is better to suffer than to commit injustice. Now every man who lies commits an injustice; and if any man thinks that a lie is ever useful, he must think that injustice is sometimes useful. For no liar keeps faith in the matter about which he lies. He wishes, of course, that the man to whom he lies should place confidence in him; and yet he betrays his confidence by lying to him. Now every man who breaks faith is unjust. Either, then, injustice is sometimes useful (which is impossible), or a lie is never useful. 41. Whoever takes another meaning out of Scripture than the writer intended, goes astray, but not through any falsehood in Scripture. Nevertheless, as I was going to say, if his mistaken interpretation tends to build up love, which is the end of the commandment, he goes astray in much the same way as a man who by mistake quits the high road, but yet reaches through the fields the same place to which the road leads. He is to be corrected, however, and to be shown how much better it is not to quit the straight road, lest, if he get into a habit of going astray, he may sometimes take cross roads, or even go in the wrong direction altogether. 1.39.43. 43. And thus a man who is resting upon faith, hope and love, and who keeps a firm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others. Accordingly, many live without copies of the Scriptures, even in solitude, on the strength of these three graces. So that in their case, I think, the saying is already fulfilled: Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 1 Corinthians 13:8 Yet by means of these instruments (as they may be called), so great an edifice of faith and love has been built up in them, that, holding to what is perfect, they do not seek for what is only in part perfect - of course, I mean, so far as is possible in this life; for, in comparison with the future life, the life of no just and holy man is perfect here. Therefore the apostle says: Now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity: 1 Corinthians 13:13 because, when a man shall have reached the eternal world, while the other two graces will fail, love will remain greater and more assured. ' "2.2.3. 3. Conventional signs, on the other hand, are those which living beings mutually exchange for the purpose of showing, as well as they can, the feelings of their minds, or their perceptions, or their thoughts. Nor is there any reason for giving a sign except the desire of drawing forth and conveying into another's mind what the giver of the sign has in his own mind. We wish, then, to consider and discuss this class of signs so far as men are concerned with it, because even the signs which have been given us of God, and which are contained in the Holy Scriptures, were made known to us through men - those, namely, who wrote the Scriptures. The beasts, too, have certain signs among themselves by which they make known the desires in their mind. For when the poultry-cock has discovered food, he signals with his voice for the hen to run to him, and the dove by cooing calls his mate, or is called by her in turn; and many signs of the same kind are matters of common observation. Now whether these signs, like the expression or the cry of a man in grief, follow the movement of the mind instinctively and apart from any purpose, or whether they are really used with the purpose of signification, is another question, and does not pertain to the matter in hand. And this part of the subject I exclude from the scope of this work as not necessary to my present object. " '2.3.4. 4. of the signs, then, by which men communicate their thoughts to one another, some relate to the sense of sight, some to that of hearing, a very few to the other senses. For, when we nod, we give no sign except to the eyes of the man to whom we wish by this sign to impart our desire. And some convey a great deal by the motion of the hands: and actors by movements of all their limbs give certain signs to the initiated, and, so to speak, address their conversation to the eyes: and the military standards and flags convey through the eyes the will of the commanders. And all these signs are as it were a kind of visible words. The signs that address themselves to the ear are, as I have said, more numerous, and for the most part consist of words. For though the bugle and the flute and the lyre frequently give not only a sweet but a significant sound, yet all these signs are very few in number compared with words. For among men words have obtained far and away the chief place as a means of indicating the thoughts of the mind. Our Lord, it is true, gave a sign through the odor of the ointment which was poured out upon His feet; and in the sacrament of His body and blood He signified His will through the sense of taste; and when by touching the hem of His garment the woman was made whole, the act was not wanting in significance. Matthew 9:20 But the countless multitude of the signs through which men express their thoughts consist of words. For I have been able to put into words all those signs, the various classes of which I have briefly touched upon, but I could by no effort express words in terms of those signs. 2.7.9. 9. First of all, then, it is necessary that we should be led by the fear of God to seek the knowledge of His will, what He commands us to desire and what to avoid. Now this fear will of necessity excite in us the thought of our mortality and of the death that is before us, and crucify all the motions of pride as if our flesh were nailed to the tree. Next it is necessary to have our hearts subdued by piety, and not to run in the face of Holy Scripture, whether when understood it strikes at some of our sins, or, when not understood, we feel as if we could be wiser and give better commands ourselves. We must rather think and believe that whatever is there written, even though it be hidden, is better and truer than anything we could devise by our own wisdom. 10. After these two steps of fear and piety, we come to the third step, knowledge, of which I have now undertaken to treat. For in this every earnest student of the Holy Scriptures exercises himself, to find nothing else in them but that God is to be loved for His own sake, and our neighbor for God's sake; and that God is to be loved with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and one's neighbor as one's self - that is, in such a way that all our love for our neighbor, like all our love for ourselves, should have reference to God. Matthew 22:37-40 And on these two commandments I touched in the previous book when I was treating about things. It is necessary, then, that each man should first of all find in the Scriptures that he, through being entangled in the love of this world - i.e., of temporal things - has been drawn far away from such a love for God and such a love for his neighbor as Scripture enjoins. Then that fear which leads him to think of the judgment of God, and that piety which gives him no option but to believe in and submit to the authority of Scripture, compel him to bewail his condition. For the knowledge of a good hope makes a man not boastful, but sorrowful. And in this frame of mind he implores with unremitting prayers the comfort of the Divine help that he may not be overwhelmed in despair, and so he gradually comes to the fourth step - that is, strength and resolution, - in which he hungers and thirsts after righteousness. For in this frame of mind he extricates himself from every form of fatal joy in transitory things, and turning away from these, fixes his affection on things eternal, to wit, the unchangeable Trinity in unity. 11. And when, to the extent of his power, he has gazed upon this object shining from afar, and has felt that owing to the weakness of his sight he cannot endure that matchless light, then in the fifth step - that is, in the counsel of compassion - he cleanses his soul, which is violently agitated, and disturbs him with base desires, from the filth it has contracted. And at this stage he exercises himself diligently in the love of his neighbor; and when he has reached the point of loving his enemy, full of hopes and unbroken in strength, he mounts to the sixth step, in which he purifies the eye itself which can see God, Matthew 5:8 so far as God can be seen by those who as far as possible die to this world. For men see Him just so far as they die to this world; and so far as they live to it they see Him not. But yet, although that light may begin to appear clearer, and not only more tolerable, but even more delightful, still it is only through a glass darkly that we are said to see, because we walk by faith, not by sight, while we continue to wander as strangers in this world, even though our conversation be in heaven. And at this stage, too, a man so purges the eye of his affections as not to place his neighbor before, or even in comparison with, the truth, and therefore not himself, because not him whom he loves as himself. Accordingly, that holy man will be so single and so pure in heart, that he will not step aside from the truth, either for the sake of pleasing men or with a view to avoid any of the annoyances which beset this life. Such a son ascends to wisdom, which is the seventh and last step, and which he enjoys in peace and tranquillity. For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. From that beginning, then, till we reach wisdom itself, our way is by the steps now described. " '2.7.10. 9. First of all, then, it is necessary that we should be led by the fear of God to seek the knowledge of His will, what He commands us to desire and what to avoid. Now this fear will of necessity excite in us the thought of our mortality and of the death that is before us, and crucify all the motions of pride as if our flesh were nailed to the tree. Next it is necessary to have our hearts subdued by piety, and not to run in the face of Holy Scripture, whether when understood it strikes at some of our sins, or, when not understood, we feel as if we could be wiser and give better commands ourselves. We must rather think and believe that whatever is there written, even though it be hidden, is better and truer than anything we could devise by our own wisdom. 10. After these two steps of fear and piety, we come to the third step, knowledge, of which I have now undertaken to treat. For in this every earnest student of the Holy Scriptures exercises himself, to find nothing else in them but that God is to be loved for His own sake, and our neighbor for God's sake; and that God is to be loved with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and one's neighbor as one's self - that is, in such a way that all our love for our neighbor, like all our love for ourselves, should have reference to God. Matthew 22:37-40 And on these two commandments I touched in the previous book when I was treating about things. It is necessary, then, that each man should first of all find in the Scriptures that he, through being entangled in the love of this world - i.e., of temporal things - has been drawn far away from such a love for God and such a love for his neighbor as Scripture enjoins. Then that fear which leads him to think of the judgment of God, and that piety which gives him no option but to believe in and submit to the authority of Scripture, compel him to bewail his condition. For the knowledge of a good hope makes a man not boastful, but sorrowful. And in this frame of mind he implores with unremitting prayers the comfort of the Divine help that he may not be overwhelmed in despair, and so he gradually comes to the fourth step - that is, strength and resolution, - in which he hungers and thirsts after righteousness. For in this frame of mind he extricates himself from every form of fatal joy in transitory things, and turning away from these, fixes his affection on things eternal, to wit, the unchangeable Trinity in unity. 11. And when, to the extent of his power, he has gazed upon this object shining from afar, and has felt that owing to the weakness of his sight he cannot endure that matchless light, then in the fifth step - that is, in the counsel of compassion - he cleanses his soul, which is violently agitated, and disturbs him with base desires, from the filth it has contracted. And at this stage he exercises himself diligently in the love of his neighbor; and when he has reached the point of loving his enemy, full of hopes and unbroken in strength, he mounts to the sixth step, in which he purifies the eye itself which can see God, Matthew 5:8 so far as God can be seen by those who as far as possible die to this world. For men see Him just so far as they die to this world; and so far as they live to it they see Him not. But yet, although that light may begin to appear clearer, and not only more tolerable, but even more delightful, still it is only through a glass darkly that we are said to see, because we walk by faith, not by sight, while we continue to wander as strangers in this world, even though our conversation be in heaven. And at this stage, too, a man so purges the eye of his affections as not to place his neighbor before, or even in comparison with, the truth, and therefore not himself, because not him whom he loves as himself. Accordingly, that holy man will be so single and so pure in heart, that he will not step aside from the truth, either for the sake of pleasing men or with a view to avoid any of the annoyances which beset this life. Such a son ascends to wisdom, which is the seventh and last step, and which he enjoys in peace and tranquillity. For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. From that beginning, then, till we reach wisdom itself, our way is by the steps now described. " "2.8.12. 12. But let us now go back to consider the third step here mentioned, for it is about it that I have set myself to speak and reason as the Lord shall grant me wisdom. The most skillful interpreter of the sacred writings, then, will be he who in the first place has read them all and retained them in his knowledge, if not yet with full understanding, still with such knowledge as reading gives - those of them, at least, that are called canonical. For he will read the others with greater safety when built up in the belief of the truth, so that they will not take first possession of a weak mind, nor, cheating it with dangerous falsehoods and delusions, fill it with prejudices adverse to a sound understanding. Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgment of the greater number of Catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the Catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal. 13. Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:- Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the Son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings; next, four books of Kings, and two of Chronicles - these last not following one another, but running parallel, so to speak, and going over the same ground. The books now mentioned are history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and follows the order of the events. There are other books which seem to follow no regular order, and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books nor with one another, such as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra, which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles. Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz., Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are the books which are strictly called the Prophets: twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:- Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. The authority of the Old Testament is contained within the limits of these forty-four books. That of the New Testament, again, is contained within the following:- Four books of the Gospel, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John; fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul- one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews: two of Peter; three of John; one of Jude; and one of James; one book of the Acts of the Apostles; and one of the Revelation of John. 2.11.16. 16. The great remedy for ignorance of proper signs is knowledge of languages. And men who speak the Latin tongue, of whom are those I have undertaken to instruct, need two other languages for the knowledge of Scripture, Hebrew and Greek, that they may have recourse to the original texts if the endless diversity of the Latin translators throw them into doubt. Although, indeed, we often find Hebrew words untranslated in the books as for example, Amen, Halleluia, Racha, Hosanna, and others of the same kind. Some of these, although they could have been translated, have been preserved in their original form on account of the more sacred authority that attaches to it, as for example, Amen and Halleluia. Some of them, again, are said to be untranslatable into another tongue, of which the other two I have mentioned are examples. For in some languages there are words that cannot be translated into the idiom of another language. And this happens chiefly in the case of interjections, which are words that express rather an emotion of the mind than any part of a thought we have in our mind. And the two given above are said to be of this kind, Racha expressing the cry of an angry man, Hosanna that of a joyful man. But the knowledge of these languages is necessary, not for the sake of a few words like these which it is very easy to mark and to ask about, but, as has been said, on account of the diversities among translators. For the translations of the Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek can be counted, but the Latin translators are out of all number. For in the early days of the faith every man who happened to get his hands upon a Greek manuscript, and who thought he had any knowledge, were it ever so little, of the two languages, ventured upon the work of translation. ' "2.12.17. 17. And this circumstance would assist rather than hinder the understanding of Scripture, if only readers were not careless. For the examination of a number of texts has often thrown light upon some of the more obscure passages; for example, in that passage of the prophet Isaiah, one translator reads: And do not despise the domestics of your seed; another reads: And do not despise your own flesh. Each of these in turn confirms the other. For the one is explained by the other; because flesh may be taken in its literal sense, so that a man may understand that he is admonished not to despise his own body; and the domestics of your seed may be understood figuratively of Christians, because they are spiritually born of the same seed as ourselves, namely, the Word. When now the meaning of the two translators is compared, a more likely sense of the words suggests itself, viz., that the command is not to despise our kinsmen, because when one brings the expression domestics of your seed into relation with flesh, kinsmen most naturally occur to one's mind. Whence, I think, that expression of the apostle, when he says, If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them; Romans 11:14 that is, that through emulation of those who had believed, some of them might believe too. And he calls the Jews his flesh, on account of the relationship of blood. Again, that passage from the same prophet Isaiah: If you will not believe, you shall not understand, another has translated: If you will not believe, you shall not abide. Now which of these is the literal translation cannot be ascertained without reference to the text in the original tongue. And yet to those who read with knowledge, a great truth is to be found in each. For it is difficult for interpreters to differ so widely as not to touch at some point. Accordingly here, as understanding consists in sight, and is abiding, but faith feeds us as babes, upon milk, in the cradles of temporal things (for now we walk by faith, not by sight); 2 Corinthians 5:7 as, moreover, unless we walk by faith, we shall not attain to sight, which does not pass away, but abides, our understanding being purified by holding to the truth - for these reasons one says, If you will not believe, you shall not understand; but the other, If you will not believe, you shall not abide. 18. And very often a translator, to whom the meaning is not well known, is deceived by an ambiguity in the original language, and puts upon the passage a construction that is wholly alien to the sense of the writer. As for example, some texts read: Their feet are sharp to shed blood; Romans 3:15 for the word &2.13.20. 19. But since we do not clearly see what the actual thought is which the several translators endeavor to express, each according to his own ability and judgment, unless we examine it in the language which they translate; and since the translator, if he be not a very learned man, often departs from the meaning of his author, we must either endeavor to get a knowledge of those languages from which the Scriptures are translated into Latin, or we must get hold of the translations of those who keep rather close to the letter of the original, not because these are sufficient, but because we may use them to correct the freedom or the error of others, who in their translations have chosen to follow the sense quite as much as the words. For not only single words, but often whole phrases are translated, which could not be translated at all into the Latin idiom by any one who wished to hold by the usage of the ancients who spoke Latin. And though these sometimes do not interfere with the understanding of the passage, yet they are offensive to those who feel greater delight in things when even the signs of those things are kept in their own purity. For what is called a solecism is nothing else than the putting of words together according to a different rule from that which those of our predecessors who spoke with any authority followed. For whether we say inter homines (among men) or inter hominibus, is of no consequence to a man who only wishes to know the facts. And in the same way, what is a barbarism but the pronouncing of a word in a different way from that in which those who spoke Latin before us pronounced it? For whether the word ignoscere (to pardon) should be pronounced with the third syllable long or short, is not a matter of much concern to the man who is beseeching God, in any way at all that he can get the words out, to pardon his sins. What then is purity of speech, except the preserving of the custom of language established by the authority of former speakers? 20. And men are easily offended in a matter of this kind, just in proportion as they are weak; and they are weak just in proportion as they wish to seem learned, not in the knowledge of things which tend to edification, but in that of signs, by which it is hard not to be puffed up, 1 Corinthians 8:1 seeing that the knowledge of things even would often set up our neck, if it were not held down by the yoke of our Master. For how does it prevent our understanding it to have the following passage thus expressed: Qu est terra in quo isti insidunt super eam, si bona est an nequam; et qu sunt civitates, in quibus ipsi inhabitant in ipsis? And I am more disposed to think that this is simply the idiom of another language than that any deeper meaning is intended. Again, that phrase, which we cannot now take away from the lips of the people who sing it: Super ipsum autem floriet sanctificatio mea, surely takes away nothing from the meaning. Yet a more learned man would prefer that this should be corrected, and that we should say, not floriet, but florebit. Nor does anything stand in the way of the correction being made, except the usage of the singers. Mistakes of this kind, then, if a man do not choose to avoid them altogether, it is easy to treat with indifference, as not interfering with a right understanding. But take, on the other hand, the saying of the apostle: Quod stultum est Dei, sapientius est hominibus, et quod infirmum est Dei, fortius est hominibus. If any one should retain in this passage the Greek idiom, and say, Quod stultum est Dei, sapientius est hominum et quod infirmum est Dei fortius est hominum, a quick and careful reader would indeed by an effort attain to the true meaning, but still a man of slower intelligence either would not understand it at all, or would put an utterly false construction upon it. For not only is such a form of speech faulty in the Latin tongue, but it is ambiguous too, as if the meaning might be, that the folly of men or the weakness of men is wiser or stronger than that of God. But indeed even the expression sapientius est hominibus (stronger than men) is not free from ambiguity, even though it be free from solecism. For whether hominibus is put as the plural of the dative or as the plural of the ablative, does not appear, unless by reference to the meaning. It would be better then to say, sapientius est quam homines, and fortius est quam homines. ' "2.16.23. 23. In the case of figurative signs, again, if ignorance of any of them should chance to bring the reader to a stand-still, their meaning is to be traced partly by the knowledge of languages, partly by the knowledge of things. The pool of Siloam, for example, where the man whose eyes our Lord had anointed with clay made out of spittle was commanded to wash, has a figurative significance, and undoubtedly conveys a secret sense; but yet if the evangelist had not interpreted that name, John 9:7 a meaning so important would lie unnoticed. And we cannot doubt that, in the same way, many Hebrew names which have not been interpreted by the writers of those books, would, if any one could interpret them, be of great value and service in solving the enigmas of Scripture. And a number of men skilled in that language have conferred no small benefit on posterity by explaining all these words without reference to their place in Scripture, and telling us what Adam means, what Eve, what Abraham, what Moses, and also the names of places, what Jerusalem signifies, or Sion, or Sinai, or Lebanon, or Jordan, and whatever other names in that language we are not acquainted with. And when these names have been investigated and explained, many figurative expressions in Scripture become clear. 24. Ignorance of things, too, renders figurative expressions obscure, as when we do not know the nature of the animals, or minerals, or plants, which are frequently referred to in Scripture by way of comparison. The fact so well known about the serpent, for example, that to protect its head it will present its whole body to its assailants - how much light it throws upon the meaning of our Lord's command, that we should be wise as serpents; Matthew 10:16 that is to say, that for the sake of our head, which is Christ, we should willingly offer our body to the persecutors, lest the Christian faith should, as it were, be destroyed in us, if to save the body we deny our God! Or again, the statement that the serpent gets rid of its old skin by squeezing itself through a narrow hole, and thus acquires new strength - how appropriately it fits in with the direction to imitate the wisdom of the serpent, and to put off the old man, as the apostle says, that we may put on the new; Ephesians 4:22 and to put it off, too, by coming through a narrow place, according to the saying of our Lord, Enter ye in at the strait gate! Matthew 7:13 As, then, knowledge of the nature of the serpent throws light upon many metaphors which Scripture is accustomed to draw from that animal, so ignorance of other animals, which are no less frequently mentioned by way of comparison, is a very great drawback to the reader. And so in regard to minerals and plants: knowledge of the carbuncle, for instance, which shines in the dark, throws light upon many of the dark places in books too, where it is used metaphorically; and ignorance of the beryl or the adamant often shuts the doors of knowledge. And the only reason why we find it easy to understand that perpetual peace is indicated by the olive branch which the dove brought with it when it returned to the ark, Genesis 8:11 is that we know both that the smooth touch of olive oil is not easily spoiled by a fluid of another kind, and that the tree itself is an evergreen. Many, again, by reason of their ignorance of hyssop, not knowing the virtue it has in cleansing the lungs, nor the power it is said to have of piercing rocks with its roots, although it is a small and insignificant plant, cannot make out why it is said, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. 25. Ignorance of numbers, too, prevents us from understanding things that are set down in Scripture in a figurative and mystical way. A candid mind, if I may so speak, cannot but be anxious, for example, to ascertain what is meant by the fact that Moses and Elijah, and our Lord Himself, all fasted for forty days. And except by knowledge of and reflection upon the number, the difficulty of explaining the figure involved in this action cannot be got over. For the number contains ten four times, indicating the knowledge of all things, and that knowledge interwoven with time. For both the diurnal and the annual revolutions are accomplished in periods numbering four each; the diurnal in the hours of the morning, the noontide, the evening, and the night; the annual in the spring, summer, autumn, and winter months. Now while we live in time, we must abstain and fast from all joy in time, for the sake of that eternity in which we wish to live; al though by the passage of time we are taught this very lesson of despising time and seeking eternity. Further, the number ten signifies the knowledge of the Creator and the creature, for there is a trinity in the Creator; and the number seven indicates the creature, because of the life and the body. For the life consists of three parts, whence also God is to be loved with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind; and it is very clear that in the body there are four elements of which it is made up. In this number ten, therefore, when it is placed before us in connection with time, that is, when it is taken four times we are admonished to live unstained by, and not partaking of, any delight in time, that is, to fast for forty days. of this we are admonished by the law personified in Moses, by prophecy personified in Elijah, and by our Lord Himself, who, as if receiving the witness both of the law and the prophets, appeared on the mount between the other two, while His three disciples looked on in amazement. Next, we have to inquire in the same way, how out of the number forty springs the number fifty, which in our religion has no ordinary sacredness attached to it on account of the Pentecost, and how this number taken thrice on account of the three divisions of time, before the law, under the law, and under grace, or perhaps on account of the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Trinity itself being added over and above, has reference to the mystery of the most Holy Church, and reaches to the number of the one hundred and fifty-three fishes which were taken after the resurrection of our Lord, when the nets were cast out on the right-hand side of the boat. John 21:11 And in the same way, many other numbers and combinations of numbers are used in the sacred writings, to convey instruction under a figurative guise, and ignorance of numbers often shuts out the reader from this instruction. 26. Not a few things, too, are closed against us and obscured by ignorance of music. One man, for example, has not unskillfully explained some metaphors from the difference between the psaltery and the harp. And it is a question which it is not out of place for learned men to discuss, whether there is any musical law that compels the psaltery of ten chords to have just so many strings; or whether, if there be no such law, the number itself is not on that very account the more to be considered as of sacred significance, either with reference to the ten commandments of the law (and if again any question is raised about that number, we can only refer it to the Creator and the creature), or with reference to the number ten itself as interpreted above. And the number of years the temple was in building, which is mentioned in the gospel John 2:20 - viz., forty-six - has a certain undefinable musical sound, and when referred to the structure of our Lord's body, in relation to which the temple was mentioned, compels many heretics to confess that our Lord put on, not a false, but a true and human body. And in several places in the Holy Scriptures we find both numbers and music mentioned with honor. " "2.16.26. 23. In the case of figurative signs, again, if ignorance of any of them should chance to bring the reader to a stand-still, their meaning is to be traced partly by the knowledge of languages, partly by the knowledge of things. The pool of Siloam, for example, where the man whose eyes our Lord had anointed with clay made out of spittle was commanded to wash, has a figurative significance, and undoubtedly conveys a secret sense; but yet if the evangelist had not interpreted that name, John 9:7 a meaning so important would lie unnoticed. And we cannot doubt that, in the same way, many Hebrew names which have not been interpreted by the writers of those books, would, if any one could interpret them, be of great value and service in solving the enigmas of Scripture. And a number of men skilled in that language have conferred no small benefit on posterity by explaining all these words without reference to their place in Scripture, and telling us what Adam means, what Eve, what Abraham, what Moses, and also the names of places, what Jerusalem signifies, or Sion, or Sinai, or Lebanon, or Jordan, and whatever other names in that language we are not acquainted with. And when these names have been investigated and explained, many figurative expressions in Scripture become clear. 24. Ignorance of things, too, renders figurative expressions obscure, as when we do not know the nature of the animals, or minerals, or plants, which are frequently referred to in Scripture by way of comparison. The fact so well known about the serpent, for example, that to protect its head it will present its whole body to its assailants - how much light it throws upon the meaning of our Lord's command, that we should be wise as serpents; Matthew 10:16 that is to say, that for the sake of our head, which is Christ, we should willingly offer our body to the persecutors, lest the Christian faith should, as it were, be destroyed in us, if to save the body we deny our God! Or again, the statement that the serpent gets rid of its old skin by squeezing itself through a narrow hole, and thus acquires new strength - how appropriately it fits in with the direction to imitate the wisdom of the serpent, and to put off the old man, as the apostle says, that we may put on the new; Ephesians 4:22 and to put it off, too, by coming through a narrow place, according to the saying of our Lord, Enter ye in at the strait gate! Matthew 7:13 As, then, knowledge of the nature of the serpent throws light upon many metaphors which Scripture is accustomed to draw from that animal, so ignorance of other animals, which are no less frequently mentioned by way of comparison, is a very great drawback to the reader. And so in regard to minerals and plants: knowledge of the carbuncle, for instance, which shines in the dark, throws light upon many of the dark places in books too, where it is used metaphorically; and ignorance of the beryl or the adamant often shuts the doors of knowledge. And the only reason why we find it easy to understand that perpetual peace is indicated by the olive branch which the dove brought with it when it returned to the ark, Genesis 8:11 is that we know both that the smooth touch of olive oil is not easily spoiled by a fluid of another kind, and that the tree itself is an evergreen. Many, again, by reason of their ignorance of hyssop, not knowing the virtue it has in cleansing the lungs, nor the power it is said to have of piercing rocks with its roots, although it is a small and insignificant plant, cannot make out why it is said, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. 25. Ignorance of numbers, too, prevents us from understanding things that are set down in Scripture in a figurative and mystical way. A candid mind, if I may so speak, cannot but be anxious, for example, to ascertain what is meant by the fact that Moses and Elijah, and our Lord Himself, all fasted for forty days. And except by knowledge of and reflection upon the number, the difficulty of explaining the figure involved in this action cannot be got over. For the number contains ten four times, indicating the knowledge of all things, and that knowledge interwoven with time. For both the diurnal and the annual revolutions are accomplished in periods numbering four each; the diurnal in the hours of the morning, the noontide, the evening, and the night; the annual in the spring, summer, autumn, and winter months. Now while we live in time, we must abstain and fast from all joy in time, for the sake of that eternity in which we wish to live; al though by the passage of time we are taught this very lesson of despising time and seeking eternity. Further, the number ten signifies the knowledge of the Creator and the creature, for there is a trinity in the Creator; and the number seven indicates the creature, because of the life and the body. For the life consists of three parts, whence also God is to be loved with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind; and it is very clear that in the body there are four elements