(He resides at Carthage from his seventeenth to nineteenth year; he
reads and is strongly influenced by Cicero’s _Hortensius_; he is
attracted to the Manicheans. Confessing a love of shows and fiction in
which the passions of life are simulated, he repents his lack of
interest in the Scriptures at this period.)
(xi) 19. And Thou _sentest Thine hand from above_, and drewest my soul
out of that profound darkness, my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to
Thee for me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children.
For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the
death wherein I lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her,
and despisedst not her tears, when streaming down they watered the
ground under her eyes[2] in every place where she prayed; yea Thou
heardest her. For whence was that dream whereby Thou comfortedst her; so
that she allowed me to live with her, and to eat at the same table in
the house, which she had begun to shrink from, abhorring and detesting
the blasphemies of my error? For she saw herself standing on a certain
wooden rule, and a shining youth coming towards her, cheerful and
smiling upon her, herself grieving, and overwhelmed with grief. But he
having (in order to instruct, as is their wont, not to be instructed)
inquired of her the causes of her grief and daily tears, and she
answering that she was bewailing my perdition, he bade her rest
contented, and told her to look and observe, “That where she was, there
was I also.” And when she looked, she saw me standing by her in the same
rule. Whence was this, but that Thine ears were towards her heart? O
Thou Good omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us, as if Thou
caredst for him only; and so for all, as if they were but one!
20. Whence was this also, that when she had told me this vision, and I
would fain bend it to mean, “That she rather should not despair of being
one day what I was;” she presently, without any hesitation, replies,
“No; for it was not told me that, ‘where he, there thou also;’ but
‘where thou, there he also?’” I confess to Thee, O Lord, that to the
best of my remembrance, (and I have oft spoken of this), that Thy
answer, through my waking mother,—that she was not perplexed by the
plausibility of my false interpretation, and so quickly saw what was to
be seen, and which I certainly had not perceived, before she spake,—even
then moved me more than the dream itself, by which a joy to the holy
woman, to be fulfilled so long after, was, for the consolation of her
present anguish, so long before fore-signified. For almost nine years
passed, in which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit, and the
darkness of falsehood, often assaying to rise, but dashed down the more
grievously. All which time that chaste, godly, and sober widow, (such as
Thou lovest), now more cheered with hope, yet no whit relaxing in her
weeping and mourning, ceased not at all hours of her devotions to bewail
my case unto Thee. And her _prayers entered into Thy presence_; and yet
Thou sufferest me to be yet involved and reinvolved in that darkness.
(His mother attempts to persuade a bishop to convert her son, but the
bishop explains that he is not yet ready for the faith, and that when he
is, he will follow it himself. “Go thy ways, and God bless thee, for it
is not possible that the son of these tears should perish.”)
Footnote 2:
“He alludes here to that devout manner of the Eastern ancients, who
used to lie flat on their faces in prayer.”