(For nine years, from his nineteenth to his twenty-eighth year,
Augustine continues in his erring ways; “himself a Manichean and
seducing others to the same heresy; partial obedience amidst vanity and
sin, consulting astrologers, only partially shaken herein; loss of an
early friend, who is converted by being baptized when in a swoon.”)
(v) 10. And now, Lord, these things are passed by, and time hath
assuaged my wound. May I learn from Thee, who art Truth, and approach
the ear of my heart unto Thy mouth, that Thou mayest tell me why weeping
is sweet to the miserable? Hast Thou, although present everywhere, cast
away our misery far from Thee? And Thou abidest in Thyself, but we are
tossed about in divers trials. And yet unless we mourned in Thine ears,
we should have no hope left. Whence then is sweet fruit gathered from
the bitterness of life, from groaning, tears, sighs, and complaints?
Doth this sweeten it, that we hope Thou hearest? This is true of prayer,
for therein is a longing to approach unto Thee. But it is also in grief
for a thing lost, and the sorrow wherewith I was then overwhelmed? For I
neither hoped he should return to life, nor did I desire this with my
tears; but I wept only and grieved. For I was miserable, and had lost my
joy. Or is weeping indeed a bitter thing, and for very loathing of the
things, which we before enjoyed, does it then, when we shrink from them,
please us?
(vi) 11. But what speak I of these things? for now is no time to
question, but to confess unto Thee. Wretched I was; and wretched is
every soul bound by the friendship of perishable things; he is torn
asunder when he loses them, and then he feels the wretchedness, which he
had ere he lost them. So was it then with me; I wept most bitterly, and
found my repose in bitterness. Thus was I wretched, and that wretched
life I held dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have
changed it, yet was I more unwilling to part with it, than with him;
yea, I know not whether I would have parted with it even for him. In me
there had arisen some unexplained feeling, too contrary to this, for at
once I loathed exceedingly to live, and feared to die. I suppose, the
more I loved him, the more did I hate, and fear (as a most cruel enemy)
death, which had bereaved me of him: and I imagined it would speedily
make an end of all men, since it had power over him. For I wondered that
others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he
should never die, was dead: and I wondered yet more that myself, who was
to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said, one of his
friend, “Thou half of my soul:” for I felt that my soul and his soul
were “one soul in two bodies:” and therefore was my life a horror to me,
because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to
die, lest he whom I had much loved, should die wholly.
(viii) 13. Yet there succeeded, not indeed other griefs, yet the causes
of other griefs. For whence had that former grief so easily reached my
very inmost soul, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust, in
loving one that must die, as if he would never die? For what restored
and refreshed me chiefly was the solaces of other friends, with whom I
did love, what instead of Thee I loved; and this was a great fable, and
protracted lie, by whose adulterous stimulus, our soul, which lay
itching in our ears, was being defiled. But that fable would not die to
me, so oft as any of my friends died. There were other things which in
them did more take my mind; to talk and jest together, to do kind
offices by turns; to read together honied books; to play the fool or be
earnest together; to dissent at times without discontent, as a man might
with his own self; and even with the seldomness of these dissentings, to
season our more frequent consentings; sometimes to teach, and sometimes
learn; long for the absent with impatience: and welcome the coming with
joy. These and the like expressions, proceeding out of the hearts of
those that loved and were loved again, by the countenance, the tongue,
the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, were so much fuel to melt
our souls together, and out of many make but one.
(ix) 14. This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a man’s
conscience condemns itself if he love not him that loves him again, or
love not again him that loves him, looking for nothing from his person
but indications of his love. Hence that mourning, if one die, and
darkenings of sorrows, that steeping of the heart in tears, all
sweetness turned to bitterness; and upon the loss of life of the dying,
the death of the living. Blessed whoso loveth Thee, and his friend in
Thee, and his enemy for Thee. For he alone loses none dear to him, to
whom all are dear in Him Who cannot be lost....
(xiv) 22. So did I then love men, upon the judgment of men, not thine, O
my God, in Whom no man is deceived. But yet why not for qualities like
those of a famous charioteer, or fighter with beasts in the theater,
known far and wide by a vulgar popularity, but far otherwise, and
earnestly, and so as I would be myself commended? For I would not be
commended or loved, as actors are, (though I myself did commend and love
them,) but had rather be unknown, than so known; and even hated, than so
loved. Where now are the impulses to such various and divers kinds of
loves laid up in one soul? Why, since we are equally men, do I love in
another what, if I did not hate, I should not spurn and cast from
myself? For it holds not, that as a good horse is loved by him who would
not, though he might, be that horse, therefore the same may be said of
an actor, who shares our nature. Do I then love in a man what I hate to
be, who am a man? Man himself is a great deep, whose very _hairs Thou
numberest_, O Lord, _and they fall not to the ground without Thee_. And
yet are the hairs of his head easier to be numbered than are his
feelings, and the beatings of his heart.
23. But there was an orator of that sort whom I loved as wishing to be
myself such; and I erred through a swelling pride, and _was tossed about
with every wind_, but yet was steered by Thee, though very secretly. And
whence do I know, and whence do I confidently confess unto Thee, that I
had loved him more for the love of his commenders, than for the very
things for which he was commended? Because, had he been unpraised, and
these self-same men had dispraised him, and with dispraise and contempt
told the very same things of him, I had never been so kindled and
excited to love him. And yet the things had not been other, nor he
himself other; but only the feelings of the relators. See where the
impotent soul lies along, that is not yet stayed up by the solidity of
truth! Just as the gales of tongues blow from the breast of the
opinionative, so is it carried this way and that, driven forward and
backward, and the light is overclouded to it, and the truth unseen. And
lo, it is before us. And it was to me a great matter that my discourse
and labors should be known to that man: which should he approve, I were
the more kindled; but if he disapproved, my empty heart, void of Thy
solidity, had been wounded.
(Augustine confesses himself unable even to apply his knowledge and
talents rightly without proper notions of God.)