(Augustine, Confessions. part 24) answer is given me: "Because we know these things by his Spirit; for no one knows but the Spirit of God." But just as it is truly said to those who were to speak through the Spirit of God, "It is not you who speak," so it is also truly said to them who know through the Spirit of God, "It is not you yourselves who know," and just as rightly it may be said to those who perceive through the Spirit of God that a thing is good; it is not they who see, but God who seeth that it is good. It is, therefore, one thing to think like the men who judge something to be bad when it is good, as do those whom we have already mentioned. It is quite another thing that a man should see as good what is good -- as is the case with many whom thy creation pleases because it is good, yet what pleases them in it is not thee, and so they would prefer to find their joy in thy creatures rather than to find their joy in thee. It is still another thing that when a man sees a thing to be good, God should see in him that it is good -- that truly he may be loved in what he hath made, he who cannot be loved except through the Holy Spirit which he hath given us: "Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us."[649] It is by him that we see whatever we see to be good in any degree, since it is from him, who doth not exist in any particular degree but who simply is what he is.[650] CHAPTER XXXII 47. Thanks be to thee, O Lord! We see the heaven and the earth, either the corporeal part -- higher and lower -- or the spiritual and physical creation. And we see the light made and divided from the darkness for the adornment of these parts, from which the universal mass of the world or the universal creation is constituted. We see the firmament of heaven, either the original "body" of the world between the spiritual (higher) waters and the corporeal (lower) waters[651] or the expanse of air -- which is also called "heaven" -- through which the fowls of heaven wander, between the waters which move in clouds above them and which drop down in dew on clear nights, and those waters which are heavy and flow along the earth. We see the waters gathered together in the vast plains of the sea; and the dry land, first bare and then formed, so as to be visible and well-ordered; and the soil of herbs and trees. We see the light shining from above -- the sun to serve the day, the moon and the stars to give cheer in the night; and we see by all these that the intervals of time are marked and noted. We see on every side the watery elements, fruitful with fishes, beasts, and birds -- and we notice that the density of the atmosphere which supports the flights of birds is increased by the evaporation of the waters. We see the face of the earth, replete with earthly creatures; and man, created in thy image and likeness, in the very image and likeness of thee -- that is, having the power of reason and understanding -- by virtue of which he has been set over all irrational creatures. And just as there is in his soul one element which controls by its power of reflection and another which has been made subject so that it should obey, so also, physically, the woman was made for the man; for, although she had a like nature of rational intelligence in the mind, still in the sex of her body she should be similarly subject to the sex of her husband, as the appetite of action is subjected to the deliberation of the mind in order to conceive the rules of right action. These things we see, and each of them is good; and the whole is very good! CHAPTER XXXIII 48. Let thy works praise thee, that we may love thee; and let us love thee that thy works may praise thee -- those works which have a beginning and an end in time -- a rising and a setting, a growth and a decay, a form and a privation. Thus, they have their successions of morning and evening, partly hidden, partly plain. For they were made from nothing by thee, and not from thyself, and not from any matter that is not thine, or that was created beforehand. They were created from concreated matter -- that is, matter that was created by thee at the same time that thou didst form its formlessness, without any interval of time. Yet, since the matter of heaven and earth is one thing and the form of heaven and earth is another thing, thou didst create matter out of absolutely nothing (de omnino nihilo), but the form of the world thou didst form from formless matter (de informi materia). But both were done at the same time, so that form followed matter with no delaying interval. CHAPTER XXXIV 49. We have also explored the question of what thou didst desire to figure forth, both in the creation and in the description of things in this particular order. And we have seen that things taken separately are good, and all things taken together are very good, both in heaven and earth. And we have seen that this was wrought through thy Word, thy only Son, the head and the body of the Church, and it signifies thy predestination before all times, without morning and evening. But when, in time, thou didst begin to unfold the things destined before time, so that thou mightest make hidden things manifest and mightest reorder our disorders -- since our sins were over us and we had sunk into profound darkness away from thee, and thy good Spirit was moving over us to help us in due season -- thou didst justify the ungodly and also didst divide them from the wicked; and thou madest the authority of thy Book a firmament between those above who would be amenable to thee and those beneath who would be subject to them. And thou didst gather the society of unbelievers[652] into a conspiracy, in order that the zeal of the faithful might become manifest and that they might bring forth works of mercy unto thee, giving their earthly riches to the poor to obtain heavenly riches. Then thou didst kindle the lights in the firmament, which are thy holy ones, who have the Word of Life and who shine with an exalted authority, warranted to them by their spiritual gifts. And then, for the instruction of the unbelieving nations, thou didst out of physical matter produce the mysteries and the visible miracles and the sounds of words in harmony with the firmament of thy Book, through which the faithful should be blessed. After this thou didst form "the living soul" of the faithful, through the ordering of their passions by the strength of continence. And then thou didst renew, after thy image and likeness, the mind which is faithful to thee alone, which needs to imitate no human authority. Thus, thou didst subordinate rational action to the higher excellence of intelligence, as the woman is subordinate to the man. Finally, in all thy ministries which were needed to perfect the faithful in this life, thou didst will that these same faithful ones should themselves bring forth good things, profitable for their temporal use and fruitful for the life to come. We see all these things, and they are very good, because thou seest them thus in us -- thou who hast given us thy Spirit, by which we may see them so and love thee in them. CHAPTER XXXV 50. O Lord God, grant us thy peace -- for thou hast given us all things. Grant us the peace of quietness, the peace of the Sabbath, the peace without an evening. All this most beautiful array of things, all so very good, will pass away when all their courses are finished -- for in them there is both morning and evening. CHAPTER XXXVI 51. But the seventh day is without an evening, and it has no setting, for thou hast sanctified it with an everlasting duration. After all thy works of creation, which were very good, thou didst rest on the seventh day, although thou hadst created them all in unbroken rest -- and this so that the voice of thy Book might speak to us with the prior assurance that after our works -- and they also are very good because thou hast given them to us -- we may find our rest in thee in the Sabbath of life eternal.[653] CHAPTER XXXVII 52. For then also thou shalt so rest in us as now thou workest in us; and, thus, that will be thy rest through us, as these are thy works through us. But thou, O Lord, workest evermore and art always at rest. Thou seest not in time, thou movest not in time, thou restest not in time. And yet thou makest all those things which are seen in time -- indeed, the very times themselves -- and everything that proceeds in and from time. CHAPTER XXXVIII 53. We can see all those things which thou hast made because they are -- but they are because thou seest them.[654] And we see with our eyes that they are, and we see with our minds that they are good. But thou sawest them as made when thou sawest that they would be made. And now, in this present time, we have been moved to do well, now that our heart has been quickened by thy Spirit; but in the former time, having forsaken thee, we were moved to do evil.[655] But thou, O the one good God, hast never ceased to do good! And we have accomplished certain good works by thy good gifts, and even though they are not eternal, still we hope, after these things here, to find our rest in thy great sanctification. But thou art the Good, and needest no rest, and art always at rest, because thou thyself art thy own rest. What man will teach men to understand this? And what angel will teach the angels? Or what angels will teach men? We must ask it of thee; we must seek it in thee; we must knock for it at thy door. Only thus shall we receive; only thus shall we find; only thus shall thy door be opened.[656] NOTES [1] He had no models before him, for such earlier writings as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and the autobiographical sections in Hilary of Poitiers and Cyprian of Carthage have only to be compared with the Confessions to see how different they are. [2] Gen. 1:1. [3] Gen. 2:2. [4] Notice the echo here of Acts 9:1. [5] Ps. 100:3. [6] Cf. Ps. 145:3 and Ps. 147:5. [7] Rom. 10:14. [8] Ps. 22:26. [9] Matt. 7:7. [10] A reference to Bishop Ambrose of Milan; see Bk. V, Ch. XIII; Bk. VIII, Ch. 11, 3. [11] Ps. 139:8. [12] Jer. 23:24. [13] Cf. Ps. 18:31. [14] Ps. 35:3. [15] Cf. Ps. 19:12, 13. [16] Ps. 116:10. [17] Cf. Ps. 32:5. [18] Cf. Job 9:2. [19] Ps. 130:3. [20] Ps. 102:27. [21] Ps. 102:27. [22] Cf. Ps. 92:1. [23] Cf. Ps. 51:5. [24] In baptism which, Augustine believed, established the effigiem Christi in the human soul. [25] Cf. Ps. 78:39. [26] Cf. Ps. 72:27. [27] Aeneid, VI, 457 [28] Cf. Aeneid, II. [29] Lignum is a common metaphor for the cross; and it was often joined to the figure of Noah's ark, as the means of safe transport from earth to heaven. [30] This apostrophe to "the torrent of human custom" now switches its focus to the poets who celebrated the philanderings of the gods; see De civ. Dei, II, vii-xi; IV, xxvi-xxviii. [31] Probably a contemporary disciple of Cicero (or the Academics) whom Augustine had heard levy a rather common philosopher's complaint against Olympian religion and the poetic myths about it. Cf. De Labriolle, I, 21 (see Bibl.). [32] Terence, Eunuch., 584-591; quoted again in De civ. Dei, II, vii. [33] Aeneid, I, 38. [34] Cf. Ps. 103:8 and Ps. 86:15. [35] Ps. 27:8. [36] An interesting mixed reminiscence of Enneads, I, 5:8 and Luke 15:13-24. [37] Ps. 123:1. [38] Matt. 19:14. [39] Another Plotinian echo; cf. Enneads, III, 8:10. [40] Yet another Plotinian phrase; cf. Enneads, I, 6, 9:1-2. [41] Cf. Gen. 3:18 and De bono conjugali, 8-9, 39-35 (N-PNF, III, 396-413). [42] 1 Cor. 7:28. [43] 1 Cor. 7:1. [44] 1 Cor. 7:32, 33. [45] Cf. Matt. 19:12. [46] Twenty miles from Tagaste, famed as the birthplace of Apuleius, the only notable classical author produced by the province of Africa. [47] Another echo of the De profundis (Ps. 130:1) -- and the most explicit statement we have from Augustine of his motive and aim in writing these "confessions." [48] Cf. 1 Cor. 3:9. [49] Ps. 116:16. [50] Cf. Jer. 51:6; 50:8. [51] Cf. Ps. 73:7. [52] Cicero, De Catiline, 16. [53] Deus summum bonum et bonum verum meum. [54] Avertitur, the opposite of convertitur: the evil will turns the soul _away_ from God; this is sin. By grace it is turned _to_ God; this is _conversion_. [55] Ps. 116:12. [56] Ps. 19:12. [57] Cf. Matt. 25:21. [58] Cf. Job 2:7, 8. [59] 2 Cor. 2:16. [60] Eversores, "overturners," from overtere, to overthrow or ruin. This was the nickname of a gang of young hoodlums in Carthage, made up largely, it seems, of students in the schools. [61] A minor essay now lost. We know of its existence from other writers, but the only fragments that remain are in Augustine's works: Contra Academicos, III, 14:31; De beata vita, X; Soliloquia, I, 17; De civitate Dei, III, 15; Contra Julianum, IV, 15:78; De Trinitate, XIII, 4:7, 5:8; XIV, 9:12, 19:26; Epist. CXXX, 10. [62] Note this merely parenthetical reference to his father's death and contrast it with the account of his mother's death in Bk. IX, Chs. X-XII. [63] Col. 2:8, 9. [64] I.e., Marcus Tullius Cicero. [65] These were the Manicheans, a pseudo-Christian sect founded by a Persian religious teacher, Mani (c. A.D. 216-277). They professed a highly eclectic religious system chiefly distinguished by its radical dualism and its elaborate cosmogony in which good was co-ordinated with light and evil with darkness. In the sect, there was an esoteric minority called perfecti, who were supposed to obey the strict rules of an ascetic ethic; the rest were auditores, who followed, at a distance, the doctrines of the perfecti but not their rules. The chief attraction of Manicheism lay in the fact that it appeared to offer a straightforward, apparently profound and rational solution to the problem of evil, both in nature and in human experience. Cf. H.C. Puech, Le Manicheisme, son fondateur -- sa doctrine (Paris, 1949); F.C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge, 1925); and Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichee (Cambridge, 1947). [66] James 1:17. [67] Cf. Plotinus, Enneads, V, 3:14. [68] Cf. Luke 15:16. [69] Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII, 219-224. [70] For the details of the Manichean cosmogony, see Burkitt, op. cit., ch. 4. [71] Prov. 9:18. [72] Cf. Prov. 9:17; see also Prov. 9:13 (Vulgate text). [73] Cf. Enchiridion, IV. [74] Cf. Matt. 22:37-39. [75] Cf. 1 John 2:16. And see also Bk. X, Chs. XXX-XLI, for an elaborate analysis of them. [76] Cf. Ex. 20:3-8; Ps. 144:9. In Augustine's Sermon IX, he points out that in the Decalogue _three_ commandments pertain to God and _seven_ to men. [77] Acts 9:5. [78] An example of this which Augustine doubtless had in mind is God's command to Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a human sacrifice. Cf. Gen. 22:1, 2. [79] Electi sancti. Another Manichean term for the perfecti, the elite and "perfect" among them. [80] Ps. 144:7. [81] Dedocere me mala ac docere bona; a typical Augustinian wordplay. [82] Ps. 50:14. [83] Cf. John 6:27. [84] Ps. 74:21. [85] Cf. Ps. 4:2. [86] The rites of the soothsayers, in which animals were killed, for auguries and propitiation of the gods. [87] Cf. Hos. 12:1. [88] Ps. 41:4. [89] John 5:14. [90] Ps. 51:17. [91] Vindicianus; see below, Bk. VII, Ch. VI, 8. [92] James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5. [93] Rom. 5:5. [94] Cf. Ps. 106:2. [95] Cf. Ps. 42:5; 43:5. [96] Ibid. [97] Cf. Ovid, Tristia, IV, 4:74. [98] Cf. Horace, Ode I, 3:8, where he speaks of Virgil, et serves animae dimidium meae. Augustine's memory changes the text here to dimidium animae suae. [99] 2 Tim. 4:3. [100] Ps. 119:142. [101] Ps. 80:3. [102] That is, our physical universe. [103] Ps. 19:5. [104] John 1:10. [105] De pulchro et apto; a lost essay with no other record save echoes in the rest of Augustine's aesthetic theories. Cf. The Nature of the Good Against the Manicheans, VIII-XV; City of God, XI, 18; De ordine, I, 7:18; II, 19:51; Enchiridion, III, 10; I, 5. [106] Eph. 4:14. [107] Ps. 72:18. [108] Ps. 18:28. [109] John 1:16. [110] John 1:9. [111] Cf. James 1:17. [112] Cf. James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5. [113] Ps. 78:39. [114] Cf. Jer. 25:10; 33:11; John 3:29; Rev. 18:23. [115] Cf. Ps. 51:8. [116] The first section of the Organon, which analyzes the problem of predication and develops "the ten categories" of essence and the nine "accidents." This existed in a Latin translation by Victorinus, who also translated the Enneads of Plotinus, to which Augustine refers infra, Bk. VIII, Ch. II, 3. [117] Cf. Gen. 3:18. [118] Again, the Prodigal Son theme; cf. Luke 15:13. [119] Cf. Ps. 17:8. [120] Ps. 35:10. [121] Cf. Ps. 19:6. [122] Cf. Rev. 21:4. [123] Cf. Ps. 138:6. [124] Ps. 8:7. [125] Heb. 12:29. [126] An echo of the opening sentence, Bk. I, Ch. I, 1. [127] Cf. 1 Cor. 1:30. [128] Cf. Matt. 22:21. [129] Cf. Rom. 1:21ff. [130] Cf. Rom. 1:23. [131] Cf. Rom. 1:25. [132] Wis. 11:20. [133] Cf. Job 28:28. [134] Eph. 4:13, 14. [135] Ps. 36:23 (Vulgate). [136] Ps. 142:5. [137] Cf. Eph. 2:15. [138] Bk. I, Ch. XI, 17. [139] Cf. Ps. 51:17. [140] A constant theme in The Psalms and elsewhere; cf. Ps. 136. [141] Cf. Ps. 41:4. [142] Cf. Ps 141:3f. [143] Followers of the skeptical tradition established in the Platonic Academy by Arcesilaus and Carneades in the third century B.C. They taught the necessity of suspended judgment in all questions of truth, and would allow nothing more than the consent of probability. This tradition was known in Augustine's time chiefly through the writings of Cicero; cf. his Academica. This kind of skepticism shook Augustine's complacency severely, and he wrote one of his first dialogues, Contra Academicos, in an effort to clear up the problem posed thereby. [144] The Manicheans were under an official ban in Rome. [145] Ps. 139:22. [146] A mixed figure here, put together from Ps. 4:7; 45:7; 104:15; the phrase sobriam vini ebrietatem is almost certainly an echo of a stanza of one of Ambrose's own hymns, Splendor paternae gloriae, which Augustine had doubtless learned in Milan: "Bibamus sobriam ebrietatem spiritus." Cf. W.I. Merrill, Latin Hymns (Boston, 1904), pp. 4, 5. [147] Ps. 119:155. [148] Cf. 2 Cor. 3:6. The discovery of the allegorical method of interpretation opened new horizons for Augustine in Biblical interpretation and he adopted it as a settled principle in his sermons and commentaries; cf. M. Pontet, L'Exegese de Saint Augustin predicateur (Lyons, 1946). [149] Cf. Ps. 71:5. [150] Cf. Ps. 10:1. [151] Cf. Luke 7:11-17. [152] Cf. John 4:14. [153] Rom. 12:11. [154] 2 Tim. 2:15. [155] Cf. Gen. 1:26f. [156] The Church. [157] 2 Cor. 3:6. [158] Another reference to the Academic doctrine of suspendium; cf. Bk. V, Ch. X, 19, and also Enchiridion, VII, 20. [159] Nisi crederentur, omnino in hac vita nihil ageremus, which should be set alongside the more famous nisi crederitis, non intelligetis (Enchiridion, XIII, 14). This is the basic assumption of Augustine's whole epistemology. See Robert E. Cushman, "Faith and Reason in the Thought of St. Augustine," in Church History (XIX, 4, 1950), pp. 271-294. [160] Cf. Heb. 11:6. [161] Cf. Plato, Politicus, 273 D. [162] Alypius was more than Augustine's close friend; he became bishop of Tagaste and was prominent in local Church affairs in the province of Africa. [163] Prov. 9:8. [164] Luke 16:10. [165] Luke 16:11, 12. [166] Cf. Ps. 145:15. [167] Here begins a long soliloquy which sums up his turmoil over the past decade and his present plight of confusion and indecision. [168] Cf. Wis. 8:21 (LXX). [169] Isa. 28:15. [170] Ecclus. 3:26. [171] The normal minimum legal age for marriage was twelve! Cf. Justinian, Institutiones, I, 10:22. [172] Cf. Ps. 33:11. [173] Cf. Ps. 145:15, 16. [174] A variation on "restless is our heart until it comes to find rest in Thee," Bk. I, Ch. I, 1. [175] Isa. 46:4. [176] Thirty years old; although the term "youth" (juventus) normally included the years twenty to forty. [177] Phantasmata, mental constructs, which may be internally coherent but correspond to no reality outside the mind. [178] Echoes here of Plato's Timaeus and Plotinus' Enneads, although with no effort to recall the sources or elaborate the ontological theory. [179] Cf. the famous "definition" of God in Anselm's ontological argument: "that being than whom no greater can be conceived." Cf. Proslogium, II-V. [180] This simile is Augustine's apparently original improvement on Plotinus' similar figure of the net in the sea; Enneads, IV, 3:9. [181] Gen. 25:21 to 33:20. [182] Cf. Job 15:26 (Old Latin version). [183] Cf. Ps. 103:9-14. [184] James 4:6. [185] Cf. John 1:14. [186] It is not altogether clear as to which "books" and which "Platonists" are here referred to. The succeeding analysis of "Platonism" does not resemble any single known text closely enough to allow for identification. The most reasonable conjecture, as most authorities agree, is that the "books" here mentioned were the Enneads of Plotinus, which Marius Victorinus (q.v. infra, Bk. VIII, Ch. II, 3-5) had translated into Latin several years before; cf. M.P. Garvey, St. Augustine: Christian or Neo-Platonist (Milwaukee, 1939). There is also a fair probability that Augustine had acquired some knowledge of the Didaskalikos of Albinus; cf. R.E. Witt, Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism (Cambridge, 1937). [187] Cf. this mixed quotation of John 1:1-10 with the Fifth Ennead and note Augustine's identification of Logos, in the Fourth Gospel, with Nous in Plotinus. [188] John 1:11, 12 [189] John 1:13. [190] John 1:14. [191] Phil. 2:6. [192] Phil. 2:7-11. [193] Rom. 5:6; 8:32. [194] Luke 10:21. [195] Cf. Matt. 11:28, 29. [196] Cf. Ps. 25:9, 18. [197] Matt. 11:29. [198] Rom. 1:21, 22. [199] Rom. 1:23. [200] An echo of Porphyry's De abstinentia ab esu animalium. [201] The allegorical interpretation of the Israelites' despoiling the Egyptians (Ex. 12:35, 36) made it refer to the liberty of Christian thinkers in appropriating whatever was good and true from the pagan philosophers of the Greco-Roman world. This was a favorite theme of Clement of Alexandria and Origen and was quite explicitly developed in Origen's Epistle to Gregory Thaumaturgus (ANF, IX, pp. 295, 296); cf. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, II, 41-42. [202] Cf. Acts 17:28. [203] Cf. Rom. 1:25. [204] Cf. Ps. 39:11. [205] Some MSS. add "immo vero" ("yea, verily"), but not the best ones; cf. De Labriolle, op. cit., I, p. 162. [206] Rom. 1:20. [207] A locus classicus of the doctrine of the privative character of evil and the positive character of the good. This is a fundamental premise in Augustine's metaphysics: it reappears in Bks. XII-XIII, in the Enchiridion, and elsewhere (see note, infra, p. 343). This doctrine of the goodness of all creation is taken up into the scholastic metaphysics; cf. Confessions, Bks. XII- XIII, and Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentes, II: 45. [208] Ps. 148:7-12. [209] Ps. 148:1-5. [210] "The evil which overtakes us has its source in self-will, in the entry into the sphere of process and in the primal assertion of the desire for self-ownership" (Plotinus, Enneads, V, 1:1). [211] "We have gone weighed down from beneath; the vision is frustrated" (Enneads, VI, 9:4). [212] Rom. 1:20. [213] The Plotinian Nous. [214] This is an astonishingly candid and plain account of a Plotinian ecstasy, the pilgrimage of the soul from its absorption in things to its rapturous but momentary vision of the One; cf. especially the Sixth Ennead, 9:3-11, for very close parallels in thought and echoes of language. This is one of two ecstatic visions reported in the Confessions ; the other is, of course, the last great moment with his mother at Ostia (Bk. IX, Ch. X, 23-25). One comes before the "conversion" in the Milanese garden (Bk. VIII, Ch. XII, 28-29); the other, after. They ought to be compared with particular interest in their _similarities_ as well as their significant differences. Cf. also K.E. Kirk, The Vision of God (London, 1932), pp. 319-346. [215] 1 Tim. 2:5. [216] Rom. 9:5. (continued in part 25...) ---------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01: agcon-24.txt (rev.951224) .