pride shrinks from Confession OF SIN 117

those who are named "the elect." For I still believed 66 that sin was not a voluntary act, but that some other nature, I knew not what, sinned in us ;" and it flattered my pride to regard myself as free from fault; and when I had done anything wrong, not to admit that I had done it, "that Thou mightest heal my soul, because it had sinned against Thee;" but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse that which was in me, I knew not what, save that it was not myself. But indeed it was all myself, and my iniquity it was which had divided me against myself; and the sin which led me to deny, that I myself was a sinner, was on that account all the more incurable; and it was abominable iniquity, that I should have preferred for Thee, O Almighty God, to be overcome in me to my destruction, than for me to be overcome by Thee to my salvation. Thou hadst not then as yet "set a watch before my mouth, and a door of self-control about my lips, that my heart might not incline to evil words, to make excuses of sins, with men that work iniquity;"2 and therefore I still "combined with their elect."

But now, despairing of making any progress in that false doctrine, even those very things with which, provided I found nothing better, I had resolved to remain content, I held with greater laxity and indifference. For the thought began to take shape in me, that those philosophers who are called "Academics "3

I Ps. xli. 4.

2 Ps. cxli. 3, 4, V.

3 The "Academics" seemed to be universal sceptics. In the "City of God," S. Augustine denounced their teaching, and affirms that the knowledge of the mind and reason, though it may be slight, is "most certain;" and therefore our mental faculties are not to be distrusted.

118

HIS FALSE VIEWS OF EVIL

were wiser than the rest; because they held that we should doubt about everything, and that the mind of man could not arrive at or comprehend any truth. For this I imagined was their opinion, as it was commonly reported, though I really had not grasped their meaning. Yet I did not shrink from openly repressing the excessive confidence which my host had in those fabulous statements, which fill the pages of the Manichæan books. Nevertheless I lived on more intimate terms of friendship with those who were members of this sect, than with others. And though the enthusiasm with which I at first espoused their doctrines was now extinct, still my personal acquaintance with them (for many found a lurking-place in Rome) made me less inclined to seek some other doctrine; especially as I entertained no hope of ever finding the truth, from which in Thy Church they had turned me aside, O Lord of heaven and earth, Maker of all things, visible and invisible; and it seemed to me a gross conception to believe Thee to have the form of human flesh, and to be circumscribed by the corporeal outline of our members. And since, when I wanted to think on my God, I thought only of a mass of bodies, for I could form no idea of anything without dimensions, this was the greatest and almost sole cause of my inevitable error.

Therefore I imagined evil to be also a kind of substance, having bulk, foul and deformed--whether it be solid which they call earth; or thin and fine, as the air, which they suppose to be an evil mind stalking through that earth. And because some degree of piety hindered me from believing that the good God had created an evil nature, I conceived that there

THE INCARNATION, A DIFFICULTY

119

were two antagonistic substances, both limitless, but the evil narrower, the good greater. And from this pernicious principle the rest of my blasphemous notions followed. And when my mind tried to revert to the Catholic Faith, I was driven back, because I had a false idea of what the Catholic Faith was. And I thought it more pious to conceive of Thee, my God, Whose Mercies to me I now confess as infinite on all sides, except that on which the mass of evil opposed itself, at which point I was constrained to regard Thee as finite; than to hold the opinion, that Thou wert confined on all sides by the outline of a human form. And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have created no evil-evil being in my estimation not only a substance but a corporeal substance, for of mind I had no other notion, than that it was a delicate substance which was expanded by Thee over a definite area-than to believe that evil, such as I understood it, came from Thee. And our Saviour Himself, Thy Only-begotten One, I imagined to have reached forth to save us out of the mass of Thy pellucid substance, so that of Him I might not believe anything, save that which in my vanity I could imagine. His Nature, then, being such, could not, I thought, be born of the Virgin Mary, unless it was mingled with flesh. But I could not see how that which I had so figured to myself could be mingled with flesh, and remain unpolluted. I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest I should be obliged to regard Him as defiled by the flesh. Thy spiritual ones will now indeed blandly and lovingly smile at me, if they read these confessions of mine; yet however such was I then.

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MATERIALISM OPPRESSIVE

CHAPTER XI.

How Augustine conferred with the Catholics.

THEN

HEN I did not think that those parts of Scripture which these men criticised could be defended. But I had often the desire to confer with some one who was very learned in these books on the points in question, and to find out what he had to say about them. Already the words of a certain man, by name Helpidius, who had been speaking against and arguing face to face with these Manichæans, had begun to move me even when I was at Carthage; when he alleged many things out of the Scriptures which were not easily opposed, and their answer seemed to me to be very weak. And they were not inclined to answer publicly at all, but only to us in private; and their reply was to the effect that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been tampered with, by I know not whom, who wished to graft the Jewish law on the Christian faith; but they did not produce any copies which had not been thus corrupted. But what kept me down, and in a way suffocated me, was this idea of corporeal masses; by which I was so oppressed that I gasped for the clear and pure air of Thy Truth, but was unable to breathe it.

DISHONEST PUPILS

121

CHAPTER XII.

The Fraud of Students at mome against their
Tutors.

HEN I began diligently to occupy myself about

THEN

that which brought me to Rome, namely, the teaching of the art of rhetoric; and first I assembled some pupils at my own house, to whom and through whom I began to be known; and lo, I discovered that there were practices at Rome which I had not encountered during my residence in Africa. For indeed I did not here witness any of those "subvertings" by abandoned youths: but many young men on a sudden, to avoid, said they, paying what was due to their master, agree together to abscond and remove to another tutor; such breakers of their word, through love of money, value money more than justice. These also "my heart hated," although not with a "perfect hatred.” For I have an idea that my hatred may have been stirred more by the possibility of suffering from them myself, than by the unlawfulness of their conduct. Certainly such are base persons, and "commit fornication against Thee," by loving the fleeting follies of time, and filthy lucre, which pollutes the hand of him who grasps it; and by embracing the world which is hastening away, and despising Thee Who abidest, and Who recallest and pardonest the adulteress soul which returns to Thee. And now I hate such depraved and crooked persons, though I love them to be amended, so that they may value Ps. cxxxix. 22.