"TURN AGAIN UNTO THY REST" 157 that pleasure flowed which I experienced in conversing with my friends upon these subjects, foul as they were; neither could I, even with the notions I had then, be happy without friends, amid whatever abundance of carnal enjoyments. The friends, indeed, whom I loved for themselves only; I felt loved me for myself only, in return. O crooked ways! Woe to the presumptuous soul which hoped, by forsaking Thee, to find something better! such a soul turned and turned again, on back, on sides, and on face and hands, and found all hard, and Thou alone its rest. And lo, Thou art near at hand, and deliverest us from our miserable wanderings, and placest us in Thy way, and consolest us, saying, "Run; I will carry you; and I will bring you to the end, and there also will I carry you." BOOK VII. Augustine brings back to his mind his entrance into man's estate, his thirty-first year. He relates how much he was struck by an argument of Nebridius, though yet enveloped in thick darkness as to the nature of God, Whom he conceived to be corporeal: he perceives that the Manichæans have impious ideas, but is unable as yet to accept the doctrine of the Church; he is recovered from the errors of astrologers, yet miserably perplexed about the origin of evil; he derives much profit from the books of the Platonists, but they are insufficient to give him true notions about the Incarnation of Christ; but by the study of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of S. Paul, his doubts are put to an end CHAPTER I. He conceives of God, under the form of a Body, spread throughout all Space. THAT 'HAT wicked and abominable youth of mine was now dead and gone, and I was entering on man's estate; the older I grew, the more base did I become through vanity, I who could not conceive of any substance which was not to be seen by my bodily eyes I did not think of Thee, my God, under the form of a human body; from the time when I began to gain a little wisdom, I always had avoided this, and I was rejoiced to find that in the rejection of such a notion the faith of our spiritual mother, Thy Catholic Church, was with me. But it did not occur to me, how to think of Thee in any other way. And I, a man, and such a man, tried to picture Thee, the AUGUSTINE'S CONCEPTION OF GOD 159 Sovereign, Sole, and True God! and with my inmost heart I believed Thee to be Incorruptible, Inviolable, and Immutable; because, though I knew not whence or how, I plainly saw and felt certain, that that which could be corrupted was inferior to that which could not be corrupted; and that which could be injured I always set aside for that which could not; and that which suffered no change was better than that which was changeable. My heart cried out violently against all my phantasms, and with this one blow I strove to beat off from the eye of my mind the crowd of uncleanness which flew against it. And scarcely had I removed it, when, in the twinkling of an eye, it gathered again thick about me, rushed into my eyes and blinded them; so that, though not under the form of a human body, yet I was forced to think of Thee as something corporeal, occupying space-whether infused into the world, or diffused through infinite space beyond it— though I did prefer the incorruptible, the inviolable, and the immutable to that which is corruptible, vulnerable, and changeable. For whatsoever I deprived of all dimensions seemed to me thereby to become nothing and to cease to exist at all, and not even to be a void, such as would exist if a body were taken out of a place, and the place itself could remain entirely unoccupied, whether by any earthly, watery, airy, or heavenly substance, and continue to be an empty place, a sort of spacious nothing. I therefore, being gross in heart, and myself not clear to my own self, thought that, altogether nothing which was not extended over certain spaces, or spread out, or condensed, or bulky, or could or did assume some such dimensions. For through such forms as 160 of the omnipresence of GOD my eyes were wont to run, through such images did my heart then range. Nor did I reflect that this effort of mind, whereby I formed such images, was not kindred with them, and that it could not, indeed, have formed them, unless itself had been something great. So then I used to think of Thee, Thou Life of my life, as vast, extending through infinite spaces, on every side penetrating the whole mass of the world, and beyond it in all directions stretching forth into space immeasurable and boundless; so that the earth should have Thee, heaven should have Thee, all things should have Thee, and they be bounded in Thee, but Thou have no bounds. But as the atmosphere which envelopes the earth does not hinder the light of the sun from passing through it, which penetrates it, not by making a rent in it or by cutting it asunder, but by filling it wholly; so I imagined that not only the heaven, air, and sea, but also the body of the earth was pervious to Thee, and that all parts, whether huge in size or the smallest particles, were capable of being penetrated by Thy Presence, by a secret inspiration, within and without, taking charge of all things which Thou hast created. Such was my surmise, for I could form no other notion; but it was false. For according to this, a greater portion of the earth would contain a greater portion of Thee, and a lesser portion a less: and thus all things being full of Thee, an elephant's body would contain more of Thee than a sparrow's, by how much bigger it was, and the greater space it occupied; and thus, Thou wouldest be present in parts of the world as it were in pieces, large in large parts, small in small. However, Thou art not such. But Thou hadst not yet enlightened my darkness. AN UNANSWERABLE argumenT 161 CHAPTER II. How Nebridius turned the Scale against the FOR it was foreivers and dumb chatterers, OR it was enough for me, O Lord, to set against since not from them did Thy word sound forth,—it was enough, I say, to set against them, that which long ago, while we were yet at Carthage, used to be proposed by Nebridius, at which all of us who heard it were much struck. "That nation of darkness," said he, "whatever they mean by it, which they are wont to set as an adverse mass over against Thee, what could it have done unto Thee, if Thou hadst refused to fight with it? If it should be answered, 'that any way Thou wouldst have sustained an injury,' then Thou must be liable to injury and corruption. But if they answered, 'then no hurt would have come to Thee,' then there could be no reason for fighting; and such a fighting, too, as involved the mingling of some portion or member of Thyself, or offspring of Thy very substance, with adverse powers and natures not created by Thee, to be by them so far corrupted and changed for the worse, as to be turned away from happiness into misery, and to stand in need of help in order to be extricated and cleansed; and that this was the soul, to the aid of which, when enslaved, contaminated, and corrupted, Thy own Word, which was free, pure, and sound, came-Itself also, however, corruptible, because of one and the same substance with the soul. Therefore if they say of Thee, whatever Thou art, that L |