BOOK VIII.

He reaches the most memorable part of his life, his thirty-second year,

in which, having consulted Simplicianus, and hearing of the conversion of Victorinus, he burns to imitate it. Then also the things which he learned concerning Antony, an Egyptian monk, and the conversion of two courtiers, from Pontitianus, more and more inflamed him; after a severe conflict between the flesh and the spirit, admonished by a heavenly oracle, he looks into the book of the Apostle, and having read the first verse upon which he lighted, he is entirely changed, and breaking the chains of his passions, is turned wholly to God.

CHAPTER I.

With the desire of entering on a better course of Life, he determines to go to Simplicianus.

MY

Y God, let me with thanksgiving recall, and confess unto Thee Thy Mercies over me. "Let my bones" be bathed with Thy Love, and say, "Lord, who is like unto Thee?" "Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving."" How Thou hast broken them I will declare; and all who worship Thee shall say, when they hear this, "Blessed is the Lord, in heaven and earth, great and wonderful is His Name." Thy words had stuck fast in my heart, and "I was hedged round about on every side by Thee."3 Concerning Thy eternal Life I was certain, though I saw it "through 2 Ps. cxix. 16, 17. 3 Job i. 10.

Ps. xxxv. 10.

THE FETTERS OF EARTHLY LOVE

a glass darkly."

I

193

Yet all doubt as to that incorruptible substance, from which all other substance had its existence, had been removed; nor did I desire to be more certain of Thee, but more steadfast in Thee. As to my temporal life, all things tottered, and "my heart had to be cleansed from the old leaven;" and "the Way," the Saviour Himself, was pleasing to me, but as yet I felt reluctant to go through Its straitness. And Thou didst put into my mind, and it commended itself to me, to go to Simplicianus, who appeared to me a good servant of Thine, and one in whom Thy Grace shone. I had also heard that from his youth he had most devoutly lived to Thee. But now he had grown old, and after a long life spent zealously in Thy ways, he seemed to me likely to have acquired much experience; and so indeed he had. Out of it I wanted him to tell me (bringing before him my anxieties) what would be the best course for one in such a state of mind as I was, to walk in Thy way.

For I saw the Church full, and one went this way, and another that. But I disliked a secular calling, and it was very burdensome to me to have to bear so heavy a servitude, now that the passion for honour and for wealth no longer, as formerly, inflamed me. For now, compared with Thy Sweetness, "and the beauty of Thy house, which I loved," 3 those things delighted me no longer. But as yet I was tenaciously held by the love of a woman; nor had the Apostle forbidden me to marry, although he had exhorted me to what was better, wishing greatly "that all men were as he himself was." 4 But I, weak as I was,

194

HE COUNTS THE COST

2

chose the softer path; and from this one cause was harassed in all beside, languishing and wasted with withering cares, because in other matters which I disliked to bear, I was obliged to conform to that conjugal life, to which, having given myself, I was bound. I had heard from the mouth of Truth "that there were eunuchs, which had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake;" but "he that is able," saith he, "to receive it, let him receive it." "Surely vain are all men who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things which are seen find out Him Who is good." But I now was not in that vanity; I had passed beyond it, and by the witness of Thy whole creation I had found Thee, our Creator, and Thy Word, God with Thee, and together with Thee one God, by Whom Thou createdst all things. There is also another kind of ungodly, who "knowing God, glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks."3 Into this also I had fallen; but "Thy Right Hand upheld me," ,"4 and having taken me away, placed me where I might recover. For Thou hast said to man, "Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom ;"5 and "desire not to seem wise;" because they who "said that they were wise became fools."6 But I had now found the good pearl," and "having sold all that I had," I ought to have "bought" it, but I demurred.

1 Matt. xix. 12.

4 Ps. xviii. 35.

7

2 Wisd. xiii. 1.

5 Job xxviii. 28.

7 Matt. xiii. 46. Prov. iii. 7.

3 Rom. i. 21.

6 Rom. i. 22.

AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT 195

CHAPTER II.

Df the Conversion of Victorinus, the Rhetorician.

THE

I

`HEN to Simplicianus I made my way, the father of Ambrose in receiving Thy Grace (then a bishop), whom Ambrose loved truly as a father. I related to him my circuitous paths of error. But when I told him that I had read certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, formerly one of the professors of rhetoric at Rome, had translated into the Latin tongue (and he, I heard, died a Christian), he congratulated me that I had not fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, which were full of fallacies and deceits "after the rudiments of the world," whereas the former in many ways led to God and His Word. Then, in order to exhort me to the humility of Christ, "hidden from the wise and revealed to babes," he took occasion to speak of Victorinus himself, whom he had known very intimately whilst he was at Rome; and of him he related that which I will not pass over in silence. For it contains great matter of praise to Thy Grace which should be confessed to Thee, how he-that old man, very learned, and highly skilled in all the liberal sciences, and one who had read and examined so many philosophical works; the teacher of so many noble senators; who also, in consideration of his excellent discharge of his office, had (which men of the world value highly) merited and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum; he, even to that age a worshipper of idols, and a partaker in I Col. ii. 8. 2 Matt. xi. 25.

196

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS

sacrilegious rites, to which nearly the whole Roman nobility were proudly devoted, and had breathed into the people also the love of a monstrous race of gods and the barking Anubis, who once "against Neptune, Venus, and Minerva" had taken up arms, whom Rome once conquered, now worshipped, all which this old Victorinus with vociferous eloquence had defended so many years he now was not ashamed to become the child of Thy Christ, and the babe of Thy font, having bent his neck to the yoke of humility, and submitted his forehead to the reproach of the Cross.2

O Lord, Lord, Who"hast bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains and they did smoke," 3 by what means didst Thou glide into that breast? He was in the habit of reading, according to Simplicianus, the Holy Scriptures, and investigated most studiously and searched into all the Christian writings; and he said secretly to Simplicianus, and in strict confidence, "Know that I am already a Christian." And he answered, "I will not believe it, neither will I reckon you amongst Christians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ." But he laughingly replied, “Do walls then make Christians?" And this he often repeated, that he was already a Christian; and Simplicianus always made the same reply, and he as often renewed the jest about the "walls." For he feared to offend his friends, the proud demon-worshippers, from the top of whose

1 Æneid, viii. 698-700.

2 "The Cross is for us an admonition no less necessary than for them, to glory in the service of Jesus Christ, and not to hang down our heads as men ashamed thereof, although it procure us reproach and obloquy at the hands of this wretched world." 3 Ps. cxliv. 5.