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GOD ALWAYS TO BE OBEYED

custom, may not be violated by any citizen or stranger at will. For any part, which does not accord with its whole, is unseemly. But when God at any time commands a thing to be done, which is contrary to the custom or agreement of any nation, though it had never been done before, it must be done; and if it had been omitted, it must be reinstated; and if it had never been enjoined before, it must now become binding. For if a king is allowed in the state over which he rules to command something, which no one before him, nor he himself before that time, had ever commanded; and to obey him would not be contrary to civil society, nay, to disobey him would (for to obey rulers is indeed a general compact of civil society); how much more to God, the Ruler of all creation, ought we to yield an unhesitating obedience, in those things which He commands! For as amongst the powers of human society, obedience to the greater stands before obedience to the lesser, so obedience to God must stand before all other.

Also in acts of violence, where the desire to do another an injury either in character or in person exists, and where either takes place for the sake of revenge, as in the case of one enemy against another; or for gain of something which another possesses, as the robber with a traveller; or to avoid some evil which another may inflict; or through envy, when one is less fortunate than another, or when one more prosperous in some particular, fears lest he should be equalled by another, or grieves that he has a rival; or for the mere pleasure of seeing another suffer, as spectators of gladiators, and those who delight in teasing and mocking others these are the heads of sins which spring

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ALL SIN, AGAINST GOD

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from the pride of life,' the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh, either from one or both, or from all together, and thus men transgress the two tables of the law, the three and seven commandments," the instrument of ten strings,"3 Thy decalogue, O God most high and most sweet. But what foul offences can be committed against Thee, Whose Being can suffer no defilement? or what acts of violence can be done against Thee, to Whom pain is impossible? But Thou punishest that which men commit against themselves, because when they do harm to their own souls they sin against Thee, and "iniquity lieth to itself" by corrupting and perverting that nature of theirs which Thou hast made and ordered, either by the excessive use of what is permitted, or in things not permitted by an inflamed desire after "that use which is against nature;"5 or they are guilty in thought and word of raging against Thee and "kicking against the pricks; or breaking through the limits of human society, they with effrontery delight in secret connections and separations to satisfy their desire or their pique. And these things they do when they have forsaken Thee, O Fountain of Life, Who art the Sole and True Creator and Ruler of the Universe, and through a selfish pride centre their love on one false object in a corner of it. Therefore we must return to Thee with humble affection, and be cleansed from our

I I John ii. 16.

2 S. Augustine prefers the division of the commandments into three and seven, to the division into four and six. Both modes of dividing them existed then as now.

3 Ps. cxliv. 9.

5 Rom. i.

4 Ps. xxvii. 12, V.

6 Acts ix. 5.

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SOME ACTS RESEMBLE SINS

evil habits; and Thou wilt be gracious to us, confessing our sins, and wilt "hear the groaning of the prisoner," and wilt loose us from the chains which we have made for ourselves, if we do not lift up against Thee the horns of a false liberty, and by coveting to have more, incur the loss of all, by loving our own private good more than Thee, the universal Good.

CHAPTER IX.

The Difference between Sins, and between the Judg ment of God and of Man respecting them.

BUT among these foul offences, deeds of violence,

have already made progress; sins, condemned by those who rightly judge according to the law of perfection, yet the persons are commended in hope of future fruit, as the green blade in view of the wheat which it may produce. And there are some actions, which resemble these foul or violent offences, and yet are not sins, because they neither offend our Lord God, nor are they injurious to society; as when, for instance, things suitable to the times are amassed for the use of life, and it is doubtful whether this course is prompted by covetousness or not; or, when for the sake of correction persons are punished by a lawful authority, and it does not appear whether it is not done out of a desire to inflict injury. Many actions, then, which seem to men blameworthy, are approved by Thy testimony; and many, on the other hand, which are praised by men, are condemned in Thy sight; because

'Ps. cii. 20.

MANICHEAN ERRORS

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the outward appearance of the action, and the motive of the doer, and the hidden necessity of the moment, are not always alike. But when Thou dost on a sudden command some unusual and unexpected act, even if it were one which Thou hadst previously forbidden, and one the cause for which we could not at the time discern, and although, moreover, it should come into collision with established customs of some human society, who doubts but that the command must be obeyed, seeing that the justice of any human society depends upon its obedience to Thee? But blessed are those who know that they act under Thy comniand. For all things were done by Thy servants, in order that they might exhibit something necessary for the present, or that they might typify something for the future.

CHAPTER X.

The Follies of the Manichaeans concerning the Fruits of the Earth.

FROM my ignorance on these subjects, I derided

Thy holy servants and prophets; and in deriding them, what did I gain but to be derided by Thee; and I gradually and imperceptibly was brought to such follies, as to believe that a fig-tree wept when a fig was plucked, and that the tree, its mother, shed milky tears! which fig, however, if a so-called saint had eaten --plucked it may be, not by his own, but by another's guilt and had digested, he might breathe out of it angels, nay, particles of Deity, at every groan in prayer and eructation; which particles of the most high and true God would have remained pent up in

E

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HIS MOTHER WEEPS OVER HIM

the fruit, had not some so-called elect saint set them free by his teeth and stomach. And I, wretched man, believed that more mercy was to be shown to the fruits of the earth, than to men for whom they were made. For if any one who was hungry, and was not a Manichæan, should ask for any, I should have regarded the morsel which was given him as condemned to capital punishment.

CHAPTER XI.

His Mother's Tears, and her Dream about her Son.

AN

I

ND “Thou sentest Thy Hand from above,” · and from that profound darkness “didst deliver my soul," when my mother, Thy faithful one, wept for me to Thee, more than mothers weep over the dead bodies of their children. For she, through that faith and the spirit which Thou hast given her, saw my death; and Thou didst hearken to her, O Lord. Thou didst hearken to her, and didst not despise her tears, when in streams they rolled down her cheeks on the ground, wherever she prayed; Thou didst hearken to her. For whence came that dream, by which Thou didst console her, which led her to allow me again to live under the same roof with her, and to have my meals with her; for she had begun to shun this, from her hatred and detestation of my blasphemous errors? In that dream, she saw herself standing on a certain wooden rule, and a radiant youth coming towards her, bright and smiling upon her, when she was sorrowful and worn out with sorrow; 1 Ps. cxliv. 7. Ps. lxxxvi. 13.

2