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—You provided for my obstinacy, by which I struggled against Vindicianus, that shrewd old man, and against Nebridius, that young man of marvelous soul: the one vehemently affirming, the other indeed with some hesitation, but yet frequently saying, that there is no such art of foreseeing the future, but that men's conjectures often have the force of a lot, and that by saying many things, many of the things to come are said by those who do not know them, who, while speaking, light upon them by not keeping silent. You provided, then, a man as a friend—no slack consulter of astrologers, nor one well skilled in those writings, but, as I said, a curious consulter, and yet one who knew something which he said he had heard from his father: how greatly this availed to overthrow the credit of that art, he did not know.
This man, then, named Firminus, liberally educated and refined in eloquence, when he consulted me as a most dear friend about certain affairs of his, in which his worldly hope had swollen high, as to what seemed to me according to his so-called constellations—I, who had now begun to be swayed toward the opinion of Nebridius in this matter, would not indeed refuse to conjecture and to say what occurred to me as I wavered, but yet would add that I was now nearly persuaded that those things were ridiculous and empty—then he told me that his father had been most curious about such books and had had a friend who pursued them equally and at the same time.
These two burned with equal zeal and mutual sharing in those trifles, with the fire of their heart, so that they would even observe the moments of birth of dumb animals also, if any were born at home, and would note the position of the heaven at those moments, from which they might gather, as it were, experimental proofs of that art. And so he said he had heard from his father that, when his mother was pregnant with this same Firminus, a certain serving-maid of his father's friend was likewise growing great with child at the same time. This could not be hidden from her master, who was wont to know even the births of his dogs with the most exacting diligence;
And so it came about that, while the one most carefully observed and numbered the days and hours and the tiniest fractions of hours for his wife, and the other for his maidservant, both women gave birth at the same time, so that they were compelled to cast the very same horoscopes, down to the very same minute fractions, for each of the two who were being born — the one for his son, the other for his little slave. For when the women had begun their labour, the two men sent word to one another of what was happening in each of their houses, and they had men ready to dispatch to each other, so that as soon as the child was born it should at once be announced to each. And being masters in their own households, they easily arranged that the news should be reported instantly.
And so, he said, those who were sent by each side, because of the equal distances between the houses, met one another half-way, so that neither of them could note any different position of the stars or any different particles of the moments. And yet Firminus, born in a high station among his own people, ran his course along the brighter, whiter roads of the world: he grew rich, he was raised in honours; whereas that slave, with the yoke of his condition in no way loosened, served his masters — as the very man who knew him bore witness.
Having therefore heard and believed these things — for he who told them was such a man as could be trusted — all that resistance of mine collapsed and dissolved. First I tried to recall Firminus himself from that curiosity, saying that if, upon inspecting his horoscope, I were to pronounce true things, I ought surely to have seen there that his parents were among the foremost of their people, a noble family of his own city, free-born birth, an honourable upbringing and a liberal education; but if that slave had consulted me from the same horoscope — since it was indeed the very same for him too — then, in order that I might declare true things to him as well, I ought on the contrary to have seen there a most abject family, a servile condition, and everything else far removed from and far different from the former.
But how would it come to pass that, inspecting the same chart, I should say different things if I spoke truly — yet if I said the same things, I should speak falsely? From this it could be most certainly concluded that whatever true things were said upon consideration of the horoscopes were said not by art but by chance, and whatever false things were said came not from any lack of skill in the art, but from the lying of chance.
Having thus gained an entrance, while I ruminated such things within myself, lest any of those same madmen who pursued such gain — whom I now longed at once to attack and, having mocked them, refute — should resist me as though either Firminus had told me, or his father had told him, false things, I directed my consideration to those who are born twins. Of these, most are brought forth from the womb one after the other in such close succession that the very small interval of time between them — however much force they contend it has in the nature of things — cannot be grasped by human observation, nor in any way set down in those letters which the astrologer is about to inspect in order to pronounce true things. And his pronouncements will not be true, because, inspecting the same letters, he must say the same things about Esau and Jacob;
yet the same things did not befall them both. He would therefore say false things, or, if he said true things, he would not say the same things — but the same things were what he inspected. Not by art, then, but by chance would he speak truly. For Thou, O Lord, most just governor of the universe, while those who consult and those who are consulted know nothing, dost act by a hidden prompting, so that, when each man consults, he hears that which it behoves him to hear, according to the hidden merits of souls out of the abyss of Thy just judgement. To Him let no man say, 'What is this?' 'Why this?' Let him not say it, let him not say it; for he is but a man. And so now, my helper, Thou hadst loosed me from those bonds; and I sought whence comes evil, and there was no way out.
But Thou didst not suffer me to be carried away by any waves of thought from that faith by which I believed both that Thou art, and that Thy substance is unchangeable, and that Thou hast care and judgement over men, and that in Christ Thy Son, our Lord, and in the holy Scriptures, which the authority of Thy catholic Church commends, Thou hadst set the way of human salvation unto that life which is to be after this death. These things being safe and unshaken, firmly rooted in my mind, I sought, in feverish anguish, whence is evil. What torments of my labouring heart were there, what groanings, O my God! And Thine ears were there, though I knew it not. And when in silence I sought strongly, the silent contritions of my soul were loud cries unto Thy mercy.
Thou knewest what I suffered, and no man knew. For how little of it was distilled through my tongue into the ears of my most intimate friends! Did the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor my mouth sufficed, sound to them? Yet the whole of it went into Thy hearing — what I roared from the groaning of my heart; and before Thee was my desire, and the light of my eyes was not with me. For it was within, but I was without; nor was it in any place. But I was straining toward those things which are contained in places, and there I found no place to rest, nor did these things receive me so that I might say, 'It is enough and it is well,' nor did they let me return to where it might be well enough for me.
For I was above these things, but below Thee; and Thou wert my true joy when I was made subject to Thee, and Thou hadst made subject to me the things which Thou hadst created below me. And this was the right balance and the middle region of my salvation: that I should remain in Thine image, and, serving Thee, have dominion over the body. But when I rose up proudly against Thee, and ran against the Lord with the thick neck of my shield, even these lowest things were made to be above me and pressed upon me, and nowhere was there any loosening or breathing-space. They rushed against me on every side in heaps and in crowds as I looked; and to me as I thought, the very images of bodies set themselves up against my return, as though it were said:
'Whither goest thou, unworthy and base?' And these things had grown out of my wound, because Thou hadst humbled the proud man like one that is wounded, and by my swelling I was separated from Thee, and my too-bloated face shut up my eyes. But Thou, O Lord, abidest for ever, and Thou wilt not be angry with us for ever, for Thou hadst pity on earth and ashes, and it pleased Thee in Thy sight to reform my deformities. And by inward goads Thou didst stir me up, that I might be impatient until Thou wert made certain to me through my inward gaze. And my swelling subsided under the hidden hand of Thy medicine, and the disturbed and darkened keen-sight of my mind was healed from day to day by the sharp salve of wholesome sorrows.
And first, willing to show me how Thou dost resist the proud but givest grace to the humble, and how great a mercy of Thine has been shown to men by the way of humility — in that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men — Thou didst procure for me, through a certain man swollen with monstrous pride, some books of the Platonists translated from the Greek tongue into Latin. And there I read — not indeed in these words, but this very same thing, urged by many and manifold arguments — that 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made; in Him is life, and the life was the light of men;
and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not'; and that the soul of man, though it bears witness to the light, is yet not itself the light, but the Word, God Himself, is the true light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into this world; and that He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. But that 'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not; but as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name' — this I did not read there. Likewise I read there that the Word, God, was born not of flesh, nor of blood, neither of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God;
but that 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us' — this I did not read there. For I traced out in those writings, said in varied ways and in many manners, that the Son, being in the form of the Father, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, because by nature He is that very thing; but that 'He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: wherefore God also hath exalted Him from the dead and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father' — these things those books do not have.
But that before all times and above all times Thy only-begotten Son abides unchangeably co-eternal with Thee, and that souls receive of His fullness that they may be blessed, and that by participation in the wisdom abiding in itself they are renewed that they may be wise — this is there. But that 'in due time He died for the ungodly,' and that 'Thou didst not spare Thine only Son, but deliveredst Him up for us all' — this is not there. For 'Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and revealed them unto babes,' that they might come unto Him, the labouring and heavy-laden, and that He might refresh them, since He is meek and lowly in heart; and 'He directeth the meek in judgement and teacheth the gentle His ways,' seeing our humility and our labour and forgiving all our sins.
But those who, lifted up as upon the buskin of a loftier doctrine, do not hear Him saying, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls,' — although they know God, yet glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart is darkened; professing themselves to be wise, they become fools.
And therefore I read there also that 'they changed the glory of Thy incorruption into idols and divers images, into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and of fourfooted beasts and of creeping things' — namely, that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright, since the firstborn people honoured the head of a fourfooted beast in Thy stead, turning back in heart to Egypt and bowing down Thine image, their own soul, before the image of a calf that eateth grass. These things I found there, and I did not eat. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger, and Thou hast called the Gentiles into Thine inheritance.
And I had come to Thee from among the Gentiles, and I fixed my mind upon the gold which Thou didst will Thy people to carry away out of Egypt, since it was Thine wheresoever it was. And Thou hadst said to the Athenians through Thine apostle that 'in Thee we live and move and have our being,' even as certain of their own had said; and from there indeed were those books. But I did not heed the idols of the Egyptians, whom they served with Thy gold, 'who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.' And being thereby admonished to return to myself, I entered into my inmost being, Thee being my guide; and I was able to do so, because Thou wert become my helper.
I entered, and beheld with whatever eye of my soul, above that same eye of my soul, above my mind, an unchangeable light — not this common light visible to all flesh, nor as it were of the same kind, only greater, as though it should shine far more clearly and fill the whole with its greatness. Not that was this light, but another, utterly other than all these. Nor was it above my mind as oil is above water, nor as the heaven is above the earth; but it was higher, because it made me, and I was lower, because made by it. He who knows the truth, knows that light, and he who knows it, knows eternity. Charity knoweth it. O eternal Truth, and true Charity, and dear Eternity! Thou art my God; for Thee do I sigh day and night.
And when first I knew Thee, Thou didst take me up, that I might see that there was something to see, and that I who saw was not yet fit to see. And Thou didst beat back the weakness of my sight, shining vehemently upon me, and I trembled with love and dread; and I found that I was far from Thee in the region of unlikeness, as though I heard Thy voice from on high: 'I am the food of the full-grown: grow, and thou shalt feed upon me. Nor shalt thou change me into thyself, as the food of thy flesh, but thou shalt be changed into me.' And I learned that 'for iniquity Thou hast chastised man, and Thou hast made my soul to waste away like a spider'; and I said, 'Is truth then nothing, since it is diffused neither through finite nor infinite spaces of places?' And Thou didst cry from afar: 'I AM THAT I AM.'
And I heard, as one hears in the heart, and there was absolutely no room left for me to doubt; I could more easily doubt that I lived than that there is no Truth, 'which is clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.' And I looked upon the other things below Thee, and I saw that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not: they are indeed, since they are from Thee, but they are not, since they are not what Thou art. For that truly is, which abides unchangeably. 'But it is good for me to cleave unto God,' because, if I shall not abide in Him, neither shall I be able to abide in myself. But He, abiding in Himself, maketh all things new; and Thou art my Lord, since Thou hast no need of my goods.
And it was made manifest to me that those things are good which are corrupted — which neither, if they were the highest goods, could be corrupted, nor, unless they were good, could be corrupted; for if they were the highest goods, they would be incorruptible, but if they were no good at all, there would be nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption harms, and unless it diminished some good, it would not harm. Therefore either corruption harms nothing — which cannot be — or, what is most certain, all things that are corrupted are deprived of some good. But if they shall be deprived of all good, they shall be nothing at all. For if they shall be, and shall be no longer able to be corrupted, they shall be better, because they shall abide incorruptibly. And what more monstrous than to say that those things, having lost all good, are made better?
Therefore if they shall be deprived of all good, they shall be nothing at all: therefore so long as they are, they are good. Therefore whatsoever things are, are good; and that evil, whose origin I sought, is not a substance, because, if it were a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance, surely a great good, or it would be a corruptible substance, which, unless it were good, could not be corruptible. And so I saw, and it was made manifest to me, that Thou hast made all things good, and that there are no substances at all which Thou hast not made. And because Thou hast not made all things equal, therefore all things are, since each thing severally is good, and all things together are very good, since 'our God hath made all things very good.'
And to Thee there is no evil at all — not only to Thee, but also to Thy whole creation — because there is nothing outside which might break in and corrupt the order which Thou hast imposed upon it. But in its parts, certain things, because they do not agree with certain others, are deemed evil; and yet these same things do agree with others, and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which do not agree among themselves agree with the lower part of things, which we call earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky suited to it. And far be it from me to say now,
'Let these things not be'; for even if I beheld these alone, I should indeed desire better things, yet even from these alone I ought to praise Thee, since 'dragons and all deeps, fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm, which fulfil Thy word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and feathered fowls; kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges of the earth, young men and maidens, old men with younger' — these from the earth show that Thou art to be praised, and let them praise Thy name.
And when from the heavens also they praise Thee — let them praise Thee, our God, in the heights: all Thine angels, all Thy hosts, sun and moon, all stars and light, the heavens of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens — let them praise Thy name. No longer did I desire better things, because I conceived of all things, and indeed I judged the higher better than the lower; but with a sounder judgement I weighed that all things together are better than the higher alone. There is no soundness in those to whom anything of Thy creation is displeasing, as there was none in me when many things displeased me which Thou hadst made. And because my soul dared not let my God be displeasing to it, it would not have that be Thine which displeased it. And thence it had gone off into the opinion of two substances, and found no rest, and spoke things foreign to the truth.
And turning thence, it had made for itself a god through the infinite spaces of all places, and had thought this to be Thee, and had set it up in its heart, and was again become the temple of its own idol, abominable to Thee. But after Thou hadst soothed the head of one who knew it not, and hadst closed my eyes lest they should see vanity, I ceased a little from myself, and my madness was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in Thee, and saw Thee to be infinite in another manner — and that vision was not drawn from the flesh. And I looked upon other things, and saw that they owe it to Thee that they are, and that all finite things are in Thee, yet in another way — not as in a place, but because Thou art the All-holding by Thy hand in truth; and all things are true insofar as they are, nor is there any falsehood, except when that is thought to be which is not.
And I saw that not only do all things agree with their own places, but also with their own times; and that Thou, who alone art eternal, didst not begin to work after innumerable spaces of times, since all the spaces of times that have passed and that shall pass would neither depart nor come unless Thou wert working and abiding. And I felt by experience that it is no wonder that to a palate that is not sound, even bread, which is sweet to the sound, is a punishment, and to sick eyes that light is hateful which to clean eyes is lovely. And Thy righteousness displeases the unjust — much more the viper and the little worm, which Thou hast created good, fitted to the lower parts of Thy creation, to which the unjust themselves are also fitted, the more unlike they are to Thee, but fitted to the higher, the more like they become to Thee.
And I sought what iniquity is, and I found it to be no substance, but a perversity of the will, twisted away from the highest substance, Thee, O God, toward the lowest things, casting away its own innermost and swelling outward. And I marvelled that now I loved Thee, and not a phantasm in place of Thee; yet I did not stand to enjoy my God, but was caught up to Thee by Thy beauty, and soon snatched away from Thee by my own weight, and fell back into these lower things with a groan; and this weight was carnal habit.
But the memory of Thee was with me, and in no way did I doubt that there was One to whom I might cleave, though I was not yet such a one as could cleave; 'for the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly habitation weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.' And I was most certain that 'Thy invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Thy eternal power and Godhead.' For seeking whence I might approve the beauty of bodies, whether celestial or terrestrial, and what was at hand to me as I judged soundly concerning mutable things and said,
'This ought so to be, that not so' — so, then, seeking whence I judged when I judged thus, I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of truth above my changeable mind. And so by degrees I passed from bodies to the soul which perceives through the body, and thence to its inward power, to which the bodily senses report outward things — and even beasts can do this far — and thence again to the reasoning faculty, to which what is received from the bodily senses is referred for judgement;
and this faculty, finding itself also mutable in me, raised itself up to its own understanding, and led my thought away from habit, withdrawing itself from the contradicting throngs of phantasms, that it might discover by what light it was besprinkled when it cried out without any doubt that the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable, whence it knew the unchangeable itself — for unless it had known it in some way, in no way could it have set it with certainty before the changeable — and it arrived at THAT WHICH IS in the flash of a trembling glance. Then indeed I beheld 'Thy invisible things, understood by the things that are made'; but I was not able to fix my gaze, and, beaten back by my weakness, restored to my wonted things, I bore away with me nothing but a loving memory and, as it were, a longing for the fragrance of things which I was not yet able to feed upon.
And I sought a way of acquiring strength fit for enjoying Thee, and I did not find it, until I embraced the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who is over all, God blessed for ever, calling and saying, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life'; and mingling with flesh that food which I was too weak to take, since 'the Word was made flesh,' that Thy Wisdom, by which Thou hast created all things, might become milk for our infancy. For I did not hold fast my God, the humble Jesus, being myself not humble, nor did I know of what thing His weakness was the teacher.
For Thy Word, the eternal Truth, towering above the higher parts of Thy creation, raises up to itself those who are subject; but in the lower parts it built for itself a humble house of our clay, by which it might press down from themselves those who are to be made subject and draw them across to itself, healing their swelling and nourishing their love, lest they should go too far in self-confidence, but rather grow weak, seeing before their feet a divinity made weak by the partaking of our coat of skin, and, being wearied, cast themselves down upon it, while it, rising up, lifted them up.
But I thought otherwise, and felt concerning my Lord Christ only as concerning a man of surpassing wisdom, to whom none could be equalled — especially because, marvellously born of a virgin, He seemed, as an example of despising temporal things for the sake of attaining immortality, to have merited by divine care for us so great an authority of teaching. But what mystery 'the Word made flesh' contained, I could not even suspect. I had only learned, from those things which were handed down written concerning Him — that He ate and drank, slept, walked, was glad, was made sorrowful, conversed — that flesh did not cleave to Thy Word save together with a human soul and mind. This every man knows,
who knows the immutability of Thy Word, which I now knew as far as I could, nor did I at all doubt of it. For now to move the members of the body by the will, now not to move them, now to be affected by some emotion, now not to be affected, now to utter wise sentences through signs, now to be in silence — these are properties of the mutability of the soul and the mind. And if these things had been falsely written concerning Him, then everything else would also be imperilled by the lie, nor would there remain in those writings any saving faith for the human race.
Since therefore the things written are true, I acknowledged the whole man in Christ — not the body of a man only, nor with the body a soul without a mind, but the man himself; yet I judged that He was preferred to others not as the Person of Truth, but by some great excellence of human nature and a more perfect participation in wisdom. But Alypius supposed that it was thus believed by Catholics that God was clothed with flesh, so that, besides God and the flesh, there was in Christ no soul, and he did not think that the mind of a man was preached as being in Him. And because he firmly held it well established that those things which are recorded of Him could not be done without a living and rational creature, he was the more sluggishly moved toward the Christian faith itself.
But afterwards, recognizing this to be the error of the Apollinarist heretics, he rejoiced in the catholic faith and was tempered to it. But I confess that somewhat later I learned, in that which is meant by 'the Word was made flesh,' how the catholic truth is distinguished from the falsehood of Photinus. For indeed the reproving of heretics makes it stand out clearly what Thy Church holds and what sound doctrine has. 'For there must also be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest' among the weak.
But then, having read those books of the Platonists, after being thereby admonished to seek incorporeal truth, I beheld 'Thy invisible things, understood by the things that are made,' and, being beaten back, I perceived what, through the darkness of my soul, I was not permitted to contemplate; being certain that Thou art, and art infinite, yet not diffused through finite or infinite spaces, and that Thou truly art, who art ever the same, in no part and by no motion other or otherwise, while all other things are from Thee — by this one most firm proof, that they are. In these things I was indeed certain, yet too weak to enjoy Thee. I prattled, to be sure, as one expert; and, unless I had sought Thy way in Christ our Saviour, I should have been, not expert, but extinct.