Chapter 9. Conversion of Augustine
2.
But let us
consider what his misery was;—it was that of a mind imprisoned, solitary, and
wild with spiritual thirst; and forced to betake itself to the strongest
excitements, by way of relieving itself of the rush and violence of feelings,
of which the knowledge of the Divine Perfections was the true and sole
sustenance. He ran into excess, not from love of it, but from this fierce fever
of mind. "I sought what I might love," he says in his Confessions,
"in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares. For
within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet throughout
that famine I was not hungered, but was without any longing for incorruptible
sustenance, not because filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I
loathed it. For this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores; it miserably
cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of
sense."—iii. 1.
"O
foolish man that I then was," he says elsewhere, "enduring
impatiently the lot of man! So I fretted, sighed, wept, was distracted; had
neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient
of being borne by me, yet where to repose it I found not; not in calm groves,
nor in games and music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor
in indulgence of the bed and the couch, nor, finally, in books or poetry found
it repose. All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light. In groaning and
tears alone found I a little refreshment. But when my soul was withdrawn from
them, a huge load of misery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have
been raised, for Thee to lighten; I knew it, but neither could nor would; the
more, since when I thought of Thee, Thou wast not to me any solid or
substantial thing. For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error
was my God. If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that it might rest, it
glided through the void, and came rushing down against me; and I had remained
to myself a hapless spot, where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For
whither should my heart flee from my heart? whither should I flee from myself?
whither not follow myself? And yet I fled out of my country; for so should mine
eyes look less for him, where
they were not wont to see him."— iv. 12.
He is
speaking in this last sentence of a friend he had lost, whose death-bed was
very remarkable, and whose dear familiar name he apparently has not courage to
mention. "He had grown up from a child with me," he says, "and
we had been both schoolfellows and play-fellows." Augustine had misled him
into the heresy which he had adopted himself, and when he grew to have more and
more sympathy in Augustine's pursuits, the latter united himself to him in a
closer intimacy. Scarcely had he thus given him his heart, when God took him.
The
Manichees, it should be observed, rejected baptism. He proceeds: "But it
proved far otherwise; for he was refreshed and restored. Forthwith, as soon as
I could speak with him (and I could as soon as he was able, for I never left
him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I essayed to jest with him, as
though he would jest with me at that baptism, which he had received, when
utterly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood that he had
received. But he shrunk from me, as from an enemy; and with a wonderful and
sudden freedom bade me, if I would continue his friend, forbear such language
to him. I, all astonished and amazed, suppressed all my emotions till he should
grow well, and his health were strong enough for me to deal with him as I
would. But he was taken away from my madness, that with Thee he might be
preserved for my comfort: a few days after, in my absence, he was attacked
again by fever, and so departed."
3.
From
distress of mind Augustine left his native place, Thagaste, and came to
Carthage, where he became a teacher in rhetoric. Here he fell in with Faustus,
an eminent Manichean bishop and disputant, in whom, however, he was
disappointed; and the disappointment abated his attachment to his sect, and
disposed him to look for truth elsewhere. Disgusted with the licence which
prevailed among the students at Carthage, he determined to proceed to Rome, and
disregarding and eluding the entreaties of his mother, Monica, who dreaded his
removal from his own country, he went thither. At Rome he resumed his
profession; but inconveniences as great, though of another kind, encountered
him in that city; and upon the people of Milan sending for a rhetoric reader,
he made application for the appointment, and obtained it. To Milan then he
came, the city of St. Ambrose, in the year of our Lord 385.
Ambrose,
though weak in voice, had the reputation of eloquence; and Augustine, who seems
to have gone with introductions to him, and was won by his kindness of manner,
attended his sermons with curiosity and {148} interest. "I listened,"
he says, "not in the frame of mind which became me, but in order to see
whether his eloquence answered what was reported of it: I hung on his words
attentively, but of the matter I was but an unconcerned and contemptuous
hearer."—v. 23. His impression of his style of preaching is worth
noticing: "I was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse, more full
of knowledge, yet in manner less pleasurable and soothing, than that of
Faustus." Augustine was insensibly moved: he determined on leaving the
Manichees, and returning to the state of a catechumen in the Catholic Church,
into which he had been admitted by his parents. He began to eye and muse upon
the great bishop of Milan more and more, and tried in vain to penetrate his
secret heart, and to ascertain the thoughts and feelings which swayed him. He
felt he did not understand him. If the respect and intimacy of the great could
make a man happy, these advantages he perceived Ambrose to possess; yet he was
not satisfied that he was a happy man. His celibacy seemed a drawback: what
constituted his hidden life? or was he cold at heart? or was he of a famished
and restless spirit? He felt his own malady, and longed to ask him some
questions about it. But Ambrose could not easily be spoken with. Though
accessible to all, yet that very circumstance made it difficult for an
individual, especially one who was not of his flock, to get a private interview
with him. When he was not taken up with the Christian people who surrounded
him, he was either at his meals or engaged in private reading. Augustine used
to enter, as all persons might, without being announced; but after staying
awhile, afraid of interrupting him, he departed again. However, he heard his
expositions of Scripture every Sunday, and gradually made progress.
He was now
in his thirtieth year, and since he was a youth of eighteen had been searching
after truth; yet he was still "in the same mire, greedy of things
present," but finding nothing stable.
"Tomorrow,"
he said to himself, "I shall find it; it will appear manifestly, and I
shall grasp it: lo, Faustus the Manichee will come and clear every thing! O you
great men, ye academics, is it true, then, that no certainty can be attained
for the ordering of life? Nay, let us search diligently, and despair not. Lo,
things in the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which sometime
seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken and in a good sense. I will take my
stand where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be found
out. But where shall it be sought, or when? Ambrose has no leisure; we have no
leisure to read; where shall we find even the books? where, or when, procure
them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be ordered for the health
of our soul. Great hope has dawned; the Catholic faith teaches not what we
thought; and do we doubt to knock, that the rest may be opened? The forenoons,
indeed, our scholars take up; what do we during the rest of our time? why not
this? But if so, when pay we court to our great friend, whose favours we need?
when compose what we may sell to scholars? when refresh ourselves, unbending
our minds from this intenseness of care?
"Perish
every thing: dismiss we these empty vanities; and betake ourselves to the one
search for truth! Life is a poor thing, death is uncertain; if it surprises us,
in what state shall we depart hence? and when shall we learn what here we have
neglected? and shalt we not rather suffer the punishment of this negligence?
What if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling? Then must this be ascertained.
But God forbid this! It is no vain and empty thing, that the excellent dignity
of the Christian faith has overspread the whole world. Never would such and so
great things be wrought for us by God, if with the body the soul also came to
an end. Wherefore delay then to abandon worldly hopes, and give ourselves
wholly to seek after God and the blessed life? But wait: even those things are
pleasant; they have some and no small sweetness. We must not lightly abandon
them, for it were a shame to return again to them. See, how great a matter it
is now to obtain some station, and then what should we wish for more? We have
store of powerful friends; if nothing else offers, and we be in much haste, at
least a presidency may be given us; and a wife with some fortune, that she
increase not our charges; and this shall be the bound of desire. Many great
men, and most worthy of imitation, have given themselves to the study of wisdom
in the state of marriage."—vi. 18, 19.
