{"id":"01KJR8Q69DSSJSVXMK38F22XRN","cid":"bafkreihhjq5n5w5s2lgna667ktox6spmrbntx3z5a2husddaupoftislxq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":28832,"char_start":21255,"chunk_index":3,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1895,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"Thy Christ, my God and Lord. Whereupon the mother of my flesh, being\r\nmuch troubled (since, with a heart pure in Thy faith, she even more\r\nlovingly travailed in birth of my salvation), would in eager haste\r\nhave provided for my consecration and cleansing by the health-giving\r\nsacraments, confessing Thee, Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins,\r\nunless I had suddenly recovered. And so, as if I must needs be\r\nagain polluted should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the\r\ndefilements of sin would, after that washing, bring greater and more\r\nperilous guilt. I then already believed: and my mother, and the whole\r\nhousehold, except my father: yet did not he prevail over the power of my\r\nmother's piety in me, that as he did not yet believe, so neither\r\nshould I. For it was her earnest care that Thou my God, rather than he,\r\nshouldest be my father; and in this Thou didst aid her to prevail over\r\nher husband, whom she, the better, obeyed, therein also obeying Thee,\r\nwho hast so commanded.\r\n\r\n  I beseech Thee, my God, I would fain know, if so Thou willest, for\r\nwhat purpose my baptism was then deferred? was it for my good that the\r\nrein was laid loose, as it were, upon me, for me to sin? or was it not\r\nlaid loose? If not, why does it still echo in our ears on all sides,\r\n\"Let him alone, let him do as he will, for he is not yet baptised?\" but\r\nas to bodily health, no one says, \"Let him be worse wounded, for he is\r\nnot yet healed.\" How much better then, had I been at once healed; and\r\nthen, by my friends' and my own, my soul's recovered health had been\r\nkept safe in Thy keeping who gavest it. Better truly. But how many and\r\ngreat waves of temptation seemed to hang over me after my boyhood! These\r\nmy mother foresaw; and preferred to expose to them the clay whence I\r\nmight afterwards be moulded, than the very cast, when made.\r\n\r\n  In boyhood itself, however (so much less dreaded for me than youth),\r\nI loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Yet I was forced; and\r\nthis was well done towards me, but I did not well; for, unless forced, I\r\nhad not learnt. But no one doth well against his will, even though what\r\nhe doth, be well. Yet neither did they well who forced me, but what was\r\nwell came to me from Thee, my God. For they were regardless how I should\r\nemploy what they forced me to learn, except to satiate the insatiate\r\ndesires of a wealthy beggary, and a shameful glory. But Thou, by whom\r\nthe very hairs of our head are numbered, didst use for my good the error\r\nof all who urged me to learn; and my own, who would not learn, Thou\r\ndidst use for my punishment--a fit penalty for one, so small a boy and\r\nso great a sinner. So by those who did not well, Thou didst well for me;\r\nand by my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For Thou hast commanded,\r\nand so it is, that every inordinate affection should be its own\r\npunishment.\r\n\r\nBut why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not\r\nyet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters, but\r\nwhat the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons,\r\nreading, writing and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty\r\nas any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but from the sin and vanity\r\nof this life, because I was flesh, and a breath that passeth away and\r\ncometh not again? For those first lessons were better certainly, because\r\nmore certain; by them I obtained, and still retain, the power of reading\r\nwhat I find written, and myself writing what I will; whereas in the\r\nothers, I was forced to learn the wanderings of one Aeneas, forgetful of\r\nmy own, and to weep for dead Dido, because she killed herself for love;\r\nthe while, with dry eyes, I endured my miserable self dying among these\r\nthings, far from Thee, O God my life.\r\n\r\nFor what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not\r\nhimself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not\r\nhis own death for want of love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my heart,\r\nThou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind,\r\nwho quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication\r\nagainst Thee, and all around me thus fornicating there echoed \"Well\r\ndone! well done!\" for the friendship of this world is fornication\r\nagainst Thee; and \"Well done! well done!\" echoes on till one is ashamed\r\nnot to be thus a man. And for all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido\r\nslain, and \"seeking by the sword a stroke and wound extreme,\" myself\r\nseeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and lowest of Thy\r\ncreatures, having forsaken Thee, earth passing into the earth. And\r\nif forbid to read all this, I was grieved that I might not read what\r\ngrieved me. Madness like this is thought a higher and a richer learning,\r\nthan that by which I learned to read and write.\r\n\r\nBut now, my God, cry Thou aloud in my soul; and let Thy truth tell me,\r\n\"Not so, not so. Far better was that first study.\" For, lo, I would\r\nreadily forget the wanderings of Aeneas and all the rest, rather than\r\nhow to read and write. But over the entrance of the Grammar School is a\r\nvail drawn! true; yet is this not so much an emblem of aught recondite,\r\nas a cloak of error. Let not those, whom I no longer fear, cry out\r\nagainst me, while I confess to Thee, my God, whatever my soul will, and\r\nacquiesce in the condemnation of my evil ways, that I may love Thy\r\ngood ways. Let not either buyers or sellers of grammar-learning cry out\r\nagainst me. For if I question them whether it be true that Aeneas came\r\non a time to Carthage, as the poet tells, the less learned will reply\r\nthat they know not, the more learned that he never did. But should I ask\r\nwith what letters the name \"Aeneas\" is written, every one who has\r\nlearnt this will answer me aright, as to the signs which men have\r\nconventionally settled. If, again, I should ask which might be forgotten\r\nwith least detriment to the concerns of life, reading and writing or\r\nthese poetic fictions? who does not foresee what all must answer who\r\nhave not wholly forgotten themselves? I sinned, then, when as a boy I\r\npreferred those empty to those more profitable studies, or rather loved\r\nthe one and hated the other. \"One and one, two\"; \"two and two, four\";\r\nthis was to me a hateful singsong: \"the wooden horse lined with\r\narmed men,\" and \"the burning of Troy,\" and \"Creusa's shade and sad\r\nsimilitude,\" were the choice spectacle of my vanity.\r\n\r\nWhy then did I hate the Greek classics, which have the like tales? For\r\nHomer also curiously wove the like fictions, and is most sweetly-vain,\r\nyet was he bitter to my boyish taste. And so I suppose would Virgil\r\nbe to Grecian children, when forced to learn him as I was Homer.\r\nDifficulty, in truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as it\r\nwere, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fable. For not one word of\r\nit did I understand, and to make me understand I was urged vehemently\r\nwith cruel threats and punishments. Time was also (as an infant) I\r\nknew no Latin; but this I learned without fear or suffering, by mere\r\nobservation, amid the caresses of my nursery and jests of friends,\r\nsmiling and sportively encouraging me. This I learned without any\r\npressure of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me to give\r\nbirth to its conceptions, which I could only do by learning words not of\r\nthose who taught, but of those who talked with me; in whose ears also I\r\ngave birth to the thoughts, whatever I conceived. No doubt, then, that\r\na free curiosity has more force in our learning these things, than a\r\nfrightful enforcement."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R","peer_label":"confessions","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJR8RNN8NFEZQR9BC55SHQDN","peer_label":"god","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"divine_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:46.383Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RDZH7DA33VGSFGHD2SPB","peer_label":"narrators 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