{"id":"01KJR8Q69KC02X1J17X793R2EV","cid":"bafkreifmgoh7pvzciz6gaarofwophxnnb4zghh2z7pq2zqwzyiyruep4cq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":35997,"char_start":28035,"chunk_index":4,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1991,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"were, 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. Only this enforcement restrains the rovings of\r\nthat freedom, through Thy laws, O my God, Thy laws, from the master's\r\ncane to the martyr's trials, being able to temper for us a wholesome\r\nbitter, recalling us to Thyself from that deadly pleasure which lures us\r\nfrom Thee.\r\n\r\nHear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under Thy discipline, nor\r\nlet me faint in confessing unto Thee all Thy mercies, whereby Thou\r\nhast drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that Thou mightest become a\r\ndelight to me above all the allurements which I once pursued; that I may\r\nmost entirely love Thee, and clasp Thy hand with all my affections, and\r\nThou mayest yet rescue me from every temptation, even unto the end. For\r\nlo, O Lord, my King and my God, for Thy service be whatever useful\r\nthing my childhood learned; for Thy service, that I speak, write, read,\r\nreckon. For Thou didst grant me Thy discipline, while I was learning\r\nvanities; and my sin of delighting in those vanities Thou hast forgiven.\r\nIn them, indeed, I learnt many a useful word, but these may as well be\r\nlearned in things not vain; and that is the safe path for the steps of\r\nyouth.\r\n\r\nBut woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom! Who shall stand against\r\nthee? how long shalt thou not be dried up? how long roll the sons of Eve\r\ninto that huge and hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who\r\nclimb the cross? Did not I read in thee of Jove the thunderer and the\r\nadulterer? both, doubtless, he could not be; but so the feigned thunder\r\nmight countenance and pander to real adultery. And now which of our\r\ngowned masters lends a sober ear to one who from their own school cries\r\nout, \"These were Homer's fictions, transferring things human to the\r\ngods; would he had brought down things divine to us!\" Yet more truly had\r\nhe said, \"These are indeed his fictions; but attributing a divine nature\r\nto wicked men, that crimes might be no longer crimes, and whoso commits\r\nthem might seem to imitate not abandoned men, but the celestial gods.\"\r\n\r\nAnd yet, thou hellish torrent, into thee are cast the sons of men with\r\nrich rewards, for compassing such learning; and a great solemnity is\r\nmade of it, when this is going on in the forum, within sight of laws\r\nappointing a salary beside the scholar's payments; and thou lashest\r\nthy rocks and roarest, \"Hence words are learnt; hence eloquence; most\r\nnecessary to gain your ends, or maintain opinions.\" As if we should have\r\nnever known such words as \"golden shower,\" \"lap,\" \"beguile,\" \"temples\r\nof the heavens,\" or others in that passage, unless Terence had brought\r\na lewd youth upon the stage, setting up Jupiter as his example of\r\nseduction.\r\n\r\n         \"Viewing a picture, where the tale was drawn,\r\n         Of Jove's descending in a golden shower\r\n         To Danae's lap a woman to beguile.\"\r\n\r\nAnd then mark how he excites himself to lust as by celestial authority:\r\n\r\n         \"And what God?  Great Jove,\r\n         Who shakes heaven's highest temples with his thunder,\r\n\r\n         And I, poor mortal man, not do the same!\r\n         I did it, and with all my heart I did it.\"\r\n\r\nNot one whit more easily are the words learnt for all this vileness;\r\nbut by their means the vileness is committed with less shame. Not that\r\nI blame the words, being, as it were, choice and precious vessels; but\r\nthat wine of error which is drunk to us in them by intoxicated teachers;\r\nand if we, too, drink not, we are beaten, and have no sober judge to\r\nwhom we may appeal. Yet, O my God (in whose presence I now without hurt\r\nmay remember this), all this unhappily I learnt willingly with great\r\ndelight, and for this was pronounced a hopeful boy.\r\n\r\nBear with me, my God, while I say somewhat of my wit, Thy gift, and on\r\nwhat dotages I wasted it. For a task was set me, troublesome enough to\r\nmy soul, upon terms of praise or shame, and fear of stripes, to speak\r\nthe words of Juno, as she raged and mourned that she could not\r\n\r\n        \"This Trojan prince from Latinum turn.\"\r\n\r\nWhich words I had heard that Juno never uttered; but we were forced to\r\ngo astray in the footsteps of these poetic fictions, and to say in prose\r\nmuch what he expressed in verse. And his speaking was most applauded, in\r\nwhom the passions of rage and grief were most preeminent, and clothed\r\nin the most fitting language, maintaining the dignity of the character.\r\nWhat is it to me, O my true life, my God, that my declamation was\r\napplauded above so many of my own age and class? is not all this smoke\r\nand wind? and was there nothing else whereon to exercise my wit and\r\ntongue? Thy praises, Lord, Thy praises might have stayed the yet tender\r\nshoot of my heart by the prop of Thy Scriptures; so had it not trailed\r\naway amid these empty trifles, a defiled prey for the fowls of the air.\r\nFor in more ways than one do men sacrifice to the rebellious angels.\r\n\r\nBut what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went out\r\nfrom Thy presence, O my God, when men were set before me as models, who,\r\nif in relating some action of theirs, in itself not ill, they committed\r\nsome barbarism or solecism, being censured, were abashed; but when\r\nin rich and adorned and well-ordered discourse they related their own\r\ndisordered life, being bepraised, they gloried? These things Thou seest,\r\nLord, and holdest Thy peace; long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and\r\ntruth. Wilt Thou hold Thy peace for ever? and even now Thou drawest out\r\nof this horrible gulf the soul that seeketh Thee, that thirsteth for\r\nThy pleasures, whose heart saith unto Thee, I have sought Thy face; Thy\r\nface, Lord, will I seek. For darkened affections is removal from Thee.\r\nFor it is not by our feet, or change of place, that men leave Thee, or\r\nreturn unto Thee. Or did that Thy younger son look out for horses or\r\nchariots, or ships, fly with visible wings, or journey by the motion of\r\nhis limbs, that he might in a far country waste in riotous living all\r\nThou gavest at his departure? a loving Father, when Thou gavest, and\r\nmore loving unto him, when he returned empty. So then in lustful, that\r\nis, in darkened affections, is the true distance from Thy face.\r\n\r\nBehold, O Lord God, yea, behold patiently as Thou art wont how carefully\r\nthe sons of men observe the covenanted rules of letters and syllables\r\nreceived from those who spake before them, neglecting the eternal\r\ncovenant of everlasting salvation received from Thee. Insomuch, that\r\na teacher or learner of the hereditary laws of pronunciation will more\r\noffend men by speaking without the aspirate, of a \"uman being,\" in\r\ndespite of the laws of grammar, than if he, a \"human being,\" hate a\r\n\"human being\" in despite of Thine. As if any enemy could be more hurtful\r\nthan the hatred with which he is incensed against him; or could wound\r\nmore deeply him whom he persecutes, than he wounds his own soul by his\r\nenmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as the record\r\nof conscience, \"that he is doing to another what from another he would\r\nbe loth to suffer.\" How deep are Thy ways, O God, Thou only great,\r\nthat sittest silent on high and by an unwearied law dispensing penal\r\nblindness to lawless desires."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R","peer_label":"confessions","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJR8RBE420Z52P5C5FRBHSX6","peer_label":"god","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"deity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:21.734Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8REPE8P1E5VTDVFQS726J","peer_label":"divine scriptures","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_text","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:21.734Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPKR8GE4ZG6QCGK9MQ8H","peer_label":"grecian 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