{"id":"01KJR8Q69YAE171SY0CHRJ9QTY","cid":"bafkreibsamdgtd2rztjr7sb4s7kzzl5cz3j4xjli65w2266z5sx3xxyhkm","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":99688,"char_start":92059,"chunk_index":13,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1908,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"upon Thee, the food that perisheth not? But what sort of man is any man,\r\nseeing he is but a man? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh at us,\r\nbut let us poor and needy confess unto Thee.\r\n\r\nIn those years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, made sale\r\nof a loquacity to overcome by. Yet I preferred (Lord, Thou knowest)\r\nhonest scholars (as they are accounted), and these I, without artifice,\r\ntaught artifices, not to be practised against the life of the guiltless,\r\nthough sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar\r\nperceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and amid much smoke\r\nsending out some sparks of faithfulness, which I showed in that my\r\nguidance of such as loved vanity, and sought after leasing, myself their\r\ncompanion. In those years I had one,--not in that which is called\r\nlawful marriage, but whom I had found out in a wayward passion, void of\r\nunderstanding; yet but one, remaining faithful even to her; in whom I\r\nin my own case experienced what difference there is betwixt the\r\nself-restraint of the marriage-covenant, for the sake of issue, and\r\nthe bargain of a lustful love, where children are born against their\r\nparents' will, although, once born, they constrain love.\r\n\r\nI remember also, that when I had settled to enter the lists for a\r\ntheatrical prize, some wizard asked me what I would give him to win; but\r\nI, detesting and abhorring such foul mysteries, answered, \"Though the\r\ngarland were of imperishable gold, I would not suffer a fly to be\r\nkilled to gain me it.\" For he was to kill some living creatures in his\r\nsacrifices, and by those honours to invite the devils to favour me. But\r\nthis ill also I rejected, not out of a pure love for Thee, O God of my\r\nheart; for I knew not how to love Thee, who knew not how to conceive\r\naught beyond a material brightness. And doth not a soul, sighing after\r\nsuch fictions, commit fornication against Thee, trust in things unreal,\r\nand feed the wind? Still I would not forsooth have sacrifices offered\r\nto devils for me, to whom I was sacrificing myself by that superstition.\r\nFor what else is it to feed the wind, but to feed them, that is by going\r\nastray to become their pleasure and derision?\r\n\r\nThose impostors then, whom they style Mathematicians, I consulted\r\nwithout scruple; because they seemed to use no sacrifice, nor to pray to\r\nany spirit for their divinations: which art, however, Christian and\r\ntrue piety consistently rejects and condemns. For, it is a good thing to\r\nconfess unto Thee, and to say, Have mercy upon me, heal my soul, for I\r\nhave sinned against Thee; and not to abuse Thy mercy for a licence to\r\nsin, but to remember the Lord's words, Behold, thou art made whole, sin\r\nno more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. All which wholesome advice\r\nthey labour to destroy, saying, \"The cause of thy sin is inevitably\r\ndetermined in heaven\"; and \"This did Venus, or Saturn, or Mars\":\r\nthat man, forsooth, flesh and blood, and proud corruption, might be\r\nblameless; while the Creator and Ordainer of heaven and the stars is\r\nto bear the blame. And who is He but our God? the very sweetness and\r\nwell-spring of righteousness, who renderest to every man according to\r\nhis works: and a broken and contrite heart wilt Thou not despise.\r\n\r\nThere was in those days a wise man, very skilful in physic, and renowned\r\ntherein, who had with his own proconsular hand put the Agonistic garland\r\nupon my distempered head, but not as a physician: for this disease Thou\r\nonly curest, who resistest the proud, and givest grace to the humble.\r\nBut didst Thou fail me even by that old man, or forbear to heal my soul?\r\nFor having become more acquainted with him, and hanging assiduously and\r\nfixedly on his speech (for though in simple terms, it was vivid, lively,\r\nand earnest), when he had gathered by my discourse that I was given to\r\nthe books of nativity-casters, he kindly and fatherly advised me to cast\r\nthem away, and not fruitlessly bestow a care and diligence, necessary\r\nfor useful things, upon these vanities; saying, that he had in his\r\nearliest years studied that art, so as to make it the profession whereby\r\nhe should live, and that, understanding Hippocrates, he could soon have\r\nunderstood such a study as this; and yet he had given it over, and taken\r\nto physic, for no other reason but that he found it utterly false;\r\nand he, a grave man, would not get his living by deluding people. \"But\r\nthou,\" saith he, \"hast rhetoric to maintain thyself by, so that thou\r\nfollowest this of free choice, not of necessity: the more then oughtest\r\nthou to give me credit herein, who laboured to acquire it so perfectly\r\nas to get my living by it alone.\" Of whom when I had demanded, how then\r\ncould many true things be foretold by it, he answered me (as he could)\r\n\"that the force of chance, diffused throughout the whole order of\r\nthings, brought this about. For if when a man by haphazard opens the\r\npages of some poet, who sang and thought of something wholly different,\r\na verse oftentimes fell out, wondrously agreeable to the present\r\nbusiness: it were not to be wondered at, if out of the soul of man,\r\nunconscious what takes place in it, by some higher instinct an answer\r\nshould be given, by hap, not by art, corresponding to the business and\r\nactions of the demander.\"\r\n\r\nAnd thus much, either from or through him, Thou conveyedst to me, and\r\ntracedst in my memory, what I might hereafter examine for myself. But at\r\nthat time neither he, nor my dearest Nebridius, a youth singularly good\r\nand of a holy fear, who derided the whole body of divination, could\r\npersuade me to cast it aside, the authority of the authors swaying me\r\nyet more, and as yet I had found no certain proof (such as I sought)\r\nwhereby it might without all doubt appear, that what had been truly\r\nforetold by those consulted was the result of haphazard, not of the art\r\nof the star-gazers.\r\n\r\nIn those years when I first began to teach rhetoric in my native town,\r\nI had made one my friend, but too dear to me, from a community of\r\npursuits, of mine own age, and, as myself, in the first opening flower\r\nof youth. He had grown up of a child with me, and we had been both\r\nschool-fellows and play-fellows. But he was not yet my friend as\r\nafterwards, nor even then, as true friendship is; for true it cannot be,\r\nunless in such as Thou cementest together, cleaving unto Thee, by that\r\nlove which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is\r\ngiven unto us. Yet was it but too sweet, ripened by the warmth of\r\nkindred studies: for, from the true faith (which he as a youth had\r\nnot soundly and thoroughly imbibed), I had warped him also to those\r\nsuperstitious and pernicious fables, for which my mother bewailed me.\r\nWith me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be without him. But\r\nbehold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy fugitives, at once God of\r\nvengeance, and Fountain of mercies, turning us to Thyself by wonderful\r\nmeans; Thou tookest that man out of this life, when he had scarce filled\r\nup one whole year of my friendship, sweet to me above all sweetness of\r\nthat my life.\r\n\r\nWho can recount all Thy praises, which he hath felt in his one self?\r\nWhat diddest Thou then, my God, and how unsearchable is the abyss of\r\nThy judgments? For long, sore sick of a fever, he lay senseless in\r\na death-sweat; and his recovery being despaired of, he was baptised,\r\nunknowing; myself meanwhile little regarding, and presuming that his\r\nsoul would retain rather what it had received of me, not what was\r\nwrought on his unconscious body. But it proved far otherwise: for he was\r\nrefreshed, and restored."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R","peer_label":"confessions","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJR8RD2NFT9YY9Y8DW1AWFFS","peer_label":"narrator","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RB14M0H2QPE7EC4PSWPY","peer_label":"nebridius","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RFNWG2X8T00NW85WN134","peer_label":"god","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"divine_entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RVZBBDF57D4GB0595NEA","peer_label":"narrators companion","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWJ6D4561JGGYMSXTXWX","peer_label":"holy ghost","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"divine_entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RVVXBWFG4E0JWBKPV56W","peer_label":"rhetoric","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"academic_discipline","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWKPQZZJ5Q55GMCWE9B0","peer_label":"theatrical prize","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event_or_competition","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWKX70ZERWVBWQ0KZQ28","peer_label":"wizard theatrical prize","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWGE6WSCA1N34ET2K1HX","peer_label":"lustful love","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"social_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWK0W1RN1TNHA6ADZREZ","peer_label":"mathematicians impostors","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_practitioners","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWRYJ17YW1A8XV9JVPCW","peer_label":"astrologynativity-casting","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"practice","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RWQ9GRQV0ANNYEV40P6R","peer_label":"marriage covenant","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"social_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RXCWPMKM2Z7M6C4EKZ6H","peer_label":"narrators youthful friend","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RXCQFGG0ZDJBNTWQTDYG","peer_label":"hippocrates","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"historical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RXDCAJNBC9MW51E238YT","peer_label":"christian piety","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RXBP9KKBRK5CNK7EWBX6","peer_label":"wise physician","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RXN91C3PGS4NGR4YZ88J","peer_label":"fever","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"medical_condition","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RY1S6SGED2TKXES9XZPY","peer_label":"baptism","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_ritual","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RY3YV1XK7MEZR1RRZTAJ","peer_label":"superstitious fables","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RXKPKCKHYQTT1EKD4AX9","peer_label":"true friendship","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RY3VNGDQG8SY33KSMSK3","peer_label":"devils","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"supernatural_entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:25.021Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T21:54:24.702Z","ts":"2026-03-02T21:55:26.338Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}