{"id":"01KJR8Q69YCF37RW11M9PGH810","cid":"bafkreibt6p5bh6u74xr22d5edji36lfhkio7doexe4do43jcgkck2xo6ju","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":71764,"char_start":63918,"chunk_index":9,"chunk_total":89,"description":"This text chunk, the ninth of 89 from the file [confessions](arke:01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R) within the [confessions](arke:01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW) collection, details the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ)'s spiritual journey, marked by early errors, intellectual pursuits, and a pivotal turning point towards [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X).\n\nThe [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) reflects on his youthful \"love of [grief](arke:01KJR8RH3MVPM26XJZ2C3DVW19)s,\" which he describes as a superficial ailment likened to a [foul disease](arke:01KJR8RCV5G5J4Y7KM88Q30G2J). He recounts pursuing a [sacrilegious curiosity](arke:01KJR8RD1PNX7G8MRAFB3YZTAE), forsaking [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X) to engage in the \"beguiling service of [devils](arke:01KJR8RCVEJ4K9BWSGBNSEPQQY),\" even while [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X)'s solemnities were celebrated within His [Church](arke:01KJR8RCV40HMY6MWXNZ411GS2).\n\nDuring his time in [rhetoric school](arke:01KJR8RDD1KTR93PE7Y30Y08H7), where he excelled and took pride in his craftiness, the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) associated with a group known as the \"[Subverters](arke:01KJR8REJDDHS7A4X4EWECS3HQ),\" whose malicious actions, such as persecuting the [modesty of strangers](arke:01KJR8RHDQ9GVT0A1BW5EP5HN7), he abhorred but found himself drawn to their friendship.\n\nA significant turning point occurred in his nineteenth year, [two years before narrator's nineteenth year](arke:01KJR8RHNPSAMEGKRGTNFQJT80) after his [narrator's father](arke:01KJR8RDZH7DA33VGSFGHD2SPB) had died, with his [narrator's mother](arke:01KJR8RCVSJ0EAE7WYK04A0GT8) providing allowances. He encountered [Cicero](arke:01KJR8RDERCPT5Z6GABSEDG87B)'s book, \"[Hortensius](arke:01KJR8RDNTDZPQZEVNFQD3DRFC),\" an exhortation to [philosophy](arke:01KJR8RDEYS5H17J4SCV54132X) (the love of wisdom). This book profoundly altered his [narrator's affections](arke:01KJR8RHKK423X14SNY512K83J) and redirected his prayers and desires towards [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X).\n\nDespite the powerful impact of \"[Hortensius](arke:01KJR8RDNTDZPQZEVNFQD3DRFC),\" the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) felt a crucial element was missing: the [name of Christ](arke:01KJR8RHPAVT6EKV65DRGMPDFT), his [Saviour Thy Son](arke:01KJR8RDGXPCYVRE28A6NBFXGW), which had been instilled in his heart from infancy by his [narrator's mother](arke:01KJR8RCVSJ0EAE7WYK04A0GT8). This absence prompted him to turn to the [Holy Scriptures](arke:01KJR8RE392KZXBVTQNPQM266C). However, his pride prevented him from appreciating their perceived lowliness, finding them incomparable to the elegance of [Cicero](arke:01KJR8RDERCPT5Z6GABSEDG87B)'s prose.\n\nSubsequently, the [narrator](arke:01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ) fell among [men proudly doting](arke:01KJR8REX74CXN0G9QTX3M4H29), who, despite speaking of [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X), [Jesus Christ](arke:01KJR8RE9ASSVJ2EZY47NJ72AM), and the [Holy Ghost](arke:01KJR8REEBYG583WJFCNYZQ70P), were void of [truth](arke:01KJR8RENT5GDAEZJJBSSVRRWR) in their hearts. These individuals, serving as snares of the Devil, offered the [Sun](arke:01KJR8RE3RPZS4WRY0CA8H0JCT) and [Moon](arke:01KJR8RGDZRM2NABFX6YGB4HAY)—beautiful works of [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X)—instead of [Lord God](arke:01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X) Himself, though they claimed to speak of [truth](arke:01KJR8RENT5GDAEZJJBSSVRRWR).","description_generated_at":"2026-03-03T02:46:14.409Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash","estimated_tokens":1962,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"who is thought to suffer hardship, by missing some pernicious pleasure,\r\nand the loss of some miserable felicity. This certainly is the truer\r\nmercy, but in it grief delights not. For though he that grieves for the\r\nmiserable, be commended for his office of charity; yet had he, who is\r\ngenuinely compassionate, rather there were nothing for him to grieve\r\nfor. For if good will be ill willed (which can never be), then may\r\nhe, who truly and sincerely commiserates, wish there might be some\r\nmiserable, that he might commiserate. Some sorrow may then be allowed,\r\nnone loved. For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more\r\npurely than we, and hast more incorruptibly pity on them, yet are\r\nwounded with no sorrowfulness. And who is sufficient for these things?\r\n\r\nBut I, miserable, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve\r\nat, when in another's and that feigned and personated misery, that\r\nacting best pleased me, and attracted me the most vehemently, which\r\ndrew tears from me. What marvel that an unhappy sheep, straying from\r\nThy flock, and impatient of Thy keeping, I became infected with a foul\r\ndisease? And hence the love of griefs; not such as should sink deep into\r\nme; for I loved not to suffer, what I loved to look on; but such as upon\r\nhearing their fictions should lightly scratch the surface; upon which,\r\nas on envenomed nails, followed inflamed swelling, impostumes, and a\r\nputrefied sore. My life being such, was it life, O my God?\r\n\r\nAnd Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous\r\niniquities consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity, that\r\nhaving forsaken Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous abyss, and\r\nthe beguiling service of devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil actions,\r\nand in all these things Thou didst scourge me! I dared even, while Thy\r\nsolemnities were celebrated within the walls of Thy Church, to desire,\r\nand to compass a business deserving death for its fruits, for which Thou\r\nscourgedst me with grievous punishments, though nothing to my fault,\r\nO Thou my exceeding mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible\r\ndestroyers, among whom I wandered with a stiff neck, withdrawing\r\nfurther from Thee, loving mine own ways, and not Thine; loving a vagrant\r\nliberty.\r\n\r\nThose studies also, which were accounted commendable, had a view to\r\nexcelling in the courts of litigation; the more bepraised, the craftier.\r\nSuch is men's blindness, glorying even in their blindness. And now I\r\nwas chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled\r\nwith arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether\r\nremoved from the subvertings of those \"Subverters\" (for this ill-omened\r\nand devilish name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived,\r\nwith a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived,\r\nand was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever\r\ndid abhor--i.e., their \"subvertings,\" wherewith they wantonly persecuted\r\nthe modesty of strangers, which they disturbed by a gratuitous jeering,\r\nfeeding thereon their malicious birth. Nothing can be liker the very\r\nactions of devils than these. What then could they be more truly called\r\nthan \"Subverters\"? themselves subverted and altogether perverted first,\r\nthe deceiving spirits secretly deriding and seducing them, wherein\r\nthemselves delight to jeer at and deceive others.\r\n\r\nAmong such as these, in that unsettled age of mine, learned I books\r\nof eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent, out of a damnable and\r\nvainglorious end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary course of\r\nstudy, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all\r\nadmire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation\r\nto philosophy, and is called \"Hortensius.\" But this book altered my\r\naffections, and turned my prayers to Thyself O Lord; and made me have\r\nother purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worthless to\r\nme; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality of\r\nwisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to Thee. For not\r\nto sharpen my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with my\r\nmother's allowances, in that my nineteenth year, my father being dead\r\ntwo years before), not to sharpen my tongue did I employ that book; nor\r\ndid it infuse into me its style, but its matter.\r\n\r\nHow did I burn then, my God, how did I burn to re-mount from earthly\r\nthings to Thee, nor knew I what Thou wouldest do with me? For with Thee\r\nis wisdom. But the love of wisdom is in Greek called \"philosophy,\"\r\nwith which that book inflamed me. Some there be that seduce through\r\nphilosophy, under a great, and smooth, and honourable name colouring and\r\ndisguising their own errors: and almost all who in that and former ages\r\nwere such, are in that book censured and set forth: there also is\r\nmade plain that wholesome advice of Thy Spirit, by Thy good and devout\r\nservant: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain\r\ndeceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world,\r\nand not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead\r\nbodily. And since at that time (Thou, O light of my heart, knowest)\r\nApostolic Scripture was not known to me, I was delighted with that\r\nexhortation, so far only, that I was thereby strongly roused, and\r\nkindled, and inflamed to love, and seek, and obtain, and hold, and\r\nembrace not this or that sect, but wisdom itself whatever it were; and\r\nthis alone checked me thus unkindled, that the name of Christ was not\r\nin it. For this name, according to Thy mercy, O Lord, this name of\r\nmy Saviour Thy Son, had my tender heart, even with my mother's milk,\r\ndevoutly drunk in and deeply treasured; and whatsoever was without that\r\nname, though never so learned, polished, or true, took not entire hold\r\nof me.\r\n\r\nI resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I might see\r\nwhat they were. But behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud,\r\nnor laid open to children, lowly in access, in its recesses lofty, and\r\nveiled with mysteries; and I was not such as could enter into it, or\r\nstoop my neck to follow its steps. For not as I now speak, did I feel\r\nwhen I turned to those Scriptures; but they seemed to me unworthy to be\r\ncompared to the stateliness of Tully: for my swelling pride shrunk from\r\ntheir lowliness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet\r\nwere they such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to be a\r\nlittle one; and, swollen with pride, took myself to be a great one.\r\n\r\nTherefore I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal and prating,\r\nin whose mouths were the snares of the Devil, limed with the mixture of\r\nthe syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy\r\nGhost, the Paraclete, our Comforter. These names departed not out of\r\ntheir mouth, but so far forth as the sound only and the noise of the\r\ntongue, for the heart was void of truth. Yet they cried out \"Truth,\r\nTruth,\" and spake much thereof to me, yet it was not in them: but they\r\nspake falsehood, not of Thee only (who truly art Truth), but even of\r\nthose elements of this world, Thy creatures. And I indeed ought to have\r\npassed by even philosophers who spake truth concerning them, for love\r\nof Thee, my Father, supremely good, Beauty of all things beautiful.\r\nO Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul pant\r\nafter Thee, when they often and diversely, and in many and huge books,\r\nechoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the\r\ndishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee,\r\nserved up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works,\r\nnot Thyself, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spiritual works are before\r\nthese corporeal works, celestial though they be, and shining.","title":"Narrator's Spiritual Struggle and Conversion from \"Confessions\" (Chunk 9)"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R","peer_label":"confessions","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJR8RD27Q2ZKWRPWYSM5M4QJ","peer_label":"narrator","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:12.505Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RDGXPCYVRE28A6NBFXGW","peer_label":"christ","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"divine_being","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:12.505Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RCVSJ0EAE7WYK04A0GT8","peer_label":"narrators mother","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:12.505Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RCV77VWV5RNZRGB1AD9X","peer_label":"lord 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