{"id":"01KJR8Q69YPCK77TFDKYW6NZVS","cid":"bafkreifevleyond4d3ggsi2fp5jwiisimb72yy24g2xny3ey5xqfrfnxli","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":78955,"char_start":70993,"chunk_index":10,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1991,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"spake 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. But I\r\nhungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Thine, but\r\nafter Thee Thyself, the Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither\r\nshadow of turning: yet they still set before me in those dishes,\r\nglittering fantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun\r\n(which is real to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by\r\nour eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed\r\nthereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou\r\nart; for Thou wast not these emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them,\r\nbut exhausted rather. Food in sleep shows very like our food awake; yet\r\nare not those asleep nourished by it, for they are asleep. But those\r\nwere not even any way like to Thee, as Thou hast now spoken to me; for\r\nthose were corporeal fantasies, false bodies, than which these true\r\nbodies, celestial or terrestrial, which with our fleshly sight we\r\nbehold, are far more certain: these things the beasts and birds discern\r\nas well as we, and they are more certain than when we fancy them. And\r\nagain, we do with more certainty fancy them, than by them conjecture\r\nother vaster and infinite bodies which have no being. Such empty husks\r\nwas I then fed on; and was not fed. But Thou, my soul's Love, in looking\r\nfor whom I fail, that I may become strong, art neither those bodies\r\nwhich we see, though in heaven; nor those which we see not there; for\r\nThou hast created them, nor dost Thou account them among the chiefest of\r\nThy works. How far then art Thou from those fantasies of mine, fantasies\r\nof bodies which altogether are not, than which the images of those\r\nbodies, which are, are far more certain, and more certain still the\r\nbodies themselves, which yet Thou art not; no, nor yet the soul, which\r\nis the life of the bodies. So then, better and more certain is the life\r\nof the bodies than the bodies. But Thou art the life of souls, the life\r\nof lives, having life in Thyself; and changest not, life of my soul.\r\n\r\nWhere then wert Thou then to me, and how far from me? Far verily was I\r\nstraying from Thee, barred from the very husks of the swine, whom with\r\nhusks I fed. For how much better are the fables of poets and grammarians\r\nthan these snares? For verses, and poems, and \"Medea flying,\" are more\r\nprofitable truly than these men's five elements, variously disguised,\r\nanswering to five dens of darkness, which have no being, yet slay the\r\nbeliever. For verses and poems I can turn to true food, and \"Medea\r\nflying,\" though I did sing, I maintained not; though I heard it sung,\r\nI believed not: but those things I did believe. Woe, woe, by what steps\r\nwas I brought down to the depths of hell! toiling and turmoiling through\r\nwant of Truth, since I sought after Thee, my God (to Thee I confess\r\nit, who hadst mercy on me, not as yet confessing), not according to the\r\nunderstanding of the mind, wherein Thou willedst that I should excel\r\nthe beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh. But Thou wert more\r\ninward to me than my most inward part; and higher than my highest. I\r\nlighted upon that bold woman, simple and knoweth nothing, shadowed out\r\nin Solomon, sitting at the door, and saying, Eat ye bread of secrecies\r\nwillingly, and drink ye stolen waters which are sweet: she seduced me,\r\nbecause she found my soul dwelling abroad in the eye of my flesh, and\r\nruminating on such food as through it I had devoured.\r\n\r\nFor other than this, that which really is I knew not; and was, as it\r\nwere through sharpness of wit, persuaded to assent to foolish deceivers,\r\nwhen they asked me, \"whence is evil?\" \"is God bounded by a bodily shape,\r\nand has hairs and nails?\" \"are they to be esteemed righteous who had\r\nmany wives at once, and did kill men, and sacrifice living creatures?\"\r\nAt which I, in my ignorance, was much troubled, and departing from the\r\ntruth, seemed to myself to be making towards it; because as yet I knew\r\nnot that evil was nothing but a privation of good, until at last a thing\r\nceases altogether to be; which how should I see, the sight of whose eyes\r\nreached only to bodies, and of my mind to a phantasm? And I knew not God\r\nto be a Spirit, not one who hath parts extended in length and breadth,\r\nor whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the\r\nwhole: and if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is defined\r\nby a certain space, than in its infinitude; and so is not wholly every\r\nwhere, as Spirit, as God. And what that should be in us, by which we\r\nwere like to God, and might be rightly said to be after the image of\r\nGod, I was altogether ignorant.\r\n\r\nNor knew I that true inward righteousness which judgeth not according\r\nto custom, but out of the most rightful law of God Almighty, whereby\r\nthe ways of places and times were disposed according to those times and\r\nplaces; itself meantime being the same always and every where, not one\r\nthing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham,\r\nand Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, were righteous, and all\r\nthose commended by the mouth of God; but were judged unrighteous by\r\nsilly men, judging out of man's judgment, and measuring by their own\r\npetty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race. As if in an\r\narmory, one ignorant what were adapted to each part should cover his\r\nhead with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, and complain that\r\nthey fitted not: or as if on a day when business is publicly stopped in\r\nthe afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop,\r\nbecause he had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth\r\nsome servant take a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered\r\nto meddle with; or something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden\r\nin the dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one\r\nfamily, the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all. Even\r\nsuch are they who are fretted to hear something to have been lawful\r\nfor righteous men formerly, which now is not; or that God, for certain\r\ntemporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these another, obeying\r\nboth the same righteousness: whereas they see, in one man, and one day,\r\nand one house, different things to be fit for different members, and\r\na thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so; in one corner\r\npermitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden and punished.\r\nIs justice therefore various or mutable? No, but the times, over which\r\nit presides, flow not evenly, because they are times. But men whose days\r\nare few upon the earth, for that by their senses they cannot harmonise\r\nthe causes of things in former ages and other nations, which they had\r\nnot experience of, with these which they have experience of, whereas in\r\none and the same body, day, or family, they easily see what is fitting\r\nfor each member, and season, part, and person; to the one they take\r\nexceptions, to the other they submit.\r\n\r\nThese things I then knew not, nor observed; they struck my sight on all\r\nsides, and I saw them not. I indited verses, in which I might not place\r\nevery foot every where, but differently in different metres; nor even in\r\nany one metre the self-same foot in all places."},"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":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RGDZRM2NABFX6YGB4HAY","peer_label":"moon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"celestial_body","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RE3RPZS4WRY0CA8H0JCT","peer_label":"sun","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"celestial_body","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RENT5GDAEZJJBSSVRRWR","peer_label":"truth","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8R5M8VXDW8Z6YHQTCPK14","peer_label":"god","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"divine_being","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RCJJ50A8WKPA2GXBK78Y","peer_label":"soul","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S3VABDDK4PAJX5NGVET7","peer_label":"philosophers","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S3X0RX2RN7NTWK2D0Q4W","peer_label":"solomon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S3V4EBCD32SFS27NDJAB","peer_label":"corporeal fantasies","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S3YEYDVKNTBHHZE768BZ","peer_label":"five elements","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"false_doctrine","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S3Z9HA9Q3Y8PJDK3K21E","peer_label":"evil","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S3Y4VZZV0KXRGR8JF329","peer_label":"bold woman","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"allegorical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S4HMH94FWZB5TN8N8TQN","peer_label":"true inward righteousness","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S4HQSC7ZSMPKGW25Z0Q0","peer_label":"law of god almighty","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"system","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S4M95VYZVK3H3KNTBNC0","peer_label":"isaac","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S4K6ZBPFS8P0JP7RXGGX","peer_label":"abraham","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S4E80H06X4V0KCAAKCB9","peer_label":"privation of good","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"philosophical_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S4RKB1SH7PWPEYD7E953","peer_label":"jacob","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S5658V2VJC2NZC3AXMTP","peer_label":"medea flying","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"literary_trope","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S55KYNRRX46G4BH27DDX","peer_label":"david","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8S55PEJ7GTZMZXYPYVZ5M","peer_label":"moses","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:36.483Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T21:54:24.702Z","ts":"2026-03-02T21:55:38.012Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}