{"id":"01KJR8Q6AYPXM54N7X196FG85D","cid":"bafkreihuftun5dkqhhyaegpv5nuuw7zn7iwjot6alijmhg4476u6zx4n4m","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":149809,"char_start":141926,"chunk_index":20,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1971,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"\r\nThat greediness then, wherewith I had of so long time expected that man,\r\nwas delighted verily with his action and feeling when disputing, and his\r\nchoice and readiness of words to clothe his ideas. I was then delighted,\r\nand, with many others and more than they, did I praise and extol him.\r\nIt troubled me, however, that in the assembly of his auditors, I was not\r\nallowed to put in and communicate those questions that troubled me,\r\nin familiar converse with him. Which when I might, and with my friends\r\nbegan to engage his ears at such times as it was not unbecoming for him\r\nto discuss with me, and had brought forward such things as moved me; I\r\nfound him first utterly ignorant of liberal sciences, save grammar, and\r\nthat but in an ordinary way. But because he had read some of Tully's\r\nOrations, a very few books of Seneca, some things of the poets, and such\r\nfew volumes of his own sect as were written in Latin and neatly, and\r\nwas daily practised in speaking, he acquired a certain eloquence, which\r\nproved the more pleasing and seductive because under the guidance of a\r\ngood wit, and with a kind of natural gracefulness. Is it not thus, as I\r\nrecall it, O Lord my God, Thou judge of my conscience? before Thee is\r\nmy heart, and my remembrance, Who didst at that time direct me by the\r\nhidden mystery of Thy providence, and didst set those shameful errors of\r\nmine before my face, that I might see and hate them.\r\n\r\nFor after it was clear that he was ignorant of those arts in which I\r\nthought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the\r\ndifficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he\r\nmight have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For\r\ntheir books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars,\r\nsun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to\r\ndecide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with\r\nthe calculations I had elsewhere read, the account given in the books of\r\nManichaeus were preferable, or at least as good. Which when I proposed\r\nto be considered and discussed, he, so far modestly, shrunk from the\r\nburthen. For he knew that he knew not these things, and was not ashamed\r\nto confess it. For he was not one of those talking persons, many of whom\r\nI had endured, who undertook to teach me these things, and said nothing.\r\nBut this man had a heart, though not right towards Thee, yet neither\r\naltogether treacherous to himself. For he was not altogether ignorant of\r\nhis own ignorance, nor would he rashly be entangled in a dispute, whence\r\nhe could neither retreat nor extricate himself fairly. Even for this I\r\nliked him the better. For fairer is the modesty of a candid mind, than\r\nthe knowledge of those things which I desired; and such I found him, in\r\nall the more difficult and subtile questions.\r\n\r\nMy zeal for the writings of Manichaeus being thus blunted, and\r\ndespairing yet more of their other teachers, seeing that in divers\r\nthings which perplexed me, he, so renowned among them, had so turned\r\nout; I began to engage with him in the study of that literature, on\r\nwhich he also was much set (and which as rhetoric-reader I was at that\r\ntime teaching young students at Carthage), and to read with him, either\r\nwhat himself desired to hear, or such as I judged fit for his genius.\r\nBut all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that sect,\r\nupon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I detached\r\nmyself from them altogether, but as one finding nothing better, I had\r\nsettled to be content meanwhile with what I had in whatever way fallen\r\nupon, unless by chance something more eligible should dawn upon me.\r\nThus, that Faustus, to so many a snare of death, had now neither willing\r\nnor witting it, begun to loosen that wherein I was taken. For Thy hands,\r\nO my God, in the secret purpose of Thy providence, did not forsake my\r\nsoul; and out of my mother's heart's blood, through her tears night and\r\nday poured out, was a sacrifice offered for me unto Thee; and Thou didst\r\ndeal with me by wondrous ways. Thou didst it, O my God: for the steps\r\nof a man are ordered by the Lord, and He shall dispose his way. Or how\r\nshall we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re-making what it made?\r\n\r\nThou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome, and\r\nto teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage. And how I was\r\npersuaded to this, I will not neglect to confess to Thee; because herein\r\nalso the deepest recesses of Thy wisdom, and Thy most present mercy to\r\nus, must be considered and confessed. I did not wish therefore to go to\r\nRome, because higher gains and higher dignities were warranted me by my\r\nfriends who persuaded me to this (though even these things had at that\r\ntime an influence over my mind), but my chief and almost only reason\r\nwas, that I heard that young men studied there more peacefully, and were\r\nkept quiet under a restraint of more regular discipline; so that they\r\ndid not, at their pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of\r\none whose pupils they were not, nor were even admitted without his\r\npermission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among the scholars a most\r\ndisgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in audaciously, and\r\nwith gestures almost frantic, disturb all order which any one hath\r\nestablished for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit,\r\nwith a wonderful stolidity, punishable by law, did not custom uphold\r\nthem; that custom evincing them to be the more miserable, in that they\r\nnow do as lawful what by Thy eternal law shall never be lawful; and they\r\nthink they do it unpunished, whereas they are punished with the very\r\nblindness whereby they do it, and suffer incomparably worse than what\r\nthey do. The manners then which, when a student, I would not make my\r\nown, I was fain as a teacher to endure in others: and so I was well\r\npleased to go where, all that knew it, assured me that the like was not\r\ndone. But Thou, my refuge and my portion in the land of the living;\r\nthat I might change my earthly dwelling for the salvation of my soul,\r\nat Carthage didst goad me, that I might thereby be torn from it; and at\r\nRome didst proffer me allurements, whereby I might be drawn thither,\r\nby men in love with a dying life, the one doing frantic, the other\r\npromising vain, things; and, to correct my steps, didst secretly use\r\ntheir and my own perverseness. For both they who disturbed my quiet were\r\nblinded with a disgraceful frenzy, and they who invited me elsewhere\r\nsavoured of earth. And I, who here detested real misery, was there\r\nseeking unreal happiness.\r\n\r\nBut why I went hence, and went thither, Thou knewest, O God, yet\r\nshowedst it neither to me, nor to my mother, who grievously bewailed my\r\njourney, and followed me as far as the sea. But I deceived her, holding\r\nme by force, that either she might keep me back or go with me, and I\r\nfeigned that I had a friend whom I could not leave, till he had a fair\r\nwind to sail. And I lied to my mother, and such a mother, and escaped:\r\nfor this also hast Thou mercifully forgiven me, preserving me, thus full\r\nof execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, for the water of\r\nThy Grace; whereby when I was cleansed, the streams of my mother's eyes\r\nshould be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground under\r\nher face. And yet refusing to return without me, I scarcely persuaded\r\nher to stay that night in a place hard by our ship, where was an Oratory\r\nin memory of the blessed Cyprian. That night I privily departed, but she\r\nwas not behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so\r\nmany tears asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldest not suffer me to sail?\r\nBut Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her\r\ndesire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me\r\nwhat she ever asked."},"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":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8R6AJ4HSDN1TJ34CHPH7J","peer_label":"carthage","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"city","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RFNWG2X8T00NW85WN134","peer_label":"god","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"divine_entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8REJ3XZHYDFK5JKT9RHP3","peer_label":"rome","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"city","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RDRQWGMRPCNWYD6HTBGE","peer_label":"narrators mother","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPS3DFVNM2XY85V6VJW1","peer_label":"manichaeism","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_sect","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPP3DYZR5DSA98ZK3VR2","peer_label":"manichaean books","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_texts","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPPJ5YJYSBVKV82C88QY","peer_label":"senecas works","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"collection_of_works","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPV87ETF5AWM4DTCKYQY","peer_label":"faustus","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPVG4CGG9QYS470STWYW","peer_label":"liberal sciences","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"academic_discipline_category","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RQFSGKB74XR2R7WY8RZ9","peer_label":"blessed cyprian","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RQRGT5VNS46DWV06J8C0","peer_label":"heaven stars sun and moon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RQ8AQE12HMJJQZWV0W8A","peer_label":"grammar","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"academic_discipline","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RQKHZZ7TZJBWR2FFDKGY","peer_label":"prolix fables","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RQDE1D9BRVYQACMBAGTB","peer_label":"oratory in memory of the blessed cyprian","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_building","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RPPD0040129HK2KQY3M1","peer_label":"tullys orations","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"literary_work","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RQWYSTRFX923EGDWYCT6","peer_label":"narrators adherence to manichaeism","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RR9MJW78G5M3QGEHEDJJ","peer_label":"narrators soul","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RR28JGY0AEE78SWQ0TN3","peer_label":"astronomical calculations","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RRGABTZ7C6JNR0G38YNK","peer_label":"unruly scholars","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RRABDKV4G8DB4ZEX9GDA","peer_label":"peaceful students","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}},{"peer":"01KJR8RRSSN9BJ85QWM7QJCQSG","peer_label":"narrators journey","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T21:55:18.545Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T21:54:24.734Z","ts":"2026-03-02T21:55:19.674Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}