{"id":"01KJR8Q6BF7BR7KJV1T86JS8MT","cid":"bafkreigpayi6gfkzjbr7fu2otqlypk3chcl75h4h3liiglt2hu72ozb4lm","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":164113,"char_start":156276,"chunk_index":22,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1960,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"turned me aside, in Thy Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of\r\nall things visible and invisible: and it seemed to me very unseemly to\r\nbelieve Thee to have the shape of human flesh, and to be bounded by the\r\nbodily lineaments of our members. And because, when I wished to think on\r\nmy God, I knew not what to think of, but a mass of bodies (for what was\r\nnot such did not seem to me to be anything), this was the greatest, and\r\nalmost only cause of my inevitable error.\r\n\r\nFor hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of substance, and\r\nto have its own foul and hideous bulk; whether gross, which they called\r\nearth, or thin and subtile (like the body of the air), which they\r\nimagine to be some malignant mind, creeping through that earth. And\r\nbecause a piety, such as it was, constrained me to believe that the good\r\nGod never created any evil nature, I conceived two masses, contrary\r\nto one another, both unbounded, but the evil narrower, the good more\r\nexpansive. And from this pestilent beginning, the other sacrilegious\r\nconceits followed on me. For when my mind endeavoured to recur to the\r\nCatholic faith, I was driven back, since that was not the Catholic faith\r\nwhich I thought to be so. And I seemed to myself more reverential, if I\r\nbelieved of Thee, my God (to whom Thy mercies confess out of my mouth),\r\nas unbounded, at least on other sides, although on that one where the\r\nmass of evil was opposed to Thee, I was constrained to confess Thee\r\nbounded; than if on all sides I should imagine Thee to be bounded by the\r\nform of a human body. And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have\r\ncreated no evil (which to me ignorant seemed not some only, but a bodily\r\nsubstance, because I could not conceive of mind unless as a subtile\r\nbody, and that diffused in definite spaces), than to believe the nature\r\nof evil, such as I conceived it, could come from Thee. Yea, and our\r\nSaviour Himself, Thy Only Begotten, I believed to have been reached\r\nforth (as it were) for our salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid\r\nsubstance, so as to believe nothing of Him, but what I could imagine in\r\nmy vanity. His Nature then, being such, I thought could not be born\r\nof the Virgin Mary, without being mingled with the flesh: and how that\r\nwhich I had so figured to myself could be mingled, and not defiled, I\r\nsaw not. I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest\r\nI should be forced to believe Him defiled by the flesh. Now will Thy\r\nspiritual ones mildly and lovingly smile upon me, if they shall read\r\nthese my confessions. Yet such was I.\r\n\r\nFurthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I\r\nthought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to\r\nconfer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in\r\nthose books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the words\r\nof one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face against the\r\nsaid Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he\r\nhad produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily withstood, the\r\nManichees' answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this answer they\r\nliked not to give publicly, but only to us in private. It was, that the\r\nScriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by I know not whom,\r\nwho wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith: yet\r\nthemselves produced not any uncorrupted copies. But I, conceiving of\r\nthings corporeal only, was mainly held down, vehemently oppressed and\r\nin a manner suffocated by those \"masses\"; panting under which after the\r\nbreath of Thy truth, I could not breathe it pure and untainted.\r\n\r\nI began then diligently to practise that for which I came to Rome, to\r\nteach rhetoric; and first, to gather some to my house, to whom, and\r\nthrough whom, I had begun to be known; when lo, I found other offences\r\ncommitted in Rome, to which I was not exposed in Africa. True, those\r\n\"subvertings\" by profligate young men were not here practised, as was\r\ntold me: but on a sudden, said they, to avoid paying their\r\nmaster's stipend, a number of youths plot together, and remove to\r\nanother;--breakers of faith, who for love of money hold justice cheap.\r\nThese also my heart hated, though not with a perfect hatred: for\r\nperchance I hated them more because I was to suffer by them, than\r\nbecause they did things utterly unlawful. Of a truth such are base\r\npersons, and they go a whoring from Thee, loving these fleeting\r\nmockeries of things temporal, and filthy lucre, which fouls the hand\r\nthat grasps it; hugging the fleeting world, and despising Thee, Who\r\nabidest, and recallest, and forgivest the adulteress soul of man, when\r\nshe returns to Thee. And now I hate such depraved and crooked persons,\r\nthough I love them if corrigible, so as to prefer to money the learning\r\nwhich they acquire, and to learning, Thee, O God, the truth and fulness\r\nof assured good, and most pure peace. But then I rather for my own sake\r\nmisliked them evil, than liked and wished them good for Thine.\r\n\r\nWhen therefore they of Milan had sent to Rome to the prefect of the\r\ncity, to furnish them with a rhetoric reader for their city, and sent\r\nhim at the public expense, I made application (through those very\r\npersons, intoxicated with Manichaean vanities, to be freed wherefrom\r\nI was to go, neither of us however knowing it) that Symmachus, then\r\nprefect of the city, would try me by setting me some subject, and so\r\nsend me. To Milan I came, to Ambrose the Bishop, known to the whole\r\nworld as among the best of men, Thy devout servant; whose eloquent\r\ndiscourse did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the flour of Thy\r\nwheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy wine.\r\nTo him was I unknowing led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be\r\nled to Thee. That man of God received me as a father, and showed me an\r\nEpiscopal kindness on my coming. Thenceforth I began to love him, at\r\nfirst indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which I utterly despaired\r\nof in Thy Church), but as a person kind towards myself. And I listened\r\ndiligently to him preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought,\r\nbut, as it were, trying his eloquence, whether it answered the fame\r\nthereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his\r\nwords attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful\r\nlooker-on; and I was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse,\r\nmore recondite, yet in manner less winning and harmonious, than that of\r\nFaustus. Of the matter, however, there was no comparison; for the one\r\nwas wandering amid Manichaean delusions, the other teaching salvation\r\nmost soundly. But salvation is far from sinners, such as I then stood\r\nbefore him; and yet was I drawing nearer by little and little, and\r\nunconsciously.\r\n\r\nFor though I took no pains to learn what he spake, but only to hear how\r\nhe spake (for that empty care alone was left me, despairing of a way,\r\nopen for man, to Thee), yet together with the words which I would\r\nchoose, came also into my mind the things which I would refuse; for\r\nI could not separate them. And while I opened my heart to admit \"how\r\neloquently he spake,\" there also entered \"how truly he spake\"; but this\r\nby degrees. For first, these things also had now begun to appear to\r\nme capable of defence; and the Catholic faith, for which I had thought\r\nnothing could be said against the Manichees' objections, I now thought\r\nmight be maintained without shamelessness; especially after I had heard\r\none or two places of the Old Testament resolved, and ofttimes \"in a\r\nfigure,\" which when I understood literally, I was slain spiritually.\r\nVery many places then of those books having been explained, I now blamed\r\nmy despair, in believing that no answer could be given to such as hated\r\nand scoffed at the Law and the 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