{"id":"01KJR8Q6BF8PKTBXFJ2NHYBAPH","cid":"bafkreib36uckaqwpvf6h6ayjuurk6adpxsofalkafuvokbmunk4kuxuot4","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":171206,"char_start":163358,"chunk_index":23,"chunk_total":89,"estimated_tokens":1962,"source_file_key":"confessions","text":"I 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 Prophets. Yet did I not therefore then\r\nsee that the Catholic way was to be held, because it also could find\r\nlearned maintainers, who could at large and with some show of reason\r\nanswer objections; nor that what I held was therefore to be condemned,\r\nbecause both sides could be maintained. For the Catholic cause seemed to\r\nme in such sort not vanquished, as still not as yet to be victorious.\r\n\r\nHereupon I earnestly bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by any\r\ncertain proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once have\r\nconceived a spiritual substance, all their strongholds had been beaten\r\ndown, and cast utterly out of my mind; but I could not. Notwithstanding,\r\nconcerning the frame of this world, and the whole of nature, which the\r\nsenses of the flesh can reach to, as I more and more considered and\r\ncompared things, I judged the tenets of most of the philosophers to have\r\nbeen much more probable. So then after the manner of the Academics (as\r\nthey are supposed) doubting of every thing, and wavering between all, I\r\nsettled so far, that the Manichees were to be abandoned; judging that,\r\neven while doubting, I might not continue in that sect, to which I\r\nalready preferred some of the philosophers; to which philosophers\r\nnotwithstanding, for that they were without the saving Name of Christ,\r\nI utterly refused to commit the cure of my sick soul. I determined\r\ntherefore so long to be a Catechumen in the Catholic Church, to which\r\nI had been commended by my parents, till something certain should dawn\r\nupon me, whither I might steer my course.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBOOK VI\r\n\r\n\r\nO Thou, my hope from my youth, where wert Thou to me, and whither wert\r\nThou gone? Hadst not Thou created me, and separated me from the beasts\r\nof the field, and fowls of the air? Thou hadst made me wiser, yet did I\r\nwalk in darkness, and in slippery places, and sought Thee abroad out of\r\nmyself, and found not the God of my heart; and had come into the depths\r\nof the sea, and distrusted and despaired of ever finding truth. My\r\nmother had now come to me, resolute through piety, following me over sea\r\nand land, in all perils confiding in Thee. For in perils of the sea, she\r\ncomforted the very mariners (by whom passengers unacquainted with the\r\ndeep, use rather to be comforted when troubled), assuring them of a safe\r\narrival, because Thou hadst by a vision assured her thereof. She found\r\nme in grievous peril, through despair of ever finding truth. But when\r\nI had discovered to her that I was now no longer a Manichee, though\r\nnot yet a Catholic Christian, she was not overjoyed, as at something\r\nunexpected; although she was now assured concerning that part of my\r\nmisery, for which she bewailed me as one dead, though to be reawakened\r\nby Thee, carrying me forth upon the bier of her thoughts, that Thou\r\nmightest say to the son of the widow, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise;\r\nand he should revive, and begin to speak, and Thou shouldest deliver him\r\nto his mother. Her heart then was shaken with no tumultuous exultation,\r\nwhen she heard that what she daily with tears desired of Thee was\r\nalready in so great part realised; in that, though I had not yet\r\nattained the truth, I was rescued from falsehood; but, as being assured,\r\nthat Thou, Who hadst promised the whole, wouldest one day give the rest,\r\nmost calmly, and with a heart full of confidence, she replied to me,\r\n\"She believed in Christ, that before she departed this life, she should\r\nsee me a Catholic believer.\" Thus much to me. But to Thee, Fountain\r\nof mercies, poured she forth more copious prayers and tears, that Thou\r\nwouldest hasten Thy help, and enlighten my darkness; and she hastened\r\nthe more eagerly to the Church, and hung upon the lips of Ambrose,\r\npraying for the fountain of that water, which springeth up unto life\r\neverlasting. But that man she loved as an angel of God, because she knew\r\nthat by him I had been brought for the present to that doubtful state of\r\nfaith I now was in, through which she anticipated most confidently that\r\nI should pass from sickness unto health, after the access, as it were,\r\nof a sharper fit, which physicians call \"the crisis.\"\r\n\r\nWhen then my mother had once, as she was wont in Afric, brought to the\r\nChurches built in memory of the Saints, certain cakes, and bread and\r\nwine, and was forbidden by the door-keeper; so soon as she knew that the\r\nBishop had forbidden this, she so piously and obediently embraced\r\nhis wishes, that I myself wondered how readily she censured her own\r\npractice, rather than discuss his prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not\r\nlay siege to her spirit, nor did love of wine provoke her to hatred of\r\nthe truth, as it doth too many (both men and women), who revolt at a\r\nlesson of sobriety, as men well-drunk at a draught mingled with\r\nwater. But she, when she had brought her basket with the accustomed\r\nfestival-food, to be but tasted by herself, and then given away, never\r\njoined therewith more than one small cup of wine, diluted according to\r\nher own abstemious habits, which for courtesy she would taste. And if\r\nthere were many churches of the departed saints that were to be honoured\r\nin that manner, she still carried round that same one cup, to be\r\nused every where; and this, though not only made very watery, but\r\nunpleasantly heated with carrying about, she would distribute to those\r\nabout her by small sips; for she sought there devotion, not pleasure.\r\nSo soon, then, as she found this custom to be forbidden by that famous\r\npreacher and most pious prelate, even to those that would use it\r\nsoberly, lest so an occasion of excess might be given to the drunken;\r\nand for these, as it were, anniversary funeral solemnities did much\r\nresemble the superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly forbare\r\nit: and for a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to\r\nbring to the Churches of the martyrs a breast filled with more\r\npurified petitions, and to give what she could to the poor; that so\r\nthe communication of the Lord's Body might be there rightly celebrated,\r\nwhere, after the example of His Passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed\r\nand crowned. But yet it seems to me, O Lord my God, and thus thinks my\r\nheart of it in Thy sight, that perhaps she would not so readily have\r\nyielded to the cutting off of this custom, had it been forbidden by\r\nanother, whom she loved not as Ambrose, whom, for my salvation,\r\nshe loved most entirely; and he her again, for her most religious\r\nconversation, whereby in good works, so fervent in spirit, she was\r\nconstant at church; so that, when he saw me, he often burst forth into\r\nher praises; congratulating me that I had such a mother; not knowing\r\nwhat a son she had in me, who doubted of all these things, and imagined\r\nthe way to life could not be found out.\r\n\r\nNor did I yet groan in my prayers, that Thou wouldest help me; but\r\nmy spirit was wholly intent on learning, and restless to dispute. And\r\nAmbrose himself, as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy man, whom\r\npersonages so great held in such honour; only his celibacy seemed to me\r\na painful course."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJR8NK5DAD726FMQ6JCHGZ5R","peer_label":"confessions","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJR8M0JHPZXCPKJ34HTYXSWW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJR8RCYCARFN7GG88GWTEGP1","peer_label":"catholic 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