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3. Let me lay bare before my God that twenty-ninth year of my age.
There had at this time come to Carthage a certain bishop of the
Manichaeans, by name Faustus, a great snare Of the devil, and in
any were entangled by him through the allurement of his smooth speech
the which, although I did commend, yet could I separate from the
truth of those things which I was eager to learn. Nor did I esteem
the small dish of oratory so much as the science, which this their so
praised Faustus placed before me to feed upon. Fame, indeed, had
before Sen of him to me, as most skilled in all being learning, and
pre-eminently skilled in the liberal sciences. And as I had read and
retained in memory many injunctions of the philosophers, I used to
compare some teachings of theirs with those long fables of the
Manichaeans and the former things which they declared, who could only
prevail so far as to estimate this lower world, while its lord they
could by no means find out, seemed to me the more probable. For Thou
art great, O Lord, and hast respect unto the lowly, but the proud
Thou knowest afar off." Nor dost Thou draw near but to the
COntrite heart, nor art Thou found the proud, not even could
they number by cunning skill the stars and the sand, and measure the
starry regions, and trace the courses of the planets.
4. For with their understanding and the capacity which Thou hast
bestowed upon them they search out these things; and much have they
found out, and foretold many years before, the eclipses of those
luminaries, the sun and moon, on what day, at what hour, and from
how many particular points they were likely to come. Nor did their
calculation fail them; and it came to pass even as they foretold. And
they wrote down the rules found out, which are read at this day; and
from these others foretell in what year and in what month of the year,
and on what day of the month, and at what hour of the day, and at what
quarter of its light, either moon or sun is to be eclipsed, and thus
it shall be even as it is foretold. And men who are ignorant of these
things marvel and are amazed, and they that know them exult and are
exalted; and by an impious pride, departing from Thee, and forsaking
Thy light, they foretell a failure of the sun's light which is likely
to occur so long before, but see not their own, which is now present.
For they seek not religiously whence they have the ability where-with
they seek out these things. And finding that Thou hast made them,
they give not themselves up to Thee, that Thou mayest preserve what
Thou hast made, nor sacrifice themselves to Thee, even such as they
have made themselves to be; nor do they slay their own pride, as fowls
of the air, nor their own curiosities, by which (like the fishes of
the sea). they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss, nor their
own extravagance, as the "beasts of the field," that Thou, Lord,
"a consuming fire," mayest burn up their lifeless cares and renew
them immortally.
5. But the way Thy Word, by whom Thou didst make these
things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense by
which they perceive what they number, and the judgment out of which
they number they knew not, and that of Thy wisdom there is no
number) But the Only-begotten has been "made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification," and has been numbered amongst
us, and paid tribute to Caesar. This way, by which they might
descend to Him from themselves, they knew not; nor that through Him
they might ascend unto Him. This way they knew not, and they think
themselves exalted with the stars and shining, and lo! they fell upon
the earth, and "their foolish heart was darkened." They say many
true things concerning the creature; but Truth, the Artificer of the
creature, they seek not with devotion, and hence they find Him not.
Or if they find Him, knowing that He is God, they glorify Him not
as God, neither are they thankful, but become vain in their
imaginations, and say that they themselves are wise? attributing to
themselves what is Thine; and by this, with most perverse blindness,
they desire to impute to Thee what is their own, forging lies against
Thee who art the Truth, and changing the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and
four-fooled beasts, and creeping things, changing Thy truth
into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the
Creator.
6. Many truths, however, concerning the creature did I retain from
these men, and the cause appeared to me from calculations, the
succession of seasons, and the visible manifestations of the stars;
and I compared them with the sayings of Manichaeus, who in his frenzy
has written most extensively on these subjects, but discovered not any
account either of the solstices, or the equinoxes, the eclipses of the
luminaries, or anything of the kind I had learned in the books of
secular philosophy. But therein I was ordered to believe, and yet it
corresponded not with those rules acknowledged by calculation and my own
sight, but was far different.
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