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28. And what did it profit me that, when scarce twenty years old,
a book of Aristotle's, entitled The Ten Predicaments, fell into
my hands, on whose very name I hung as on something great and
divine, when my rhetoric master of Carthage, and others who were
esteemed learned, referred to it with cheeks swelling with pride, -
I read it alone and understood it? And on my conferring with others,
who said that with the assistance of very able masters who not only
explained it orally, but drew many things in the dust they
scarcely understood it, and could tell me no more about it than I had
acquired in reading it by myself alone? And the book appeared to me to
speak plainly enough of substances, such as man is, and of their
qualities, such as the figure of a man, of what kind it is; and
his stature, how many feet high; and his relationship, whose brother
he is; or where placed, or when born; or whether he stands or sits,
or is shod or armed, or does or suffers anything; and whatever
innumerable things might be classed under these nine categories,
of which I have given some examples, or under that chief category
of substance.
29. What did all this profit me, seeing it even hindered me,
when, imagining that whatsoever existed was comprehended in those ten
categories, I tried so to understand, O my God, Thy wonderful and
unchangeable unity as if Thou also hadst been subjected to Thine own
greatness or beauty, so that they should exist in Thee as their
subject, like as in bodies, whereas Thou Thyself art Thy greatness
and beauty? But a body is not great or fair because it is a body,
seeing that, though it were less great or fair, it should nevertheless
be a body. But that which I had conceived of Thee was falsehood,
not truth, fictions of my misery, not the supports of Thy
blessedness. For Thou hadst commanded, and it was done in me, that
the earth should bring forth briars and thorns to me, and that with
labour I should get my bread.
30. And what did it profit me that I, the base slave of vile
affections, read unaided, and understood, all the books that I could
get of the so-called liberal arts? And I took delight in them, but
knew not whence came whatever in them was true and certain. For my
back then was to the light, and my face towards the things
enlightened; whence my face, with which I discerned the things
enlightened, was not itself enlightened. Whatever was written either
on rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, or arithmetic, did I,
without any great difficulty, and without the teaching of any man,
understand, as Thou knowest, O Lord my God, because both
quickness of comprehension and acuteness of perception are Thy gifts.
Yet did I not thereupon sacrifice to Thee. So, then, it served
not to my use, but rather to my destruction, since I went about to
get so good a portion of my substance into my own power; and I kept
not my strength for Thee, but went away from Thee into a far
country, to waste it upon harlotries. For what did good abilities
profit me, if I did not employ them to good uses? For I did not
perceive that those arts were acquired with great difficulty, even by
the studious and those gifted with genius, until I endeavoured to
explain them to such; and he was the most proficient in them who
followed my explanations not too slowly.
31. But what did this profit me, supposing that Thou, O Lord
God, the Truth, wert a bright and vast body, and I a piece of that
body? Perverseness too great! But such was I. Nor do I blush,
O my God, to confess to Thee Thy mercies towards me, and to call
upon Thee I, who blushed not then to avow before men my
blasphemies, and to bark against Thee. What profited me then my
nimble wit in those sciences and all those knotty volumes, disentangled
by me without help from a human master, seeing that I erred so
odiously, and with such sacrilegious baseness, in the doctrine of
piety? Or what impediment was it to Thy little ones to have a far
slower wit, seeing that they departed not far from Thee, that in the
nest of Thy Church they might safely become fledged, and nourish the
wings of charity by the food of a sound faith? O Lord our God,
under the shadow of Thy wings let us hope, defend us, and carry us.
Thou wilt carry us both when little, and even to grey hairs wilt Thou
carry us; for our firmness, when it is Thou, then is it firmness;
but when it is our own, then it is infirmity. Our good lives always
with Thee, from which when we are averted we are perverted. Let us
now, O Lord, return, that we be not overturned, because with Thee
our good lives without any eclipse, which good Thou Thyself art.
And we need not fear lest we should find no place unto which to return
because we fell away from it; for when we were absent, our home
Thy Eternity fell not.
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