|
18. And I, puzzling over and reviewing these things, most
marvelled at the length of time from that my nineteenth year, wherein
I began to be inflamed with the desire of wisdom, resolving, when I
had found her, to forsake all the empty hopes and lying insanities of
vain desires. And behold, I was now getting on to my thirtieth
year, sticking in the same mire, eager for the enjoyment of things
present, which fly away and destroy me, whilst I say, "Tomorrow I
shall discover it; behold, it will appear plainly, and I shall seize
it; behold, Faustus will come and explain everything! O ye great
men, ye Academicians, it is then true that nothing certain for the
ordering of life can be attained! Nay, let us search the more
diligently, and let us not despair. Lo, the things in the
ecclesiastical books, which appeared to us absurd aforetime, do not
appear so now, and may be otherwise and honestly interpreted. I will
set my feet upon that step, where, as a child, my parents placed me,
until the clear truth be discovered. But where and when shall it be
sought? Ambrose has no leisure, we have no leisure to read.
Where are we to find the books? Whence or when procure them? From
whom borrow them? Let set times be appointed, and certain hours be
set apart for the health of the soul.
Great hope has risen upon us, the Catholic faith doth not teach what
we conceived, and vainly accused it of. Her learned ones hold it as
an abomination to believe that God is limited by the form of a human
body. And do we doubt to 'knock,' in order that the rest may be
'opened'? The mornings are taken up by our scholars; how do we
employ the rest of the day? Why do we not set about this? But when,
then, pay our respects to our great friends, of whose favours we stand
in need? When prepare what our scholars buy from us? When recreate
ourselves, relaxing our minds from the pressure of care?"
19. "Perish everything, and let us dismiss these empty vanities,
and betake ourselves solely to the search after truth! Life is
miserable, death uncertain. If it creeps upon us suddenly, in what
state shall we depart hence, and where shall we learn what we have
neglected here? Or rather shall we not suffer the punishment of this
negligence? What if death itself should cut off and put an end to all
care and feeling? This also, then, must be inquired into. But God
forbid that it should be so. It is not without reason, it is no empty
thing, that the so eminent height of the authority of the Christian
faith is diffused throughout the entire world. Never would such and so
great things be wrought for us, if, by the death of the body, the
life of the soul were destroyed. Why, therefore, do we delay to
abandon our hopes of this world, and give ourselves wholly to seek
after God and the blessed life? But stay! Even those things are
enjoyable; and they possess some and no little sweetness. We must not
abandon them lightly, for it would be a shame to return to them again.
Behold, now is it a great matter to obtain some post of honour!
And what more could we desire? We have crowds of influential
friends, though we have nothing else, and if we make haste a
presidentship may be offered us; and a wife with some money, that she
increase not our expenses; and this shall be the height of desire.
Many men, who are great and worthy of imitation, have applied
themselves to the study of wisdom in the marriage state."
20. Whilst I talked of these things, and these winds veered about
and tossed my heart hither and thither, the time passed on; but I was
slow to turn to the Lord, and from day to day deferred to live in
Thee, and deferred not daily to die in myself. Being enamoured of a
happy life, I yet feared it in its own abode, and, fleeing from it,
sought after it. I conceived that I should be too unhappy were I
deprived of the embracements of a woman; and of Thy merciful medicine
to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it. As
regards continency, I imagined it to be under the control of our own
strength (though in myself I found it not), being so foolish as not
to know what is written, that none can be continent unless Thou give
it; and that Thou wouldst give it, if with heartfelt groaning I
should knock at Thine ears, and should with firm faith cast my care
upon Thee.
|
|