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24. But not yet did I perceive the hinge on which this impotent
matter turned in Thy wisdom, O Thou Omnipotent, "who alone doest
great wonders;" and my mind ranged through corporeal forms, and I
defined and distinguished as "fair," that which is so in itself, and
"fit," that which is beautiful as it corresponds to some other
thing; and this I supported by corporeal examples. And I turned my
attention to the nature of the mind, but the false opinions which I
entertained of spiritual things prevented me from seeing the truth.
Yet the very power of truth forced itself on my gaze, and I turned
away my throbbing soul from incorporeal substance, to lineaments, and
colours, and bulky magnitudes. And not being able to perceive these
in the mind, I thought I could not perceive my mind. And whereas in
virtue I loved peace, and in viciousness I hated discord, in the
former I distinguished unity, but in the latter a kind of division.
And in that unity I conceived the rational soul and the nature of
truth and of the chief good to consist. But in this division I,
unfortunate one, imagined there was I know not what substance of
irrational life, and the nature of the chief evil, which should not be
a substance only, but real life also, and yet not emanating from
Thee, O my God, from whom are all things. And yet the first I
called a Monad, as if it had been a soul without sex, but the other a
Duad, anger in deeds of violence, in deeds of passion, lust,
not knowing of what I talked. For I had not known or learned
that neither was evil a substance, nor our soul that chief and
unchangeable good.
25. For even as it is in the case of deeds of violence, if that
emotion of the soul from whence the stimulus comes be depraved, and
carry itself insolently and mutinously; and in acts of passion, if
that affection of the soul whereby carnal pleasures are imbibed is
unrestrained, so do errors and false opinions contaminate the
life, if the reasonable soul itself be depraved, as it was at that
time in me, who was ignorant that it must be enlightened by another
light that it may be partaker of truth, seeing that itself is not that
nature of truth. "For Thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God
will enlighten my darkness; and "of His fulness have all we
received," for "that was the true Light which lighted every man that
cometh into the world;" for in Thee there is "no variableness,
neither shadow of turning."
26. But I pressed towards Thee, and was repelled by Thee that I
might taste of death, for Thou "resistest the proud." But what
prouder than for me, with a marvellous madness, to assert myself to be
that by nature which Thou art? For whereas I was mutable, so
much being clear to me, for my very longing to become wise arose from
the wish from worse to become better, yet chose I rather to think
Thee mutable, than myself not to be that which Thou art. Therefore
was I repelled by Thee, and Thou resistedst my changeable
stiffneckedness; and I imagined corporeal forms, and, being flesh,
I accused flesh, and, being "a wind that passeth away," I
returned not to Thee, but went wandering and wandering on towards
those things that have no being, neither in Thee, nor in me, nor in
the body. Neither were they created for me by Thy truth, but
conceived by my vain conceit out of corporeal things. And I used to
ask Thy faithful little ones, my fellow-citizens, from whom I
unconsciously stood exiled, I used flippantly and foolishly to
ask, "Why, then, doth the soul which God created err?" But I
would not permit any one to ask me, "Why, then, doth God err?"
And I contended that Thy immutable substance erred of constraint,
rather than admit that my mutable substance had gone astray of free
will, and erred as a punishment?
27. I was about six or seven and twenty years of age when I wrote
those volumes meditating upon corporeal fictions, which clamoured
in the ears of my heart. These I directed, O sweet Truth, to Thy
inward melody, pondering on the "fair and fit," and longing to stay
and listen to Thee, and to rejoice greatly at the Bridegroom's
voice, and I could not; for by the voices of my own errors was I
driven forth, and by the weight of my own pride was I sinking into the
lowest pit. For Thou didst not "make me to hear joy and gladness;"
nor did the bones which were not yet humbled rejoice?
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