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10. Therefore I fell among men proudly raving, very carnal, and
voluble, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil the birdlime
being composed of a mixture of the syllables of Thy name, and of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, the
Comforter. These names departed not out of their mouths, but so far
forth as the sound only and the clatter of the tongue, for the heart
was empty of truth. Still they cried, "Truth, Truth," and spoke
much about it to me, "yet was it not in them;'' but they spake
falsely not of Thee only who, verily, art the Truth but also
of these elements of this world, Thy creatures. And I, in truth,
should have passed by philosophers, even when speaking truth concerning
them, for love of Thee, my Father, supremely good, beauty of all
things beautiful. O Truth, Truth! how inwardly even then did the
marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they frequently, and in a
multiplicity of ways, and in numerous and huge books, sounded out Thy
name to me, though it was but a voice!x And these were the dishes in
which to me, hungering for Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up
the sun and moon, Thy beauteous works but yet Thy works, not
Thyself, nay, nor Thy first works. For before these corporeal
works are Thy spiritual ones, celestial and shining though they be.
But I hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of
Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the Truth, "with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning;" yet they still served up to
me in those dishes glowing phantasies, than which better were it to
love this very sun (which, at least, is true to our sight), than
those illusions which deceive the mind through the eye. And yet,
because I supposed them to be Thee, I fed upon them; not with
avidity, for Thou didst not taste to my mouth as Thou art, for Thou
wast not these empty fictions; neither was I nourished by them, but
the rather exhausted. Food in our sleep appears like our food awake;
yet the sleepers are not nourished by it, for they are asleep. But
those things were not in any way like unto Thee as Thou hast now
spoken unto me, in that those were corporeal phantasies,' false
bodies, than which these true bodies, whether celestial or
terrestrial, which we perceive with our fleshly sight, are much more
certain. These things the very beasts and birds perceive as well as
we, and they are more certain than when we imagine them. And again,
we do with more certainty imagine them, than by them conceive of other
greater and infinite bodies which have no existence. With such empty
husks was I then fed, and was not fed. ' But Thou, my Love, in
looking for whom I! fails that I may be strong, art neither those
bodies that we see, although in heaven, nor art Thou those which we
see not there; for Thou hast created them, nor dost Thou reckon them
amongst Thy greatest works. How far, then, art Thou from those
phantasies of mine, phantasies of bodies which are not at all, than
which the images of those bodies which are, are more certain, and
still more certain the bodies themselves, which yet Thou art not;
nay, nor yet the soul, which is the life of the bodies. Better,
then, and more certain is the life of bodies than the bodies
themselves. But Thou art the life of souls, the life of lives,
having life in Thyself; and Thou changest not, O Life of my soul.
11. Where, then, weft Thou then to me, and how far from me?
Far, indeed, was I wandering away from Thee, being even shut out
from the very husks of the swine, whom with husks I fed? For how
much better, then, are the fables of the grammarians and poets than
these snares l For verses, and poems, and Medea flying, are more
profitable truly than these men's five elements, variously painted,
to answer to the five caves of darkness, none of which exist, and
which slay the believer. For verses and poems I can turn into true
food, but the "Medea flying," though I sang, I maintained it
not; though I heard it sung, I believed it not; but those things I
did believe. Woe, woe, by what steps was I dragged down "to the
depths of hell! "T toiling and turmoiling through want of Truth,
when I sought after Thee, my God, to Thee I confess it, who
hadst mercy on me when I had not yet confessed, sought after Thee
not according to the understanding of the mind, in which Thou
desiredst that I should excel the beasts, but according to the sense
of the flesh! Thou wert more inward to me than my most inward part;
and higher than my highest. I came upon that bold woman, who "is
simple, and knoweth nothing," the enigma of Solomon, sitting "at
the door of the house on a seat," and saying, "Stolen waters are
sweet,, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant." This woman seduced
me, because she found my soul beyond its portals, dwelling in the eye
of my flesh, and thinking on such food as through it I had devoured.
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