CHAPTER VIII: THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE
My copy of the Confessions is a dark little book, "a size uncumbersome tothe nicest hand," in the format of an Elzevir, bound in black morocco,and adorned with "blind-tooled," that is ungilt, skulls and crossbones.It has lost the title-page with the date, but retains the frontispiece,engraved by Huret. Saint Augustine, in his mitre and other episcopalarray, with a quill in his hand, sits under a flood of inspiringsunshine. The dumpy book has been much read, was at some time theproperty of Mr. John Philips, and bears one touching manuscript note, ofwhich more hereafter. It is, I presume, a copy of the translation by SirToby Matthew. The author of the Preface declares, with truth, that thetranslator "hath consulted so closely and earnestly with the saint thathe seemeth to have lighted his torch att his fire, and to speak in thebest and most significant English, what and how he would have done had heunderstood our language."
There can be no better English version of this famous book, in whichSaint Augustine tells the story of his eager and passionate youth--ayouth tossed about by the contending tides of Love, human and divine.Reading it to-day, with a mundane curiosity, we may half regret the spacewhich he gives to theological metaphysics, and his brief tantalisingglimpses of what most interests us now--the common life of men when theChurch was becoming mistress of the world, when the old Religions weredying of allegory and moral interpretations and occult dreams. But, evenso, Saint Augustine's interest in himself, in the very obscure origins ofeach human existence, in the psychology of infancy and youth, in schooldisputes, and magical pretensions; his ardent affections, hisexultations, and his faults, make his memoirs immortal among theunveilings of the spirit. He has studied babies, that he may know hisdark beginnings, and the seeds of grace and of evil. "Then, by degrees,I began to find where I was; and I had certain desires to declare my willto those by whom it might be executed. But I could not do it, . . .therefore would I be tossing my arms, and sending out certain cryes, . . .and when they obeyed me not . . . I would fall into a rage, and thatnot against such as were my subjects or servants, but against my Eldersand my betters, and I would revenge myself upon them by crying." He hasobserved that infants "begin to laugh, first sleeping, and then shortlywaking;" a curious note, but he does not ask wherefore the sense ofhumour, or the expression of it, comes to children first in theirslumber. Of what do babies dream? And what do the nested swallowschirrup to each other in their sleep?
"Such have I understood that such infants are as I could know, and suchhave I been told that I was by them who brought me up, though even theymay rather be accounted not to know, than to know these things." Onething he knows, "that even infancy is subject to sin." From the womb weare touched with evil. "Myselfe have seene and observed some littlechild, who could not speake; and yet he was all in an envious kind ofwrath, looking pale with a bitter countenance upon his foster-brother."In an envious kind of wrath! Is it not the motive of half our politics,and too much of our criticism? Such is man's inborn nature, not to becured by laws or reforms, not to be washed out of his veins, though"blood be shed like rain, and tears like a mist." For "an infant cannotendure a companion to feed with him in a fountain of milk which is richlyabounding and overflowing, although that companion be wholly destitute,and can take no other food but that." This is the Original Sin,inherited, innate, unacquired; for this are "babes span-long" to suffer,as the famous or infamous preacher declared. "Where, or at what time,was I ever innocent?" he cries, and hears no answer from "the darkbackward and abysm" of the pre-natal life.
Then the Saint describes a child's learning to speak; how he amassesverbal tokens of things, "having tamed, and, as it were, broken my mouthto the pronouncing of them." "And so I began to launch out more deeplyinto the tempestuous traffique and society of mankind." Tempestuousenough he found or made it--this child of a Pagan father and a Christiansaint, Monica, the saint of Motherhood. The past generations had"chalked out certain laborious ways of learning," and, perhaps, SaintAugustine never forgave the flogging pedagogue--the _plagosus Orbilius_of his boyhood. Long before his day he had found out that the sorrows ofchildren, and their joys, are no less serious than the sorrows of matureage. "Is there, Lord, any man of so great a mind that he can thinklightly of those racks, and hooks, and other torments, for the avoidingwhereof men pray unto Thee with great fear from one end of the world tothe other, as that he can make sport at such as doe most sharply inflictthese things upon them, as our parents laughed at the torments which wechildren susteyned at our master's hands?" Can we suppose that Monicalaughed, or was it only the heathen father who approved of "roughing it?""Being yet a childe, I began to beg Thy ayde and succour; and I didloosen the knots of my tongue in praying Thee; and I begged, being yet alittle one, with no little devotion, that I might not be beaten at theschoole." One is reminded of Tom Tulliver, who gave up even praying thathe might learn one part of his work: "Please make Mr. --- say that I amnot to do mathematics."
The Saint admits that he lacked neither memory nor wit, "but he tookdelight in playing." "The plays and toys of men are called business,yet, when children fall unto them, the same men punish them." Yet theschoolmaster was "more fed upon by rage," if beaten in any littlequestion of learning, than the boy; "if in any match at Ball I had beenmaistered by one of my playfellows." He "aspired proudly to bevictorious in the matches which he made," and I seriously regret to saythat he would buy a match, and pay his opponent to lose when he could notwin fairly. He liked romances also, "to have myne eares scratched withlying fables"--a "lazy, idle boy," like him who dallied with Rebecca andRowena in the holidays of Charter House.
Saint Augustine, like Sir Walter Scott at the University of Edinburgh,was "The Greek Dunce." Both of these great men, to their sorrow andloss, absolutely and totally declined to learn Greek. "But what thereason was why I hated the Greeke language, while I was taught it, beinga child, I do not yet understand." The Saint was far from being alone inthat distaste, and he who writes loathed Greek like poison--till he cameto Homer. Latin the Saint loved, except "when reading, writing, andcasting of accounts was taught in Latin, which I held not for lessepaynefull or penal than the very Greeke. I wept for Dido's death, whomade herselfe away with the sword," he declares, "and even so, the sayingthat two and two makes foure was an ungrateful song in mine ears; whereasthe wooden horse full of armed men, the burning of Troy, and the veryGhost of Creusa, was a most delightful spectacle of vanity."
In short, the Saint was a regular Boy--a high-spirited, clever, sportive,and wilful creature. He was as fond as most boys of the mythical tales,"and for that I was accounted to be a towardly boy." Meanwhile he doesnot record that Monica disliked his learning the foolish dear old heathenfables--"that flood of hell!"
Boyhood gave place to youth, and, allowing for the vanity ofself-accusation, there can be little doubt that the youth of SaintAugustine was _une jeunesse orageuse_. "And what was that wherein I tookdelight but to love and to be beloved." There was ever much sentimentand affection in his amours, but his soul "could not distinguish thebeauty of chast love from the muddy darkness of lust. Streams of themdid confusedly boyl in me"--in his African veins. "With a restless kindof weariness" he pursued that Other Self of the Platonic dream,neglecting the Love of God:
"Oh, how late art thou come, O my Joy!"
The course of his education--for the Bar, as we should say--carried himfrom home to Carthage, where he rapidly forgot the pure counsels of hismother "as old wife's consailes." "And we delighted in doing ill, notonly for the pleasure of the fact, but even for the affection of prayse."Even Monica, it seems, justified the saying:
"Every woman is at heart a Rake."
Marriage would have been his making, Saint Augustine says, "but shedesired not even that so very much, lest the cloggs of a wife might havehindered her hopes of me . . . In the meantime the reins were loosed tome beyond reason." Yet the sin which he regrets most bitterly wasnothing more dreadful than the robbery of
an orchard! Pears he had inplenty, none the less he went, with a band of roisterers, and pillagedanother man's pear tree. "I loved the sin, not that which I obtained bythe same, but I loved the sin itself." There lay the sting of it! Theywere not even unusually excellent pears. "A Peare tree ther was, neereour vineyard, heavy loaden with fruite, which tempted not greatly eitherthe sight or tast. To the shaking and robbing thereof, certaine mostwicked youthes (whereof I was one) went late at night. We carried awayhuge burthens of fruit from thence, not for our owne eating, but to becast before the hoggs."
Oh, moonlit night of Africa, and orchard by these wild seabanks whereonce Dido stood; oh, laughter of boys among the shaken leaves, and soundof falling fruit; how do you live alone out of so many nights that no manremembers? For Carthage is destroyed, indeed, and forsaken of the sea,yet that one hour of summer is to be unforgotten while man has memory ofthe story of his past.
Nothing of this, to be sure, is in the mind of the Saint, but a longremorse for this great sin, which he earnestly analyses. Nor is he sopenitent but that he is clear-sighted, and finds the spring of his mis-doing in the Sense of Humour! "It was a delight and laughter whichtickled us, even at the very hart, to find that we were upon the point ofdeceiving them who feared no such thing from us, and who, if they hadknown it, would earnestly have procured the contrary."
Saint Augustine admits that he lived with a fast set, as people saynow--"the Depravers" or "Destroyers"; though he loved them little, "whoseactions I ever did abhor, that is, their Destruction of others, amongstwhom I yet lived with a kind of shameless bashfulness." In short, the"Hell-Fire Club" of that day numbered a reluctant Saint among itsmembers! It was no Christian gospel, but the Hortensius of Cicero whichwon him from this perilous society. "It altered my affection, and mademe address my prayers to Thee, O Lord, and gave me other desires andpurposes than I had before. All vain hopes did instantly grow base inmyne eyes, and I did, with an incredible heat of hart, aspire towards theImmortality of Wisdom." Thus it was really "Saint Tully," and not themystic call of _Tolle_! _Lege_! that "converted" Augustine, diverting thecurrent of his life into the channel of Righteousness. "How was Ikindled then, oh, my God, with a desire to fly from earthly thingstowards Thee."
There now remained only the choice of a Road. Saint Augustine dates hisown conversion from the day of his turning to the strait Christianorthodoxy. Even the Platonic writings, had he known Greek, would nothave satisfied his desire. "For where was that Charity that buildethupon the foundation of Humility, which is Christ Jesus? . . . Thesepages" (of the Platonists) "carried not in them this countenance ofpiety--the tears of confession, and that sacrifice of Thine which is anafflicted spirit, a contrite and humbled heart, the salvation of Thypeople, the Spouse, the City, the pledge of Thy Holy Spirit, the Cup ofour Redemption. No man doth there thus express himself. Shall not mysoul be subject to God, for of Him is my salvation? For He is my God,and my salvation, my protectour; I shall never be moved. No man doththere once call and say to him: 'Come unto me all you that labour.'"
The heathen doctors had not the grace which Saint Augustine instinctivelyknew he lacked--the grace of Humility, nor the Comfort that is not fromwithin but from without. To these he aspired; let us follow him on thepath by which he came within their influence; but let us not forget thatthe guide on the way to the City was kind, clever, wordy, vain old MarcusTullius Cicero. It is to the City that all our faces should be set, ifwe knew what belongs to our peace; thither we cast fond, hopeless,backward glances, even if we be of those whom Tertullian calls "SaintSatan's Penitents." Here, in Augustine, we meet a man who found thepath--one of the few who have found it, of the few who have won that Lovewhich is our only rest. It may be worth while to follow him to thejourney's end.
The treatise of Cicero, then, inflamed Augustine "to the loving andseeking and finding and holding and inseparably embracing of wisdomitself, wheresoever it was." Yet, when he looked for wisdom in theChristian Scriptures, all the literary man, the rhetorician in him, wasrepelled by the simplicity of the style. Without going further than Mr.Pater's book, "Marius, the Epicurean," and his account of Apuleius, anEnglish reader may learn what kind of style a learned African of thatdate found not too simple. But Cicero, rather than Apuleius, wasAugustine's ideal; that verbose and sonorous eloquence captivated him, asit did the early scholars when learning revived. Augustine had dallied alittle with the sect of the Manichees, which appears to have grieved hismother more than his wild life.
But she was comforted by a vision, when she found herself in a wood, andmet "a glorious young man," who informed her that "where she was thereshould her son be also." Curious it is to think that this very semblanceof a glorious young man haunts the magical dreams of heathen Red Indians,advising them where they shall find game, and was beheld in suchecstasies by John Tanner, a white man who lived with the Indians, andadopted their religion. The Greeks would have called this appearanceHermes, even in this guise Odysseus met him in the oak wood of Circe'sIsle. But Augustine was not yet in his mother's faith; he still taughtand studied rhetoric, contending for its prizes, but declining to beaided by a certain wizard of his acquaintance. He had entered as acompetitor for a "Tragicall poeme," but was too sportsmanlike to seekvictory by art necromantic. Yet he followed after Astrologers, becausethey used no sacrifices, and did not pretend to consult spirits. Eventhe derision of his dear friend Nebridius could not then move him fromthose absurd speculations. His friend died, and "his whole heart wasdarkened;" "mine eyes would be looking for him in all places, but theyfound him not, and I hated all things because they told me no news ofhim." He fell into an extreme weariness of life, and no less fear ofdeath. He lived but by halves; having lost _dimidium animae suae_, andyet dreaded death, "Lest he might chance to have wholy dyed whome Iextremely loved." So he returned to Carthage for change, and soughtpleasure in other friendships; but "Blessed is the man that loves Theeand his friend in Thee and his enemy for Thee. For he only never losetha dear friend to whom all men are dear, for His sake, who is never lost."
Here, on the margin of the old book, beside these thoughts, so beautifulif so helpless, like all words, to console, some reader long dead haswritten:--
"Pray for your poor servant, J. M."
And again,
"Pray for your poor friend."
Doubtless, some Catholic reader, himself bereaved, is imploring theprayers of a dear friend dead; and sure we need their petitions more thanthey need ours, who have left this world of temptation, and are at peace.
After this loss Saint Augustine went to Rome, his ambition urging him,perhaps, but more his disgust with the violent and riotous life ofstudents in Carthage. To leave his mother was difficult, but "I lyed tomy mother, yea, such a mother, and so escaped from her." And now he hada dangerous sickness, and afterwards betook himself to converse with theorthodox, for example at Milan with Saint Ambrose. In Milan his motherwould willingly have continued in the African ritual--a Pagansurvival--carrying wine and food to the graves of the dead; but thisSaint Ambrose forbade, and she obeyed him for him "she did extremelyaffect for the regard of my spirituall good."
From Milan his friend Alipius preceded him to Rome, and there "wasdamnably delighted" with the gladiatorial combats, being "made drunk witha delight in blood." Augustine followed him to Rome, and there lost thegirl of his heart, "so that my heart was wounded, as that the very blooddid follow." The lady had made a vow of eternal chastity, "having leftme with a son by her." But he fell to a new love as the old one wasdeparted, and yet the ancient wound pained him still "after a moredesperate and dogged manner."
_Haeret letalis arundo_!
By these passions his conversion was delayed, the carnal and spiritualwills fighting against each other within him. "Give me chastity andcontinency, O Lord," he would pray, "but do not give it yet," and perhapsthis is the frankest of the confessions of Saint Augustine. In the midstof this war of the spirit and the flesh, "Behold I heard a voy
ce, as ifit had been of some boy or girl from some house not farre off, utteringand often repeating these words in a kind of singing voice,
"_Tolle, Lege; Tolle, Lege_, Take up and read, take up and read."
So he took up a Testament, and, opening it at random, after the manner ofhis Virgilian lots, read:--
"Not in surfeiting and wantonness, not in causality and uncleanness,"with what follows. "Neither would I read any further, neither was thereany cause why I should." Saint Augustine does not, perhaps, mean us tounderstand (as his translator does), that he was "miraculously called."He knew what was right perfectly well before; the text only clinched aresolve which he has found it very hard to make. Perhaps there was atrifle of superstition in the matter. We never know how superstitious weare. At all events, henceforth "I neither desired a wife, nor had I anyambitious care of any worldly thing." He told his mother, and Monicarejoiced, believing that now her prayers were answered.
Such is the story of the conversion of Saint Augustine. It was thematuring of an old purpose, and long deferred. Much stranger stories aretold of Bunyan and Colonel Gardiner. He gave up rhetoric; another manwas engaged "to sell words" to the students of Milan. Being nowconverted, the Saint becomes less interesting, except for his account ofhis mother's death, and of that ecstatic converse they held "she and Ialone, leaning against a window, which had a prospect upon the garden ofour lodging at Ostia." They
"Came on that which is, and heard The vast pulsations of the world."
"And whilest we thus spake, and panted towards the divine, we grew ableto take a little taste thereof, with the whole strife of our hearts, andwe sighed profoundly, and left there, confined, the very top and flowerof our souls and spirits; and we returned to the noyse of language again,where words are begun and ended."
Then Monica fell sick to death, and though she had ever wished to liebeside her husband in Africa, she said: "Lay this Body where you will.Let not any care of it disquiet you; only this I entreat, that you willremember me at the altar of the Lord, wheresoever you be." "But upon theninth day of her sickness, in the six-and-fiftieth year of her age, andthe three-and-thirtieth of mine, that religious and pious soul wasdischarged from the prison of her body."
The grief of Augustine was not less keen, it seems, than it had been atthe death of his friend. But he could remember how "she related withgreat dearness of affection, how she never heard any harsh or unkind wordto be darted out of my mouth against her." And to this consolation wasadded who knows what of confidence and tenderness of certain hope, or akind of deadness, perhaps, that may lighten the pain of a heart veryoften tried and inured to every pain. For it is certain that "this greenwound" was green and grievous for a briefer time than the agony of hisearlier sorrows. He himself, so earnest in analysing his own emotions,is perplexed by the short date of his tears, and his sharpest grief: "Lethim read it who will, and interpret it as it pleaseth him."
So, with the death of Monica, we may leave Saint Augustine. The mosthuman of books, the "Confessions," now strays into theology. Of allbooks that which it most oddly resembles, to my fancy at least, is thepoems of Catullus. The passion and the tender heart they have in common,and in common the war of flesh and spirit; the shameful inappeasable loveof Lesbia, or of the worldly life; so delightful and dear to the poet andto the saint, so despised in other moods conquered and victorious again,among the battles of the war in our members. The very words in which theVeronese and the Bishop of Hippo described the pleasure and gaiety of anearly friendship are almost the same, and we feel that, born four hundredyears later, the lover of Lesbia, the singer of Sirmio might actuallyhave found peace in religion, and exchanged the earthly for the heavenlylove.