Confessions - Augustine of Hippo

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of other sorrows. For why had that first sorrow so easily penetrated to the quick except that I had poured out my soul onto the dust, by loving a man as if he would never die who nevertheless had to die? What revived and refreshed me, more than anything else, was the consolation of other friends, with whom I went on loving the things I loved instead of you. This was a monstrous fable and a tedious lie that was corrupting the “itching ears” (2 Tim 4:3) of my soul by its adulterous rubbing. And that fable would not die to me as often as one of my friends died. And there were other things in our companionship that took strong hold of my mind: to discourse and jest with a friend; to indulge in courteous exchanges; to read pleasant books together; to trifle together; to be earnest together; and to differ at times without ill-humor, as a man might do with himself. Even through these infrequent dissensions, we found zest in our more frequent agreements; sometimes teaching, sometimes being taught; longing for someone absent with impatience and welcoming the homecomer with joy. These and similar tokens of friendship, which spring spontaneously from the hearts of those who love and are loved in return — in countenance, tongue, eyes, and a thousand ingratiating gestures — were all so much fuel to melt our souls together, and out of the many made us one.

      Chapter IX

      14. This is what we love in our friends, and we love it so much that a man’s conscience accuses itself if he does not love one who loves him, or respond in love to love, seeking nothing from the other but the evidences of his love. This is the source of our moaning when one dies — the gloom of sorrow, the steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned to bitterness — and the feeling of death in the living, because of the loss of the life of the dying.

      Blessed is he who loves you, and who loves his friend in you, and his enemy also, for your sake; for he alone loses none dear to him, if all are dear in him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God: the God that created heaven and earth, and filled them because he created them by filling them up? None loses you but he who leaves you; and he who leaves you—where does he go, or where can he flee but from you well-pleased to you offended? For where does he not find your law fulfilled in his own punishment? “Your law is true” (Ps 119:142), and you are Truth.

      Chapter X

      15. “Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts, cause [your] face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Ps 80:3; King James Version). For wherever the soul of man turns itself, unless toward you, it is enmeshed in sorrows, even though it is surrounded by beautiful things outside you and outside itself. For lovely things would simply not be unless they were from you. They come to be and they pass away, and by coming they begin to be, and they grow toward perfection. Then, when perfect, they begin to wax old and perish, and, if all do not wax old, still all perish. Therefore, when they rise and grow toward being, the more rapidly they grow to maturity, so also the more rapidly they hasten back toward nonbeing. This is the way of things. This is the lot you have given them, because they are part of things that do not all exist at the same time, but by passing away and succeeding each other, they all make up the universe, of which they are all parts. For example, our speech is accomplished by sounds that signify meanings, but a meaning is not complete unless one word passes away, when it has sounded its part, so that the next may follow after it. Let my soul praise you, in all these things, O God, the Creator of all; but let not my soul be stuck to these things by the glue of love, through the senses of the body.

      For they go where they were meant to go, that they may exist no longer. And they rend the soul with pestilent desires because she longs to be and yet loves to rest secure in the created things she loves. But in these things there is no resting place to be found. They do not abide. They flee; and who can follow them with his physical senses? Or who can grasp them, even when they are present? For our physical sense is slow because it is a physical sense and bears its own limitations in itself. The physical sense is quite sufficient for what it was made to do; but it is not sufficient to stay things from running their courses from the beginning appointed to the end appointed. For in your word, by which they were created, they hear their appointed bound: “From there — to here!”

      Chapter XI

      16. Be not foolish, O my soul, and do not let the tumult of your vanity deafen the ear of your heart. Be attentive. The Word itself calls you to return, and with him is a place of unperturbed rest, where love is not forsaken unless it first forsakes. Behold, these things pass away that others may come to be in their place. Thus even this lowest level of unity5 may be made complete in all its parts. “But do I ever pass away?” asks the Word of God. Fix your habitation in him. O my soul, commit whatsoever you have to him. For at long last you are now becoming tired of deceit. Commit to truth whatever you have received from the truth, and you will lose nothing. What is decayed will flourish again; your diseases will be healed; your perishable parts shall be reshaped and renovated and made whole again in you. And these perishable things will not carry you with them down to where they go when they perish, but shall stand and abide, and you with them, before God, who abides and continues forever.

      17. Why then, my perverse soul, do you go on following your flesh? Instead, let it be converted so as to follow you. Whatever you feel through it is but partial. You do not know the whole, of which sensations are but parts; and yet the parts delight you. But if my physical senses had been able to comprehend the whole — and had not as a part of their punishment received only a portion of the whole as their own province — you would then desire that whatever exists in the present time should also pass away so that the whole might please you more. For what we speak, you also hear through physical sensation, and yet you would not wish that the syllables should remain. Instead, you wish them to fly past so that others may follow them, and the whole be heard. Thus it is always that when any single thing is composed of many parts which do not coexist simultaneously, the whole gives more delight than the parts could ever do perceived separately. But far better than all this is he who made it all. He is our God, and he does not pass away, for there is nothing to take his place.

      Chapter XII

      18. If physical objects please you, praise God for them, but turn back your love to their Creator, lest, in those things that please you, you displease him. If souls please you, let them be loved in God; for in themselves they are mutable, but in him firmly established — without him they would simply cease to exist. In him, then, let them be loved; and bring along to him with yourself as many souls as you can, and say to them: “Let us love him, for he himself created all these, and he is not far away from them. For he did not create them and then go away. They are of him and in him. Behold, there he is, wherever truth is known. He is within the inmost heart, yet the heart has wandered away from him. Return to your heart, O you transgressors, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you shall stand fast. Rest in him and you shall be at rest. Where do you go along these rugged paths? Where are you going? The good that you love is from him, and insofar as it is also for him, it is both good and pleasant. But it will rightly be turned to bitterness if whatever comes from him is not rightly loved and if he is deserted for the love of the creature. Why, then, will you wander farther and farther in these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest where you seek it. Seek what you seek; but remember that it is not where you seek it. You seek a blessed life in the land of death. It is not there. For how can there be a blessed life where life itself is not?”

      19. But our very Life came down to earth and bore our death, and slew it with the very abundance of his own life. And, thundering, he called us to return to him into that secret place from which he came forth to us — coming first into the virginal womb, where the human creature, our mortal flesh, was joined to him that it might not be forever mortal — and came “like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy” (Ps 19:5). For he did not delay, but ran through the world, crying out by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension — crying aloud to us to return to him. And he departed from our sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there. For he left us, and behold, he is here. He could not be with us long, yet he did not leave us. He went back to the place that he had never left, for “the world was made through him” (Jn 1:10). In this world he was, and into this world he came, to save sinners. To him my soul confesses, and he heals it, because it had sinned against him. O sons of men, how long will you be so slow of heart? Even now after Life itself has come down to you, will you not ascend and live? But where will you

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