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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books
Chapter XV.--While Writing, Being Blinded by Corporeal Images, He Failed to Recognise the Spiritual Nature of God.
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;" 1 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 2 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, 3 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; 4 and "of His fulness have all we received," 5 for "that was the true Light which lighted every man that cometh into the world;" 6 for in Thee there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 7
26. But I pressed towards Thee, and was repelled by Thee that I might taste of death, for Thou "resistest the proud." 8 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," 9 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. 10
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, 11 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. 12
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Ps. cxxxvi. 4. ↩
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Augustin tells us (De Civ. Dei, xix. 1) that Varro, in his lost book De Philosophia, gives two hundred and eighty-eight different opinions as regards the chief good, and shows us how readily they may be reduced in number. Now, as then, philosophers ask the same questions. We have our hedonists, whose "good" is their own pleasure and happiness; our materialists, who would seek the common good of all; and our intuitionists, who aim at following the dictates of conscience. When the pretensions of these various schools are examined without prejudice, the conclusion is forced upon us that we must have recourse to Revelation for a reconcilement of the difficulties of the various systems; and that the philosophers, to employ Davidson's happy illustration (Prophecies, Introd.), forgetting that their faded taper has been insensibly kindled by gospel light, are attempting now, as in Augustin's time (ibid. sec. 4), "to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life based upon a virtue as deceitful as it is proud." Christianity gives the golden key to the attainment of happiness, when it declares that "godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come " (1 Tim. iv. 8). It was a saying of Bacon (Essay on Adversity), that while "prosperity is the blessing of the old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New." He would have been nearer the truth had he said that while temporal rewards were the special promise of the Old Testament, spiritual rewards are the special promise of the New. For though Christ's immediate followers had to suffer "adversity" in the planting of our faith, adversity cannot properly be said to be the result of following Christ. It has yet to be shown that, on the whole, the greatest amount of real happiness does not result, even in this life, from a Christian life, for virtue is, even here, its own reward. The fulness of the reward, however, will only be received in the life to come. Augustin's remark, therefore, still holds good that "life eternal is the supreme good, and death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly" (ibid. sec. 4); and again, that even in the midst of the troubles of life, "as we are saved, so we are made happy, by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so it is with our happiness,...we ought patiently to endure till we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good." See Abbé Anselme, Sur le Souverain Bien, vol. v. serm. 1; and the last Chapter of Professor Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, for the conclusions at which a mind at once lucid and dispassionate has arrived on this question. ↩
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"Or an unintelligent soul;' very good mss. reading sensu,' the majority, it appears, sexu.' If we read sexu,' the absolute unity of the first principle or Monad, may be insisted upon, and in the inferior principle, divided into violence' and lust,' violence,' as implying strength, may be looked on as the male, lust' was, in mythology, represented as female; if we take sensu,' it will express the living but unintelligent soul of the world in the Manichaean, as a pantheistic system."--E. B. P. ↩
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Ps. xviii. 28. Augustin constantly urges our recognition of the truth that God is the "Father of lights." From Him as our central sun, all light, whether of wisdom or knowledge proceedeth, and if changing the figure, our candle which He hath lighted be blown out, He again must light it. Compare Enar. in Ps. xciii. 147; and Sermons, 67 and 341. ↩
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John i. 16. ↩
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John i. 9. ↩
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Jas. i. 17. ↩
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Jas. iv. 6, and 1 Pet. v. 5. ↩
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Ps. lxxviii. 39. ↩
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It may assist those unacquainted with Augustin's writings to understand the last three sections, if we set before them a brief view of the Manichaean speculations as to the good and evil principles, and the nature of the human soul:--(1) The Manichaeans believed that there were two principles or substances, one good and the other evil, and that both were eternal and opposed one to the other. The good principle they called God, and the evil, matter or Hyle (Con. Faust. xxi. 1, 2). Faustus, in his argument with Augustin, admits that they sometimes called the evil nature "God," but simply as a conventional usage. Augustin says thereon (ibid. sec. 4): "Faustus glibly defends himself by saying, We speak not of two gods, but of God and Hyle;' but when you ask for the meaning of Hyle, you find that it is in fact another god. If the Manichaeans gave the name of Hyle, as the ancients did, to the unformed matter which is susceptible of bodily forms, we should not accuse them of making two gods. But it is pure folly and madness to give to matter the power of forming bodies, or to deny that what has this power is God." Augustin alludes in the above passage to the Platonic theory of matter, which, as the late Dean Mansel has shown us (Gnostic Heresies, Basilides, etc.), resulted after his time in Pantheism, and which was entirely opposed to the dualism of Manichaeus. It is to this "power of forming bodies" claimed for matter, then, that Augustin alludes in our text (sec. 24) as "not only a substance but real life also." (2) The human soul the Manichaeans declared to be of the same nature as God, though not created by Him--it having originated in the intermingling of part of His being with the evil principle, in the conflict between the kingdoms of light and darkness (in Ps. cxl. sec. 10). Augustin says to Faustus: "You generally call your soul not a temple, but a part or member of God " (Con. Faust. xx. 15); and thus, "identifying themselves with the nature and substance of God" (ibid. xii. 13), they did not refer their sin to themselves, but to the race of darkness, and so did not "prevail over their sin." That is, they denied original sin, and asserted that it necessarily resulted from the soul's contact with the body. To this Augustin steadily replied, that as the soul was not of the nature of God, but created by Him and endowed with free will, man was responsible for his transgressions. Again, referring to the Confessions, we find Augustin speaking consistently with his then belief, when he says that he had not then learned that the soul was not a "chief and unchangeable good" (sec. 24), or that "it was not that nature of truth" (sec. 25); and that when he transgressed "he accused flesh" rather than himself; and, as a result of his Manichaean errors (sec. 26), "contended that God's immutable substance erred of constraint, rather than admit that his mutable substance had gone astray of free will, and erred as a punishment." ↩
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John iii. 29. ↩
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Ps. li. 8, Vulg. ↩
Traduction
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Les confessions de Saint Augustin
CHAPITRE XV. SON ESPRIT OBSCURCI PAR LES IMAGES SENSIBLES NE POUVAIT CONCEVOIR LES SUBSTANCES SPIRITUELLES.
24. Mais je ne saisissais pas, dans les merveilles de votre art, le pivot de cette grande vérité, ô Tout-Puissant, « seul auteur de tant de merveilles (Ps LXXI, 18) » et mon esprit se promenait parmi les formes corporelles, distinguait le beau et le convenable, définissait l’un, ce qui est par soi-même; l’autre, ce qui a un rapport de proportion avec un objet ; principes que j’établissais sur des exemples sensibles. Et je portais mes pensées sur la nature de l’esprit, et la fausse idée que j’avais des êtres spirituels ne me permettait pas de voir la vérité; et son éclat même pénétrait mes yeux, et je détournais mon âme éblouie de la réalité incorporelle pour l’attacher aux linéaments, aux couleurs, aux grandeurs palpables.
Et comme je ne pouvais rien voir de tel dans mon esprit, je croyais impossible de le saisir lui-même. Mais apercevant dans la vertu une paix aimable, dans le vice une discorde odieuse; là, je remarquais l’unité ; ici, la division. Et dans cette unité, je plaçais l’âme raisonnable, l’essence de la vérité et du souverain bien ; dans cette division, je ne sais quelle substance de vie irraisonnable, je ne sais quelle essence de souverain mal, dont je faisais non-seulement une réalité, mais une véritable vie, un être indépendant de vous, mon Dieu, de vous, de qui toutes choses procèdent. Misérable rêveur, j’appelais l’une Monas, spiritualité sans sexe; l’autre Dyas, principe des colères homicides, des emportements, de la débauche; et je ne savais ce que je disais. J’ignorais et n’avais pas encore appris que nulle substance n’est le mal, et que notre principe intérieur n’est pas le bien souverain et immuable.
25. Il y a violence criminelle, quand l’esprit livre son activité à un mouvement pervers, quand il soulève les flots turbulents de sa fureur; libertinage, quand l’âme ne gouverne plus l’inclination qui l’entraîne aux voluptés charnelles. Et de même cette rouille du préjugé et de l’erreur qui flétrit la vie, vient d’un dérèglement de la raison. Tel était alors l’état de la mienne. Car j’ignorais qu’elle dût être éclairée d’une autre lumière pour participer de la vérité, n’étant pas elle-même l’essence de la vérité. « C’est vous qui allumerez ma lampe, Seigneur mon Dieu; c’est vous qui éclairerez mes ténèbres ( Ps. XVII, 29) et tous, nous avons reçu de votre plénitude, parce que vous êtes la vraie lumière qui éclaire tout homme venant en ce monde ( Jean I, 16,9), lumière sans vicissitudes et sans ombre (Jacq. I, 17). »
26. Mais je faisais effort vers vous, et vous me repoussiez loin de vous, afin que je goûtasse la mort ; car vous résistez aux superbes. Et quoi de plus superbe que cette démence inouïe qui prétend être naturellement ce que vous êtes? Sujet au changement, et le sentant bien à mon désir d’être sage pour devenir meilleur, j’aimais mieux vous supposer muable que de n’être pas moi-même ce que vous êtes. Vous me repoussiez donc, et vous résistiez à l’extravagance de mes pensées, et j’imaginais à loisir des formes corporelles; chair, j’accusais la chair; esprit égaré et ne revenant pas encore à vous (Ps. LXXVII, 39), j’allais, je me promenais dans un monde (394) imaginaire, d’êtres qui ne sont ni en vous, ni en moi, ni dans les corps; et ce n’étaient point les créations de votre Vérité, mais les fictions de ma vanité que je formais sur les corps. Et je disais à vos simples enfants, aux fidèles, mes concitoyens, dont alors j’étais séparé par un exil que j’ignorais, je leur disais avec ma sotte loquacité : Comment mon âme, créature de Dieu, est-elle dans l’erreur? Et je ne pouvais souffrir que l’on me répondît : Comment Dieu est-il dans l’erreur? Et je soutenais que votre immuable nature était entraînée dans l’erreur plutôt que de reconnaître que la mienne, muable, et volontairement égarée, subissait l’erreur comme la peine de son crime.
27. J’avais vingt-six à vingt-sept ans, lorsque j’écrivis ces livres; et je roulais dans ma fantaisie ces inanités d’images, bourdonnantes à l’oreille de mon coeur. Et je voulais pourtant, ô douce vérité, la rendre attentive à l’ouïe intérieure de vos mélodies, quand je méditais sur la beauté et la convenance, jaloux de me tenir devant vous, de vous entendre pour frémir d’allégresse comme à la voix de l’époux(Jean, III, 29) et je ne le pouvais, car la voix de l’erreur m’entraînait hors de moi, et le poids de mon orgueil me précipitait dans l’abîme. Vous ne donniez pas alors la joie et l’allégresse à mon entendement, et mes os ne tressaillaient pas, n’étant point encore humiliés (Ps. L, 10).