Why do I feel the sting of an insult directed against myself more acutely than one flung against someone else in my presence, when in both cases it is equally unfair?
For they say that two months have been dedicated to these two gods, with reference to beginnings and ends – January to Janus, and February to Terminus – over and above those ten months which commence with March and end with December. And they say that that is the reason why the Terminalia are celebrated in the month of February, the same month in which the sacred purification is made which they call Februum, and from which the month derives its name.
Go on, O Lord, and act: stir us up and call us back; inflame us and draw us to thee; stir us up and grow sweet to us; let us now love thee, let us run to thee.
And this is the characteristic of the earthly city, that it worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning victoriously or peacefully on earth not through love of doing good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that they may enjoy God; the wicked, on the contrary, that they may enjoy the world would fain use God.
A fitting and true response was once given to Alexander the Great by an apprehended pirate. When asked by the king what he thought he was doing by infesting the sea, he replied with noble insolence, ‘What do you think you are doing by infesting the whole world? Because I do it with one puny boat, I am called a pirate; because you do it with a great fleet, you are called an emperor.
My mother was already well aware of that, and her plan was to commit to the waves the clay out of which I would later be shaped rather than the actual image itself.20.
It was to Noah that God gave instructions to make an ark in which he was to be rescued from the devastation of the Flood, together with his family, that is, his wife, his sons and daughters-in-law, and also the animals that went into the ark in accordance with God’s directions. Without doubt this is a symbol of the City of God on pilgrimage in this world, of the Church which is saved through the wood on which was suspended ‘the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’.
Amidst these offences of foulness and violence, and so many iniquities, are sins of men, who are on the whole making proficiency; which by those that judge rightly, are, after the rule of perfection, discommended, yet the persons commended, upon hope of future fruit, as in the green blade of growing corn.
Nothing is nearer to your ears than a confessing heart and a life grounded in faith.
God. For they had not the insight to see that I might put the lessons which they forced me to learn to any other purpose than the satisfaction of man’s insatiable desire for the poverty he calls wealth and the infamy he knows as fame.
For Thy mercies’ sake, O Lord my God, tell me what Thou art to me. Say unto my soul, I am Thy salvation. 18 So speak that I may hear, Lord, my heart is listening; open it that it may hear Thee say to my soul I am Thy salvation. Hearing that word, let me come in haste to lay hold upon Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. 19 Let me see Thy face even if I die, 20 lest I die with longing to see it.
Thou madest the artificer his body, Thou the mind commanding the limbs, Thou the matter whereof he makes any thing; Thou the apprehension whereby to take in his art, and see within what he doth without; Thou the sense of his body, whereby, as by an interpreter, he may from mind to matter, convey that which he doth, and report to his mind what is done; that it within may consult the truth, which presideth over itself, whether it be well done or no.
I myself have had a good deal to say on those subjects in previous books,1 basing my statements on holy Scripture; what I said there was either what I found stated in Scripture or what I could infer from scriptural statements, always keeping in conformity with the authority of the Bible. A.
Confessions is the story of a soul, and also the story of God and how he is constantly at work seeking us.
The house of my soul is too small to receive Thee: let it be enlarged by Thee. It is all in ruins: do Thou repair it.
What wonderful profundity there is in your utterances! The surface meaning lies open before us and charms beginners. Yet the depth is amazing, my God, the depth is amazing.13 To concentrate on it is to experience awe – the awe of adoration before its transcendence and the trembling of love.
Hence it is not the case that every bad man will become good, but no one will be good who was not bad originally. Yet.
I held back my heart from all assent, fearing to fall headlong, and died all the more from that suspense.5 I wished to be made just as certain of things that I could not see, as I was certain that seven and three make ten.
If, on the contrary, they hear from you about themselves, they will be in no position to say, “The Lord is lying.” Is hearing the truth about oneself from you anything different from knowing oneself? And can anyone have this self-knowledge and still protest, “It is not true,” unless he himself is lying?
Era yo miserable, como lo es toda alma prisionera del amor de las cosas temporales, que se siente despedazar cuando las pierde, sintiendo entonces su miseria, por la que es miserable aun antes de que las pierda.