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| The Excellent Answer of the Bishop When Referred to by His Mother as to the Conversion of Her Son.
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Chapter XII.—The Excellent Answer
of the Bishop When Referred to by His Mother as to the Conversion
of Her Son.
21. And meanwhile Thou grantedst her another
answer, which I recall; for much I pass over, hastening on to those
things which the more strongly impel me to confess unto Thee, and
much I do not remember. Thou didst grant her then another answer,
by a priest of Thine, a certain bishop, reared in Thy Church and
well versed in Thy books. He, when this woman had entreated that he
would vouchsafe to have some talk with me, refute my errors,
unteach me evil things, and teach me good (for this he was in the
habit of doing when he found people fitted to receive it), refused,
very prudently, as I afterwards came to see. For he answered that I
was still unteachable, being inflated with the novelty of that
heresy, and that I had already perplexed divers inexperienced
persons with vexatious questions,265
| 265 We can easily understand that Augustin’s
dialectic skill would render him a formidable opponent, while, with
the zeal of a neophyte, he urged those difficulties of Scripture
(De Agon. Christ. iv ) which the Manichæans knew so well
how to employ. In an interesting passage (De Duab. Anim. con.
Manich. ix.) he tells us that his victories over
“inexperienced persons” stimulated him to fresh conquests, and
thus kept him bound longer than he would otherwise have been in the
chains of this heresy. | as she had informed him. “But
leave him alone for a time,” saith he, “only pray God for him;
he will of himself, by reading, discover what that error is, and
how great its impiety.” He disclosed to her at the same time how
he himself, when a little one, had, by his misguided mother, been
given over to the Manichæans, and had not only read, but even
written out almost all their books, and had come to see (without
argument or proof from any one) how much that sect was to be
shunned, and had shunned it. Which when he had said, and she would
not be satisfied, but repeated more earnestly her entreaties,
shedding copious tears, that he would see and discourse with me,
he, a little vexed at her importunity, exclaimed, “Go thy way,
and God bless thee, for it is not possible that the son of these
tears should perish.” Which answer (as she often mentioned in her
conversations with me) she accepted as though it were a voice from
heaven.
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