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| He Teaches Rhetoric, the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, Who Promised Him Victory.
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Chapter II.—He Teaches Rhetoric,
the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, Who Promised
Him Victory.
2. In those years I taught the art of
rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, put to sale a loquacity by
which to overcome. Yet I preferred—Lord, Thou knowest—to have
honest scholars (as they are esteemed); and these I, without
artifice, taught artifices, not to be put in practise against the
life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty.
And Thou, O God, from afar sawest me stumbling in that slippery
path, and amid much smoke271
sending out some flashes of
fidelity, which I exhibited in that my guidance of such as loved
vanity and sought after leasing,272
I being their companion. In those
years I had one (whom I knew not in what is called lawful wedlock,
but whom my wayward passion, void of understanding, had
discovered), yet one only, remaining faithful even to her; in whom
I found out truly by my own experience what difference there is
between the restraints of the marriage bonds, contracted for the
sake of issue, and the compact of a lustful love, where children
are born against the parents will, although, being born, they
compel love.
3. I remember, too, that when I decided to compete
for a theatrical prize, a soothsayer demanded of me what I would
give him to win; but I, detesting and abominating such foul
mysteries, answered, “That if the garland were of imperishable
gold, I would not suffer a fly to be destroyed to secure it for
me.” For he was to slay certain living creatures in his
sacrifices, and by those honours to invite the devils to give me
their support. But this ill thing I also refused, not out of a pure love273
| 273 “He alone is truly pure who waiteth on God, and
keepeth himself to Him alone ” (Aug. De Vita Beata, sec.
18). “Whoso seeketh God is pure, because the soul hath in God her
legitimate husband. Whosoever seeketh of God anything besides God,
doth not love God purely. If a wife loved her husband because he is
rich, she is not pure, for she loveth not her husband but the gold
of her husband” (Aug. Serm. 137). “Whoso seeks from God
any other reward but God, and for it would serve God, esteems what
he wishes to receive more than Him from whom he would receive it.
What, then? hath God no reward? None, save Himself. The reward of
God is God Himself. This it loveth; if it love aught beside, it is
no pure love. You depart from the immortal flame, you will be
chilled, corrupted. Do not depart; it will be thy corruption, will
be fornication in thee” (Aug. in Ps. lxxii. sec. 32).
“The pure fear of the Lord (Ps. xix. 9) is that wherewith the Church,
the more ardently she loveth her husband, the more diligently she
avoids offending Him, and therefore love, when perfected, casteth
not out this fear, but it remaineth for ever and ever” (Aug.
in loc.). “Under the name of pure fear is signified that will
whereby we must needs be averse from sin, and avoid sin, not
through the constant anxiety of infirmity, but through the
tranquillity of affection” (De Civ. Dei, xiv. sec.
65).—E. B. P. | for Thee, O
God of my heart; for I knew not how to love Thee, knowing not how
to conceive aught beyond corporeal brightness.274
| 274 See note on sec. 9, below. | And doth not a soul, sighing after
such-like fictions, commit fornication against Thee, trust in false
things,275
| 275 “Indisputably we must take care, lest the mind,
believing that which it does not see, feign to itself something
which is not, and hope for and love that which is false. For in
that case it will not be charity out of a pure heart, and of a good
conscience, and of faith unfeigned, which is the end of the
commandment” (De Trin. viii. sec. 6). And again
(Confessions, i. 1): “For who can call on Thee, not
knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not may call on Thee as
other than Thou art.” | and nourish
the wind?276
But I would
not, forsooth, have sacrifices offered to devils on my behalf,
though I myself was offering sacrifices to them by that
superstition. For what else is nourishing the wind but nourishing
them, that is, by our wanderings to become their enjoyment and
derision?
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