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| Concerning the Books Which He Wrote ‘On the Fair and Fit,’ Dedicated to Hierius.
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Chapter XIV.—Concerning the Books
Which He Wrote “On the Fair and Fit,” Dedicated to
Hierius.
21. But what was it that prompted me, O Lord my God,
to dedicate these books to Hierius, an orator of Rome, whom I knew
not by sight, but loved
the man for the fame of his learning, for which he was renowned,
and some words of his which I had heard, and which had pleased me?
But the more did he please me in that he pleased others, who highly
extolled him, astonished that a native of Syria, instructed first
in Greek eloquence, should afterwards become a wonderful Latin
orator, and one so well versed in studies pertaining unto wisdom.
Thus a man is commended and loved when absent. Doth this love enter
into the heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commender? Not
so. But through one who loveth is another inflamed. For hence he is
loved who is commended when the commender is believed to praise him
with an unfeigned heart; that is, when he that loves him praises
him.
22. Thus, then, loved I men upon the judgment
of men, not upon Thine, O my God, in which no man is deceived. But
yet why not as the renowned charioteer, as the huntsman326
| 326 See vi. sec. 13, below. | known far
and wide by a vulgar popularity—but far otherwise, and seriously,
and so as I would desire to be myself commended? For I would not
that they should commend and love me as actors are,—although I
myself did commend and love them,—but I would prefer being
unknown than so known, and even being hated than so loved. Where
now are these influences of such various and divers kinds of loves
distributed in one soul? What is it that I am in love with in
another, which, if I did not hate, I should not detest and repel
from myself, seeing we are equally men? For it does not follow that
because a good horse is loved by him who would not, though he
might, be that horse, the same should therefore be affirmed by an
actor, who partakes of our nature. Do I then love in a man that
which I, who am a man, hate to be? Man himself is a great deep,
whose very hairs Thou numberest, O Lord, and they fall not to the
ground without Thee.327
And yet are the hairs of his head
more readily numbered than are his affections and the movements of
his heart.
23. But that orator was of the kind that I so
loved as I wished myself to be such a one; and I erred through an
inflated pride, and was “carried about with every wind,”328
but yet was
piloted by Thee, though very secretly. And whence know I, and
whence confidently confess I unto Thee that I loved him more
because of the love of those who praised him, than for the very
things for which they praised him? Because had he been upraised,
and these self-same men had dispraised him, and with dispraise and
scorn told the same things of him, I should never have been so
inflamed and provoked to love him. And yet the things had not been
different, nor he himself different, but only the affections of the
narrators. See where lieth the impotent soul that is not yet
sustained by the solidity of truth! Just as the blasts of tongues
blow from the breasts of conjecturers, so is it tossed this way and
that, driven forward and backward, and the light is obscured to it
and the truth not perceived. And behold it is before us. And to me
it was a great matter that my style and studies should be known to
that man; the which if he approved, I were the more stimulated, but
if he disapproved, this vain heart of mine, void of Thy solidity,
had been offended. And yet that “fair and fit,” about which I
wrote to him, I reflected on with pleasure, and contemplated it,
and admired it, though none joined me in doing so.
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