{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010137.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010137.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010137.htm","text":"Chapter VII.\u2014He Deplores His Wretchedness, that Having Been Born Thirty-Two Years, He Had Not Yet Found Out the Truth.\n16. Such was the story of Pontitianus. But Thou, O Lord, whilst he was speaking, didst turn me towards myself, taking me from behind my back, where I had placed myself while unwilling to exercise self-scrutiny; and Thou didst set me face to face with myself, that I might behold how foul I was, and how crooked and sordid, bespotted and ulcerous. And I beheld and loathed myself; and whither to fly from myself I discovered not. And if I sought to turn my gaze away from myself, he continued his narrative, and Thou again opposedst me unto myself, and thrustedst me before my own eyes, that I might discover my iniquity, and hate it. 659 I had known it, but acted as though I knew it not,\u2014winked at it, and forgot it.\n17. But now, the more ardently I loved those whose healthful affections I heard tell of, that they had given up themselves wholly to Thee to be cured, the more did I abhor myself when compared with them. For many of my years (perhaps twelve) had passed away since my nineteenth, when, on the reading of Cicero\u2019s Hortensius, 660 I was roused to a desire for wisdom; and still I was delaying to reject mere worldly happiness, and to devote myself to search out that whereof not the finding alone, but the bare search, 661 ought to have been prep. 124 ferred before the treasures and kingdoms of this world, though already found, and before the pleasures of the body, though encompassing me at my will. But I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had entreated chastity of Thee, and said, \u201cGrant me chastity and continency, but not yet.\u201d For I was afraid lest Thou shouldest hear me soon, and soon deliver me from the disease of concupiscence, which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished. And I had wandered through perverse ways in a sacrilegious superstition; not indeed assured thereof, but preferring that to the others, which I did not seek religiously, but opposed maliciously.\n18. And I had thought that I delayed from day to day to reject worldly hopes and follow Thee only, because there did not appear anything certain whereunto to direct my course. And now had the day arrived in which I was to be laid bare to myself, and my conscience was to chide me. \u201cWhere art thou, O my tongue? Thou saidst, verily, that for an uncertain truth thou wert not willing to cast off the baggage of vanity. Behold, now it is certain, and yet doth that burden still oppress thee; whereas they who neither have so worn themselves out with searching after it, nor yet have spent ten years and more in thinking thereon, have had their shoulders unburdened, and gotten wings to fly away.\u201d Thus was I inwardly consumed and mightily confounded with an horrible shame, while Pontitianus was relating these things. And he, having finished his story, and the business he came for, went his way. And unto myself, what said I not within myself? With what scourges of rebuke lashed I not my soul to make it follow me, struggling to go after Thee! Yet it drew back; it refused, and exercised not itself. All its arguments were exhausted and confuted. There remained a silent trembling; and it feared, as it would death, to be restrained from the flow of that custom whereby it was wasting away even to death.\nIt is interesting to compare with this passage the views contained in Augustin\u2019s three books, Con. Academicos,\u2014the earliest of his extant works, and written about this time. Licentius there maintains that the \u201cbare search\u201d for truth renders a man happy, while Trygetius contends that the \u201cfinding alone\u201d can produce happiness. Augustin does not agree with the doctrine of the former, and points out that while the Academics held the probable to be attainable, it could not be so without the true, by which the probable is measured and known. And, in his De Vita Beata, he contends that he who seeks truth and finds it not, has not attained happiness, and that though the grace of God be indeed guiding him, he must not expect complete happiness (Retractations, i. 2) till after death. Perhaps no sounder philosophy can be found than that evidenced in the life of Victor Hugo\u2019s good Bishop Myriel, who rested in the practice of love, and was content to look for perfect happiness, and a full unfolding of God\u2019s mysteries, to the future life:\u2014\u201cAimez-vous les uns les autres, il declarait cela complet, ne souhaitait rien de plus et c\u2019\u00e9tait l\u00e0 toute sa doctrine. Un jour, cet homme qui se croyait \u2018philosophe,\u2019 ce senateur, d\u00e9j\u00e0 nomm\u00e9, dit \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9v\u00eaque: \u2018Mais voyez donc le spectacle du monde; guerre de tous contre tous; le plus fort a le plus d\u2019\u00e9sprit. Votre aimez-vous les uns les autres est une b\u00eatise.\u2019\u2014\u2018Eh bien,\u2019 r\u00e9pondit Monseigneur Bienvenu, sans disputer, \u2018si c\u2019est une b\u00eatise, l\u2019\u00e2me doit s\u2019y enfermer comme la perle dans l\u2019huitre.\u2019 Il s\u2019y enfermait donc, il y vivait, il s\u2019en satisfaisait absolument, laissant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 les questions prodigieuses qui attirent et qui \u00e9pouvantent, les perspectives insoudables de l\u2019abstraction, les pr\u00e9cipices de la m\u00e9taphysique, toutes ces profondeurs convergentes, pour l\u2019ap\u00f4tre, \u00e0 Dieu, pour l\u2019ath\u00e9e, au n\u00e9ant: la destin\u00e9e, le bien et le mal, la guerre de l\u2019\u00eatre contre l\u2019\u00eatre, la conscience de l\u2019homme, le somnambulisme pensif de l\u2019animal, la transformation par la mort, la r\u00e9capitulation d\u2019existences qui contient le tombeau, la greffe incompr\u00e9hensible des amours successifs sur le moi persistant, l\u2019essence, la substance, le Nil et l\u2019Ens, l\u2019\u00e2me, la nature, la libert\u00e9, la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9; probl\u00e8mes \u00e0 pic, \u00e9paisseurs sinistres, o\u00f9 se penchent les gigantesques archanges de l\u2019\u00e9sprit humain; formidables abimes que Lucr\u00e8ce, Manon, Saint Paul, et Dante contemplent avec cet \u0153il fulgurant qui semble, en regardant fixement l\u2019infini, y faire eclore les \u00e9toiles. Monseigneur Bienvenu \u00e9tait simplement un homme qui constatait du dehors les questions myst\u00e9rieuses sans les scruter, sans les agiter, et sans en troubler son propre \u00e9sprit; et qui avait dans l\u2019\u00e2me le grave respect de l\u2019ombre.\u201d\u2014Les Mis\u00e9rables, c. xiv.","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}