書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 54 章

THE BOOK: ON THE PROFIT OF BELIEVING. If, Honoratus, a heretic and a man who believes heretics seemed to me to be one and the same thing, I would judge that in this matter I ought to keep silent both with my tongue and with my pen. But now, since there is a very great difference between these two—inasmuch as a heretic, in my opinion, is one who, for the sake of some temporal advantage and especially for the sake of his own glory and preeminence, either begets or follows false and novel opinions, whereas he who believes men of this kind is a man deluded by a certain imagination of truth and piety—since, then, these things are so, I did not think I ought to keep silent before you as to what seems to me concerning the finding and holding fast of the truth, for which, as you know, we burned with a great love from the beginning of our youth.

But the matter is far removed from the minds of vain men, who, having advanced too far into and fallen among these corporeal things, think there is nothing else than what they perceive by those five most familiar messengers of the body; and the blows and images which they have received from these they turn over within themselves, even when they try to withdraw from the senses, and by that deadly and most deceptive rule of theirs they think they can most correctly measure the ineffable inner sanctuaries of truth. Nothing is easier, my dearest, than not only to say but even to be of the opinion that one has found the truth; but how exceedingly difficult it really is, you will recognize, as I trust, from this letter of mine.

And I hope it will be so, if I am rightly conscious to myself that I have approached this writing with a pious and dutiful spirit, not from any craving for an empty name or from a display of denial. It is therefore my purpose to prove to you, if I can, that the Manichees inveigh sacrilegiously and rashly against those who, following the authority of the catholic faith, are fortified beforehand by believing and are prepared for God who is about to illumine them, before they are able to behold that truth which is contemplated by a pure mind. For you know, Honoratus, that we fell in with such men for no other reason than that they said they would, setting aside terrifying authority, by pure and simple reason lead to God those who were willing to hear them, and free them from every error.

For what else compelled me, for nearly nine years, having spurned the religion which had been instilled in me as a little boy by my parents, to follow those men and diligently listen to them, except that they said we were terrified by superstition and that faith was enjoined upon us before reason, whereas they pressed no one to faith unless the truth had first been discussed and unfolded? Who would not be enticed by these promises, especially a young man's mind eager for truth—and one proud and garrulous from the disputations of certain learned men in the schools, such as those men then found me—scorning, that is, as old wives' tales, and desiring to hold and drink in the open and sincere truth promised by them?

But again, what reason called me back, so that I should not cleave to them utterly, so that I held myself in that grade which they call 'of the Hearers,' so that I did not let go the hope and business of this world, except that I noticed that they too were more eloquent and copious in refuting others than firm and certain in proving their own doctrines? But what shall I say about myself, who was already a catholic Christian? These breasts, after a very long thirst, almost drained and dry, I sought again with all avidity, and weeping and groaning I shook and pressed them the deeper, that they might yield forth that which could suffice, for me so affected, for recovery and for bringing back the hope of life and salvation. What then shall I say about myself?

You, not yet a Christian, who at my urging—when you vehemently execrated those men—were with difficulty induced to think that they were worth your hearing and examining: by what other thing, I ask you, recall it, I beseech you, were you delighted, except by a certain great presumption and promise of reasons? But because they disputed at length and vehemently and most extensively about the errors of the ignorant—which I learned too late is very easy for anyone even moderately educated—if they also inserted anything of their own into us, we thought it must be retained of necessity, since nothing else occurred to us in which we might rest. And so they did to us what treacherous fowlers are wont to do, who fix limed twigs near water in order to deceive thirsty birds.

For they cover over and by whatever means conceal the other waters that are round about, or even frighten the birds away from them by fearsome contrivances, so that they may fall into their snares not by choice but by lack. But why do I not myself answer myself, that these fine and witty similitudes and reproaches of this kind can be poured forth most urbanely and wittily by any adversary against all who teach anything? But for this reason I thought something of the sort should be inserted into my letter, that I might admonish them to cease acting in such ways, so that—as that man says—setting aside the trifles of commonplaces, thing may contend with thing, cause with cause, reason with reason.

Wherefore let them cease to say that thing which they have on their lips as though it were necessary, whenever anyone who had listened for some time deserted them: 'The light made its passage through him.' For you see, my greatest concern—for about those men I am not too greatly troubled—how empty and how very easy for anyone to censure this can be. And so I leave this to be examined by your prudence. For I do not fear that you should judge me to have been indwelt by light while I was entangled in the life of this world, bearing a shadowy hope from the beauty of a wife, from the pomp of riches, from the emptiness of honors, and from the other harmful and destructive pleasures. For all these things, as is not hidden from you, while I was studiously listening to those men, I did not cease to desire and hope for. Nor do I attribute this to their doctrine;

for I confess that they too diligently admonish that such things be guarded against. But to say that I was now deserted by the light when I had turned myself away from all these shadows of things and had resolved to be content with plain sustenance necessary for the health of the body alone, but that I had been illumined and resplendent when I loved those things and was held wrapped up in them—this belongs to a man who, to speak most gently, considers less than acutely the matters about which he much loves to speak. But let us come to the point, if you please. For you well know that the Manichees, in reproaching the catholic faith and especially in tearing apart and mangling the Old Testament, disturb the unlearned:

who assuredly do not know in what measure those things are to be received, and how, when drawn in profitably, they descend into the veins and marrow of souls still as it were wailing like infants. And because there are certain things there which give some offense to minds ignorant and neglectful of themselves—which is the greatest crowd—they can be popularly accused; but they cannot, on account of the mysteries which are contained in them, be defended popularly except by very few. And those few who know how to do this do not love the open and notorious contests in disputation, and for this reason are very little known, except to those who most insistently seek them out. Concerning this rashness of the Manichees, then, by which they reproach the Old Testament and the catholic faith, receive, I beseech you, the things that move me.

But I wish and hope that you will receive this with the same spirit in which they are said by me. God knows—to whom the secrets of my conscience are known—that I do nothing maliciously in this discourse, but, as I judge, it is to be received for the sake of proving the truth: for which one thing alone we have now long resolved to live, and with incredible solicitude, lest to err along with you should have been most easy for me, but to hold the right way along with you should be—that I may not speak too harshly—most difficult. But I presume that in this hope also, by which I hope that you will obtain the way of wisdom together with me, He will not desert me, to whom I am consecrated:

whom I strive to behold day and night, and, because of my sins and because of habit, bearing the eye of my soul wounded by the blows of long-torpid opinions, I know that I am feeble, often with tears. And just as after a long blindness and darkness, the eyes being scarcely opened and still, by fluttering and turning away, refusing the very light which nevertheless they desire—especially if someone should try to show them this sun—so it now befalls me: not denying that there is a certain ineffable and singular good of the soul, which is seen by the mind, yet confessing with weeping and groaning that I am not yet fit to contemplate it.

He will not, then, desert me, if I feign nothing, if I am led by dutiful affection, if I love the truth, if I cherish friendship, if I greatly fear lest you be deceived. All Scripture, therefore, which is called the Old Testament, is handed down in a fourfold manner to those desiring diligently to know it: according to history, according to aetiology, according to analogy, according to allegory. Do not think me foolish for using Greek names. First, because I received it thus, nor do I dare to convey it to you otherwise than as I received it. Then, you too observe that among us there are no customary names for these things; and if I had fabricated them by translating, I should surely be more foolish; but if I circumlocuted, I should be less ready in discoursing.

This alone I beg you to believe: that in whatever way I may err, nothing is done by me out of conceit or arrogance. Now, according to history a thing is handed down when it is taught what is written or what was done — and what was not done, but only written as though it had been done. According to aetiology, when it is shown for what cause something was either done or said. According to analogy, when it is demonstrated that the two Testaments, the Old and the New, are not in conflict with each other. According to allegory, when it is taught that certain things which are written are not to be taken according to the letter, but understood figuratively. All these methods our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles employed. For that example was taken from history, when it was objected that His disciples had plucked ears of grain on the Sabbath day.

He said: Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him — how he entered into the house of God and ate the loaves of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? To aetiology, however, belongs that instance where, when Christ had forbidden a wife to be put away except for the cause of fornication, and it was brought forward by His questioners that Moses, by giving a bill of divorce, had permitted this liberty, He said: Moses did this because of the hardness of your heart. For here a cause is rendered, why that was rightly permitted by Moses for the time, so that what Christ was now commanding might appear to reveal that other times had already come.

But to explain the changes and order of these times, arranged and composed by a certain wondrous disposition of divine providence, would take long. Furthermore, as to analogy, by which the harmony of both Testaments is perceived, why should I say that all those employed it, to whose authority even they yield? Since they can consider within themselves how many things they are wont to say were foisted into the divine Scriptures by I know not what corrupters of the truth. This assertion always seemed to me most feeble, even while I was listening to them; and not to me alone, but also to you — for I remember it well — and to all of us who were trying to exercise a little more diligence in judging than the crowd of believers.

But now, after many things which most disturbed me have been set forth and unravelled for me — those very things, namely, in which their eloquence for the most part boasts itself, and the more safely it is without an adversary, the more unrestrainedly it exults — nothing seems to me to be said by them more shamelessly, or, to speak more mildly, more carelessly and feebly, than that the divine Scriptures have been corrupted, when they can prove this by no manuscripts existing in so recent a memory. For if they said that they had thought these Scriptures were by no means to be received, because they had been written by men whom they judged not to have written the truth, their evasion would somehow be more upright, or their error more human. For this they have done with that book which is entitled 'The Acts of the Apostles.'

When I turn this design of theirs over within myself, I cannot sufficiently wonder at it. For it is not the wisdom of men in this matter that I miss, but a heart of ordinary sense. For that book contains so many things which are similar to those which they do accept, that it seems to me great folly not both to receive this too, and, if anything there offends them, to call it false and interpolated. Or if such a plea is shameless, as indeed it is, why do they think that in Paul's epistles, why in the four books of the Gospel, those things have any force, in which — I know not whether in proportion far more things could have been present than in that book — they wish it to be believed that passages were inserted by corrupters? But doubtless it is that which I perceive, and which I beg you to consider with me in the most calm and serene judgment.

For you know that, striving to bring the person of their founder Manichaeus into the number of the apostles, they say that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promised He would send to His disciples, came to us through him. Therefore, if they were to accept the 'Acts of the Apostles,' in which the coming of the Holy Spirit is plainly proclaimed, they would find no way to say that this had been foisted in. For they will have it that there were I know not what corrupters of the divine books before the time of Manichaeus himself, and that those men corrupted them who desired to mingle the law of the Jews with the Gospel.

This they cannot say of the Holy Spirit, unless perchance they assert that those men foretold and set down in their books what would at some time be brought forward against a future Manichaeus, who would say that the Holy Spirit had been sent through himself. But of the Holy Spirit we shall speak something more plainly elsewhere. Now let us return to what I had intended. For it has, I think, been sufficiently demonstrated that both the history of the Old Testament, and aetiology, and analogy, are found in the New Testament; it remains to show concerning allegory. Our Deliverer Himself in the Gospel uses an allegory from the Old Testament. This generation, He says, seeks a sign; it shall not be given to it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet.

For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so also shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And what shall I say of the apostle Paul, who signifies that the very history of Exodus was an allegory of the future Christian people, in his first epistle to the Corinthians? I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and that rock was Christ. But with the greater part of them God was not well pleased;

for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things were figures of us, that we should not be lusters after evil things, even as they lusted. Neither let us worship idols, as some of them did, as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day twenty-three thousand men. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by serpents. Neither let us murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure; but they were written for our correction, upon whom the end of the ages has come.

There is likewise in the apostle a certain allegory, indeed one pertaining most closely to the matter, for the very reason that these same men are accustomed to bring it forward and parade it in their disputations. For the same Paul says to the Galatians: For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free; but he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, while he who was of the free was by promise: which things are said by way of allegory. For these are two covenants: the one, indeed, from Mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which borders upon that which is now Jerusalem, and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Here therefore those men, by no means bad, while they try to frustrate the law, compel us to approve these Scriptures. For they mark that it is said that those are in bondage who are under the law, and this above all others they toss about: You are made void from Christ, you who are justified in the law; you have fallen from grace. We grant that all these things are true, nor do we say that that law was necessary except for those to whom bondage is still profitable, and that it was therefore usefully enacted, because men who could not be recalled from sins by reason had to be restrained by such a law — namely by the threats and terrors of those punishments which can appear worthless to fools:

and when the grace of Christ frees us from these, it does not condemn that law, but at length invites us to obey its love, not to serve the fear of the law. This very thing is grace, that is, a benefit, which those do not understand to have come to them from God, who still desire to be under the bonds of the law. Whom Paul rightly rebukes as unbelieving, because they do not believe that they have already been freed, through our Lord Jesus, from the bondage to which for a fixed time, by the most just disposition of God, they had been made subject. Hence is that saying of the same apostle: For the law was our schoolmaster in Christ. He therefore gave men a schoolmaster whom they might fear, and afterwards a master whom they might love.

Yet in those precepts and commands of the law, which it is now not lawful for Christians to use — such as the Sabbath, or circumcision, or sacrifices, and whatever is of this kind — such great mysteries are contained, that every devout person understands there is nothing more pernicious than for whatever is there to be taken according to the letter, that is, to the word; and nothing more wholesome than for it to be revealed by the spirit. Hence is: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Hence is: The self-same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament, which is not lifted, since in Christ it is done away. For in Christ it is not the Old Testament that is done away, but its veil, so that through Christ that may be understood and as it were laid bare, which without Christ is obscure and covered.

For immediately the same apostle adds: But when you shall have turned to Christ, the veil shall be taken away; for he does not say: the law or the Old Testament shall be taken away. It is not therefore that, by the grace of the Lord, things useless were being covered there and so have been removed, but rather the covering by which useful things were being covered. In this manner is it dealt with those who diligently and piously — not confusedly and impudently — seek out the meaning of those Scriptures; and there is carefully demonstrated both the order of things and the causes of deeds and sayings, and so great a harmony of the Old Testament with the New, that not one jot is left which does not accord. And such great secrets of the figures, that all things which are drawn out by interpretation compel them to confess wretched who wish to condemn these things before learning them.

But, laying aside for the present the loftiness of knowledge, let me deal with you as I think one ought to deal with a friend of mine — that is, as I am able, not as I have marvelled that most learned men are able. There are three kinds of error by which men err when they read something. Of each I will speak. The first kind is that in which what is false is thought true, whereas he who wrote thought otherwise. The second is that — though not so widely extended, yet no less harmful — in which what is false is thought true, and yet that is thought which even he who wrote thought. The third is that in which something true is understood from another's writing, although he who wrote did not understand this. In which kind there is no small usefulness;

nay rather, if you consider more diligently, the whole fruit of reading is entire. An example of the first kind is, if anyone should, for instance, say and believe that Rhadamanthus in the underworld hears and adjudges the causes of the dead, because he read this in Maro's poem. For here he errs in two ways: because he both believes a thing not to be believed, and because he who wrote it is not to be thought to have believed it. The second kind can be observed thus: if anyone, because Lucretius writes that the soul is made of atoms and that after death it is dissolved into the same atoms and perishes, should judge this to be true and to be believed by himself. For this man also is no less wretched, if concerning so great a matter he has persuaded himself as certain of that which is false, although Lucretius, by whose books he was deceived, held that opinion.

For what does it profit this man to be certain of the author's opinion, when he has chosen him not as one through whom he might err, but as one with whom he might err? To the third kind this is fitting: if anyone, having read in the books of Epicurus some passage where he praises self-restraint, should affirm that Epicurus placed the highest good in virtue, and that therefore he is not to be blamed. For what harm does Epicurus's error do to this man, if Epicurus believes the highest good of man to be pleasure of the body, when this man has not given himself over to so base and hurtful an opinion, nor does Epicurus please him for any other cause than that he thinks Epicurus did not hold what ought not to be held? This error is not only human, but often even most worthy of a man. For consider: if it were reported to me concerning someone whom I loved,

namely that he had said, in the hearing of many, that when he was bearded, boyhood and infancy so pleased him that he even swore he wished to live in like manner — and this were so proved to me that I could not shamelessly deny it — would I seem to anyone to be blameworthy, if I supposed that in saying this he wished to signify that innocence pleased him, and a mind estranged from those desires by which the human race is entangled, and if for this reason I loved him more and more than I loved him before, even though perchance the fool had, in the ages of boys, fallen in love with a certain license in playing and eating and with slothful idleness?

For suppose him to have died after this had been reported to me, and that I could not question him about anything, so that he might disclose his meaning: would anyone be so wicked as to be angry with me, when I praised the man's purpose and will through those very words which I had received? Nay, what if even a just estimator of things would perhaps not hesitate to praise my opinion and my will, since both innocence pleased me, and I, as one man about another in a doubtful matter, judged well rather than ill, when it was even permitted to judge ill? Since these things are so, hear now also as many conditions and differences of these same Scriptures; for it is necessary that just as many present themselves.

For either someone has written usefully and is understood not usefully by another; or both are done unprofitably; or the reader understands usefully, while he who is read wrote the contrary. Of these three, the first I do not condemn, the last I do not concern myself with. For I can neither reprove a man who by no fault of his own has been ill understood, nor take it amiss that anyone is read who has not seen the truth, since I see it does no harm to the readers. There is therefore one kind most approved and, as it were, most cleansed, when things are both well written and are received in a good sense by the readers. Yet this too is still divided into two; for it does not wholly exclude error.

For it happens for the most part that, when the writer has thought well, the reader also thinks well, but something other than he did, and often better, often inferior, yet usefully. But when we both think that which he whom we read thought — and that is most fitted to a life well lived — truth possesses itself in fullest measure, nor is any place of falsity opened from any quarter. This kind, when the reading is about the most obscure matters, is altogether most rare, nor, in my opinion, can it be clearly known, but only believed. For by what arguments shall I so gather the will of an absent or dead man, that I could swear about it, when even if he were present and questioned, there might be many things which, if he were not wicked, he would most dutifully conceal?

But that, I judge, avails nothing toward knowing the matter — what sort of man he was who wrote; yet he is most honourably believed to be good, by whose writings the human race and posterity have been provided for. Wherefore I would that those men would tell me in which kind they place the error which they think belongs to the Catholic Church. If in the first, it is altogether a grave charge, but it does not require a long defense; for it is enough to deny that we understand as they suppose when they inveigh against us. If in the second, it is no less grave, but by the same word they are refuted. If in the third, there is no charge at all. Come then, and next consider the Scriptures themselves. For what do they object against the books of what is called the Old Testament? Is it perchance that they are good, but are ill understood by us?

But they themselves do not accept them. Or is it because they are neither good nor well received? But this the earlier defense sufficiently overthrows. Or will they say this: Although they are well received by you, yet they are bad? What else is this but to acquit the living, with whom the dispute is carried on, as adversaries, and to accuse the long-dead, with whom there is no contention? I indeed believe that those men both committed to memory all things usefully, and were great and divine, and that that law was promulgated and established by the command and will of God; and this, although I know very few books of that kind, I can nevertheless easily persuade, if a fair and by no means obstinate mind be applied to me. And this I will do, when opportunity of your benevolent ears and mind shall have been given to us;

but this when I shall be able. Now, however, is it not enough for me that, in whatever way this matter stands, I have not been deceived? I call to witness, Honoratus, my conscience and God dwelling in pure souls, that I esteem nothing more prudent, more chaste, more religious, than are all those Scriptures which the Catholic Church retains under the name of the Old Testament. You wonder, I know. For I cannot dissemble that we had been persuaded far otherwise.

But surely nothing is fuller of rashness — which was in us then, being boys — than to desert the expositors of any books whatsoever, who profess that they hold them and can hand them on to disciples, and to seek their meaning from those who, driven by I know not what cause, have declared most bitter war upon their founders and authors. For who ever thought that the recondite and obscure books of Aristotle should be expounded to him by his enemy — to speak of those disciplines in which the reader can perhaps slip without sacrilege? Who, in short, wished to read or learn the geometrical writings of Archimedes with Epicurus as master, who very obstinately disputed against them, understanding, as I think, nothing of them?

Or are those Scriptures of the law so very plain, upon which these men, as though upon things exposed to the common gaze, make their assault vainly and emptily? They seem to me like that poor little woman whom these same men are wont to deride, who, being angry that that sun was praised to her and commended by a certain Manichaean woman as a thing to be worshipped — being, as she was, religiously simple — leapt up in agitation and, striking with her foot again and again that spot which the sun had illumined through the window, began to cry out: 'Behold, I trample upon your sun and god!' Foolishly indeed and in womanish fashion — who denies it?

— but do not those men seem to you such, who, tearing to pieces with great vehemence of speech and with revilings those things which they do not understand, nor why, nor of what sort they are at all, nor how like to things lying prostrate, yet subtle and divine to those who understand — think, because the ignorant applaud them, that they are accomplishing something? Whatever it is, believe me, in those Scriptures it is deep and divine: there is altogether truth within, and a discipline most fitted to refreshing and restoring souls, and plainly so measured that no one is unable to draw from it what is enough for himself, provided only that he approach to draw devoutly and piously, as true religion requires. But to prove this to you, there is need of many reasonings and a longer discourse.

For I must first deal with you so that you may not hate the authors themselves, and then that you may love them; and this must be done in any other way rather than by expounding their meanings and writings, for this reason: because if we had hated Virgil — nay, if we did not love him before he was understood, by the commendation of our elders — we should never be satisfied about those innumerable questions of his by which grammarians are wont to be vexed and disturbed; nor should we listen willingly to one who unfolded them with his praise, but should favour him who tried to show that through them he had erred and raved.

But now, since many try to open up these questions in various ways, each according to his own capacity, those above all are applauded through whose exposition the poet is found to be better — who is believed, even by those who do not understand him, not only to have committed no fault, but to have sung nothing that was not praiseworthy. And so, at a little question, we are angry with a master who fails and has nothing to answer, rather than think him dumb by any fault of Maro. And if, in his own defense, he should wish to assert a fault of so great an author, scarcely will disciples remain with him even for paid fees. How great a thing it was that we should show like goodwill to those through whom the Holy Spirit is confirmed by so long an antiquity to have spoken!

But forsooth, we most intelligent young men and marvellous explorers of reasons, without so much as having unrolled those writings, without having sought out masters, without having accused our own dullness at all, without having conceded even a moderate degree of heart to those who through the whole world, over so long a time, have wished such writings to be read, guarded, and handled — we thought that nothing among them was to be believed, being stirred by the voice of those who are their enemies and assailants, among whom, by a false promise of reason, we were compelled to believe and worship unheard-of thousands of fables. But now I will carry through what I have begun, if I can, and will so deal with you as not to disclose the Catholic faith for the present, but to show, to those

whose souls are a care to themselves, the hope of divine fruit and of finding the truth. No one doubts that he who seeks the true religion either already believes the soul to be immortal, to which that religion may profit, or wishes also to find that very thing in the same religion. Therefore all religion is for the sake of the soul; for whatever way the nature of the body may stand, it inspires no care or solicitude in him whose soul holds whereby it may be blessed — especially after death. Therefore for the sake of the soul, whether solely or chiefly, the true religion, if any there be, has been established.

But this soul — I shall see for what cause, and this too I confess to be most obscure — yet errs and is foolish, as we see, until it attains and receives wisdom; and perhaps this very thing is the true religion. Am I sending you to fables? Am I compelling you to believe anything rashly? I say that our soul, entangled and immersed in error and folly, seeks the way of truth, if there be any. If this is not in you, grant me pardon, and share with me, I beg, your wisdom; but if you recognize in yourself what I say, together, I beseech you, let us seek the truth. Suppose that we have as yet heard no one who insinuates any religion. Behold, the matter is new to us, and a task undertaken. We must seek, I believe, the professors of this matter, if there are any.

Suppose that we have found others holding different opinions, and desiring, by the diversity of their opinions, to draw each man to themselves; but that among these certain ones stand out for the meanwhile by the frequency of their fame and by the occupation of well-nigh all peoples. Whether these hold the truth is a great question; but ought they not first to be examined, so that, as long as we err — if indeed we are men — we may seem to err along with the human race itself? But then the truth is with certain few. You know, then, already what it is, if you know with whom it is. Had I not said a little before that we should seek as though we were untaught? But if from the very force of truth you conjecture that few hold it, yet who they are you do not know — what then?

If those who know the truth are so few that by their authority they hold the multitude, whence could that fewness disentangle and, as it were, strain itself clear into those secret things? Do we not see how few attain to the highest eloquence, though throughout the whole world the schools of rhetoricians resound with flocks of youths? Do those, whoever they be, who wish to turn out good orators, terrified by the multitude of the unskilled, think that their effort should rather be given to the orations of Caecilius or Erucius than to those of Tully? All men crave these things which have been confirmed by the authority of their elders. These same things the crowds of the unskilled strive to learn, which have been received as things to be learned from a few learned men; but very few attain them, fewer practice them, fewest become famous. What then?

What if the true religion is something of such a kind? What if a multitude of the unskilled frequents the churches — yet that is no argument that therefore no one has been made perfect in those mysteries? And yet, if so few pursued eloquence as there are few who are eloquent, our parents would never have thought us to be entrusted to such masters. Since, therefore, a multitude, abundant in the part of the unskilled, has invited us to these studies, that we should fall in love with that which few can attain — why do we not wish there to be for us a like cause in religion, which perhaps, at great peril of the soul, we despise?

For if the truest and most sincere worship of God, though it be among few, is nevertheless among those to whom the multitude — though entangled in desires and remote from purity of understanding — gives its assent (and who would doubt that this can happen?): I ask, if anyone should charge us with rashness and senselessness, because we do not diligently investigate it, whose finding is a great care to us, among its masters — what could we answer? Did the multitude deter me?

Why, from the study of the liberal arts, which scarcely bring any advantage to this present life, why from the pursuit of money, why from the winning of honour, why in short from the acquiring and keeping of good health, lastly why from the very desire of the blessed life — since with all these all men are occupied, yet few excel — did no multitude deter you? But absurd things seemed to be said there. Asserted by whom? By enemies, forsooth — for whatever cause, by whatever reasoning (for this is not now the question) — yet by enemies. When I read, I recognized it for myself. Is it so indeed?

Though imbued with no poetic training, you would not dare to approach Terentianus Maurus without a master — Asper, Cornutus, Donatus, and countless others are sought out, that any poet may be understood, whose songs and the applause of the theatre they seem to capture — yet upon those books, which, however they may stand, are nevertheless holy and full of divine things, defamed by the confession of well-nigh the whole human race, you rush without a guide, and dare to pass judgment upon them without a teacher; nor, if anything occurs to you that seems absurd, do you accuse your own slowness and your mind rotted by the corruption of this world, such as belongs to all fools, rather than those who perhaps cannot be understood by such as you? You should have sought out someone at once pious and learned,

or one who by the consent of many was said to be such, by whose precepts you might become better and by whose teaching more skilled. Was he not easily found? Let him be sought with labour. Was he lacking in that land which you inhabited? What cause could more usefully compel you to travel abroad? On the mainland was he altogether hidden, or did he not exist? Let a voyage be made. If he was not found nearby across the sea, you should have gone on even to those lands in which the things contained in those books are said to have been done. What such thing have we done, Honoratus? And yet a religion perhaps most holy — for I still speak as though it were a matter for doubt — whose repute has now seized the whole circle of the earth, we, most wretched boys, condemned according to our own arbitrary judgment. What then?

What if those things which seem to offend certain unskilled persons in these same Scriptures were so placed for this very purpose: that, when matters abhorrent to the sense of men of whatever sort — let alone the prudent and holy — were read, we should seek the hidden meaning much more studiously? Do you not observe how men try to interpret the Ganymede of the Bucolics, from whom the hard shepherd pined away, and the boy Alexis, upon whom Plato too is said to have made an amatory poem, as signifying I know not what great thing, and affirm that it escapes the judgment of the unskilled — when, without any sacrilege, the most abundant poet could be seen to have put forth lustful little songs?

But did anything in truth call us back and forbid us from seeking — whether the sanction of some law, or the power of adversaries, or the base standing of those who are consecrated, or a shameful reputation, or the novelty of the teaching, or a hidden profession? None of these is so. All laws, divine and human, permit us to seek the catholic faith; and to hold it and to reverence it is certainly allowed by human law. As for divine law, so long as we err, it remains uncertain: no enemy terrifies our weakness — although, if truth and the soul's salvation, when diligently sought where it is most safely permitted, has not been found, they must be sought even at any risk. Every rank of dignities and powers most devotedly serves this divine worship;

the name of religion is most honourable and most illustrious. What then hinders us from examining and discussing, with pious and diligent investigation, whether this be that very thing which only a few need to know most sincerely and to guard — even if the will and favour of all nations should conspire toward it? Since this is so, grant, as I said, that we are now for the first time seeking to what religion we should hand over our souls to be cleansed and restored. Beyond doubt the beginning must be taken from the catholic Church. For there are now more Christians than there would be Jews and worshippers of images taken together.

But among these same Christians, though there are many heresies, and all wish to appear catholic and name others besides themselves heretics, there is, as all concede, one Church: if you consider the whole world, it is fuller in multitude; and, as those who know it affirm, it is also more sincere in truth than all the rest. But concerning truth there is another question. What, however, suffices for those who seek is this: there is one catholic Church, upon which the other heresies impose diverse names, while they themselves are each called by their own proper appellations, which they dare not deny. From this it is given to understand that, in the judgement of arbiters whom no favour hinders, it is clear to whom the catholic name — which all court — should be assigned.

But lest anyone think this must be argued too verbosely or superfluously: there is certainly one Church in which even human laws are, in a certain manner, Christian. I do not wish any prejudgement to be made from this, but I judge it a most fitting beginning for seeking. For it is not to be feared that the true worship of God, resting on no proper strength, should seem to need propping up by those whom it ought itself to support; but surely it belongs to perfect happiness if the true can be found there where both its investigation and its retention are most secure: if it cannot be found there, then at last other paths, at whatever peril, must be approached and searched. These things therefore being established, which, as I think,

are so just that I ought to prevail with you in this cause against any adversary — I will disclose to you, as best I can, what sort of way I made use of when I sought the true religion with that mind by which I have now set forth it ought to be sought. For when I departed from you across the sea, already hesitating and wavering as to what I should hold, what I should let go — a hesitation that grew greater in me day by day from the time I heard that man whose coming was, as you know, promised to us as if from heaven for unfolding all the things that troubled us, and found him, apart from a certain eloquence, to be such as I had come to know the rest to be — I took counsel with myself and held great deliberation, being now settled in Italy.

not whether I should remain in that sect, into which I regretted having fallen, but in what manner the truth was to be found — for the love of which my sighs are known to no one better than to you. Often it seemed to me it could not be found, and the great surges of my thoughts were carried toward the verdict of the Academics. Often again, gazing, as much as I could, at the human mind, so lively, so shrewd, so clear-sighted, I did not think the truth lay hidden, except that the manner of seeking it lay hidden, and that this very manner had to be taken from some divine authority. It remained to seek what that authority might be, since amid such great dissensions everyone promised he would deliver it.

There arose therefore an inextricable thicket, into which it much irked me to be thrust; and amid these things, without any rest, my mind was agitated by the desire of finding the truth. Yet more and more I unstitched myself from those men whom I had already resolved to abandon. But there remained nothing else, amid such great perils, than that I should implore divine providence with tearful and pitiable voices to bring me aid. And this I did diligently; and by now certain discourses of the bishop of Milan had nearly moved me, so that not without some hope I desired to inquire many things concerning that very Old Testament, which, as you know, having been ill commended to us, we used to execrate.

And I had resolved to remain a catechumen in the Church to which I had been handed over by my parents, until either I should find what I wished, or should persuade myself that it need not be sought. Thus, then, one who was able to teach could then have found me most fit and very teachable. In this manner, then, and in a like one, let there be a care for your soul. You see that you too have long been tossed about; and if by now you seem to yourself sufficiently buffeted and wish to put an end to labours of this kind, follow the way of catholic discipline, which has flowed from Christ himself, through the apostles, down to us, and from here is destined to flow on to those who come after. 'It is ridiculous,' you say, 'that, when all profess to hold and teach this,'

All heretics profess this — I cannot deny it — but in such a way that they promise to those whom they entice that they will render an account of the most obscure matters, and on this very ground they especially accuse the catholic Church: because those who come to it are enjoined to believe, whereas they themselves boast that they impose no yoke of believing, but open a fountain of teaching. 'What,' you say, 'could be said that would most pertain to their praise?' It is not so. For they do this endowed with no strength, but in order to gather some multitude by the name of reason: at the promise of which the human soul naturally rejoices, and, not considering its own strength and health, by craving the food of the sound — which is ill entrusted save to the strong — it rushes into the poisons of the deceivers.

For true religion, unless those things be believed which each one is afterwards to attain and perceive — if he shall have conducted himself well and been worthy — and altogether without a certain weighty command of authority, can in no way be rightly entered upon. But perhaps you seek to receive some reason even for this very thing, whereby you may be persuaded that you must be taught not by reason before faith. This can easily be done, if only you show yourself fair. But that it may be done conveniently, I wish you to answer, as it were, one questioning you, and first tell me why it seems to you that one ought not to believe. 'Because,' you say, 'that very credulity, from which men are called credulous, seems to me to be a kind of vice; otherwise we should not be accustomed to throw this name at anyone as a reproach.'

For if the suspicious man is at fault, in that he suspects things not ascertained, how much more the credulous man, who differs from the suspicious in this: that the one grants some doubt to things unknown, but the other grants none? For the moment I accept this opinion and distinction. But you know too that we are not accustomed to call a man 'curious' without reproach, yet 'studious' even with praise. Wherefore attend, if you please, to what distance seems to you to lie even between these two. This surely you answer: that although each is driven by a great desire of knowing, the curious man nevertheless seeks out things which pertain to him not at all, while the studious man, on the contrary, seeks out things which pertain to himself.

But since we do not deny that a wife and children and their welfare pertain to a man, if someone placed abroad diligently inquires of all who arrive how his wife and children fare and how they conduct themselves, he is certainly led by a great desire of knowing. And yet we do not call this man 'studious,' who greatly wishes to know even the things that most pertain to himself. Wherefore you now understand that this definition of the studious man wavers on this account: that although every studious man wishes to know the things that pertain to himself, yet not every one who does this is to be called studious, but he who most eagerly seeks out the things that pertain to nourishing the mind liberally and adorning it.

Yet we rightly call him 'studious,' especially when we add what he is eager to hear. For we can even call a man studious of his own kin, if he loves only his own; yet, with no other qualification added, we do not think him worthy of the common name of the studious. As for one eager to hear how his own folk fare, I would not call him studious of hearing, unless, rejoicing in good report, he wished to hear that very thing often; but 'studious' indeed, even if only once. Now turn your mind to the curious man, and tell me: if someone should gladly hear a little tale that would profit him nothing at all — that is, of matters not pertaining to himself — and this not tediously and repeatedly, but very rarely and very moderately, whether at a banquet or in some gathering or any assembly, would he seem to you curious?

I think not; but he would certainly seem to have a care for that matter, since he heard it gladly. Wherefore the definition of the curious man too must be amended by the same rule as that of the studious. See therefore whether those earlier ones also must be amended. For why should not a man be unworthy of the name 'suspicious' who now and then suspects something, and of 'credulous' who now and then believes something? And so, just as between one studious of some particular thing and one studious altogether, and again between one having a care and the curious, so between the believing man and the credulous there is a very great difference. But now see, you will say, whether in religion we ought to believe. For even if we grant that it is one thing to believe and another to be credulous, it does not follow that there is no fault in believing in matters of religion. What then?

For if both to believe and to be credulous are faulty, as also to be drunk and to be a drunkard? He who reckons this certain seems to me able to have no friend. For if it is base to believe anything, either he acts basely who believes a friend, or, believing nothing to a friend, how he may call either him or himself a friend, I do not see. Here perhaps you will say: 'I grant that something ought sometimes to be believed; now explain how in religion it is not base to believe before one knows.' I will do so, if I can. Wherefore I ask of you: which do you judge to be the graver fault — to hand over religion to one who is unworthy, or to believe what is said by those who deliver it? If you do not understand whom I call unworthy, I mean him who approaches with a feigned heart.

You grant, I suppose, that it is more to be blamed to lay open to such a man any sacred secrets, if such there be, than to believe religious men affirming something concerning religion itself. For it would not have become you to answer otherwise. Wherefore now suppose you think that he is present who is to deliver religion to you: in what manner will you assure him of your faith that you approach with a true mind, and that there is in you nothing of guile and pretence as regards this matter? You will say, in your good conscience, that you feign nothing, asserting this very thing with as strong words as you can — but words nonetheless. For you cannot, man to man, lay open the hiding-places of your mind, so as to be inwardly known. But if he shall say: 'Behold, I believe you;'

but is it not more equitable that you too should believe me, since you are to receive a benefit, if I hold some truth, and I to give it? What shall we answer but that we must believe? 'But,' you say, 'would it not have been better that you render me a reason, so that I might follow it, wherever it led me, without any rashness?' Perhaps it would; but since the matter is so great that God is to be known by you through reason, do you think all men fit for perceiving the reasons by which the human mind is led to divine understanding? Or the more, or the fewer? 'The fewer,' you say, 'I judge.' Do you believe yourself to be of their number? 'It is not for me,' you say, 'to answer this.' Then you think it is for him to believe you even in this: which indeed he does.

Only remember that he has now twice believed you, though you speak uncertain things, while you, when he religiously admonishes you, are unwilling to believe him even once. But suppose it be so that you approach with a true mind to receive religion, and that you are of that few of men, so that you can grasp the reasons by which the divine power is led into certain knowledge: what then? Do you think religion is to be denied to the rest of men, who are not endowed with so serene a genius? Or that they must be led, step by step, by certain gradations, to those highest inner sanctuaries? You see plainly which is the more religious course. For no man whatever, in the desire of so great a thing, can in any way seem to you fit to be deserted or spurned. But do you not judge that, unless he first believes he will attain to that which he has undertaken,

and offer a suppliant mind, and, obeying certain great and necessary precepts, thoroughly purge himself by a certain manner of life, he will not otherwise attain those things which are purely true? You surely judge so. What then of those men — of whose number I now believe you to be — who can most easily grasp the divine secrets by sure reason? If they come by that way by which those come who first believe, will it at last do them any harm? I think not. 'But nevertheless,' you say, 'what need is there to delay them?' Because, even if by their own act they will do themselves no harm, they will nevertheless harm others by their example. For there is scarcely a man who thinks of himself only as much as he can; but he who thinks too little must be stirred up, he who thinks too much must be restrained, so that neither the one may be broken by despair, nor the other cast headlong by boldness.

This is easily done, if even those who are able to fly are for a little while compelled to walk, lest they be a perilous enticement to any; and by this it is safe for the rest also. This is the providence of true religion; this is a thing commanded from on high; this was handed down by our blessed forefathers; this has been preserved down to us: to wish to disturb and to pervert this is nothing else than to seek a sacrilegious road to true religion. Those who do this, even if what they wish were granted them, cannot arrive where they aim. For however much they may excel in genius, unless God be present, they creep upon the ground. But then he is present, if the human fellowship be a care to those who tend toward God — a step than which nothing firmer can be found for ascent into heaven. I indeed cannot resist this reasoning;

for how can I say that nothing ought to be believed without knowledge? Since even friendship, unless something be believed which cannot be demonstrated by sure reason, is altogether nothing, and slaves who are stewards are often trusted without any fault on the part of their masters. But in religion, what more iniquitous thing can be done than that, while the priests of God promise us an unfeigned mind, we should be unwilling to believe them as they instruct us? Finally, what way can be more wholesome than that one should first become fit for perceiving the truth, by applying faith to those things which are divinely appointed for preparing and pre-treating the mind?

Or, if you are already thoroughly fit, rather to go round about a little where it is safest to enter, than both to be to yourself an author of peril and to others an example of rashness. Wherefore it now remains that we consider in what way those are not to be followed who promise that they will lead by reason. For in what manner we can follow, without fault, those who bid us believe, has now been said; but to these sponsors of reason some think that they come not only without blame, but even with some praise: yet it is not so. For there are two persons praiseworthy in religion: one, that of those who have already found, whom it is necessary to judge most blessed also; the other, that of those who most studiously and most rightly inquire.

The first, then, are already in the very possession; the second are on the way, by which nevertheless one arrives most surely. There are three other kinds of men, assuredly to be reproved and detested. One is that of the opining, that is, of those who think themselves to know what they do not know; another, that of those who indeed perceive that they do not know, but do not seek in such a way that they can find; a third, that of those who neither think they know nor wish to seek. There are likewise, as it were, three neighbouring things in the minds of men, most worthy of distinction: to understand, to believe, to opine. If these be considered in themselves, the first is always without fault, the second sometimes with fault, the third never without fault. For to understand great and honourable, or even divine, things is most blessed;

but to understand superfluous things does no harm, though perhaps to learn them has done harm, when they occupied the time of necessary things. Even harmful things themselves, it is wretched not to understand, but to do or to suffer. For if someone understands how an enemy can be killed without his own peril, the understanding itself is not guilty of the desire; which if it be absent, what more innocent thing can be said? But to believe is then to be blamed, when either something unworthy is believed concerning God, or something is too easily believed concerning man. In other matters, however, if anyone believes something, provided he understands that he does not know it, there is no fault. For I believe that the most wicked conspirators were once slain by the valour of Cicero: yet this I not only do not know, but also know for certain that I can in no way know.

But to opine is, for two reasons, most base: because he who has persuaded himself that he already knows cannot learn — if indeed that thing can be learned — and because rashness in itself is the sign of a mind not well disposed. For even if someone thinks that he knows this very thing which I said about Cicero — although nothing hinders him from learning, since the matter itself can be held by no knowledge — nevertheless, in that he does not understand that it makes a great difference whether something is seen by the sure reason of the mind, which we call understanding, or is usefully committed to posterity by report or by writings to be believed, he assuredly errs. Nor is any error free from baseness. What we understand, therefore, we owe to reason; what we believe, to authority; what we opine, to error.

But every one who understands also believes; every one who opines also believes; not every one who believes understands; no one who opines understands. If, therefore, these three be referred to those five kinds of men which we mentioned a little before — that is, the two to be approved, which we placed first, and the three remaining, faulty ones — we find that the first kind, of the blessed, believes truth itself; the second, of the studious and lovers of truth, believes authority. In both of which kinds it is believed praiseworthily. But in the first of the faulty ones — that is, of those who opine that they know what they do not know — there is assuredly a faulty credulity. The other two kinds, to be reproved, believe nothing:

both those who seek the truth with despair of finding it, and those who do not seek at all. And this only in matters pertaining to some discipline. For in the other conduct of life I altogether know not in what way a man could believe nothing. Although even in those who say that in acting they follow probable things, they wish to seem rather able to know nothing than to believe nothing. For who does not believe what he approves? Or how is that which they follow probable, if it is not approved? Wherefore there can be two kinds of those who oppose the truth: one of those who attack knowledge only, not faith; another of those who condemn both — who, however, whether they can be found among human affairs, I again do not know.

These things have been said that we might understand that, by retaining faith even in those things which we have not yet comprehended, we are vindicated from the rashness of those who opine. For those who say that nothing is to be believed save what we know, guard against one thing only — the name of opinion, which must be confessed base and most wretched; but if they would diligently consider that it makes a very great difference whether a man think that he knows, or, understanding that he does not know, believes something moved by some authority, they would assuredly avoid the charge of errors and of inhumanity and pride. For I ask: if what is not known is not to be believed, how do children serve their parents and love them with mutual piety, whom they do not believe to be their parents?